Derek McGowan shares how his mother's stage 4 cancer diagnosis forced him to quit a mortgage business that had consumed his life and stolen time from family dirt-bike trips to Colorado. He chose the work to support his family but lost sight of why, and now urges others to act now for the people who matter.
And then life hit. So it really hit me every year. My family, my parents, my sister, their friends and families, they go to Colorado every year in the fall to ride dirt bikes in the mountains. That's their thing. That's my parents' happy place. And I used to be able to go, and then I got in the mortgage world. Couldn't really go as much. I'm tied in. I have a non-scalable business at that point in my life, and I can remember not being able to go. And right around the same time as I'm transitioning my business, I get the call that my mom, who, you know, has taught me kind of everything, was diagnosed— re-diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. I knew it was serious this time. So that was kind of where I put my foot in the ground, like, okay, it's not just about me. It's not just day by day, letting life pass me by, and I'll get to it someday, I'll get to it someday. And everybody in this room has loved ones. You guys have people that it's bigger than just you. It's bigger than us. It's about how can we be there for the ones that need us also. We do. I know it's cliché. Everybody says that nobody joined the mortgage industry just because they went to college or for mortgages, or they just stumbled into it because they knew they could make a difference. They knew they could make a good living and they could enjoy that with their family. That's why we're here. And I think I lost suit of that many times in my life. That was kind of my slap in the face moment that, hey, time's ticking for all of us. Let's get serious about it.
