About Donna Wright
She has 30-plus years of experience in the mortgage industry, having helped lead both Fortune 500 and midsized mortgage companies. She successfully transitioned from originator to regional sales manager and national production manager at leading financial institutions, including the likes of Wells Fargo and Bank of America, among others. She has proven leadership in recruiting, building, motivating, and coaching teams and individuals. Donna has an outstanding reputation for building markets, generating revenue, and driving profit to the bottom line. Donna has a BA in Economics from the University of Dallas and currently resides in Austin. Her passions are spending time with her children, grandchildren, friends, rottweiler rescue, and travel.
In this episode, Steve and Donna discuss:
- Setting our minds right
- Fostering a different mindset
- Changing the story with the mindset
- Learning something new daily
Key Takeaways
- Have perspective, give grace, be patient, and develop a good mindset.
- The best way to foster a different mindset in order to get out of a funk is to be with people who push you up and are able to give you a different perspective.
- Developing a mindset that will get you through life isn’t about denying reality and lying to yourself, it’s about acknowledging what is and changing ourselves and our perspective so that we will be more equipped to handle it.
- Learn something new about a person every single day. Learn something new about things in general. Ask a ton of questions and be willing to learn.
“Right now, the most important thing that any of us could focus on is mindset and what we do to set our minds right. ‘Cause if our mind’s not right, the rest is not really right.” - Donna Wright
Connect with Donna Wright:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donna.m.wright.37/
- Website: https://republicstatemortgage.com/
- Email: dwright@rsmc.net
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-wright-4b59827/
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Listen to the podcast here
Donna Wright: Mindset Leads The Way
You are reading the What If We series. I was trying to call it the WIW. That doesn't sound very good because there are too many syllables. I have a guest on the show. Her name is Donna Wright.
Everyone, it's nice to be with you.
I can't wait to have you here. I intentionally picked Donna for this interview because the What If We series, as a reminder, especially in many financial service sectors, mortgage and real estate, we are going through that, let's call it, a little bit of a challenging time. Donna can certainly attest to that. I'm going to give you a little bit of background on her. In the midst of this challenging time, as I hope you know by now, there is always opportunity and things that we can be doing.
It could very well be in challenging times that when we put our minds and get involved in certain things, there are all kinds of metaphors about wheat, chaff, and cream rising to the top. It doesn't happen when we are in times when deals and businesses flow like milk and honey. It happens when we are in challenging times. What we want to talk about is how that is happening and what are some of the things that we are seeing. Donna, you have been in the mortgage business for years. Donna Wright is an icon in this business. She's a wonderful leader who has taken in many aspects of the business. If it is possible to synthesize an illustrious career like yours quickly, give us the highlights.
I started out in the business in 1983. I was fresh out of college with a degree in Economics and thought I was going to be a banker. Somehow whether it's serendipitous or not ended up at a mortgage company. Funnily enough, I was a part-time receptionist. One day, the closer didn't show up for our company, and the manager comes running through the building, asking who could close a blippity blip loan. I said, “How tough can that be?”
They sat me back in a room with no windows on a typewriter. If you have been in the business this long, you have to work out APR and payments on a calculator, and then you would type them into on the typewriter on a note and deed of trust that we are in triplicate. You couldn't make any mistakes. There is no back button and no white-out. I feel like I'm dating myself here.
I would’ve done that. Donna has been in the business since APR was calculated by hand. Are you kidding me?
Rather than thinking of myself as ancient, I would rather think of myself as a fine wine that gets better with age. Fast forward, I had some great experiences with larger mortgage companies and large banks. I briefly lost my mind and got out of business. Why I tried to do that? I don't know. I took a, let's call it, a five-year sabbatical. I came back and always said I felt a little bit like Goldilocks. I work for the too-big and then too-small, and I feel like I'm working with the just right now. I have spent most of my career in production, coaching, and building teams. It gets in your blood. I love it.
I felt it was necessary to use this platform to speak to our readers in a way that is hopeful, meaningful, and generative. You and I could sit around and talk about margin compression and inventory, rates, overall economics, and inflation. We can get into all that. I don't want to deny that it’s tough. I'm sure readers may be thinking, “That's real. You get that.” We get it. Notwithstanding that, I wanted to create a space where I could bring people like you, and I can’t wait because even with your sabbatical, that's a lot of.
You have seen many ups and downs in this business. With all the ups and downs, it feels to me like you are going to be able to give us some good thoughts about what you are seeing. What is positive? What we can be doing to be thriving in this season? I usually say, “I want your 2 or 3 key things.” Let's kick this off. Start with the first one. What's the first thing you would say in this season of time when you are encouraging or coaching people at your company? What do you tell him to do? What should we be doing?
When you think about the 1, 2 or 3 things that people should be doing, I was thinking about that and took it back a little bit and said, “It's not about the things. It’s about how you are feeling about things.” Every one of us, at some point in our life or another, has been through happy, sad or tragic moments but I have, along the way, come up with a word or a theme for that particular season or time in my life that I'm going. It has been through my work with you as my coach that a lot of this has driven home for me because I think about different times in my life.
There have been four themes that I've had that I've remembered along the way. One was perspective. Another was grace and then patience. What do all those words mean? I try to use those as themes in my life. It's how I talk with others about what's going on. My theme or word for what we are going through is a mindset. What's interesting about mindset is that it could be two different things. It could be that my mind is set. It's not going to change or I've got a mindset. I've got to figure out what to set my mind with or attitudinally.
The most important thing that any of us could focus on is a mindset and what we do to set our minds right because if our minds are not right, the rest isn't right. I've seen some successful, fantastic people in the business and my friends that get into these funks they can't get out of. It goes back to the mindset of, “What are you going to choose to believe in working your way through everything?”
Mindset: The most important thing any of us could focus on is the mindset. If our minds are not right, the rest isn't.
I always say, “We are going to try to get to three.” We can probably pause on that one and have a field day. I want to go back rather than thinking about three things people should be doing. I love how you redirected that. It could be how we are doing. You started to speak about not what we should be doing but what we should be being. When you talk about mindset, that's more of a me thing than a do thing. You've had themes like perspective, grace, and patience. These have been themes. Your theme for this season is a mindset.
I don't know if that mindset may be the theme for 1 month, 1, or 2 years but it helps guide me every morning when I wake up and have conversations, “Donna, what's your mindset for the day?”
I don't want to go, “Tell me 2 and 3.” I don't even almost care about 2 and 3. This is good but I do care. Can I ask you some questions about mindset?
Absolutely.
I love what you said, and it's great. I'm making this up as we go. I don't even know what you are going to say. Let's say I don't feel like I have a very good mindset. I am in a funk. Even though we don't want to stay in the dark too much, let’s pretend that's me, and I hear you say that. Where have you had success with other people in helping foster or nurture a different mindset? How do you do that?
There are many different ways, but the top one that comes to mind is that you have to walk away from that thing, emotion or feeling and whatever it is. It's easy to say walk away but harder to figure out how you can get away from it. Especially in light of the last couple of years we've had, we’ve gotten stuck in our own minds and haven't spent enough time outside of ourselves. If you are in a funk, there are many things that you could do. One, truly be with other people. When you are being with other people, you got to be with people that push you up, not pull you down. It's advice I always gave my kids and had these conversations with my co-workers and my team.
You got to be with people that push you up, not pull you down.
It's, “Who you surround yourself with makes all the difference in the world, especially during challenging times.” In terms of getting out of our own minds, more than ever, we've got to push ourselves to figure out how we look at things differently. How do we think about things that we are not the only right ones? It's not the only right thought that, “What if there is a different way of looking at this?”
I love when people like you have thoughts like that. Your thoughts are driven primarily experientially because you are such a well-read person but that thought is supported neurobiologically. One of the things that are coming out of the pandemic is that people can sit around and go, “We need to be with people.” One of the interesting byproducts so far, and that there's a lot of research to be done on isolation, is that there's no one around you to challenge you. You might say something to somebody in the grocery store. They could look at you a little like, “That's funny.” Even though we might not agree with everybody and stuff, we need that because if not, we start to believe everything we think.
It's easy to get caught up in that. I know I have. The experience I had. I was on a trip. I went to Turkey. I came away from that country, falling in love with the people, the experiences, and the things that I saw. One of the reasons all of this hit home for me is that I had some preconceived notions about Turkey and the Muslim faith in general. This isn't a Christian versus Muslim or anything else. It's the thoughts that I had about that or the misperceptions that I had about their particular faith.
We had a tour guide. He was a young guy, about 32 years old. He told us, "It's important for me that you know that we are not Middle Easterners. We are not from Saudi. We have a true genuine love for all people and all things.” It got my attention. I said to him, “Tell me about that. Give me some examples.” I could go on with all of the things that we learned and saw. I couldn't believe that I had been wrong for so long. I had this amazing experience and learned a lot. I don't think I would have, maybe at another time of my life or had I been closed off and thought, “This is the only way and the right way to think and believe things.”
I wrote it down wrong for so long. Can we co-author a book that's called So Wrong Versus So For Long? I’ve had those moments. I want the readers to be, “Donna, I love your transparency about that. I love the beauty of you gave a great example.” I wanted to ask people if you are reading and Donna is talking about mindset. When was the last time you legitimately had a change of mind? Think about that. What does that look like? I'm curious. Was there a moment when you found yourself going, “I was wrong about that?” Was that dissonant or distasteful? Did you feel weird for a moment? Was it refreshing or freeing? How did you feel when you learned that was wrong for so long?
I feel like I remember clearly, the thought exactly when it happened because I was going, “How if I missed this? How have I been blind to this?” You then have that thought, “How many other things are that same way?” I didn't feel weird. I felt like, “This is cool.” I enjoyed the rest of the trip so much more. I want to talk about it and tell everybody about it. It's something that you want to share. When I came back from that trip, reality sets in, and you get back in the business. There are the right wars and all the stuff that's going on. I think, “What if we started to think about all these things differently? What if, despite our successes, we look at things differently and learn that maybe those weren't the right way to do things or maybe it's not the right way to do things now.”
Challenging our beliefs and the way that we do things in such a way that we get uncomfortable thinking of new ways to do it is the only way that we are going to come out of all the stuff that's going on now. There are some great people out there that are super frustrated with the things that are going on. Certainly, we have been through these cycles before but all of the situations have piled on top of one another that we've never seen. We don't know how to predict what may happen.
Mindset: Challenge our beliefs in such a way that you get really uncomfortable thinking of new ways to do it. It's the only way we're going to come out of all the stuff that's going on right now.
Margin compression, cost containment, and all these things are real. The show isn't about painting some Pollyannish picture of something like, “That stuff is real,” and yet, we get to choose mindset. I love that you gave us an example of what it looks like to explore something and recognize that we have the ability to tell ourselves a different story. It didn't change the reality. It doesn't change. It only changes you, which I suppose does change reality. I want to encourage people reading to pause and go, “Think about a time when you changed your mind. What was that like?”
You got me sitting here going, “I wonder where I need to still change my mind?” That's a difficult thing to think about because all our ways seem right to us. I am grateful for the freeing idea of what you meant by mindset. I’m grateful for that. What else? What other things? Someone comes to you. They want to know how to navigate through some of these times. What else?
It's important, and it's in the same vein to learn something new every day. That's probably more than it seems at its face value. What I mean by that is that I learn something new about people or a person every day. It could be your number one referral source, a referral source you want to have, or a co-worker. It could be anybody or a family member but I learn something new about them every single day.
Learn something new every day.
Learn something new about things in general, whether you do that through listening to podcasts, reading or talking with people. You have to ask a ton of questions and be willing to learn. It could be scary what you learn. In fact, there are a lot of times that it is very scary what you learn but be willing to learn because a lot of the stuff that you've taught me is that it's only through pushing yourself and change that we can grow. If we are not growing, we are dying. Who wants to do that?
That's a natural phenomenon. I doubt there are too many physicists reading our time here. There's a law of entropy that I believe is somehow tied into the second law of thermodynamics. This is such a basic view of it but in all things in the universe, everything moves to a state of disorder, especially when left alone. When you leave things alone, things don't get better.
That whole, “We are either getting better or worse,” that's true, even physically. Unless you intend to get better, I hate to say it. You will get worse. That's the way it works in the universe. That's why I love to learn new things because there's an intentionality to that. I wanted to put you on the spot. What's something new you've learned?
Unless you intend to get better, you'll get worse.
I don't know if it's something brand new that I've learned that I didn't know before or something that I've relearned but it has to do with not trying to sugarcoat things or not being transparent, whether it's with your kids, you always try to protect your kids from being hurt or your co-workers for whatever reason. I've learned that it's best to be transparent and honest and communicate what's going on in a very genuine way.
When you say, “What did you learn from that?” Sometimes I tend to either sugarcoat or not share everything because, A) It is personally painful or, B) It is scary because you always wonder, “If we go down there and we share that, will we lose this person?” That people deep down inside know what's going on anyway. It's best to get it out there and then talk about it.
One of my mentors taught me that we teach much better from our weaknesses than we do from our strengths. We have a lot of experience with it. That's a whole other road. The first one was the mindset. The second that you came up with was effectively still mindset but specifically, learn something new. That keeps us fresh. That's very generative. I love what I’m learning about you. I loved even how you said one thing, “Relearning.”
Mindset: We teach much better from our weaknesses than we do our strengths.
Does that mean you never learned it to be again with?
I don't know. There are some lessons I've got to relearn. I need to be open and honest with that. We will go down that road later. I said three. You don't have to have three. If you've got one more thing for us, that would be great. I don't want to have it come off like this wasn't good enough. You could have stopped at the first one but one more thing that we can be doing is be positive and growing to navigate well through this season.
This one is a big one for me, and you will find that it goes with this whole thing. Get a coach. A coach could be a personal trainer. If you want to get healthier, a nutritionist or someone that can help you grow your business, thoughts or whatever it is but don't go it alone. Get a coach. I had to for a while.
I love that you are saying that. There's got to be a reason why world-class athletes, even ones that aren't on teams, track stars, golfers, and tennis players, figure out if they want to elevate their game, that they cannot see themselves at a 360. It could be a friend or someone that would listen and pay attention, especially through a season like this.
If you go back to challenging your mindset, the way you've always thought and trying to grow and get uncomfortable, you can't do that by yourself because most people can only push themselves far. If it's a good coach, they will ask you the right questions, the things to get you thinking and being reflective so that you can get in that space where you can be open, learn, and grow. A lot of strong, maybe successful people think that they can do it on their own. I know there was a long time when I thought, “If I get help, that's a weakness,” but it's not. That makes all the difference in the world.
I am super grateful to you. This has been a long time coming when I thought through about generating ideas, and what if wes, I'm not kidding. You are you were my first call of thought, “Donna, I would be good at this.” I love your mindset. I love the idea of mindset. I love how you talked about setting your mind or whether it is fixed. The mindset could be two things. I love how you said that.
I'm grateful for that and for learning something new every day, especially about people. I love that. The last one was learning about you. How do we find someone else out there that would have the willingness and patience, and courage to ask us some great questions and to listen? I'm grateful to you. Anything else? Was there something you were hoping I would ask you that I didn't ask you?
This is something that we could talk a very long time. It's something that I wake up every morning thinking about and thinking about before I go to sleep at night.
You have officially been in the business for many years, and here we are talking about mindset, learning, growing, and getting a coach. That's a lesson in and of itself. Folks here is a seasoned professional that has seen the ups, the downs with the big, large or small. All aspects of this business have worked with countless people and still growing. Donna, I am super grateful for you. Thank you for your growth mindset. Cheers to your next many years in the business. Thank you for being on the show. I know that goes quickly. I'm grateful to you.
Thank you much. I'm very grateful to you.
In the same thing to this thematic approach to the What If We show. It doesn't matter what Donna's thoughts and ideas are or mine are. It matters what the conversation of what Donna was saying, “What did it draw out in you? What are your thoughts? What are your insights? What are your epiphanies?” That matters. Donna, again, thank you. You all have a great day. We will see you next time on The Insight Interviews.
