Somewhere in America there is a calm, well-adjusted person who will watch USA-Bosnia tonight with a glass of water and go to bed at a reasonable hour. I am not that person. DoorDash, IPA's and lots of screaming.

Here is why my stomach is already in a knot. The USA has not beaten a European team in five years. And Bosnia knocked off Italy just to reach this tournament, so treat them like a warm-up act at your own risk.

Expect Bosnia to pack the midfield, defend a little higher, and generally make the game as annoying as possible. They've allowed the third-fewest touches in the opponent's box of anyone in the tournament. This is a team built to bore you into a mistake, and they are very good at it.

Talent and a home crowd say USA. Knockout soccer says favorites get eaten alive. Pochettino is reportedly running the 1980 Miracle on Ice speech at his own team, which is either great motivation or a man quietly telling the rest of us exactly how nervous to be.

Record to date, all picks have been posted publicly here: 34-26, +$1,089. With a big France +475 to win it all ticket from before the action started.

Here is the card for the next three days. Tail me, fade me, or just enjoy watching a grown man slowly unravel in real time.

WEDNESDAY

England -1.5 vs Congo. $115 to win $100.

The most emotionally exhausting favorites in sports. England either wins 4-0 or makes Congo look like 1970 Brazil for an hour. I am betting the wankers finally get untracked before a dangerous Mexico waits in the next round.

Belgium and Senegal, OVER 2.5 goals in regulation. $105 to win $100.

Two teams that scored five in their last group games & treat defending as a lifestyle choice rather than a job requirement.

USA to win in regulation and UNDER 3.5 goals vs Bosnia. $210 to win $200.

Ten weeks ago I could not have found Bosnia on a map. Tonight I have intimate opinions about their midfield. This run cannot end here. Get R Dun.

THURSDAY

Austria +1.5 vs Spain. $125 to win $100.

Translation, Algeria just has to avoid losing in 90 minutes. Also: my family told me last night that I'm one more Algeria monologue away from a formal intervention.

Read the rest of this post here …

Here's how most people use AI ...

"Write me a LinkedIn post about resilience"
"Make this email sound more professional"
"Give me 5 subject line ideas"

Cute! Here's how I use it.

🤖 Scan my 33,000 LinkedIn followers against a client's exact hiring needs and hand me a ranked candidate list with fit reasoning, in the time it takes most recruiters to open LinkedIn
🤖 Study what my audience has actually opened, clicked, and shared, then hand me 50 content ideas engineered to land, because it's synced to my real Beehiiv and LinkedIn numbers and frankly knows my people better than I do
🤖 Read this 40-page investor deck and SEC filing and tell me the three things management is desperately trying not to say out loud
🤖 Act as a skeptical CFO and tear my proposal apart before I send it, find every hole a sharp buyer would, so the only person who gets to embarrass me is me
🤖 Compare how the last six months of mortgage news actually played out versus what everyone confidently predicted, and show me exactly where the consensus was dead wrong
🤖 Reconcile our entire conference financials against the bank statements to the penny, build a board-ready P&L, and flag every discrepancy a human would have missed at 11pm

And then there's the one nobody believes until I talk them into experiencing it.

My calendar and inbox are wired in, so I just talk to it like an assistant who never sleeps, never takes PTO, and never says "let me circle back."

💡 "Find that email from the title company back in March, I'm not scrolling for it"
💡 "What's the name of the guy from the ____ call who runs their content?"
💡 "Add a 30-minute call with Adam Thursday at 2 and block anything from landing on top of it"
💡 "Pull the last three email threads with this client so I'm not walking in blind"

That used to be half my morning. Now it's one sentence and I'm done.

One more I run constantly, because good ideas don't show up on the first try. I'll say "give me 30 ideas on how to best ____," circle the 11 that don't stink, then say "now give me 25 more built off those 11." Spread wide, then zoom in on the gold. The first list is never the best list. The fifth one is.

See the difference?

One of those is an intern fixing your grammar. The other is a strategic partner running the business with me.

Most people are using the most powerful tool of their lifetime to reword emails and crank out motivational slop. A few of us quietly figured out it can do the actual thinking, the analysis, the strategy, the pattern-finding across thousands of data points no human has the hours to read.

That gap is the single biggest unfair advantage in business right now. Wide open. Today.

Stop using a Ferrari to drive to the mailbox.

There is no better business trip on earth than the one where you walk in representing a few hundred thousand dollars in food, beverage, and hotel room revenue, and then let everyone compete for it.

Site selection is the rare corner of this business where you are the single most popular person in the building before you say a word.

I got very spoiled doing this for years running The Mortgage Collaborative. Hotels meet you with welcome balloons. They put your name on a handwritten card. They stock the room with local beer, popcorn, and trail mix before you have committed to a single thing.

Getting to do it in my home state makes it even sweeter.

So today I toured the 7 best hotels in Columbus, assessing options for the OMBA 2027 Annual Convention.

And here is where it gets FUN....

We are seriously considering an absurdly, unapologetically, obnoxiously Christmas themed conference in early December. Built around a mortgage industry holiday party for the ages.

Picture ugly sweaters as the official dress code. Picture a ballroom that looks like Santa's workshop in the best possible way. Picture the one industry event nobody actually wants to leave.

I am not going to say more than that yet. More to come. Soon!

Here’s the thing though … OMBA is not the association it was two years ago. We are coming off the biggest annual conference in our history, and 2027 is being built to dwarf it. More members, more sponsors, more programming, and a lot more momentum than people outside Ohio realize. So much business and so many amazing lenders HQ’d in this great state!

We also have room for people who want to help build it instead of just attend it. So, two asks...

Want a committee seat? We have open spots and real work to do.

Want to help plan the most ridiculous holiday party this industry has ever seen?

I specifically need a few people with taste, energy, and a dangerously high tolerance for tinsel.

Email me if you’re interested in joining the fun!

This is the best time in human history to start a business. It used to take money and a team. Now it takes a laptop and the guts to use it.

Right now, today, you can rent the smartest tools ever built for the price of a couple coffees a month. Think about how insane that is. The kind of horsepower that used to require a team, a budget, and six months of meetings is sitting in a browser tab for less than your Netflix bill. A marketing department, a research analyst, a junior developer, a copywriter, an ops person. Pennies. Available at 2 AM. Never tired, never moody, never circling back about PTO.

There has never been a moment like this. Not the internet boom. Not the app store. Nothing. The barrier to starting something used to be money and headcount. Both of those just got vaporized.

The tools are cheap. Getting good at them is not. It costs reps, nights, and the discomfort of being bad at something new while everyone else stays comfortable being mediocre at the old thing. The price isn't dollars anymore. It's grind and hours. That's exactly why most people won't pay it, and exactly why it's such a steal for the people who will.

And this window is open right now, today, wider than I've seen anything in twenty years. But the floor rises every month. What looks like a superpower today is the baseline in two years.

The opportunity of our lifetimes is sitting right there for pennies. Most people will admire it. A few will go to work.

Be one of the few.

Scouting USA/Bosnia, what to expect

How the new Fed Chair could keep rates painfully high

LeBron is leaving LA

Trump calls housing bill awaiting his signature “a yawn”

Dog missing for month in Mexico found partying with fans after last nights big win

1 of 1 Ohtani rookie card sells for $2.5M at auction

July 2 - June Jobs Report

July 4 - Independence Day

July 13 - MLB HR Derby

July 14 - MLB All-Star Game

July 14 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading

July 15 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading

July 19 - World Cup Final

July 28-29 - Fed Meeting/Decision

July 30 - Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and PCE inflation reading releases

AUGUST

Aug 7 - July Jobs Report

Aug 12 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading

Aug 13 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading

Aug 27-29 - Fed Jackson Hole Retreat

Aug 28 - FINAL NFL ROSTER CUTS FOR REGULAR SEASON!

Aug 29 - COLLEGE FOOTBALL RETURNS!

Aug 30 - US Open Tennis Tournament begins

“Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. One game. If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine.

But not this game. Not tonight.

Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can!

Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight.

This is your time. Their time is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it.” - Kurt Russell, as Herb Brooks, in the movie “Miracle”

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]