The Place:  Trianon

The Cup: A cup of coffee for me and Tom enjoyed a cup of hot tea.

The Background: Former stranger, turned friend, Cup 53, Cole Harmonson and I had our quarterly catch-up coffee the other day at Thunderbird Coffee. Cole is one of the most genuine, positive and passionate people I know. I leave every interaction with him charged up to go do something big. He’s that kind of guy.

A little known fact about me – by day, I am a Realtor. By day…who am I kidding. By day, by night, by dawn and by dusk, I work with clients buying and selling real estate in Austin. Likely because of this, Cole asked me if I knew Tom Rhodes, a friend of his who owns Sente Mortgage. When I said I didn’t, he declared I must meet Tom, and in fact, he’d be a very interesting stranger to have coffee with. Cole sent an email introduction and shortly thereafter, coffee with a stranger was on Tom’s calendar.

Before I became a Realtor, I admit, I assumed every mortgage company was pretty much the same. I was mistaken. Some of the variables I have witnessed first-hand include knowledge of current market (a local lender is almost always the best choice), communication, integrity, organization, professionalism, variances in the conservativeness of underwriting, integrity, timeliness (which is often the difference between closing on time or not), ability to work as a part of a team, willingness to put self-interest aside, integrity – Oh, did I already say that one twice? Good, it bears repeating.  This is just a sampling.

Who a client chooses as their lender is a huge decision with real consequences. I know many great lenders and sadly, I have dealt with a few bad apples. But even in the great category, there are degrees of greatness. I was eager to hear Tom’s story and see if I might discover what made his company different.

Common Grounds:

1. What’s a food you can’t live without? Bagels and good, thin crust, Italian pizza. {Although recently, Tom completed the Love Life Program and has discovered a love of quinoa. For breakfast he has fresh made quinoa topped with a banana, honey and just a tiny bit of hemp milk and he assures me, it’s tasty stuff.}
2. How did you make your first buck? When I was about 9, I made a little newspaper and sold it to other students in my British school for five pence. Five pages – it was full of jokes, puzzles and riddles.
3. What was the last thing you fixed? I’m useless around the house and I can’t fix anything. But, I was very pleased that recently the door handle was broken and after much consternation, I managed to fix it. The door works now.
4. What’s something about you that people might be surprised to learn? I had smallpox when I was 4. We had just moved to England and I guess I had a reaction to the vaccine and ended up with a mild case of smallpox. {Not many can claim to have had a disease that was eradicated in 1980.}
5. What is the best place to eat in Austin? Torchy’s Tacos
6. What’s your favorite way to unwind? One of the best things I can do is take a half a day on Friday and go sit somewhere, usually Barnes and Noble, to digest, process, plan and think. I find I can’t do that in the office, and I can’t do it at home. It’s an anonymous space. I lay out papers, I journal and great stuff comes out from that. The big decisions, the big choices and moves I make come from those moments. It’s a very centering and calming place. For years it’s been a non-negotiable item, on my calendar that’s otherwise totally negotiable. I’m at about 50% success rate of keeping that appointment.

We Begin Abroad

A British private school. That’s where Tom spent his formative years – full of uniforms, discipline and all that stuff. Born in New York City, Tom’s family moved to London when he was four years old, and they lived there until he was 16. Once back in the US, the family lived in Connecticut and when it was time for college, Tom scooted down the coast a few states to Durham, NC, where he attended Duke University. Duke proved to not only be a terrific place to get an education, it was also where Tom met the woman who would be his wife.

After college, Tom found himself in the City of Angels, where he started his career in the film business – first at a talent agency and later at HBO Pictures, where he worked on a bunch of movies in his five years there. Tom decided to get licensed to sell commercial real estate, and he hoped to continue to produce films, while also working in real estate. The real estate part of his life took over, and he soon was traveling all over the country working on deals. Which was cool. For a while.

Somewhere New

About 16 years ago, Tom and his wife were looking for a change of scenery. Tom’s wife was a competitive golfer and could live anywhere. So many options – where should they go? They spent a year traveling up and down the California coast and part of the east coast as well, trying to find a place that met their needs and felt like home.

Their home search had been focused on the coasts, and Texas wasn’t even on their radar. But when Tom’s wife had a tournament in Dallas, the couple decided to pay a visit to a friend living in Austin. Tom says, “Austin is a city with a soul.” Pair that with the geography, the beauty and the climate and I don’t need to tell you how this story ends. The visit was in April and by December, Austin was home.

Heart and Soul

Tom shares a story that illustrates perfectly the magic of this city. His wife’s younger brother was coming to town and was really into speed metal. Tom wasn’t up on that type of music, but found a band playing at Emo’s and they went to catch the show. The music started and some head banging commenced – the crowd was really into it. They were standing behind a couple who were clearly fans. The man turned around and noticed Tom’s wife behind him and kindly asked if she could see all right. She thanked him and told him she was fine. He replied, “OK, I just want to make sure you have a good show.” The draw of this great city is a mix of many factors, but the “soul” is most certainly the people and their generosity and kindness.

Begin Again

Once in Austin, all the traveling Tom had been doing for his real estate business seemed less fun. It was time to figure out a business that would utilize his skills, his Economics degree and his experience – and that would keep him off of airplanes. Mortgage was the answer.

For several years Tom worked for a Houston-based mortgage company, until 2007, when he and a few colleagues launched Sente Mortgage. Tom has served as President and CEO since that time. When we get into a little tangential conversation about this wild market we’re in right now (lots of qualified buyers and nothing to sell them), I find myself describing the frenetic pace of my daily work life and voicing my gratitude, but also my frustrations about 16 hour days. Which is when I get a little lesson in balance, and also learn how Tom’s company got its name.

Action and Reaction

Tom describes for me an ancient Asian game called “Go”. According to Wikipedia: “Go is a board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,500 years ago. The game is rich in strategy despite its relatively simple rules.” Tom explains two terms from the game –  Sente and Gote. Tom says, “Gote is the position you are in when you are reacting to your opponent’s moves. The thing that’s most important is to notice you are in it and realize you can never win from Gote. In a position of reacting; you will never get where you want to go.”

Sente is the desirable position. Tom tells me, “This is the place where, when it’s your turn, you can place a stone on the board anywhere you want – based on your plan – your strategy.”

Your goal is to spend more time in Sente than you spend in Gote – in the game, and in life. Tom says, “In three years, you wake up and you aren’t where you want to be; you’re “stuck”. You’ve been in Gote and you didn’t even realize it. Without a strategy, you will say yes to everything. I tell my team, sometimes your only action is to put the next stone on the board. There is no quick fix. But you’re making moves according to your own plan.”

Difficult to Master

I love this analogy and see the usefulness of the practice in my own life. But I’m also painfully aware that I spend most days in Gote; reacting – to the market, client needs, colleagues, etc. I feel a little better when, as if he’s read my mind, Tom offers, “In this market, we spend all day in Gote, reacting to issues and challenges. That’s why my Fridays at Barnes and Noble are so important. That’s where I think and plan, and start putting stones on the board – get back to Sente. Those Fridays I skip, I’m in Gote and don’t see it. It’s a trap.”

A New Awareness

What’s the most significant thing that’s happened in Tom’s life in the last 30 days? He tells me about a program called the Love Life Program that he’s recently completed, that he says, “was transformational and changed my relationship with food.” The program, started by an Austin woman, Kim Love, begins with 10 days of clean eating – removing all foods that are known triggers for some people. The next 21 days are a gradual re-introduction of the trigger foods to identify which, if any, you have an issue with.

When I hear about breakfast of quinoa and fruit, lunch of salad and chickpeas, and dinner of steamed veggies, I think the program sounds intense and well, not a lot of fun. Tom admits, “The first 5 or 6 days you are kind of out of it. Then day 7 or 8, it totally changes and is in exact contrast to the first few days. My energy level, which used to fluctuate all day, was at a constant 8. I was never hungry. Day 9 or 10 I realized my skin had never looked so good. I lost 16 pounds total and have kept it off for a month.” Tom says there’s a heightened awareness because you track your focus, sleep and energy levels and you learn which foods don’t work for you. He adds, “I never connected how I felt with food. Your relationship with food is powerful and food plays a huge role in how you feel.”

One Day

How about a bucket list – I ask Tom if he has one. He says, “Yes, in the sense that I don’t want to have anything on my bucket list. I don’t want to have anything left undone.” This thinking is shaped largely by two people very important to Tom. A few years ago, Tom’s best friend died of cancer. Also in recent years, Tom’s father battled dementia and Parkinson’s. Tom shares, “In both cases, they had a bucket list. The problem with a bucket list is it means you aren’t doing it. Life happens in a way that if you say, ‘One day I’m going to…’, you often wake up and “one day” is too late. So the things I want to do, I try to do them.”

A few examples Tom tells me about; upon the announcement of the non-stop flight from Austin to London, Tom made a plan to take his nine year old son there to show him the city he grew up in. Tom’s wife has been following an elephant sanctuary in Thailand and when Tom learned you can go stay at the sanctuary and care for the elephants, he planned a trip for Christmas this year for the family. Tom says, “The idea of ‘someday I will’ usually means ‘I never will’.  My father always dreamed of visiting New Zealand. When he got sick, they planned a trip. They ended up having to cancel it, because his health had deteriorated too much by that time. Save the money and make a plan or it will never happen.”

Learn, Stretch, Grow

Before Tom’s best friend Kenton passed away, he taught Tom many lessons about life and happiness. One of those lessons was to seek out your own growth. Tom says, “I went to college and I thought I was done. I thought, ‘I’m clever. I’m smart. It will all work out.’ Kenton opened me up to opportunities to learn and grow, and ever since then (13 years and running), I’ve had a coach or some learning influence in my life. The path I was on, I would have been in Gote forever. That philosophy changed me.”

Caring IS the Difference

One of the values of Tom’s company is, “Care so much you make a difference.” He tells me the best part about his job is that lives are impacted and changed for the better. “In life, happiness is an outcome. But happiness is about being fulfilled. In business, it can’t just be about profit. Profit is the outcome. Businesses need a deeper, driving force and a belief about what they’re trying to do, and the successful fulfillment of that will produce enduring profit. I designed my company around changing people’s lives. When you come from a position of caring, it opens you up. We don’t always know the outcome of our actions, and we can’t control that. But we can control the beginning posture.”

Sente Mortgage goes beyond just offering mortgages. Tom shared that the company is committed to working with clients on “financial best practices and strategies that put them in control of their futures so they can take care of who and what matter to them, and live a good life”.

Tom shared with me two memorable moments of making a difference. First was when an employee came to Tom and announced that for the first time in his adult life, he was debt-free. The moment was big for the guy, but it was huge for Tom. The process of working with clients on their financial health had made this guy aware of his own finances. He was now in a powerful position.

The other special memory came from an email series on unclaimed property in Texas that Sente sent out to their database of clients and partners. They tracked the response and found that $200,000 was recovered for their folks; the largest single amount was $17,000. But the most heart-warming was the company who had recently had a dear friend pass away, leaving two daughters behind. The employees donated the money recovered, $10,000, to the girls in memory of their mother. Making a difference in people’s lives is about starting from a place of caring. You can’t predict the outcome.

Be The Hero

Tom’s Golden Rule is: Always be designing your future. He says, “I had a coach share this quote with me recently, ‘Until we’re fed up with being the victims of our own lives, we will never be the heroes.’ Life isn’t just something that happens to us.” In Tom’s view, the biggest issue facing society today is that as a culture, we’re victims of our lives. He says, “We are fortunate to live at a time where we have so much choice and freedom, but we’re squandering it. We’re in Gote – just living for the moment. There is so much more we could do or be and only a small percent are doing it. You must always be thinking about the future.”

Tom says, “We’re creating generations that can’t take care of themselves financially, and there’s this complacency and acceptance of the status quo. That’s why it’s so important to have immigrants always coming to America. They come here and think, ‘I can do anything!’ You grow up here and it’s like, ‘My boss won’t give me a raise.’ Which is an example of Gote – versus doing something about it. We need to accept responsibility. If we just taught every kid to save 20% of everything they earn, by the time they’re in their late 50’s they could replace their income and be entirely self-sufficient. With no reliance on the government for social security they’d have total autonomy; total freedom. And they’d be in Sente.”

This Life is Yours

If given 30 seconds to make a speech to the world, Tom’s message is this: “Be actors in your own life. Take a stand, make a decision, make a plan. Think about it and design the future you want. Don’t just sit there, along for the ride. Engage and make decisions for yourself. Be responsible for yourself. ”

Are you in Sente or are you in Gote? Are you where you want to be, or are you stuck and just going through the motions? Tom has given me much to think about and if I’m being honest, I can recognize that the moments of unhappiness, frustration and dissatisfaction were the result of being in Gote. The times I felt empowered, successful and excited were times when I was living the life I created – I was in Sente.

The lesson here, for me, is about intention, or as Tom calls it, your starting position. This doesn’t mean you won’t ever be in Gote – reacting to the world around you. What it does mean is that you have an awareness, and you notice these Gote moments and make time to re-center and re-focus and get back on your own path.

Always be designing your future. Don’t put your dreams in buckets – put them on the calendar. And when it’s your move, I hope you’ll put the next stone on the board – anywhere you choose.