Yesterday, I quit my job following many months of consideration. And what happened in speaking with my manager blew me away, humbled me and gave me this deep feeling of power, joy and excitement. It left me with the understanding that when I live in alignment with myself and my inner guide, it’s inevitable that the world and everything in it is benevolent and there to support me.
Here is some context:
One of the visions/creations/manifestations or things I would love to have in my life (for the uninitiated), that I’ve been working towards, is building a self managing mortgage brokerage. I define a self managing brokerage as a business that wouldn’t miss me if I was gone for 4 consecutive weeks on vacation(I stole this from Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First, who probably got it from someone else before him). My previous situation, that I just quit, had been slapping me in the face for a while, probably since the spring (April or May 2025). Essentially, as an employee, only “grinding harder” was going to be able to grow my mortgage volume and my impact. And because I didn’t have ultimate control of systems, volume, and hiring my own team, there was always going to be a practical maximum of the numbers of applications I can fund in a year, or a month, or any anytime.
The pattern I was starting to see more clearly this year (although I’ve been dealing with this for years now) was that every time I got much busier building up the pipeline of mortgage applications and the volume of transactions, the servicing and last minute fires with my customers would escalate, and then I would have to pump the brakes on the front end of the pipeline, only to ensure the last minute fires didn’t prevent us from funding on time, or having the customer feel the need to leave a terrible review. I’ve seen this pattern repeat several times over the years but was really seeing it clearly starting in the spring of this year (2025). I end up missing some good opportunities, or not being able to capture them all, which just felt like I was floating in the ocean, unable to keep all my promises, oscillating between building up, as I crest a wave, and crashing down again, as I get turned over in the chaos of the sea.
The first step towards my goal of a self managing brokerage was either becoming a principal broker myself, or working under another principal brokerage. So over the last several months, I’ve been busy speaking with lots of previous colleagues (from First National and Ratehub) who have done something similar. One started her own brokerage with her husband, as a principal broker, and runs a team of 10 already. Several agents I’ve spoken to are now working for another principal broker, not looking to take on the headache of all the responsibilities of a principal broker, including so many regulatory requirements regarding policies and reporting.
So, Friday morning, I got the guts to get on a call with my manager despite the butterflies and told him I was leaving the brokerage and wanted to thank him for hiring me and the experience of working for the brokerage for the last 7.5 years.
I expected my manager to be in shock and dismay, to ask questions about why I would want to quit, for him to resist and ask if this was my final decision. I expected there was no way in hell that the brokerage would go well out of their way to accommodate what I was looking for to build my own business, systems and team over time as a self employed individual. But, to my great surprise, after hearing about what I was planning, my manager made it clear that I should have come to him first to work something out. Still sure they wouldn’t give me what I wanted, we ended that call by discussing what had to be done for me to quit (send formal resignation, discuss pipeline deals with my backup and docs officer, etc.).
Coming down off the both sad and hopeful energy laden conversation of quitting, I spoke to my wife and immediately had a sense of regret that something wasn’t right, I was potentially leaving an amazing opportunity on the table. Within an hour or less, I was writing down my dream list of what the existing brokerage could offer me to have me reconsider. Not having started yet with the new brokerage, I knew this might burn that bridge. But it wasn’t the end of the world either. If my existing employer (the employer I had just quit) would let me keep my current client pipeline and build upward and onward with the plan I was stuck thinking would only work with a new brokerage, that counter offer to me quitting (from the existing brokerage) would be so far and above the option with the new brokerage, it simply couldn’t be ignored. There wouldn’t be all the challenges of working for a new brokerage, I wouldn’t have the potentially significant dip in income for several months. The 7.5 years of customers I’ve helped so far would be built upon, not cast aside.
I called my manager and walked him through what would have to be true for me to reconsider. I walked him through the list I had written down including the becoming self employed and the ability to build my own team, branding, systems. He didn’t balk at any part and said he would see what could be done with the CEO and the board.
Here I am writing this on Saturday in between me quitting on Friday and finding out about my future and the end of this story (hopefully by Wednesday after the labour day long weekend).
Update – Got the contract with everything I asked for and signed it back. Spoke to the other brokerage and let them know I wouldn’t be joining them and thanked them for the opportunity. This is an amazing example of a win win for me and the brokerage, and speaks to what’s possible when you act from a place of integrity. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to my manager and to the brokerage for making this dream, that was way beyond the dream, come true.
What would you love to create? (write it down somewhere)