Episode 8: David Lykken

Hi there. It's Kelly Resendez with the Power Up Your Life podcast. And, man, we just had the absolute pleasure of interviewing just an absolutely just amazing human being, David Lycan, who just dropped so many wisdom bombs about growing your company and really the right partnerships that you need to choose to take your business to the next level. So I hope that you enjoy this episode.

I'm gonna just share a little bit. David is a fifty year veteran of the mortgage industry. He's a founder and president and chief transformational officer of transformational mortgage solutions. Him and his team are transforming the way that mortgage companies do business, working with ginormous giants out there in the industry. He does this through consulting, coaching, and various communication strategies.

He's been a frequent guest on the Fox Business News as well as making guest appearances on CNBC and the CBS Evening News. He is the host of the widely acclaimed weekly Lichen on Lending podcast heard Mondays at one at w w w dot lichen on lending.com. We'll pop that in the show notes for you. And he also hosts the Lichen on Leadership podcast as well.

Aside from being a podcaster, he's also hosting two shows, namely Your Home Business and Your Home Coast to Coast, both airing on your home TV. So without further ado, we will get started with mister David Lycan. And today, we have an amazing guest, just a dear friend of mine, David Lycan here as our guest. So I would love for you just to tell us a little bit about your story in your own words.

Oh, thank you so much for having me as a guest, first of all, and I apologize to anyone listening. This this is not my normal voice. There's a lot of colds going around, and I managed to get one. So, anyway, but I didn't wanna miss this opportunity because I value you so much, and I value this podcast and opportunity to share.

My life has been one of those things where you wonder, which I wanna talk about a little bit later, is how do we get into the places or the careers we get into? And I think a lot of us get into places that we should not be there, and we stay there most of our life. And I've really been working a lot and coaching people to get to the right place in their life. And I think that's one of the things that we badly need to recognize.

And it's never too late. I'm 74 years old. I got into No. You are not. Oh,

stop.

Hard to believe. Hard to believe. It's I I I get up every morning. I go, I'm supposed to be old. I don't feel old. I got lots of energy. I'm going strong. What's going on? And so it's one of those things where, if you have a purpose and you're doing what you love to do, I thought I said it was, who was it? Mark Twain said, if you're doing something you love, you're never working another day in your life. Mhmm.

And I I think that's what my goal in life, especially my coaching practice, is to help people find that thing that they absolutely love to do more than anything else. And it's gonna give them longer life, a healthier life, a better outlook, gonna make a difference in the world, not be a drain, but you're gonna be putting into the system rather than sucking out of it.

Yeah. Absolutely incredible. So what is your main profession now that you do? I've I've known you for a long time. Literally, he is he is just well known in the mortgage industry. And share a little bit about what you do over there. Yeah. Well, it's built on, you know, over twenty five, thirty years of actually being in owning and operating mortgage companies.

We sold our last mortgage company in Southern California back in 2000. And, I came home one day and said told my wife I was gonna want to, retire. I was retiring. We made a nice hit, nice home run. And so, she says, you're too young. You you drive us crazy. Go do something.

And so I started consulting, twenty five years ago to the mortgage lenders. And then guys like Casey Crawford, who who are googling how to start a mortgage company, came on and found me, and, I had the rest of the story. I still work with Casey. I've got a call with him tomorrow.

Have I mean, there's so many of those stories. I I just put Casey out there because, first of all, he's a great guy and a great leader, but more importantly, it's a great success story of one of those ones where you help. Yeah. So it's that that's what I've been doing for twenty five years.

It's then so along the way, I started a podcast. And that's an interesting journey, and it has blown up to be something way bigger and better than I had ever envisioned.

Yes. And I've been a guest on that, and and it's absolutely incredible and makes a huge difference. So mortgage has obviously been a roller coaster over your career. So many highs and lows.

You know, one of the things that we really try to help our listeners with is is understanding the reality that even the people that are super successful feel stuck at certain times in their life. And there are ways that you get through moving through that.

So for anyone listening that might be in that place where maybe they are in a career that they don't love, a in what whatever situation that they're in and they're feeling stuck, what wisdom would you share with them, David?

Well, first of all, I think it starts with, you know, I have this thought that we are first of all, we're created beings, and we think we're each of us are uniquely created. If you have any question about that, take a look at your fingerprint or your iris. What do we use for oftentimes for often I mean, getting access to devices. We put our thumbs on things or it reads our irises or eyes. So we're all uniquely created.

I think the thing is is that we need to become aware of that. So I I believe in, first of all, becoming self aware. Sadly, most people do not have an awareness of their because of either their parents pushed them in a direction or said, you can't be that. You need to be this.

I think one of the things that I got, called out for as a kid all the time is my parents would say things like, hey. We can hear your voice above all the other kids. Kids are supposed to be seen, not heard. We hear you all the time no matter how far away you are. Rather than realizing, well, maybe this kid is created to be a communicator. Rather than saying that, they just push me down, push me down, push me down, and try to get them me to conform to their to what they wanted for their kid rather than what my design was to be.

Wow. That resonates a lot with me. I was the girl who laughed too loud, and and now I'm the grown up woman who laughs too loud. That I feel that in a a very significant way, David. That's true.

This, you know, entrepreneurship roller coaster, like Kelly was talking about, especially in the mortgage industry where so much is out of your control, You've gotta be a little bit of a contrarian thinker. You've gotta have some unconventional strategies or opinions that some people would disagree with. Talk to me a little bit about what an unconventional strategy you've got that people might disagree with. Well,

first of all, is it says I think the unconventional part of is questioning things. Just never stop questioning. Questioning, what are you doing? Why do you why do am I not getting joy? Am I not doing what I'm supposed to do? And I think the unconventional thing is people being willing to self examine. And if it and you say, that should be unconventional. But you ask how many people, what are you doing and how long have you been doing it? And are you happy doing it? They go, no, I'm miserable doing it. I've been doing it forever.

And the definition of a grave is, is a rut in the road where, you know, a grave is a the ends are kicked out. I'm not saying it right, but grave a grave is a a rut in the road where you have both ends are kicked out. You're down and in a rut, and you just don't know how to get out of it.

So number one, I think that there's I believe you should have at least three careers in your life. I started out as a mortgage banker, then I went into consulting. Now I'm doing more podcasting and communications, even landed on national television. I was a regular on Fox and CNBC for about fifty

years. So I think a rock star, ladies and gentlemen.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's a funny story. I hung up with the producer when he called me because I thought it was one of my my friends from New York playing a trick on me. So I I, I hung up with the producer. I said, I don't know who this is calling me, but I don't have time for this. And so I hung up on the guy and he called me right back, Eric Espinato. He's unfortunately passed away. But anyway, there's some funny stories about when you get into your destiny, how many times do you hang up on it? And I hung up on what what it was a tremendous career opportunity and brought a lot of growth, and that was going on national television.

What's also interesting, I had a paranoia. So another thing I look at, Andy, is I look at what are you afraid of? I think that is a big of where you may be wanting to go or where you should go and press into. For example, I had two experiences in high school where I got laughed at. I got asked to speak. I have a a loud voice and a voice that carries, I guess. I'm a vocal major, so I understood that. So I got to go on a PA system and, did something. I miserably failed on the PA system. I was introducing another, team on there, and they were from a Czechoslovakian community. And if you look at how names from Czech communities are, they're all consonants. How does a normal English person pronounce a Czech name? And so I did my best being the obedient, compliant kid, but I slaughtered it and I got laughed at.

It was that experience and one other experience I vowed I will never speak in front of people ever again. I just vowed. And so you make vows oftentimes against your destiny, against the thing that you're called to do. And so I would challenge people, which is, again, very unconventional, go examine the vows you've made when you say, I will never do blah blah blah, whatever it is. And I think you should go in and examine that. I mean, look at what could that be keeping you from? What future opportunity?

And oftentimes, I've had my greatest impact speaking to people. The podcast has a vast, huge audience. And then being on television, I overcame that. And I do a lot of public speaking, speaking at a lot of conferences. So I really think it's important to look at the things that, you know, how you're designed, what are the things you were told you probably shouldn't do. And, Andy, you had a great example. How could that You got a smile that just warms a room, Andy. So, I mean, it's such a good thing to have. It's a We're the charmer.

Yes. He did. Yeah. I love it. I wanna go a little bit deeper on one thing just because it's something that you and I have have definitely had conversations about.

You know, a lot of times people don't have a clear why for what they're doing. And in mortgage and real estate especially, people get stuck because of the financial success that they create, but they're miserable, right? Tell me a little bit about your philosophy

about having a why for everything that you do. Yeah, in my case my why when I got into mortgage banking is is I needed a job. I was getting married for the first time and I was going, oh my gosh, well, I gotta get a job. So, I went to my dad. He says, Dave, go to work for a bank until you figure out what you wanna do. At least you're gonna learn how to balance your checking account. You need some financial responsibility. And so I did.

I got a job at a bank, and I quickly found my way to the morning store, which I'm very grateful for. But I have dyslexia. I've had it for all my life. I didn't know that. We didn't have any grid for dyslexia. Didn't have any that. And so I did not know that. So I was a c student college, but and, and I was a vocal major, so I didn't have to read as much. And so I took a course where less reading was required. Still, you gotta read. I did graduate, but it was with a C student, as a C student.

The bank hired me because I was the leader. I was president of the student body, president of this. Anything I showed up for, I rose to the top as a leader. The president of the bank says, We want to hire leaders. So we're gonna stop hiring business managers. Let's go look for markers that indicate this person we're looking at as a leader.

So the my why was I needed a job, which is a horrible I mean, How, how this should happen before you're looking for your first job is getting an examination. So your why was I gotta make money. That's a horrible why. But I found a why as I got into the mortgage industry because my heart is always help working. And when I made the first mortgage loan to a couple that had been turned down three times by other institutions, I got them their loan. I saw the tears in their eyes and the joy and the fulfillment when they took occupancy of that first home.

It transformed my life and it gave me a why. All of a sudden getting people into homes successfully that couldn't get in otherwise became my why. And it would seem so much bigger than the money. I enjoyed the money, but the why was what really took me to the next level and really made me the super professional that I was really good at what that I did in that. I was excellent at it. I love it. It's like that analogy of the three bricklayers.

Yes. That the first guy says I'm may I'm laying bricks. The next guy says I'm I'm laying bricks for a wall. The next guy says I'm I'm laying bricks for a wall to so that people can worship God here. Yes. Who is more interested in going to work and gonna do a better job? Completely agree with that.

Yeah. One thing that we, are super, focused on here at Power Up Your Life is we really wanna leave actionable ideas with people. So in terms of, looking at someone who has created success, there's recipes, there's rituals. Tell us a little bit about what your recipes are to create success.

Well, I, there's so many aspects about this and I love using tools. I I mean, so that start for me, I've always start with a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And the strengths and weaknesses are internal to you. The opportunities or threats are external to you. Many most people understand that, but those that are not familiar with the SWOT.

And I always start with whatever they're looking at. And I start with what are the threats in your industry or the markets you serve? What are the opportunities? And I start that because it's kind of a reverse C pattern. And so if you see SWOT is how most of these SWOT analysis are laid out. They're laid out in a in a four point grid. You start at the threats. You recognize what you're dealing with, what the opportunities are in the industry, and then you relate it to your strengths. Are do you have strengths that match up with the opportunities that can defeat the threats? And so we really start with there.

And then the other thing is as I go through and I said, it's so important to know what you're strong at, but it's even more important to understand what you're weak at. Because unless you build systems around what you're weak at, you're going to probably fail. For example, I suck at accounting. I suck at golf, but I still try to play it. But and I I suck at accounting, but I still try to you have to do it. But I have a what I hired is a a class accounting team, an a class accounting firm that does all my bookkeeping. They do it to a standard that is even better than money. I have a high standard, but I just don't wanna execute and do that standard. Does that make sense? Yeah. A lot of sense. Yeah.

So so there and then it comes down to recognizing your gifts. So that's the one thing. Then there's another tool that I recent recently found that is just so effective, and it's called Patrick Lencioni's The Six Working Geniuses. And it goes into things like, what is your genius? There's two working geniuses, and I'll go through this real briefly, and there's two working frustrations. And there's a middle category with two working competencies.

The working genius is what gives you life. When you're working and you're working genius, you come home, you wanna give everyone a hug. You had the best day. It adds life to you. You'll come home happy. And if you're working, you're working frustration, you come home as a grump, you don't wanna talk to anybody, you kick the cat, the dogs, and you talk rudely to your close closest people. If you're in a working competency, it means you're doing what you can do. You don't it doesn't give you life, but at least doesn't suck the life out of you.

So they work in so what is important to understand is, for example, it's a widget, w I d g e t. So it's w is wonder. I is invention. So those are the wonder gifts. Those are the gifts that are for people who love creating things. Then there's the discernment, the D and the, and the, G of the word widget. This is again, Patrick Lencioni language. The D is discernment. How many good ideas get created, Kelly and Vandy, that don't, that should never come to market? You see them and they fail.

So there's a lot of great ideas, but unless you run it through a genius, someone who has the gift of discerning well an idea, and then and I think there what I have found in my life, I, I do have some discernment, but it's my working, that's my working competency. It's not my working genius. But there's people that just love to hear ideas and they go, not now. It's yes or no, or maybe it's not now. So it's those there's three three doors you can go through. And so if it's just that is a horrible idea of your company if you're an idea person, make sure you're getting people to be able to articulate your dream, your vision, what you're inventing, and then work through it.

So, I mean, I use these tools. The other so I'm my my genius is invention and galvanization. Galvanization creates inertia. It gets people excited. You get the personality here. I kinda get excited about what I'm talking about. Yeah. So I can create a mer inertia or get a, like, a flywheel spinning when it is not when there's no movement. So I'll get movement towards something and get it moving again really well. If it's if it stopped, I get it moving. If it's never worked, I get it moving. So again, assuming it's supposed to.

And then we'd go into the last two as enablement and tenacity. These are such these are the get or done gifts. These are the gifts and the geniuses that have a tendency to just make good ideas that have been discerned and there's movement forward, get done. And where is everyone listening to this? What do you think your gifts are? The Patrick Lencioni, the six working geniuses got test that's it's an assessment. It's not really a a deep assessment, but it's one that could give you insights yourself. It's $20 Are you worth investing $20 in?

To find out what your genius is, what you don't wanna do, for example. Enablement and tenacity. I love getting ideas. I just don't like carrying them through. So hire a group of people that love to carry you through. I'm consulting to a company. I'll leave them out of the name out, but they're dear, dear friends now. And they, the owners came to me and they said, Dave, we are so frustrated. I said, what you're frustrated about today? He says, we have hired a management team that are all getter doneer people. They get things done, but they don't come up with any ideas. They don't we're always the one coming up with the ideas to do something different.

And I said and I brought introduced the six working geniuses. I said, how about this? Let's test everyone and see what I mean, run this assessment on your management team and see where everyone sits. It's not surprising. The owners have the gift of invention, wonderment. They create ideas and their whole management team is all get 'er done people. And that's where their genius is. They're working their management people and their working frustration is You're trying to make me do something I don't know and enjoy doing, I'm terrible at?

So, it's really a very helpful tool, whether you're a manager or yourself working in an organization, to recognize this and bring that as a gift to wherever you're working is to recognize your genius and others' geniuses and others' working frustrations.

Yeah. David, you bring up a really good point. I wanna go a little bit deeper on that. Mandy and I have spoken a lot about the power of partnership. Right? And I think it is that balance between having people that are at that visionary level and then having people that aren't.

What would you say some of the ahas in failures? Because you've obviously consulted with a massive number of companies that have succeeded and failed. Right? I mean, that's just impossible to avoid. What would you say those clues are for the people listening into the failures?

Yeah. That's really a good question. And what's the saying? If you want to go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go with someone else or bring a group with you. And I think there's such a power in having partnerships, partners, whether it be a business partner, vendors that are treated as partners. I think there's such a power in that that we cannot ignore.

I'm amazed at why some companies succeed because they're not always the most talented. It's not that the prize isn't doesn't always go to the brightest, most talented person, but it goes to the person who forms the right partnerships and is patient. And it's usually a complimentary skills. If you're already good at accounting and you're you find that someone that does, that's a good reason for a partner. Or you find, like I did, that kind of partner with a really good accounting firm.

So, I think the biggest pieces for success are those that somehow just haven't figured out. I'm thinking those that last company I just talked to you about where they were struggling with why they're frustrated with their management team. And, and it there are three partners together that are uniquely different individuals, very, very different individuals. But they've been together for over twenty five years. In fact, they've played sports together in junior high. And after one of them got in the mortgage business and the others followed and they became a partner and formed a partner company. I think it was twenty three years ago.

So anyway, the point of it is, is just because you're different from someone doesn't mean they're not going to be a good partner. In fact, fact, that may make for a good partner. Now here's the bind the ground floor that has to be that you all have to have the same values.

I have seen some of the most brightest, most successful I mean, potentially successful people that you would listen to them, you listen to their business plan, you meet them, you go, this is a sure thing. And they fail. And they fail at core value, which comes back to your why. Why are you doing what you're doing? Do you agree on this why? Someone says, I want to make money. Well, I just want to do this. I want they have different whys.

Most of them available. But when your why is about helping someone else achieve what they want, Zig Ziglar says, help. I'd be successful. Help someone else get what they want. I think it's so important that we just follow some of these basic principles. Yeah. But core values. What are your core values? Beautiful. I I could go on and on about that, but that's why most companies fail is that No. Core values. I absolutely love it. Well, you have literally dropped so many,

you know, amazing, you know, I would say wisdom bombs on us today, and you've been an amazing guest. I mean, some of the things that really just stand out for me is is really connecting on that deeper level to your why like you just said. And and so many people are probably not in the right role doing what they love today. And so giving them encouragement that, you know, get yourself assessed. Really see see where you are. Develop that self awareness so that you can at least create a plan to get to that next level.

You and I had such a similar journey in our careers, both starting out in this doing the same role for the same reason and over time being able to to elevate and and do other things with our career. So Mandy, what would what what are the big highlights for you today?

You know, at the very beginning you talked about, doing the thing that builds you up, Right? That sometimes you can climb a ladder for your entire career, get to the top, and realize you've been on the wrong wall the whole time. Yes. That resonates a whole lot for me.

And then the what are you afraid of? The the you only get one big beautiful life. That that is something that I think resonates so much with me and will our listeners as well, because you're probably stopping yourself from your own greatness.

So thank you for those hashtag wisdom bombs. I think we created something here. I I I wanna interject one thing real quickly. I think there's another thing is don't be afraid to change. There are seasons in our lives. There's gonna be times where relationships end, relationships begin, and you can see that as a moment of sadness in there.

Yes. If it's a long term relationship, unfortunately, I just found out I'm gonna be going through a divorce after forty years. That's how the relationship changed, but I'm finding a new joy. I'm not grieving if that is changing. It's just sadness about it.

But I think we go into things. So don't let change take you out. Start looking for the opportunity that's being presented to you in the new life that you're being given.

I love that. Well, David, one of the most important things to us is always supporting other people as well. So we would love to hear from you. What is one life changing introduction or resource that would even elevate your career further

than what it is or your life, whatever that might be? How can how can we make a difference in your life? Well, first of all, I always love being in relationship with people, like minded people. So anyone who can you can connect me with or I that we can connect with that's like minded is I love making a difference in people.

You guys have been just such good friends, and one of one of the things is just I want to have a closer friendship, because I love what you're about. You guys are about lifting people up, powering people up. And I think when you could look back at the end of your life and you look back and see how many people you've lifted up, that is I mean, people are like elevators. You either pay taking them up or you're taking them down. And I think those things are when we are always lifting people up.

So let's just, stay in great friendship and opportunity. Obviously, looking for always looking for great coaching opportunities. So anything Yes. That I would welcome there.

Amazing. What an incredible human. David, thank you for joining us today and for enlightening our listeners on all of these things. This is the Power Up Your Life podcast. If this was impactful to you, make sure you're liking and subscribing and sharing with your friends on your favorite platform. See you next week. Yes. Thank you again, David.

Bye. Thank you. Thank you for having me both. We appreciate it very much.