Executive business and life coach and Partner with Southwestern Consulting, Steve Reiner, and Tom Merritt, a Branch Manager with Summit Funding, explore the healthy way to start to put yourself first, how to find your purpose, setting aside the things you can't control, and being of service to others.

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This episode is brought to you by Southwestern Coaching.

Southwestern Coaching

My friends, it is time for another special edition here on The Action Catalyst podcast. It's life story day, and this is where we get real life people who are real life movers and shakers in the world of business, just like you that we've had an opportunity to get to know and talk about some of the transformations that are happening in their life. And you're gonna hear the story of Tom Merritt, who works with a company called summit funding up in Chicago, and his coach, Steve Reiner. He is the co author of Navigate 2.0, selling the way that people like to buy. And we are just excited to have the two of them here to talk a little bit about Tom's real life story. So Tom give us a little bit of a background.

Sure. No, I am a transplant to Chicago. I grew up in Ohio, went to university in in in Ohio as well, moved here out of college, and was fortunate enough to have some great friends that introduced me to my now beautiful bride. I got into the mortgage business back in 2002 came out of a corporate lifestyle and went into the originating or the sales side of things, you know, kind of experienced what anybody and everybody would experience as a brand new salesperson learning an industry, and it took a little while to build, but I've been fortunate, fortunate enough through, you know, networks and a little bit of drive and, you know, good people to be able to continue to exceed and grow year over year. And got to the point where I eventually hired a team and was able to kind of leverage a little bit through that team, opened my own branch, and have kind of grown it. I oversee the day to day on the ops side, the day to day on the sales we've got some sales people that

work for us, and then obviously still have my personal production team going. So continue to grow year over year, and looking to continue to do so. So as I'm sure you can imagine, with balancing of a few different roles within the company, and with two young children at home, time is a premium, and I, quite honestly, I'm very much a pleaser, and really it kind of came to not an end point by any means, but really came to a head in the sense that I was just really trying to please everybody and what their expectations were in life. And I felt like I was failing miserably, quite honestly, in anything and everything that I tried to do being a very driven type personality and very result oriented, I was never able to focus on any one thing enough to get to the results or get to where I wanted to necessarily be, because I felt that I was either being pulled in too many directions or not quite living up to The goals or the things set forth by individual. And I have a couple of

really close friends that I've made that introduced me to Steve. You know, they talked about they understood what I was going through. They're in very similar positions to what I was in. And they said you should talk to Steve. And we, we were set up, and we've been coaching almost since day one.

So Steve, so tell me, like, what did you first think when you when you met Tom, or you talked to him the first time? Like, what were some of your first impressions?

Well, I'd say the first thing that stuck out was Tom was just like, an incredibly humble person. Just all of his goals just centered around just serving other people. Like, when I asked him, like, what his goals are, he talked about, he wants to provide for his family. You know, he wants to provide a great place at work for people to come, where people are excited, just a place where he can help them with their living and to be able to provide for their families. And so I just, I just felt like, you know, here's someone who just, is just embracing humility, totally focused on others, not thinking about himself, just a really caring individual. That was probably my biggest first impression.

You know, Steve, really, you know, our first call, even just really dug in and really kind of got to my core to a certain extent. And I remember telling him a little bit about what I felt and what I was going through and but it was one of those things that he really got me to open up a little bit and and then he would ask me some probing questions. And, you know, why are you doing this? Kind of, what's your you know, why do you feel you always have to please these people? You know, just really digging and really digging in. And he, you know, he kind of got me to the point where he provided, well, what if we could help you in this area, or what if we could help you set your doing what Tom wants to do? I think it was twofold. Really. It was really trying to like, really me feeling like I was letting people down, really not hitting things for these other people, as opposed to myself. And so one obviously digging into what my purpose or my why was, why was that

important to me? Why, you know, what, what are you trying to do and how are you trying to get there? So my wife, I felt like I was letting down because I was working all sorts of hours trying to get this business, this branch, up and running. I was letting down my kids because I wasn't spending the time that I, you know, I took. This job, one of the number one reasons I took this job at being in sales was so that I could when I got to that point of having children, I could take Friday afternoon to go and see their hockey games or soccer games, or to spend the time and really be there for my kids. And it wasn't. I felt like I was I couldn't. I felt I was letting them down in terms of quality time. I felt I was letting my branch down, my sales guys down. We weren't my my corporate, you know, because we were a subsidiary, because we weren't hitting the numbers we were supposed to. You know, our turn times weren't where they're so literally, almost every single person in my life

that meant something. I felt as though I was letting down in one way or another, because I wasn't hitting some type of thing that they had expectations or goals set for me. Quite honestly, I felt just enormous pressure. I felt, whether it be helplessness or hopelessness, like I, like I, I almost want to say depression, like I just I couldn't, no matter what I did wasn't good enough, and didn't matter how hard I worked. I could work really hard in one area, and yes, it would get better, but it would almost take away from other areas that I, or at least I would feel that or perceive that. And so it was just really overwhelming, and I was to a certain extent, I felt like I was at a breaking point. And not that I know what that meant, but you know, is that quitting the business, or is it giving up the branch, or is it going off on my own with my team and just doing personal production instead of trying to run the branch, you know, because I was really at a loss. I didn't know what, I

didn't know what to do. It was just really frustrating. And, yeah, sad, helpless, angry, frustrated, you know, kind of all those types of names or words.

Yeah, I just noticed that he just really wanted to please so badly he can never do enough, and it just seemed like he was, he was working for all the all these other people, but he didn't really have like a purpose that really drove him. It was really just trying to please everybody else. I just kind of felt like Tom was trying to solve the problem by acting differently, getting different results by having different behaviors. But I kind of felt like it was really forced. It didn't feel authentic, it didn't seem sustainable. And so I just kind of felt like if we could help Tom to uncover his why, His purpose, His mission, for why he comes to work and what he's committed to doing, getting that passion back. I felt like, once we had that foundation, then I felt like her his actions would become a natural byproduct of that purpose. So it was really kind of, I think, important for me to really focus on that initially, because, you know, as we say, when you

understand your why, you'll figure out the how. So that was really kind of the first step. I mean, if you think about it this way, your purpose is your mission. How you want to invest your life. It's because, it's why you got to bed in the morning and do the things that you do and see. The reason why this is so important is because if you don't have a purpose that's guiding you, then you're going to just focus on getting certain results and doing certain activities, and you're going to feel like you're on a treadmill, and when you hit the wall, you're just going to get stuck there. However, when you've got a compelling purpose that's driving you, you're going to have tremendous energy, and you're going to be excited about going to work every day because you're working towards a purpose that's bigger than yourself. So that way, when you hit the wall, you're going to figure out a way to get under, over, around or right through it. And the reason why is because your purpose

is bigger than the obstacle, and so having a purpose that really guides you is going to enable you to just have more energy, more passion. It's really going to become your GPS for how you're committed to living. Ultimately, your purpose involves the person that you desire to be, and the impact that you desire to have, and that's going to stretch you, and it's going to give you a reason to get out of bed and go to work. The interesting thing is, the more you focus on your results, the less results you get. The more you focus on your purpose, the more results you get. But the results are no longer the focus. It's the byproduct. It's the fruit of living on purpose.

You know, for me, working with Steve, I think it was really trying to determine and come up with what my heart or my inner why I was doing, what my why was I, guess what? You know, really trying to dig down and really establish that, why do I act the way I am? Why am I driven the way that I'm driven. What am I really trying to accomplish? What gets me out of the bed in the morning? What are my goals? But before I could do that, to be honest with you, I think the big thing that really helped, because we started to get in right at it, but I was still really stressed, is he really helped me understand that, listen, things are going to happen the way they're going to happen. It's not going to be the end of the world. And so really helping me, first and foremost, understand that there is a higher power out there. There is a set path to a certain extent, and just have trust in that path. You got to keep your work, and you have to keep doing what you need to do,

but don't get so stressed out on a day to day basis, as long as you're putting. In that effort, and you're putting in that work, it will get to where you need to be. And once I could get kind of relaxed to a certain extent with, Listen, I'm not in control. I can't control the outcome necessarily. I can only put in the widgets or the work, or whatever it is, then I could truly kind of work on, why am I doing what I'm doing? And then we were able to, I think, have a little bit of a breakthrough, because I wasn't so concerned about all the outside noise, and could focus more on what the inside and the passion and what was really driving me.

Yeah, what I've found in my work with clients over the years is the biggest reason why we have anxiety and fear is when we try to control things that we can't control. And so Tom was basing his identity and a sense of self worth on his results and pleasing people and what people thought about him. And those are two examples of things you can't control. And so what we decided to go after is focus on what are the things that you can control. And one of the things that you can definitely control is your purpose, because it's no longer about you, it's about serving others, because that's something that you can control, that's something that could give you more peace of mind and confidence. And so once we focused on that purpose, then it was like the results just kind of showed up, and it got Tom into more of that fearless, peaceful state, just knowing that he no longer should base his confidence on things he can't control, like his results and what people think

about him, but really, his confidence should come from what he can control, which is all about living out of His purpose and His attitude and his effort.

It took me some time, and we had to revisit, because we tried to dig in right away, but for me, I couldn't get past the just letting things go, type things. We really worked on that for a little bit, and kind of dug into it. But once we did get to the point, okay, I've taken a deep breath. I'm kind of at peace with where things go. I know it'll work out. Then we kind of dug into it. And you know, whether it was through, you know, why are you doing what you're doing? What drives you what is really the big driver behind things? It actually kind of came fairly easy, and it wasn't a big, long paragraph. It was more of just a it is more of just a sentence, and it's pretty crisp and complete for me, you know, once all the dust settles, it's, you know, one of those things that I refer back to, you know, whether it's in talking with clients, whether it's when I get up in the morning and just think about what I have ahead, it shows up, whether it be day to day or even

specific instances. And my what it is is to equip people with the confidence, resources and support to transform their goals into reality. And it really applies, whether it be in helping my boys at school, helping my boys in sports and playing with them, you know, helping my clients achieve home ownership, helping my Realtors build their business or grow, you know, coaching my sales people and helping them reach new levels. I mean, that is what drives me, and that is what essentially gets me out of bed every day, and I can apply that to anything and everything that I do on a day to day basis.

And so Steve, talk to us a little bit about the process of coming to that sentence.

Yeah, there's certain criteria that you want to follow when you're trying to uncover your purpose. And for a long time, I would say that it doesn't really matter what your purpose is, as long as your purpose really energizes you, but what I've learned over the years, after coaching for so long and seeing the results that clients have gotten, what I've realized is there is a right and a wrong purpose, and what I would say is, if your purpose is not grounded in serving others, then it's a weak and shallow purpose, and it's not going to sustain you, because I believe that's the way we were made. We were wired to serve and make a difference. So number one, your purpose should really be grounded in service. It's about having a purpose that's bigger than ourselves. And then from there, your purpose has got to be unconditional, just kind of like what Tom said. His purpose is not just geared towards the mortgage industry. It's what he does all day, every day, no

matter who he's with, and so it should be something that you're willing to live out in all endeavors, regardless of what you get back in return. You see, that's what makes you fearless, because, again, fear comes from trying to control things you can't control. And so if you're living out of your purpose, regardless of what you get back in return, it becomes unconditional, and that's what gives you confidence. That's something that you can do and focus on every day next your purpose to encompass the person that you want to be and the impact that you desire to have. So the person that you want to be and the impact that you desire to have. Finally, it should be a statement that stretches you and inspires you to live it out. And so it shouldn't be just something that you do on a regular basis, and you don't even have to think about it. It should be something that just gets you excited to go to bed and go to work and grow into this person. So it should stretch you and

inspire you every day. Every word should inspire you to work towards this purpose. And finally, your purpose statement should encompass. Your new definition of success, it should become your new definition of success and something that you can actually control. And again, while you can't control the results, you can always control the effort. And so that becomes the asset test on whether or not you were successful. Was on purpose today. And so throughout the day, you want to remind yourself to make sure all of your decisions, all of your thoughts, all your actions, are in alignment with your purpose, and when they are, that's when you experience the greatest joy, the greatest peace of mind and the greatest success, because you are truly experiencing peace of mind when you're living on purpose.

Okay, Tom so you mentioned a couple times about people pleasing. Did the desire or the need to people please, did that sort of disappear as you clarified your purpose?

Sure. No, I think it's one of those things that's always there. It's just a question of how I handle it. It's, I don't know if someday it will completely disappear all in or, you know, over the course of time it will. But it was more me just taking being able to take a step back and recognize and realize what I'm doing when I'm doing it. And, you know, I do find that happens less and less, and so maybe it will disappear, but over the course of, you know, really establishing, one, the purpose, and then two, you know, recognizing things are going to work out the way they do that they're supposed to. I can, you know, focus on my on my purpose, and I can really just dwell on it, but again, in some stressful times and in situations, I do find myself slipping back into it, and it's just me being able to now creating my create an awareness that I can pull myself back out, or get back to focus on what my purpose is, or recognize that things are going to work out so that I

don't get back into where I was, where I'm, you know, stressed out and feeling bare to a certain extent, it's huge. Again, not just personal, but professional. Not just professional, but personal. You know, really helped me to one not sweat the small stuff and really focus on the bigger vision and the purpose in terms of what we're trying to accomplish, which helps with developing and coaching sales people, developing and coaching team members, parenting, you know, relationships with my wife. I mean, it's all encompassing, and it's it's really provided a lot more satisfaction, less stress and just overall more enjoyment. Again, I'm not to say that it's all bless all the time. I mean, there's definitely different instances where you still get frustrated or still get frustrated or still get stressed and things of that nature. But being able to ground yourself or bring yourself back when you are in the moment or recognize it is huge.

So Steve, let's flip roles for just a second. You know, when you think about your relationship here with Tom, the journey you guys have been on, what's the number one thing that you've learned from him?

Just what it means to just really have unconditional love. And what I mean by that is Tom is always thinking about the other person. He's not thinking about, like, what's in it for me, and what can I get out of this, and why should I go to this meeting? He's just always thinking about serving and making a difference and impacting others. And I just think it's just, it's tremendous, you know? It's really humility, you know, I think a lot of people look down on humility, like as a sign of weakness, like a doormat to walk on. But the way I look at Tom it's not about thinking less of yourself. It's just thinking about yourself less, if that makes sense, his ability to subordinate his ego for the greater good of serving others. And so every time I get on the phone with Tom, you know, that's what he brings to the table. Just, how can I serve the team? How can I serve our clients? How can I serve our referral partners? And it's just inspiration to kind of, you know, live

up to that standard where you're just so others focused and not self centered. I mean, that itself. I think it's just tremendous. Biggest thing I've learned from Tom.

And then Tom, what do you think, my friend, if somebody is out there listening right now, what advice or encouragement, you know? What else would you suggest for them?

Yeah, I mean, first, I guess patience. It takes some time, but at the end of the day, just understand and recognize that it will all work itself out. What you really need to focus is on your whether you want to call it your passion or your purpose, what are you trying to do, and where do you want to go, and everything else will take care of itself. And I know it sounds cliche and it's tough, but it does. You know it will work out. I promise you, you just got to make sure that you're fulfilling what your true passion or purpose is at the end of the day, and figuring that out, if you haven't already, is, in and of itself, a game changer, because it drives you every day.

Well, guys, I really appreciate the time here, and this has been super helpful. So thank you guys for impacting now, lots and lots of people.

Thanks.