Get It Out of the Group Chat

A challenge to mortgage brokers who want 2026 to actually feel different

My son had a group of his friends up at the cabin for a few days just before Christmas.

It wasn’t a big production. Just so much food, noise, and an absolute ton of fun.

After they left, he looked at me and said,
“OMG mom, I’m so freaking happy that one actually made it out of the group chat.”

I laughed—but it stayed with me.

Because if you’ve ever tried to organize anything with more than three people, you know exactly what he meant. The group chat is full of good intentions. Big ideas. Inside jokes. “We should totally do this.”

And most of the time, nothing happens.

• No date gets set.
• No one takes ownership.
• No follow-through.

It just lives there—talked about endlessly, never executed.

And the longer I sat with it, the more familiar it felt.

Because if six 16-year-old boys can make it out of the group chat before Christmas—
what excuse do the rest of us have?

Especially in our businesses.

We don’t have an ideas problem

We have an execution gap

I don’t know a single mortgage broker who lacks insight. In fact, most of us are drowning in it.

We all know what’s not working:

• Files get messy once they hit fulfillment
• Clients get confused halfway through the process
• The same mistakes keep showing up
• The broker is still the bottleneck
• Everyone’s busy, but nothing feels clean

These conversations happen constantly—at team meetings, in Slack threads, at conferences, over coffee or drinks. We nod. We agree. We vent.

And then Monday comes…
and the business runs exactly the same way it did before.

• Same workflows.
• Same friction.
• Same problems—just dressed up in a new calendar year.

That’s not a motivation issue.
And it’s rarely a capacity issue.

It’s an execution problem.

Where execution quietly breaks down

Here’s the uncomfortable truth.

A lot of “team meetings” in this industry are really just controlled venting sessions. We air frustrations, rehash problems we’ve already discussed, agree that something needs to change—and then move on.

• No owner.
• No definition of done.
• No deadline.

And every time that happens, we teach our teams something—whether we mean to or not.

• We teach them that talking is enough.
• That surfacing a problem is the same as solving it.
• That nothing actually changes around here.

Eventually, people stop bringing solutions. Not because they don’t care—but because they’ve learned the pattern.

My line in the sand for 2026

I’m done collecting suggestions.

If something comes up in a meeting, a Slack message, or a “we should really…” conversation, it now has only three possible outcomes:

• It gets an owner
• It gets a deadline
• Or it gets consciously killed

What it doesn’t get to do anymore is linger.

• No more “let’s circle back.”
• No more “that’s a great idea for later.”
• No more adding things to a list that no one owns.

If it matters, we act.
If it doesn’t, we stop pretending it does.

That shift alone changes the entire tone of a business.

Why execution feels so hard

Ideas are comfortable. Execution is not.

Execution forces decisions:

• This instead of that
• Now instead of later
• You own this—not me

It creates friction.
It exposes weak systems.
It reveals where roles are unclear and where people are overloaded.
It requires trade-offs.

Which is exactly why so many teams stay in discussion mode. Talking feels productive without requiring risk.

But heading into 2026, there’s a question every broker needs to answer honestly:

Do you actually want a different business—or do you just want to talk about one?

The only metric that actually matters

Not ten initiatives.
Not a massive strategic plan.
Not another tool or platform.

One thing:

• One broken process actually fixed
• One handoff cleaned up
• One recurring mistake eliminated
• One expectation clarified

Momentum doesn’t come from ambition.
It comes from completion.

And completion builds trust—both with your team and with yourself.

That’s why one thing making it out of the group chat matters more than a dozen ideas that never do.

A simple challenge for mortgage brokers

If you want 2026 to feel different, start here:

1. Pick one recurring frustration
   Not the biggest. The one that keeps coming up.
2. Assign a real owner
   Not “the team.” One person.
3. Define what “done” actually means
   Not improved. Finished.
4. Set a real deadline
   Not aspirational. Real.
5. Close the loop
   Acknowledge completion. That’s how culture shifts.

Then repeat.

Slowly.
Relentlessly.
Without drama.

Leadership isn’t about ideas

It’s about follow-through

The brokers who will win in 2026 won’t be the loudest or the busiest. They won’t chase every trend or confuse motion with progress.

They’ll be the ones who finish what they start, protect their teams from chaos, and understand that execution is a discipline—not a personality trait.

So here’s my challenge to you:

Stop letting everything live in the group chat.
Pick something.
Own it.
Finish it.

Because if six 16-year-old boys can make it out of the group chat before Christmas—there’s no reason your business can’t do the same in 2026.