a little married

Originally written 8/3/22

Twenty years ago today, I got a little married. It was a hot August night in Durham, North Carolina on August 3, 2002. Not surprisingly, of course it was hot in early August in central North Carolina. 

In this photo I remember being very hot. 

Hot from the temperature, but also hot from adrenaline. Hot from excitement to spend time with family and friends at Parizade now that the real work, the worship service, the legal marriage was completed at Duke Chapel maybe an hour or so prior to this photo. I was a baby. I thought I was a man at 27 years old, Kristen 28, but I was a baby. Still, somehow I knew some of the most important work that I would ever do was now accomplished and I could simply enjoy the party.

And the 20 years have been a great party and the party that hot August night at Parizade was a great party. It's mostly been a party, not a drag, a drudgery, but a pleasure.

Today it will be 93 degrees. It was about that, maybe a little hotter on August 3rd, 20 years ago.

Today we will toast with cake and champagne. 

 

Religion should appeal to the hearts of the young

Originally written 1//25/25

Gideon by My Morning Jacket (MMJ) came into my hearosphere driving from New Smyrna Beach after watching an amazing sunrise on Monday morning. 

I was thinking a lot about church. Who is there? Who is not there? Why? Why not?

Early in the song, Gideon:

Religion, should appeal to the hearts of the young.

I agree with this. This is hard. This means for us who are old, giving up some things. In my world, it has meant giving up hymns, not altogether, but as I know them and and as my father knew them. Sometimes, this giving up feels too much to bear, almost a betrayal of those who came before me.

If I don't worship with Blessed Assurance out of the hymnal, am I turning my back on George Edward Linney, Jr. (my father) or Sarah Johnson Linney (my grandmother)?

I did give up these hymns in a faith community, the new music, the new creation, filled my soul in ways that no music had ever filled it.

Church, in my view, in the troubled world of the 21st century, has to compromise on personal preference. We need pragmatism. What will give young people a chance to try getting in the door to the local church? Do that.

Mortgages That Mean More / www.georgelinney.com

Reflections on a lending fail - 2021

I was reflecting on a client from 2021 – one of the greatest years in mortgage lending history, but a very difficult year to win purchase offers if participants stubbornly believed that they should be able to pay less and purchase a home. Homes in 2021 weren't on sale as if it were a yard sale and you could get a deal because the seller was desperate. Sellers had the upper hand and if you wanted their home, you had to submit a competitive offer.

I worked all year with clients who were supported by a realtor that I adore. I wrote 12 pre-approval letters and finally the realtor and I decided it was time to move on. The clients simply would not take the realtors advice on what it would take to purchase a home.

The client said curtly as the relationship was dismantling, with a somewhat accusatory and entitled tone, George, I thought we could do this indefinitely? (meaning keep making offers and have me keep producing pre-approval letters). In theory, that's true, we could keep going forever, but who was winning in the deal? The clients weren't getting a home because they would never offer at a competitive price. The professionals in the relationship were spending countless hours with no success. We sort of all fired each other. It hurt. The realtor and I still work together and commiserated on this one for many a phone call.

I felt part of the blame directed at me. George, I thought we could do this indefinitely. Most of those letters were prepared on weekends, time spent away from family. That's okay, but I wish the effort had been acknowledged. The realtor spent far more time than I did and had nothing to show for it.

But you know what? We all want work validated that will mostly go unnoticed. It's called work for a reason and it's toil and some of it does not bear fruit.

Keep rolling the ball forward.

While this was an opportunity missed, 2021 was the best working and earning year of my nearly 30 years of receiving a paycheck. All will be well.

Here are those pre-approval letters that never ended in a contract:

begin again

I still think often of my first two closings. I started a career in lending in March of 2018. I needed something riskier and that played more to my skill set. I needed something more entrepreneurial. I approached a friend that had a career in the business and I found a way into the industry. Most of 2018 was spent training and learning. I only closed two loans in 2018. One in Durham in October. One in Garner in November. The first has turned out to be a top referral partner (it was their personal residence). The second is highlighted in the photograph below. 

There is no way to go back to the beginning. I was so proud of these first two deals. I was at both signings. This was pre-covid and you could sit alongside the borrowers and the realtor and the lawyers. I was ecstatic to collect my very first commission checks. So many people helped me make those first deals go through when I had no idea how to make the process go. Even now, so many people help from start to finish. I depend on a team, some of whom I never even meet.

Now, I am cynical and greedy and dissatisfied with a month with less than 10 closings. Gratitude and deep-breathing is a daily discipline.

You can't go home. You can't go back to the beginning. But you can remember.

 

Nobody Smokes in Church

Really nice spot on design theory here by Danielle Crane based on:

Empathize
Define
Ideate
Test
Prototype

Have a look: https://vimeo.com/293368389

Listening for snow falling on snow

The last two days in Durham, North Carolina have produced roughly a foot of snow. That is a lot in any NC winter storm. That's a whole lot in early December.

Today, the second day of flakes falling from the sky, had me pulling from the shelf Robert J. Wicks excellent book on Spiritual Landscape, Snow Falling on Snow.

I am struck by a section called Listening (page 41):

Wicks writes: "One of the reasons listening is a rare gift today is that so many of us (possibly because of our anxiety) strive too hard to do something useful or to be immediately helpful in some tangible way. The problem is that in the process of doing this we fail to really listen to a person's pain. In becoming stressed out ourselves over what we need to do to be "successful" with someone in need, we often fail to realize the pure value that is listening, in and of itself. Furthermore, when we're not observing the situation for what it really is, we not only miss a chance for understanding, but occasionally may even make the situation worse by acting too impulsively."

Today is a great day to listen to the sound of snow falling on snow. That's no easy work. There is really not much sound, but then there is. Other sounds become quite distinct if we will listen for a while longer.