209 - From Mortgages to Microphones: The Unconventional Rise of a Podcasting Mortgage Officer with The Loan Officer Podcast's Dustin Owen

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Doug Noll, welcome to Listening with Leaders. And you've got so many titles, you confuse me. I can— I'll just say this and keep it short. One, You are a senior officer in a very large national mortgage company.

Correct.

And you are also the host of The Loan Officer Podcast, which had a million downloads last year.

So yes. Yeah. So that I am. I, I help run a mortgage company, a top 50 independent mortgage banker here in the— I say here in the US, but nationwide. And that's, that's my day job that pays the bills. That's what I've been doing the past 15 years. Industry that I've been in the past 2 decades. My passion. Yeah, my passion is a passion project I started about 4 years ago. About 2 years ago, we figured out that we're kind of onto something. And about 9 months ago, we decided to get really intentional with, and that podcast is called The Loan Officer Podcast. Don't let the name fool you. Just imagine this, if you will. Dave Ramsey. Joe Rogan have a baby.

That's kind of cute.

That's the show. It's— I don't know.

I don't know about that metaphor.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's launched us into a newsletter that we write specifically for the mortgage sales professionals. There's a YouTube channel that is for everybody. It's literally the, the stuff we'll say, not the, the stuff they don't teach us in school. And we've launched a loan originator, loan officer, mortgage broker, all synonymous. We've launched a— we call it an MLO, mortgage loan originator sales coaching, training, and development community. And that was all launched due to the popularity of the podcast.

Wow. Good for you. Well, I think— let's back up. How did this all start?

Oh, do we want to go back to like 4th grade, Mrs. Moore's class, when I wrote an award-winning poem about how I wanted to be a sports announcer?

Yeah.

Or was it potentially being 18 to 21 years of age, the advent of shock talk radio and falling in love with, I would love to be an on-air personality after talk radio, or, you know, growing up in a phenomenal household, but very working class, lower middle class, where certain conversations weren't had at the dinner table. Because certain conversations couldn't be had because the knowledge wasn't present. And I was always money motivated. So it was easy for me to find a career in sales and in personal finance. And it's a culmination of probably all of that boiled into one, the podcast. I turned 40, I hit a savings goal, and I said, I'm going to do something fun. I'm going to do something for me. And my reward to myself was spending 2 to 3 hours a week doing a podcast.

Well, good for you.

Yeah. Long-winded answer.

What got you into the mortgage brokerage office business in the first place?

Yeah, I hated selling TV advertising. I mean, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, my degree from the University of Central Florida is in advertising and public relations.

Oh, yeah.

When I was 18, my girlfriend, now wife's uncle, gave me a book written by Peter Lynch called Beating the Street. Still one of my favorite books for Beginning investors. I started investing in the stock market when I was 18, graduated college, got my first job in television advertising sales, loved it, parlayed that into a promotion. That promotion was a different type of sales. I hated it. And while I was hating my job, my childhood best friend was finally graduating from college with his degree in finance.

Hmm.

And he's a bit of a wallflower. I'm the opposite of that. So he and I are chatting and I'm really helping him prep for interviews because I had about 2 years experience on him and I was helping him look for job opportunities. And I kept on coming across life insurance sales, mortgage broker, account executive, financial advisor. And one thing led to another. I knew a guy who knew a guy who had a company who would be willing to train me.. And I, like they say, fell into being a mortgage loan originator. And it's honestly that career that taught me everything that I know, whether it's about credit, personal finance, the Rule of 72, real estate investing, how to sell, how to market, how to be process-oriented, the importance of, of being systematized. I learned accounting. I learned, I mean, I learned the US economy. I learned policy and advocacy all because I decided I hated selling TV advertising in West Palm Beach and I wanted something different. And whatever different was, it looked better than what I was doing at the time. And the, as they say, the rest is history.

Wow. So how did your career progress?

There is a— I'm sure, Doug, Drake does not show up on your playlist, but there is a hip-hop artist by the name of Drake. And about 10 years ago, he had a number 1 hit and it was called I Started From the Bottom, Now I'm Here.

There you go.

And it's like many people, I started at the bottom. I was a rookie sales rep who was making no money, who was— I mean, I shut off my cable before there was the— like before that was cool. Now all the cool kids do it because there's Netflix and Hulu and Apple TV. No, I shut off my cable. I deferred my student loans. I went 10 grand in credit card debt. I tried to sell my truck, but I couldn't because I was upside down. I was doing manual labor on the weekends because I had bought into this idea that I was going to not quite be an entrepreneur because I was working for a pretty large company, but I was going to be 100% commission sales rep. I was going to build out my own book of business. But I started from the bottom and then one thing led to another. I found success after years of struggle. I then wanted to teach that success to others. So a company was like, well, let's make you a branch manager. So that was all well and good until 2008 happened. Then I found myself in a just total tailspin, grabbed two partners, which we'll maybe talk about this. Partnerships, one of my favorite words starting with the letter P. The other one is privacy. And with my two partners, we decided to build something out for us based on all of the core principles that were taught to us by our elders or by our mentors. And when we did that, we attracted other people to it. So then all of a sudden people are like, well, you have these systems and these processes. If I came and worked for you, could I tie into them? I was like, let me think about that. Yeah, that's pretty scalable. Let me let you tie into my systems and process. I know you were in a prior life, you were an attorney, right? In our minds, we were going to run a law firm. We were going to be the, the head attorneys. We had our paralegals and we had our legal assistants. We had our advertising and marketing plan and other attorneys could join our firm and we would support them. And in return, they would become more successful. And in return, some of their revenue or their fee income would go to the firm. We took that mentality during a time of, of rebuilding and just capitalized. We, we opened up second and third locations, fourth and fifth locations, started grooming younger people that didn't have experience, brought them into the, into the industry, started attracting other seasoned professionals. Like in your old world, it'd be like finding a really good attorney, but getting them to change their law firm and come to our law firm. And one thing led to another, and every quarter, every year, every season was a new learning opportunity, which usually stemmed from a learning mistake that we said, ouch, that hurts. We won't do that again. But what did we learn? And it's like anything you do something long enough, consistent enough, unless you're, you're learning disabled, you're bound to only get better.

What is it that gets you up in the morning these days?

I have fun. Like I have fun. My, my energy comes from other people. So working in—

you're an extrovert.

Mm-hmm.

What's that?

I said you're an extrovert.

Yeah. So, so working in within other industries that allow me to work with people that, that a lot of times is, is, is a self-fulfilling, you know, I guess energy makes me happy. I love to build. Like, I don't— I have no desire to remodel my bathroom. I have no desire to even change my own oil. Probably once every 4 years I'll hang a ceiling fan so I can regain my man card. And I do my own lawn because that's therapeutic for me. But, you know, I like figuring out people and I like figuring out businesses. I am money motivated and I have been probably my whole life and I've learned this is a leadership podcast. As a leader, I've probably failed the most trying to project my drive on other people. So I have learned finally, 20 years into my, my business career, I'm the weirdo. I'm, I'm, I'm the one who's a little bit off because I'm the one who wakes up every day super excited to figure out ways to go make money. Not because I need money, not because I want to spend money, because As like, as an athlete, that's my prize. That's so, it's having fun, it's connecting with people, and it's figuring out how things work. I just wanna figure out how money works, how business works, how people work, and it's the challenge.

Wow. And, and, you know, as I listen to you, it sounds like you've gone through, through a lot of growth over 2 decades, enormous amount of growth. And you're a very different person now than you were when you were in your 20s.

Correct. Yeah. I mean, 1,000%. It's interesting because yeah, I've gone through a lot of personal growth, right? Like sitting down with counselors and talking about life situations, personal growth, or getting with a business coach and going through business growth. But I think that's what makes life fun, right? Is the challenge of getting, as James Clear teaches in his book Atomic Habits, 1% better.

Right, right. Yeah. No, I think growth is really important too. And I mean, that's something that I look forward to every day is what am I going to learn today?

Yeah, I just, you know, I just recently read Hank Paulson wrote a book right after 2008. Right. So Hank Paulson was the Treasury Secretary, Bush administration. So he was ground zero during the financial crisis. And gosh, I probably was sitting around my office somewhere. I wish I could remember the name of it. On the Brink. I think it's like On the Brink, but you talked like I was in my twenties when that happened. And it's interesting, you talk about growth. I was so naive and probably still a little bit broke that, because you're supposed to be broke in your twenties. Cause I was newly married. I was starting my family. I, you know, pretty, pretty normal, pretty ordinary. I had no idea the actual devastation. Until 10, 15, 20 years later when I started reading books and studying the industry.

Oh, it was, it was, it was big.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it was big.

It was huge.

We were this close to a total financial collapse.

Correct. And, and the, the, the hours that men like him and, and, and the women involved that they got together behind closed doors and they checked egos and then they had to go and lobby the people who had the biggest egos, the politicians and the policymakers. And yes, it's a phenomenal book, by the way. It's written in a firsthand account. So he'll go day by day, you know, Monday, April 11th, 2008. You know, my day starts with Bernanke walking in and discussing this, or Steve Mnuchin walking in and discussing this. And we had to go to Pelosi's office and we had to push this and Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a cool read. But you asked me about my 20s and the growth. It's, yeah, it's, it's like anything. I have a 19-year-old son. I look at pictures of, of him when he was 10 and I'm like, those are two separate people, right? I get amazed by that growth, but I'm thinking me at 45 versus me at 35.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's in a way same person, but, but just much different.

Well, in that light, what do you think it is? Unique about you that's making you so successful today?

What I've learned, I think I have, this is a, a gifted, like my, my, my mom and dad have even said like, I didn't do this for you. Like, like they did a lot for me. You know, one of those, and, and I talk about this, I talk about being privileged and not privileged, kind of white and male privileged because I had two parents who still love each other. Privileged cuz I lived in one house my whole life. Privileged cuz I went to three schools. My whole life, one elementary, one middle, one high school. If I include university, I've gone to four. And that stability and that love, I think, makes me extremely privileged, probably more so than— yes, I was born a white male. There's privilege there. So I have a drive that was gifted to me genetically. So I think that's a little bit different.

I'm—

I wasn't this way growing up, but I have learned that I'm an endurance athlete. You know, like my Wednesday workouts is, is, is a 6.2-mile run. My Sunday workouts could be a 60-mile bike ride. And physically, I never knew I had that in me. Mentally, emotionally, yes. But it wasn't until about 3 years ago I took up training for and competing in triathlons and eventually doing Ironman 70.3 competitions, and if my wife and daughter will allow me, I'm gonna do a full Ironman. That's just a massive time commitment. But, um, I think a little bit being an endurance athlete, being, being willing not to give up, being willing not to quit, believing in yourself, believing in the process, I think has possibly separated me from many others who are potentially way smarter and had better formal educations than I did.

Yeah. Uh, and being able to tolerate pain too.

Yes. Well, emotional pain. Yes. Physical pain. Yes. Yeah. All the, all the attributes that come with, with being an endurance athlete. I think it, I, I probably perfected that skill first in the business world and then used physical ability to, to have it correlate.

Mm-hmm. So you're, you're, you're for, you're in your mid-forties. You're extremely successful. One of the— I take it you're one of the leaders in your, in your company. Where, where do you go now?

What do you do next?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great story. I had an opportunity. I like telling the story because it was an opportunity. I had an opportunity to consider an interview for the CEO role. Right. So top 50 mortgage lender, national lender. For many people, that would be a capstone on their career. And when it was, when it was suggested that I interview for it, that I consider it, or when it was told to me, I'm being considered, my, my snap call, if you're a poker player, my snap call reaction was like, I'm not ready. And I wasn't ready for, for many fronts. I wasn't ready, but I just, I just wasn't ready for that. And then you fast forward 5 years later and now I'm ready, but I don't want it. You know, it's, it's that, that is not what I want because I love the flexibility and the freedom. That my current role gives me. So if you ask me what's next, I have one business that's my— I always call it my firstborn, right? This is the 26-year-old. She has her master's degree. She just got married, bought their first house. Like, yeah, as parents, you're like, I helped to do that. And that is helping run a mortgage company. And I don't foresee myself anytime soon not wanting to help run a mortgage company, but the popularity of my podcast has already made me arguably— let's just throw a number out there arbitrarily, but I think it's pretty accurate— top 20 most influential people in the mortgage industry.

Right?

So if you're in the mortgage industry, there's a good chance you know my name. If you don't know my name, if you went to my YouTube channel or you tuned in to Spotify or Apple, You'd be like, oh yeah, I've heard people talk about that. And I, I do believe we're at the bottom end of the hockey stick of that growth because it was a passion project that after a year we were like, we should keep doing it. And after 2 years we're like, wow, we're really on to something. And then so like year 3 was all about beta testing various ideas and year 4 was about, okay, these beta tests have taught us a few things. Let's go ahead and get intentional and really lean into it. What I, what I could see me doing is continuing to level up within the mortgage industry, meaning the mortgage company, continue to possibly have to delegate more, only do the very high-level tasks that I'm most talented to do that bring the company the greatest amount of value. Meaning if, if I never have to draft another meeting agenda, I'd be a happy guy. If I never have to, you know, look at a loan officer compensation agreement, or if I never have to dispute commissions with accounting, you know, those are all tasks that if you took them off my plate tomorrow, I would not hate you for it. So I can see myself continuing to, to elevate to an executive role while also embracing this fortune of being able to be a spokesperson for the industry, understanding that whatever mortgage company I choose to be an affiliate of, right? Like currently it's Waterstone Mortgage. I've been there for 15 years. I can't imagine why I won't be there 5 and 10 years down the road. But, you know, I've lived through COVID, I've lived through 2008. I've learned, you know, nothing's guaranteed in life. So what I do on the national level, the speaking engagements, the traveling, the coaching, all of that will positively benefit whatever mortgage company that I'm a part of. I want to continue doing more of that. And at the same time, I launched a real estate investment company a few years back that's out of its infancy, but it's definitely not out of its toddler phase. So, you know, we— they're still a couple big leaps of growth that that company still needs me for. So I still want to be there for it. And I recently invested in a property and casualty insurance agency, and that's something that's pretty new. And that's something that I want to continue to massage and add value to so that there's, you know, a financial benefit to it long-term.

Yeah. You, you, you know, it's so interesting. We, we're dealing with housing shortages, housing being too expensive for a lot of young people to get into. Now we see the insurance crisis going on both where you are and where I live in California. The insurers are leaving our states like crazy.

Yeah, it's, there, there's a lot going on. I mean, I know this isn't a podcast where we talk about real estate, real estate investing, or, or personal finance, which is my wheelhouse. But if you study science and if you have friends who went to those really smart schools like MIT and Harvard and Princeton, and they have those jobs as actuaries, right? The people who predict the day you and I are going to die. I always joke with my actuary friends. I go, so you know the day I'm going to die, don't you? Because that's what they're doing for life insurance companies, right? Day in, day out. But anyhow, 40%. Of all homes in the US are lying in an area of potential environmental disaster— floods, mudslides, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires. And, you know, our financial system when it comes to mortgage and housing or home loans, it's probably the most government intervention anything the US government has ever done. Like, it puts Obamacare to shame in terms of, of, of how much the US government or how much US homeowners rely on the US government to prop up the housing market. Well, when, when we say US government, we say US taxpayer, right? We're talking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Department of Veterans Affairs. We're talking about HUD, right? Housing Urban Development, Department of Housing and Urban Development. What happens when there are a million homes that get destroyed, floods, hurricanes, mudslides, wildfires, tornadoes, that are uninsured or underinsured, or the insurance companies who are insuring them, too many claims at one time and they get bankrupt. Now the, the owners of those mortgages and the backers, the backers is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That's the US government essentially. Now, all of a sudden, we have a, we have a pretty big crisis on our hands. So I don't know how I got on that tangent, Doug, but that is something that people should be on the lookout for. Not, not your common everyday homeowner, because at the end of the day, they want their, their piece of the American dream. They want their ability to, to create generational wealth. And they should. That's what they should want. And they shouldn't worry about everything else. But you mentioned insurance. We do have a minor, minor crisis. On our hands if we can't insure these homes that are going to be damaged at some point just based on environmental factors.

Right. I live, I live in the central Sierra Nevada of California, right in the center of the state. And my, and my insurer pulled out or stopped. So I was forced to go with our state insurer of last resort. Insurance premiums went quintupled from about $1,000 a year to $5,000 a year. Just for fire insurance, doesn't include liability or the other coverages. And what's really silly is that where I live, there is a grass fire risk, but there is no wildfire risk. A grass fire is very different than a wildfire. Okay. And we have about the same amount of risk of damage from a wild— from fires, from wildfires, a normal home would have from, say, a kitchen fire. I mean, and what's remarkable is that how uninformed insurance companies outside the state of California are about what's really going on. Instead of having feet on the ground and looking and saying, okay, what's the real risk here? It's all a numbers game. And but it, but they're really not looking at what's going on. I've seen this happen before in California where insurers have pulled out and come back in and pulled out and come back in. Eventually what's going to happen is that they're going to realize that up in the forest. The forest, a third of the national forest is burned out now. No chance of a fire up there again for 100 years.

Yeah, right.

You know, now they're going to come back and start insuring once they figure out that the risk has been mitigated by Mother Nature. It's just a crazy world. Yeah. So I, so I'm curious right now in, in the mortgage company you're working with, are you in an executive position now or leadership position?

I'm in a leadership position. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, my two managing partners and I, we co-lead the Eastern Division. So basically Appleton, Wisconsin down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, over to Fort Myers, Florida, and anything that would be east of that. If it's, if it is a Waterstone branch, then we have some form or shape of responsibility to lead those managers or those operators of those branches.

How many, how many, how many people is that?

Oh, gosh, we're pushing in that area 200 total because there's, there's a certain aspect that works for the home office, which is out of Wisconsin. And so if you're in IT, if you're in marketing, if you're in compliance, there's certain departments that that wouldn't roll up to us because we are strictly sales. So sales would be the originators, the branch managers, the area managers, the mortgage processors, any sales assistant or any type of marketing assistant or business development associate. We would have 200 that fall, fall underneath there. We have 100 in our home state of Florida.

Wow.

And then we have, we have another 100 plus Throughout those other markets.

Wow.

That's a lot of people to look after.

Yeah.

You know, it's like anything we have, we have good leaders.

Mm-hmm.

So our job is to lead the leaders. Ah, if, if we can lead the leaders, our job was to create the systems and processes and allow others to tie into them. So as long as our systems and processes are still tried, true, and congruent, then we can allow people to tie into them, at which point we just have to lead the leaders. And it's, don't tell our CEO this, but You know, on a good day, it's a good day. And occasionally you have to jump in and triage something. But most days are good days.

How important is listing in your business?

I think it's crazily, crazily important. I mean, I coach sales professionals and in my world that's typically mortgage loan originators. That their job is to go out and build relationships with other business professionals, typically realtors, typically builders, financial advisors, divorce attorneys, HR managers, people like that. Basically, whoever comes in contact with people who are looking to buy a house because nobody ever wakes up saying, oh my God, I want to go in debt for 30 years. Let's call the mortgage lender. No, they want to buy a house. So they tend to talk to people who are going to put them in situations, help them buy a house. Then those people are like, hey, by the way, unless you're paying cash, you do need to get a home loan. And before you start looking at properties, you should probably get pre-approved. So our clients typically are referral sources. Well, when you're trying to build a relationship with a referral source, this isn't like I'm picking up the phone and trying to get you to buy, you know, an ad in my newsletter. I'm not trying to pick up the phone and get you to buy term life insurance. No, I'm getting you to have to like me. Trust me, get to know me. Therefore, that first meeting needs to be all about you, me doing the question asking, you doing the talking, right? Because he or she doing the talking is doing the learning. He or she doing the talking feels like the conversation is going amazing. So we are there to listen. We are there to take notes and then find our holes. Like, if I'm thinking like a football player and I'm a running back, I'm looking for some daylight here. I'm looking for that daylight so I can slide in and offer a solution to whatever pain they just exposed. But yes, listening is vastly important.

Telling is not selling. I, when I go in and teach, I teach, I teach a very deep form of listening and I go in, sometimes I'll go into sales organizations and teach them, teach them how to listen to emotions rather than to words. And they say the first 5 minutes of any meeting, don't ask questions, don't say anything, just listen and reflect what the other person is feeling. Yeah.

Is that almost like mirroring and, and responding with, with some form of a mirror?

It's deeper than that.

Okay.

You can paraphrase, but more important, you wanna reflect the emotional behind. It's a, it's a process known as affect labeling. And it's been, there's some really interesting neuroscience brain scanning studies of what happens in the brain. Of a person who's being affect labeled. I developed it as a way of calming angry people in my peacemaking work and my mediations. Then I ended up teaching it to people serving life sentences in maximum security prisons, how to stop prison violence using these skills and the Prison Peace Project, which is now all over the world. And then I went to the Congressional Budget Office and taught senior analysts how to de-escalate members of Congress. Wow. Which is really powerful.

Yeah.

Now I teach it generally to people and in sales organizations, I'm teaching them before you do anything else, listen to and reflect the emotions.

Interesting.

And when you do, and when you do that, you build instant rapport, credibility, and trust. Instant, like within 30 seconds.

Yeah. That would be, so look at you go with your podcast, Doug. Check this out.

Yes.

When, when my team gets together with the team from the West Division and we fly to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we meet with our, with, with, with our leaders, who's the executive team, the CEO, the COO. And I have a weird dynamic, like I'm, I, I sit in a seat where I got to hire our CEO. You know, it's, it's very much. Similar to probably what people know as a co-op, right? And we're like, yes, we want you to be our leader. But nonetheless, when, when, when we do that, Doug Noll may very well be someone that they should look at flying into Milwaukee because I don't necessarily know if, if what you teach and coach is, is, is the best for the street rep or is it best for their, for their branch manager, their area manager and the executive team and then let them disseminate the information? Or is this something that, look, you could be a 24-year-old recent college graduate who's out working your local community and trying to get realtors and builders to know, like, and trust you. These tactics work whether you're CEO or whether you're rookie LO.

They work for every human being, no matter where you are. And not only do they work in business, But what if I told you master these skills and you'll never have another fight or argument again in your life ever?

Well, you may take a little fun outta my life, but you definitely add a lot of peace.

Well, let me, let me modify that. Let me, let me say, unless you want to, unless you want to.

No, no, I don't, I don't, I don't like to argue. I, in fact, I'm, yes, conflict averse.

No, it's really powerful. And, and like I said, I've been teaching these skills for 25 years now. I wrote my 4th book, wrote, I wrote about 'em. And so that's why I, I ask, because, you know, listening is, is, there's a lot more to it than we think. You know, as kids, we're ordered to listen, keep your mouth shut, and you're told, listen up, listen, you know, listen, listen, listen, listen. But we're never taught how to listen.

Let's do this. I know we have to wrap it up.

Yeah.

I have a wife sitting at home who's expecting me to bring home some sangria that we can have with dinner. Before I fly to Kansas City for a speaking engagement.

I got to go. I got a couple of tractors I got to work on. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, that's so fun. Not, not the working on tractors, but the being on a tractor or needing a tractor. I would love to need a tractor. How about that? I don't want to work on it, but I would love to need one. Yeah, let's definitely stay connected, please. Whatever, you know, marketing collateral that, that you have. We like my company just doesn't have any big events coming up this year. I don't know if you know this, but the mortgage industry has been in a massive recession for 2 years. Q1 will be the 8th consecutive quarter of a loss.

Wow.

For the mortgage industry, it's a— it's the great reset going on. So even companies like ours, you know, we have to be mindful where we're spending our money. So what we did is we've pushed meetings that we typically have in Q1 or meetings that we have in Q2 we're going to push them to Q3 and, and still have them. So we don't have anything coming up yet, but we will start planning this summer for our next meeting. And if what you do is, is needed, you're talking to someone who, if I am a thought leader in the mortgage industry and I am, I'm someone that people follow and listen to, whether they want to listen to this or not, I've been telling them we don't do enough to develop sales professionals. We teach them how to do mortgages, right? We don't teach them how to sell, how to market. When I say sales, I don't care if it's like— you may not be a fan of some of these, but it could be a Sandler sales tactic. It could be an Alex Hormozi podcast. It could be reading Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It's— we don't do any of that. So they need to be introduced to the Doug Nolls of the world, to slide in and say, y'all, can I teach you something about, right, conflict resolution? Can I teach you something about how to listen? So that if you listen better, you'll attract more referral sources. If you attract more referral sources, you'll generate more leads, generate more leads, you close more deals, close more deals, you make more money, make more money, you retire better, you retire sooner, and possibly even make enough money to positively impact your community. So yeah. We could.

One more question. I'll let you go.

Yep.

What's one thing about yourself we would never know about unless—

Oh, all my teeth are fake.

Really?

Yeah.

Whoa.

I was born without permanent teeth. I had 13 baby teeth. I had 5 permanent teeth grow in and 2 of them grew in pegged and pointed, so they weren't even like fully developed. Oh my God. So my whole mouth is dental implants.

Holy moly.

I was probably one of the youngest patients in the US to get dental implants. I was 14 years old back in 1994 when, when or whatever that would have been. 90. Yeah, yeah. '94 when I started getting dental implants.

Holy moly.

Yeah. So there you go.

There you go, Dustin. It's been great talking to you, Doug.

I appreciate it. Thanks for the connection. Take care. Absolutely.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.