🧠 7 Self-Coaching Questions for Lenders: How Perfect Practice Builds Wealth, Not Just Work

In sports, the difference between gold and silver isn’t just genetics or grit — it’s modeling. Olympic athletes don’t just train harder. They train smarter. They model excellence. They refine micro-movements under the guidance of elite coaches. They know practice just makes permanent; they have to learn to practice as perfectly as possible.

As a liability advisor, you’re not just in the mortgage business — you're in the modeling business. You're modeling a better way to think about debt, cash flow, and real wealth creation.

The same discipline that makes Olympic training effective applies to how you build your practice: not through volume, but through precision. That starts with asking the right questions — of yourself.

Here are 7 self-coaching questions used by Daniel Stillman that I think every mortgage professional should revisit — not once, but ongoing— if you’re serious about becoming a world-class advisor of any kind.

1. 🕰 How am I spending my time?

Time is your most valuable non-renewable asset. Yet most lenders spend it reacting: quoting rates, chasing realtors, fixing fires.

A liability advisor invests time in building systems that generate referrals, deepen competency, and increase cash flow — both for themselves and their clients.

Are you allocating enough time for:

• Learning financial literacy?

• Nurturing non-realtor referral sources?

• Teaching clients how borrowing creates wealth?

2. ⚡ What gives me energy?

Energy isn’t just emotional — it’s strategic. What gives you energy often gives your business momentum. Energy is a clue. Follow it. Perfect practice requires sustainability.

If financial literacy fires you up... double down.
If helping clients reframe “good debt” lights your fuse... scale it.
If you lose energy chasing unqualified buyers… stop.

3. 👩‍🏫 Who are my heroes and teachers?

Olympic athletes study the greats. They don’t guess how to win — they model it.

In lending, your heroes might be:

• Advisors who build practices around cash flow advice, not just closings.

• Authors like Ric Edelman who teach how liability is leverage.

• Partners who view lending as a tool to unlock investment capital.

Are you surrounding yourself with mentors who challenge you to borrow smarter and repay smarter — or just those who close fast? Your coach is an important ROLE model.

4. 🔮 What will happen if…?

This question turns fear into foresight.

• What will happen if rates stay high for 3 years?

• What will happen if I lose my top realtor partner?

• What will happen if I train like a liability advisor, not a loan officer?

Scenario planning turns you from a reactor into a strategist. A key part of modeling perfect practice is preparing for imperfect conditions.

5. 🎯 What will having that make possible?

Let’s say you become a Certified Liability Advisor. You understand financial planning principles. You attract financial advisors as referral partners. You educate instead of sell.

What does that make possible?

• More referrals from trusted sources.

• Clients who value you beyond the transaction.

• Real differentiation in a commoditized market.

Perfect practice means connecting the dots between your actions and your future. This question keeps you future-focused on what is possible to pull yourself into your brighter future.

6. ❤️ What do I really, really want?

Do you want more volume… or more value?

Do you want prestige from rankings… or power from relationships?

Do you want to work in a system or own a system?

When you get honest about what you truly want, you’ll stop copying others and start modeling what actually builds your ideal life. As a liability advisor, your role is to educate clients that money is merely a tool.

7. 🪞How have I been complicit in creating what I say I don’t want?

This one stings — but it’s the most powerful.

If you say you want financial advisors as referral partners but haven’t learned their language… you’re complicit.

If you say you want to stop chasing rate shoppers but still lead with rate… you’re complicit.

If you say you want freedom but keep working harder instead of smarter… you’re complicit.

Are you reviewing your daily game file. Do you own how your practice?

Final Thoughts

You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems — and your coaching system.

The transition from loan officer to liability advisor doesn’t happen by grinding. It happens by refining. By perfecting the practice, not just repeating the motions.

Print these 7 questions. Post them by your desk. Revisit them.

You’re not training to compete with other lenders.
You’re training to be the gold standard in your client’s financial life, and in your own.

a BORROW SMART CONCEPT
Why Call On Financial Advisors?

What if your biggest asset... was also your biggest liability?
For the majority of American households, that's exactly the case.

According to the data shown in recent financial studies and Fed surveys, consumers in the 0% to 99% wealth percentile have the majority of their net worth concentrated in their home. Specifically:

• Housing wealth makes up over 60% of total assets for this group.

• In contrast, stock ownership is minimal—ranging from barely 5% to 10%—weighted for these same households.

This means that most Americans are house-rich but cash-flow poor, with very limited exposure to other wealth-building assets like equities or business ownership.

Why Does This Matter?

Because wealth concentration in a single asset class—especially one with high carrying costs and limited liquidity—creates risk.

While a home is a powerful tool for building long-term equity, it does not pay dividends, and without smart debt management, it can become a financial dead-end rather than a launchpad for wealth.

Assets and Liabilities Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

As highlighted in the Borrow Smart, Repay Smart approach, your house is both your largest asset and your largest liability. If you only manage one side of the equation, you're missing half the strategy.

Here's how this plays out:

• Asset side: Your home appreciates over time, especially during inflationary periods.

• Liability side: Your mortgage balance depreciates in real terms over time, thanks to inflation.

This creates a unique wealth-accelerating effect—but only if you understand how to manage your debt intelligently.

Final Thought: Shift Your Focus

Instead of obsessing over owning your home outright, shift your mindset toward optimizing the cost of homeownership and unlocking your equity to build diversified wealth.

The house is your tool.
Financial literacy is your leverage.
Liability management is your advantage.

LIABILITIES
What’s Happening?

REAL ESTATE
What’s Happening?

ASSETS
What’s Happening?

ON BEING HUMAN
What’s Worth Sharing?

DOPAMEMES
And Other Happy Moments…

AI
and The Future of Work…

My standing test of AI, since the first image was - an older couple sitting on the porch at their house, wow has it evolved, here it is under Sora 2, same prompt for last 2 years… results wildly different…

Borrow Smart University || National Institute of Financial Education