From Professional Sports to Mortgage Lending | Mike Jones

You know, for a lot of athletes, it's really tough to change that identity, to change from, I'm an athlete, I go to the gym, this is my schedule, I play sports, this is my job, to then getting into real estate or, you know, fill in the blank of your other career.

So how were you able to make that transition of being an athlete to now being a successful loan officer?

Honestly, it was challenging.

Like the transition out of sports into whatever profession you decide to do is challenging, especially for athletes that have been playing sports their whole life.

That's how people identify you.

That's who you are, who you were.

I always tell people, like, just have a plan B, have other interests, have other skills, develop other skills, build as many relationships as you can.

I got into corporate security.

I worked at the keg restaurant, the steakhouse.

I worked at the W Hotel in Scottsdale just to have flexible hours in case my phone rang again off to another team.

But phone stopped ringing.

I was in a corporate world for a while and realized it wasn't It wasn't like the best fit for me, even though I enjoyed it.

I learned a lot, built a lot of relationships, but my ultimate goal was to be a super dad, to be honest, be an extraordinary father.

And I wanted something a little bit more flexible and mortgages landed into my lap when I was training kids.

One of the dads was in the mortgage business and kind of painted the picture of what it looks like.

Met with him a few times.

He told me what it took to get licensed, got licensed.

And eight years later, here I am.