I have been in the mortgage industry for almost 30 years now. The last 12 or 13 of them I have had a front-row seat to how leaders actually operate when the cameras are off and the stakes are real.

8.5 years running The Mortgage Collaborative, watching hundreds of lenders build, struggle, pivot & grow. Getting to interview great leaders every week on The Big Picture. ED of the Ohio MBA, working alongside leaders across the state. And now 3+ years coaching & consulting with executives & lending orgs.

Here is what I've learned about what separates the great ones.

✔️ How they treat people below them in the org chart tells you almost everything.

Not how they treat you in a meeting. How they treat the assistant who schedules their calls, the processor who flags a problem, the junior analyst who asks a question that seems obvious. The culture follows the leader everywhere, including the places they think nobody is watching.

✔️ They are self-honest, not just self-aware.

Most leaders I work with can describe their weaknesses accurately. Far fewer act on what they know about themselves consistently. Self-awareness without self-honesty is just sophisticated self-deception. The ones who grow fastest close that gap.

✔️ They protect their culture even when it costs them.

Anyone can say culture is important. The leaders who actually have it can point to a specific moment where they did something hard to protect it. Where they let someone go, turned down revenue, or made a decision that was unpopular because the alternative compromised something that mattered.

✔️ They know when to push and when to let things breathe.

This one is harder to describe but you feel it when it is present. The ability to create urgency without manufacturing panic. To hold the line without rigidity.

✔️ They are honest with the people who need honesty most.

The best leaders I know deliver hard feedback consistently, early, and with genuine care for the person receiving it. The ones who avoid it are not being kind. They are being cowardly in a way that eventually costs everyone more than the conversation would have.

✔️ They do not need to win the argument to make the right decision.

The best leaders I know have developed the ability to advocate for their position, hear a better one, and change course without making it about their identity. They are attached to the outcome, not the idea.

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Columbus, Ohio is about to host the biggest Ohio mortgage conference in 59 years. And today (today only) you can get in for 10% less.

Here is what we are bringing to the Renaissance Columbus Westerville-Polaris on June 14-16 ...

6 keynotes. Maurice Clarett on resilience. Bob Broeksmit on where policy is headed. Steve Richman on the market outlook. Senator Bill Blessing bringing the Statehouse perspective on Ohio housing and lending. Two more big names still coming.

And then there is Ohio's Own ... a main stage general session unlike anything OMBA has ever done. We are celebrating the most impactful female leaders in Ohio mortgage lending. On stage. In front of the entire conference. This is not a breakout. This is not a side event. This is the main stage and it is going to be one of the most talked-about hours of the three days.

21 breakout sessions across 3 tracks covering credit reporting changes, AI in lending, non-QM, construction lending, secondary markets, LinkedIn, affordable housing, servicing retention, and more. All led by people actually doing this work.

7 main stage panels. 4 meals. 2 receptions. 1 Awards Dinner. Three full days of the kind of conversations that actually move your career and your business forward.

This is the biggest agenda in OMBA's 59-year history. We have never done it at this scale. We are not going to again at this price.

Let's be honest ...you already know you are going. Your calendar is already a little blocked that week and you have been meaning to register. Today is the day that decision saves you money.

OMBA Members: $495 down to $445. Today only. Non-Members: $695 down to $625. Today only. Sponsorship packages at every level are also 10% off - and several are already gone.

The discount expires at midnight tonight. No extensions. No codes needed. It is already applied.

Register at https://ohiomba.org/2026-Conference before you forget and pay full price tomorrow.

June 14-16, 2026. Columbus. See you there.

We are living in the brief, strange window where some of the most powerful technology ever built costs less than a streaming subscription. That window is closing.

OpenAI just crossed $25 billion in annualized revenue. Anthropic is approaching $19 billion. Both companies are moving toward public offerings ... OpenAI with a rumored listing window of late 2026, Anthropic with over $12 billion raised from Google, Amazon, and institutional investors who did not write those checks to watch frontier AI get handed out for $20 a month forever. The IPO pathway is not a matter of if. It is a matter of when. And when is close.

Meanwhile Google and Microsoft are not sitting still. Google has Gemini embedded across Workspace, Cloud, and Search with an enterprise pricing structure already moving upward. Microsoft has bet its next decade on Copilot inside every Office product, every Azure contract, and GitHub. Both companies have armies of enterprise sales reps whose entire job is to convert the AI access that organizations currently treat as cheap or free into recurring, tiered, contracted revenue. That flywheel is just starting to spin.

The free and discounted tier era was always a land grab. These companies needed users. They needed adoption stories. They needed the market to understand what AI was capable of before it could price it accordingly. That strategy worked. The market understands now.

That said, AI getting more expensive is actually very good news for those of us who have been using it seriously.

Right now the playing field is about as level as it has ever been in the history of transformative technology. A solo consultant, a regional lender, a small state association with little to no staff ... all of them have access to the same frontier models as the largest financial institutions in the world. That does not happen. It has never happened at this scale. And it will not last.

When pricing moves up and tiers harden, the trade-off decisions start. Organizations that have not built the skills or the workflows will look at a four or five figure monthly bill and hesitate. The gap between the people who figured this out when it cost almost nothing and the people who are just getting started will begin to compound in ways that are very hard to reverse.

Read the rest of this post here …

BREAKING: US and Iran agree to two-week ceasefire. Dow futures up 1,306 points

Masters 2026 tee times, TV schedule, and streaming guide

Tiger Woods on golfers' minds at Masters after DUI arrest

Housing market in recession per America's Credit Unions chief economist

The Great Housing Reset -- Redfin's full 2026 forecast

The real lesson from the Florida ChatGPT home sale story: the MLS still matters

Samsung goal: 800 million Gemini-equipped mobile devices by end of 2026

Apr 2 - Jobs Report (March)

Apr 3 - Good Friday (markets closed)

Apr 4 & 6 - Final Four & Championship (Indianapolis)

Apr 5 - Easter Sunday

Apr 9-12 - The Masters (Augusta National, Rory McIlroy defending)

Apr 10 - CPI Release (March inflation data)

Apr 13-14 - MBA State & Local Conference

Apr 14-15 - MBA National Advocacy Conference

Apr 15 - Tax Day

Apr 23-25 - NFL Draft (Pittsburgh, first time since 1948)

Apr 26-28 - Texas MBA Annual Conference

Apr 27-30 - HousingWire’s “The Gathering” Conference

Apr 28-29 - FOMC Meeting / Fed Rate Decision (Powell's second-to-last as Chair)

MAY 2026

May 2 - Kentucky Derby (152nd running, Churchill Downs)

May 5 - MISMO Spring Conference (Louisville)

May 7 - Jobs Report (April)

May 14-17 - PGA Championship (Aronimink Golf Club)

May 16 - Preakness Stakes (Laurel Park, Md.)

May 17-20 - MBA Secondary and Capital Markets Conference (Marriott Marquis, NYC)

May 25 - Memorial Day (markets closed)

May 31 - Indy 500 (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)

JUNE 2026

Jun 3 - Jobs Report (May)

Jun 5 - Belmont Stakes (Saratoga Race Course) -- Triple Crown on the line

Jun 11 - FIFA World Cup kicks off (USA, Canada, Mexico -- 48 teams)

Jun 14-16 - Ohio MBA Annual Conference (Columbus OH)

Jun 15 - Father's Day

Jun 16-17 - FOMC Meeting (rate decision, press conference)

Jun 18-21 - US Open Golf (Shinnecock Hills)

Jun 19 - Juneteenth (federal holiday, markets closed)

Jun 22 - NBA Draft (approx.)

Jun 29 - Wimbledon begins

“The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.” — Ingvar Kamprad, founder Ikea

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]