I pulled into the parking lot around 6:08am this morning only to find I was not the first person here today. Our building manager was busy loading something into the back of his large “Super Maintenance Van.” I like to call it that because it is a massive van and I thought “wow, what a super maintenance van” the first time I saw it.

I am normally the only one here until at least 7:30am so this piqued my curiosity.

“What are you doing here so early?” I asked.

“I’ve been here since 4:30am - gonna rain today and it has to get done.” He replied.

My first question (which went unasked) was “why the h*ll you would wash windows BEFORE it rains” but, my second (which I actually verbalized) was, “You got here at 4:30am just to wash windows!?”

“Yep, it’s just me and if I am gonna keep bringin’ home the bacon, I have to work.”

In the mortgage industry there are no free rides. There is no salary for not doing your job. There is no commission earned on loans that do not fund! There is no commission earned for thinking about working!

of the BloodHound Blog wrote an incredible blog post entitled “#1 Myth in Real Estate: Agents Don’t Know Why They’re Failing.” I quote:

“Their failure was a direct result of their inability consciously willful refusal to do what they knew needed to be done.”

The mortgage industry has become a vat of lazy, whiny loan originators waiting for the phone to ring. How much more could we get accomplished by just getting up and mimicking the work ethic of my building’s maintenance man. Here are 3 take-a- ways from my brief conversation with him.

#1 - Get up Early! Why wait, start your day right. I get to the office every morning between 5:30am and 6:30am and read through all of the wonderful news that has been pushed my direction and collected by my Google RSS Reader. This gives me the information I need to either write a blog post or shoot out a quick email blast on the interesting industry news of the day to my clients and referral partners.

#2 - It Has to Get Done! - Just because you don’t make the phone call we all dread about the loan your underwriter just denied doesn’t mean it’s going to magically disappear. Good stuff or Bad Stuff IT HAS TO GET DONE! Why? Because…

#3 - It’s just you and you gotta keep “bringin’ home the bacon” - Whether you are surrounded by assistants or your only “welcome” in the morning is your desk in the darkest corner of your office, you are still the boss of you. You are still the Chief Do-It-Because-It-Has-To-Get-Done Officer of Loan Originator, INC.

This guy got up at the back end of dawn and started washing windows, how will you “get it done?”

More about the author Daniel Martin.