Latest / Speak In Flow / Overcoming Perfectionism: Jay Sondhi’s Journey to Launching Loan Bae

Transcript

Overcoming Perfectionism: Jay Sondhi’s Journey to Launching Loan Bae · Speak In Flow

• 0:02
  Melinda Lee: Welcome, dear listeners to the Speak In Flow
• 0:05
  Podcast. I'm so excited to have a dear friend and amazing
• 0:12
  mortgage loan officer Jay Sondhi with US Bank. Welcome, Jay.
• 0:19
  Jay Sondhi: Hi. Alright.
• 0:19
  Melinda Lee: Hello. Glad you're here. You've been doing mortgage
• 0:24
  for 23 years. That's a long time to be doing one thing.
• 0:29
  Jay Sondhi: How's it been a long time? It doesn't take a long
• 0:33
  time. Time flies when you're having fun. That's awesome. Yes.
• 0:38
  Melinda Lee: And you're the go to expert. People go to you.
• 0:40
  You're having fun, share. And now you're sharing knowledge.
• 0:44
  You've taken all that knowledge, 23 years of your knowledge in
• 0:47
  the loan industry. And you put you're putting it into a YouTube
• 0:51
  channel, and that's why you're here today.
• 0:53
  Jay Sondhi: That's the idea. Yeah, it's
• 0:55
  Melinda Lee: awesome. And
• 0:56
  Jay Sondhi: with your help.
• 0:59
  Melinda Lee: Ah, and it's called loan Bay, right? Loan Bay? Yeah.
• 1:04
  Loan Bay. So creative. And what is it that you want from this
• 1:10
  channel? Like, what is your vision? And what are you sharing
• 1:13
  on this, this channel? Because
• 1:16
  Jay Sondhi: the idea was to have a channel that has all of the
• 1:20
  questions that are asked during the mortgage process. So that,
• 1:27
  you know, a lot of times I get calls from people after hours,
• 1:31
  right? So six o'clock, seven o'clock, nine. And because I
• 1:36
  understand everybody else has the job to write, they're
• 1:39
  working eight to 12 hours a day, and they may not have the time
• 1:45
  to get into the research of their future home purchase until
• 1:51
  after they're done with their work day. Right. So ideally,
• 1:55
  this is to have little snippets of all the frequently asked
• 1:59
  questions during the mortgage process. So that if somebody
• 2:03
  reached out to me and said, Hey, Jay, I want to schedule some
• 2:06
  time. Let's talk about mortgages, I can say, Okay,
• 2:10
  here's my scheduling link, we can schedule some time to chat.
• 2:14
  But if you have time, which I know, you're probably in the
• 2:18
  middle of doing all this research and finding a lot of
• 2:20
  bad information online, once you go to my YouTube channel, you
• 2:24
  can pre approve your own loan in five minutes. And you can have a
• 2:30
  bunch of the questions answered for yourself. Like, what's the
• 2:33
  appraisal? What, how do I search for house? What Why is
• 2:36
  everything going for over asking you all these little questions?
• 2:39
  We'll all be there. So that that's the idea is that all
• 2:43
  these little questions that are in your head, I know what they
• 2:46
  are, because I get them every day. And I will just require
• 2:48
  Right.
• 2:48
  Melinda Lee: Right? Do you think people get because it's a big
• 2:51
  purchase? And so do you think listening to these videos and
• 2:55
  getting knowledge will help them too, because I get buyer's
• 2:57
  remorse after a small thing? Like, how would this be helpful
• 3:02
  for to reduce the level of buyer's remorse? Who do all get
• 3:05
  all this upfront knowledge first beforehand? Or what do you think
• 3:09
  about that? That's, that's the idea
• 3:10
  Jay Sondhi: that the whole concept is what I learned in the
• 3:14
  Army is this concept of knowledge breeds competence.
• 3:18
  That training that you get in the army, they say, it's going
• 3:22
  to breed the competence that you need to be successful on the
• 3:25
  battlefield, right? Like, I never want the army. But I took
• 3:29
  that to heart, it was one of the one of the best things I ever
• 3:33
  learned in college, wasn't even in college, right? Knowledge
• 3:37
  breeds confidence. And I think that if you're a home buyer
• 3:40
  looking to go buy a house, they really need to be confident in
• 3:43
  what you're doing. So that I want my clients to be confident
• 3:47
  in what they're doing. I don't want to be party to, you know,
• 3:51
  I'm putting people into debt every day. And I don't want to
• 3:54
  give somebody the largest amount of debt that they might have in
• 3:57
  their whole life and feel bad about it the next day. Right?
• 4:01
  Melinda Lee: Right. And I
• 4:02
  Jay Sondhi: want them to understand, right? I want them
• 4:04
  to understand what they're doing. Because in this day,
• 4:08
  where it's competitive in the Bay Area, things move so fast
• 4:12
  that a lot of times you can be out looking at an open house one
• 4:16
  weekend, and then 17 days later, you have a house and a mortgage
• 4:21
  if you're not careful. That's why you like this repository of,
• 4:28
  of information in my information, not not just
• 4:31
  internet information should be in one spot so that you can pick
• 4:36
  my brain whenever you want.
• 4:37
  Melinda Lee: Right. I mean, this is a good analogy, because like
• 4:40
  you said in the military, they're going to battle I mean,
• 4:42
  when you get out there, you're probably like feeling like
• 4:44
  you're going to battle with all these other competitors. And it
• 4:46
  can just go so fast. And you're not really Yeah. I just want I
• 4:52
  just want and then you think back you're like, oh my gosh,
• 4:54
  did I really want it? Yeah, so it's like yeah, like you said,
• 4:57
  like doing all that upfront research. is taking your time
• 5:01
  getting, you know, looking at your videos and asking the right
• 5:04
  questions, getting all those details before you go out to the
• 5:07
  battle go out to the battlefield, because you may not
• 5:10
  have the time to think through things, because you're in the
• 5:12
  middle of the emotion of it. All. Right, that's awesome.
• 5:16
  Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I never really thought about
• 5:19
  it that way with home buying, because I sometimes I think, oh,
• 5:23
  we have so much time or why don't we take our time with it,
• 5:26
  but you can't if it's especially if it's a good
• 5:28
  Jay Sondhi: house. Oh, everybody says that. I really look. Yeah.
• 5:32
  Later. Yeah, open houses. I felt like I want to buy right now.
• 5:37
  It's like, that's just right. And that's the reason why you
• 5:42
  need to get a pre approval as soon as you start thinking about
• 5:45
  looking right is that you can't go hunting without a weapon and
• 5:50
  the pre approval letter, it's your weapon you need to have
• 5:53
  Yeah, you need to be able to take the game with you. Right?
• 5:58
  The minute you can't be like, Oh, hold on, let me go get my
• 6:01
  pre approval right now on Sunday, when other people offer,
• 6:06
  so you really have to get going on things quick. And you need to
• 6:09
  know what you're doing. That's, that's the thing that always
• 6:11
  makes me nervous about it is I want to make sure everybody
• 6:14
  understands what they're doing. And there's so many little
• 6:17
  pieces that you need to be understanding right. From
• 6:23
  Melinda Lee: your mind me you have a video, you have a video
• 6:26
  on it. Yeah,
• 6:27
  Jay Sondhi: yeah. Like one little very, like in snippets,
• 6:31
  like minute long, hopefully one to two minutes. Because you want
• 6:37
  to you don't know what your property taxes are going to be.
• 6:40
  It's not you can go online and look it up in the counties. It's
• 6:43
  not accurate. So you have to look at the property tax bill of
• 6:48
  the house that you're going to buy and do the math backwards.
• 6:51
  Because you need to do manual math. There's no, not
• 6:53
  everything's available online, as you think and hope not even
• 6:57
  AI, but you
• 6:58
  Melinda Lee: and one of your videos has a whole sheet on how
• 7:00
  to do that. Right. Yeah, manually for years for
• 7:03
  themselves.
• 7:04
  Jay Sondhi: Correct. Yeah. And a little bit, yeah, the little
• 7:06
  tools that I use, it's just like, let's look under the hood
• 7:11
  of the mortgage company. Let's make it as transparent as
• 7:15
  possible, so that you have all the knowledge that I do. Because
• 7:19
  it's really not rocket science, what we do, but it's not taught
• 7:23
  in schools either. So that's right. This is my class. right
• 7:28
  with you. Yeah.
• 7:30
  Melinda Lee: And it's really easy to listen to watch, I mean,
• 7:33
  and then push your stuff just so you're engaging dot j, like you,
• 7:37
  you have an engaging style, your videos are different. And so I'm
• 7:44
  excited that they're out there, you started to probably you
• 7:46
  started to record them. And so let's go back a bit about when
• 7:51
  you had this idea, and, and it wasn't out You didn't even
• 7:55
  record yet. What was that? Like when you tried to record it? And
• 8:00
  are you had this vision of recording it? How many years
• 8:04
  ago? Was it that you're thinking about doing this?
• 8:10
  Jay Sondhi: It must have been over five years ago? I can't
• 8:13
  remember exactly. But I know. around when I bought my house,
• 8:18
  so yeah, five years ago? Probably six or seven? Maybe
• 8:25
  five or six? Five or six? Yeah.
• 8:29
  Melinda Lee: And then so you, you knew you want to do it. And
• 8:32
  then what happened?
• 8:34
  Jay Sondhi: Well, I first of all, got my channel setup.
• 8:40
  Right? I got Oh, YouTube, there's loan bay there. I could
• 8:43
  get loan Bay. I got it. I got the Instagram channel, loan Bay.
• 8:48
  Right. Great. Then the next step was I gonna make a little avatar
• 8:53
  because I'm not really supposed to do it for US Bank, you know,
• 8:59
  they don't really want us doing this stuff. And that's the
• 9:01
  reason why the strategy and so it's not me working as an
• 9:06
  employee of the bank making these videos, because they're my
• 9:09
  personal thoughts. They're not It's not financial advice. This
• 9:13
  is my own opinions. And that's why right with that idea that
• 9:17
  alone Bay is that it's just a little cartoon character. So I
• 9:21
  had went to Fiverr I had somebody make me a an avatar.
• 9:28
  And I got those channels all set up. And then it was I don't know
• 9:32
  what to do now
• 9:38
  Melinda Lee: and then stalled for a while.
• 9:40
  Jay Sondhi: Could you go back? Yeah, and I didn't even I just
• 9:45
  paralysed right. Yeah, had an idea what I want. Want to do. I
• 9:52
  was uh, I don't want to have my my face online. I had a lot of
• 9:58
  reasons. Yeah. About that. To be most informative, but not about
• 10:03
  me. So I would just forget about it for a while. And then think
• 10:10
  about it, but don't do anything just paralysed with the
• 10:15
  perfection, right. And not knowing like, there's just a
• 10:20
  baby step to take.
• 10:25
  Melinda Lee: Because you wanted to probably because of the
• 10:26
  perfectionism coming into place, you wanted to have all the A
• 10:30
  through Z, planned planned out. Yeah, yeah, but knowing that
• 10:36
  Jay Sondhi: it's gonna be and then yeah, don't understand
• 10:39
  that. It's, it's got to just get started on it, and you're going
• 10:43
  to make mistakes, and it's not going to come out perfect. But I
• 10:48
  think you get I got wrapped up in the perfection of it that it
• 10:51
  just never got started. And so I knowing that maybe, before
• 10:58
  pandemic, so probably like in 2018, or 19, I think it was
• 11:04
  2019, the beginning of I took a class down in LA with a great
• 11:12
  lady who was teaching a class about how to be camera ready,
• 11:15
  how to go on camera and be, you know, have you present and feel
• 11:20
  good about yourself? And it was really deep and fluffy, you
• 11:25
  know, at the end of it, yeah, who go do that? I'll make a film
• 11:29
  and not didn't do it.
• 11:32
  Melinda Lee: And then it is what was going on your head at that
• 11:34
  time. Were just like, like, no, like, I something just stopped
• 11:39
  you.
• 11:39
  Jay Sondhi: I can't say didn't help I? I did. I did learn some
• 11:44
  things. But right. I didn't. I didn't get going. And I think
• 11:51
  there was deeper in there that I think you helped me with on
• 11:56
  that. And
• 11:57
  Melinda Lee: oh, well. And so what? We don't have to say what
• 12:02
  I mean, it's up to you. So you will want it. We went a little
• 12:06
  deeper.
• 12:07
  Jay Sondhi: Yeah, day one. And I think that happens with a lot of
• 12:11
  friends after the years and years of like, it had been
• 12:14
  another few years, right? Because I reached out to you in
• 12:18
  earlier this year. So it was like 2023. So it was like five
• 12:22
  or more years. So it took a long time that we got put on the back
• 12:27
  end, I find myself talking to people Oh yeah. Someday I'll
• 12:31
  make some videos. And it's like, this year, is this kind of
• 12:34
  ridiculous. Like it's New Years. And I'm thinking geez, honour
• 12:39
  this project? Geez, I haven't I haven't I haven't done that yet.
• 12:44
  Or what are we doing here? And I remember seeing your LinkedIn
• 12:48
  and said, Oh, our friend is flow speaking flow. I should reach
• 12:54
  out about this because I keep seeing it. And I've never
• 12:57
  reached out there was like, oh, let's have a little conversation
• 13:00
  and have a conversation. And then you got me going on the
• 13:03
  first day because you just told me, why don't you just start do
• 13:07
  it, record it. See what happens. Okay. Interesting idea. Right.
• 13:12
  So and then we got started on that. And then on our first
• 13:18
  session, it was a lot deeper than I thought but it really
• 13:23
  helped uncover some of the I mean, some of the like, I think
• 13:29
  most of the resistance to why wasn't making moves on this.
• 13:35
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and that happens.
• 13:38
  Jay Sondhi: How I wasn't making moves on a lot of things, you
• 13:41
  know, if you really think about God,
• 13:44
  Melinda Lee: yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so once that was removed
• 13:49
  once you found that we let go the block it was like, then you
• 13:52
  were able to create another video. Yeah, yeah. Well, making
• 13:58
  Jay Sondhi: more videos and being there's there was it's
• 14:02
  what do you want to call it? It's somatic, right? It's a
• 14:07
  brain brain, a brain and body connection. I think there's a
• 14:10
  physical piece to it. And that's what I didn't realise about your
• 14:14
  class is that I didn't realise I was how somatically inclined it
• 14:20
  was. I thought we were going to be doing like voice exercises
• 14:25
  Allah Allah Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah Allah, You
• 14:28
  know what I mean? Right? In some kind of class, and it ends up
• 14:33
  being weighed deeper in way more was more effective than what I
• 14:40
  was expecting.
• 14:41
  Melinda Lee: I think the truth is at because if I we tackle it
• 14:44
  from Hey, doing voice doing hand gestures, it's like you said
• 14:49
  it's not connecting your mind and your body your soul is not
• 14:53
  connecting your body is like saying no, even though you
• 14:56
  logically I really want to do this, my brains like let's go do
• 14:59
  it. If your subconscious, which is your body is saying, No, I'm
• 15:04
  not on board with this, you're gonna paralyse yourself. It's
• 15:07
  just not, you won't go, it slows you down.
• 15:11
  Jay Sondhi: The authenticity won't be there, right? If you're
• 15:15
  if you're right. And I feel like that's really the root of what,
• 15:20
  what you're doing with your course. Right?
• 15:25
  Melinda Lee: Thank you. Thank you. And then once you started
• 15:28
  going, it was amazing to have you say, You know what, it was
• 15:31
  not perfect. I'm still working through it. But then you
• 15:35
  started, there was a click a moment where you're like, it's
• 15:38
  actually easier than what you had your mind had put it out to
• 15:41
  be. Right, you'd made it more complicated. It was actually,
• 15:45
  you actually flew through, like recording a whole day, and it
• 15:50
  flew by, and you're hot. And you're like, I even had fun,
• 15:53
  which I
• 15:54
  Jay Sondhi: know, it gets fun. It gets fun after that block
• 15:58
  gets there anymore. Right? Right. Once your body is not
• 16:03
  fighting, or you're not fighting your body, and vice versa, it's,
• 16:07
  you're slowing, right?
• 16:09
  Melinda Lee: You're slowing, it's this flow, there's flow
• 16:13
  between the mind and the body and the spirit and the words and
• 16:17
  the energy around it. And that's what's going to attract you to
• 16:22
  your clients, right when you have your energy. Because if
• 16:25
  your body and your subconscious is not on board, like you said,
• 16:28
  it's inauthentic, they may be saying the right words, but the
• 16:32
  energy behind the words is not there, because their whole
• 16:35
  system is not in alignment. So when you are in alignment with
• 16:39
  your mind and body and soul, the energy that flows through it is
• 16:42
  what is connecting you to your clients and attracting because
• 16:46
  you're you're having fun, like we talked about how energy is
• 16:50
  contagious and your work and when you are in the session
• 16:53
  about what you're doing, and having joy and fun and
• 16:57
  confidence around your your videos like it's going to come
• 17:00
  across? Because Jay, you are such an like an enthusiastic,
• 17:05
  dynamic person. Thank you. And yes. And I think that the people
• 17:13
  that watch your, your YouTube channel will see it.
• 17:18
  Jay Sondhi: Thanks. I really hope so. They laugh and they
• 17:21
  learn a lot.
• 17:22
  Melinda Lee: Right? I think that's you can do that. Because
• 17:25
  you're j you you're not just like the boring years, all the
• 17:29
  data stacks. is not like that. It's a completely because it's
• 17:33
  called lone Bay. I mean, just if you can't tell what's about
• 17:37
  like, it's already fun from the title. Right? Yeah. And so
• 17:41
  you're learning and having fun. I
• 17:43
  Jay Sondhi: didn't want to make it like, like, Hey, I'm at the
• 17:47
  whiteboard, it'd be teach you something right here.
• 17:50
  Melinda Lee: Exactly. Exactly.
• 17:53
  Jay Sondhi: You know, what the bad suit and all that it's like
• 17:55
  the normal mortgage broker thing, like how I always like
• 18:00
  never wanted to be, I think that I was so focused on that. That
• 18:05
  part of the thing, right, like you get wrapped up in your whole
• 18:09
  Yeah, image of perfection, right? That's what it is, is the
• 18:13
  image of perfection or, and then you get locked. I get locked
• 18:16
  down on that. If it's not like many people, it's not going out.
• 18:21
  Right? It's okay. To write have perfect.
• 18:28
  Melinda Lee: Right? And it evolves, it's going to evolve.
• 18:32
  Yeah, and you have editors,
• 18:33
  Jay Sondhi: how about that? Mm hmm. That's what I'm working on
• 18:37
  right now.
• 18:38
  Melinda Lee: Any any editors out there? We need an editor. Oh, my
• 18:44
  goodness. I'm so excited for you. I'm happy that there it's
• 18:48
  out there and people can connect you on watch your videos. What's
• 18:54
  the what's the next step for it?
• 18:58
  Jay Sondhi: For the videos, it's really about I think, I think
• 19:02
  editing. But then also I, you know, one of the other goals is
• 19:07
  to try a stand up comedy. Oh, yeah. You know, right. Yeah. And
• 19:12
  I'm working on that too. And I think that's, this is the thing,
• 19:16
  right is most of my friends would, they're surprised that I
• 19:22
  have to go, I have to go to speaking coach, right? Because,
• 19:27
  oh, you're an extrovert. What are you talking about yours? You
• 19:31
  can along people? It's not true. I'm having a tough, I'm very shy
• 19:37
  with new people. I have a tough time meeting new people, right?
• 19:42
  Or this is the narrative that I would tell myself is I'm not
• 19:45
  good with meeting new people and, of course has helped to get
• 19:49
  away from that. Or to get into the feeling of the body, why
• 19:55
  that's happening and how to overcome it. So that it's easier
• 20:00
  to speak in front of strangers is tough for me. So speaking of
• 20:04
  strangers speaking in front of camera, and then I get to go try
• 20:09
  the new goal, which is to do open mic and go try, like five
• 20:13
  minutes of comedy, which I've always wanted to do, is making
• 20:16
  jokes in front of friends is easy. Like going out to into a
• 20:19
  bar and trying to spit five minutes of jokes. Makes me
• 20:24
  nervous to think.
• 20:27
  Melinda Lee: But the thing the thing is, it's so interesting
• 20:30
  that because when I know you and me knowing you, yeah, you can do
• 20:33
  it with just your friends. And if you could just allow yourself
• 20:37
  to do it with other people, it is we get afraid of the
• 20:39
  judgement. But it's fascinating that when you can give yourself
• 20:44
  permission to just put yourself out there. You know, because you
• 20:48
  are holding back like we're missing out on Jay. Because,
• 20:54
  yeah, we're missing out. So it's actually to the detriment of us.
• 20:58
  So I want to let you know, like we're a little the whole world
• 21:00
  is the CRJ. And same thing with a lot of the leaders out there
• 21:03
  who think, Okay, I can't say this, I can't because it has to
• 21:06
  be perfect. So but the thing is, you're already enough. You
• 21:12
  already have it within you. So it's a matter of getting out
• 21:16
  there, one step at a time, it may not be perfect, but the more
• 21:19
  comfortable you get, the more you could just be yourself,
• 21:23
  allowing yourself to just be yourself on a large stage. It's
• 21:28
  great, and then you make that connection with the people and
• 21:31
  not everybody is going to like you and that's okay, but you're
• 21:33
  with the people that do like you and do like your jokes and your
• 21:36
  comedy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I've always
• 21:42
  I've always wanted to do comedy, but I don't think I'm gonna do
• 21:44
  it. I'm just gonna cheer you on. I'm gonna practice on the side.
• 21:48
  But I'm never gonna I don't think I'm gonna do open mic, but
• 21:50
  I will take all the skills and tools and use it in my classes.
• 21:55
  Yeah, that'd be cool. I somebody the first step. So and then Jay,
• 21:59
  hopefully, maybe Jay, you and I are going to be doing some
• 22:01
  classes together too, which will be fun. Facilitating some cool.
• 22:05
  Yeah, we're
• 22:06
  Jay Sondhi: looking forward to that.
• 22:07
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. So is there anything
• 22:10
  you want to say to clients in this industry right now, if
• 22:17
  they're looking for a house like what what could you share with
• 22:20
  them? What is a tip? One or two?
• 22:25
  Jay Sondhi: Thank you should look at my YouTube channel and
• 22:27
  check it out and leave a comment like and follow and share. You
• 22:33
  know, see, Lone Bay on Instagram. I think we're gonna
• 22:38
  do YouTube first. But yeah, check it out. And let me know
• 22:42
  what you think. I think it's it's informative stuff. And
• 22:47
  yeah, reach out to me if you need some help.
• 22:49
  Melinda Lee: Totally. I mean, you've got all the expertise.
• 22:52
  You're you got integrity, you're genuine and authentic. And yeah,
• 22:56
  Jay will help you out. Still take care of you. So check out
• 22:59
  it. Okay.
• 23:00
  Jay Sondhi: Nobody will care more than me about Yeah,
• 23:04
  Melinda Lee: it's so true. It's so true. Totally. And this is
• 23:09
  one of the biggest purchase of the real life. So get someone
• 23:11
  that cares. Correct. 100%. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jay.
• 23:17
  It was so nice. It was wonderful to catch up with you. Thank you
• 23:19
  for sharing your expertise with us and also your journey with
• 23:23
  developing and getting your YouTube channel out there. I
• 23:26
  know that the audience is going to take away a lot from today.
• 23:29
  So thank you.
• 23:30
  Jay Sondhi: No, thank you. You're the one that made it
• 23:32
  happen.
• 23:33
  Melinda Lee: Ah, thank you. Thanks. Take care. Bye bye.