Derek McGowan, Nexa's top loan officer since 2022, credits his success to habits formed as the youngest player on childhood baseball teams. His parents' sacrifice and push to train independently built a work ethic he carries into mortgage lending: constant improvement, daily discipline, and refusing to let down the people who support him.
What's your secret? I feel like I've gotten that question more and more lately, and probably one I'll never really get used to hearing because, uh, and answering because that really isn't a secret. And honestly, it's my take, but I understand where it's coming from. We've been very fortunate, uh, since, uh, we joined Nexa in 2022, uh, with 2023 being the first full year, being the top loan officer out of 3,000+ loan officers in the country for 2023, '24, '25. Uh, so people are just asking, what's your secret to get there and how do you stay there? How do you stay consistent? Investment. And, um, there really isn't a magic bullet, but I think the best way I can try to answer it here is it kind of takes me back to when I was 12 years old. I think one of my big first baseball memories— I was a big baseball guy before mortgages, um, and I was recruited to go on to a traveling baseball team, uh, with kind of the best players in the region, you know, the Midwest. And fortunately, my parents were able to take me to these things because it was a different state like every weekend, it seemed like. And it's really cool to go, but I always thought of two things. One, it would really suck if I didn't get 1, I decided to go to the next tournament the next weekend. And 2, it really sucked. My parents did all this time and effort and work and money to go to these things because I was not there playing, I was riding the bench. So I'm like, those two things can't happen, non-negotiable. Uh, also my birthday's in June, so I'm at the end of the school year, usually about the youngest kid on every team I played on, playing with kids that are 10, 12 months older at ages 12, 13, 14. That's a big difference there in growth and maturity. So What do you do? We all say about a minute to the day. What I can remember at an early age is some of those tournaments you go, they're all summertime baseball. So after the games and all the kids would be on the team would be hanging out at the pool or going, you know, whatever attractions were in town. I can remember taking workout bands and weighted balls and just telling my parents, I don't want to hang out in the hotel room. I want to work out. I want to go get trained. I want to get better because I'm not as big or I didn't feel like as good as them. I want to be good like them. And my parents never pushed me to do those things, but they always encouraged me. Like, absolutely, that's what you want to do, fine. We don't have to go with the rest of the kids at school. We'll hang back with you. So they empowered me to do those things, and that's something that's really stuck with me ever since. So with that, and, uh, I think it was just that I saw like how hard workers my parents were, um, my mom and dad. So with that That's something that always stuck with me because then as I grew and I got to then be the same height and now taller than most all of them, um, I did all this work going into it and I was a mainstay in the lineup, you know, I was one of the best players on the team for that. And I was like, wow, this is how it's done. Like, this is no matter what you do. So I've taken that with me in every step of life is, you know, with mortgages, I just put in the work. No matter what events I go to, no matter like people that work next to Fest, you know. I think it's my responsibility to set it— try to set an example. Not always the best example by any means, but hey, no matter what I'm talking about up there on stage, I get right off, I gotta go handle work. I go right to my laptop, handle business, make sure clients and Realtors and our people are taken care of, because without them, none of that means anything. It's really cool going to these events, going to these industry events, um, being invited to this, that, and the other. But it would really suck if I stopped getting invited because I slacked, because I let people down. So that's what drives me. But it started from that young age there. And again, it would really suck if, you know, those that support me, um, you know, my wife and, um, now my, you know, my child— I have a good role model too. My family has sacrificed a ton. My parents, my siblings, everybody And if I did all that and then it was for nothing and I let them down, that's what drives me. So that's the secret. It's that, you know, constant quest to be the best version of oneself.
