2022 will be a bit of a different year for the mortgage industry. A good year, but one that likely looks a little different than the past two or three. A lot of good may come from that, in fact.

While nobody enjoys cutting expenses from a human perspective—especially when the expenses in question are, in fact, human, it also gives us cause to review how our industry views its people—how far it’s come and perhaps how much change might be in the offing. The loan officer (LO) is a great example.

We recently got an email promoting the MBA’s yearly Technology Solutions Conference & Expo (taking place April 11 – 14 in Las Vegas). This is a great show which we at LodeStar try to attend annually. We do produce an online closing cost calculator, after all. But, in most years, we probably wouldn’t have much to say about the show until during or after.

We live in a society and work in an industry that celebrates hard work, self-sacrifice and dedication to one’s business, brand or craft. All noble ideals, to be sure. Yet sometimes, if we’re honest about it, it also seems like we expect life to be run like a marathon.

Well, it’s that time of year again. And while, like you, we’re all really busy—especially as 2021 draws to a close—we’re grateful that the Thanksgiving holiday forces us to slow down and reflect. As a society, we don’t do that well or really even make it easy to do. But we think it’s something we could all use a bit more of. So let’s start by being grateful that we have an opportunity to be….well, grateful!

Even though it hasn’t been 2020 in terms of seismic change, 2021 has been another roller coaster of a year (and yes, we’re going to start referring to 2021 from the rearview mirror—2022 will only be about six weeks away by the time you read this!). We’ve talked enough about all the different factors, trends and changes which have shaken the “just another day at the office” mentality.

So this is our 100th Deeper Thoughts. Almost two years of content. LodeStar Reports is even older than that. Hopefully, you’ve seen the quality of content grow as our company and subscriber/readership base has.  The more we’ve listened to you, the more things we’ve written about and the more, hopefully, we’ve all learned.

We recently hosted Wes Williams, an attorney and leading expert on cryptocurrency and blockchain, on LLL. The conversation was fascinating—you should check it out if you get the chance.

We’ve gotten a lot of great news here at LodeStar recently. Some of it we’ll share soon. But for starters, we’ve just learned that, for the second straight year, we’re a member of the Philadelphia100®. You may recall that this list is comprised of the 100 fastest growing, privately held businesses in the greater Philadelphia region.