Mat Ishbia: Dream Big Then Make It Happen | E86
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The goal was to be the best. And when I got in the mortgage business, I wanted to be the best mortgage. I wanted to be the best owner in the NBA and WNBA. Is that based on how much money we make or is that based on how many championships we win and how the fan experience is and the impact in the community? Like, that's how I'm measured.

What I tell you people is like, you can do anything you want. And I used to have a saying, and I still use it, is why not me? We used to talk at my company, why not us? Like, why can't we be the number one mortgage company in the country? Why not UWM? And you know what happened? We are the number one mortgage company in the country.

You're listening to part two of my awesome conversation with Matt Ishbia, the owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Without further ado, here's part two of my amazing conversation with Matt. So you're 23 years old and your dad had this 12-person little side business mortgage company that you really didn't know much about. You started in operations and learned the mortgage process from the ground up.

He became CEO in 2013. And two years later, UWM was the number one wholesale mortgage lender in the country where it has remained ever since. When you first went to work there, you said you fell in love with mortgages, something most of us will need one day, but something that almost none of us will ever dream about.

what's cool or sexy about mortgages? And what's your advice to those about to join the workforce or early to mid-career executives who want to work at what we would consider sexy companies? Yeah, so listen,

And I fell in love with mortgages is probably a little bit overstatement because like mortgages are mortgages, right? But I love the competition. I love the business of business. I love being in business. I love competing. I love trying to get better every day. I love solving problems. I love competing to try to improve myself. Like I'll say today, like I'm,

I'm the CEO. I've been here 20 years. I will, this is the worst I'm going to ever be. I'll be better tomorrow. And in five years, I'll be even much better than that. Like I get better every single day and that's my drive. And so my drive is to win. So like, I don't know if it's sexy and mortgage. Like I like to compete. I like to win. I like to try to be the best at what I can be. I try to be the best dad I can be. I try to be the best nine-year-old football and basketball coach and 10-year-old, but like,

Like I like to compete and be the best I can be every day. And that's just part of who I am. And so whether it's mortgages, like if you want to get into some sexy industry, like go be true to yourself, find a place with opportunity and then go compete every day. Be the best. Like people are like, Oh, I want to be this one day. I go, okay, well,

You've got to be great today. You've got to be the best version of yourself today and then build on that tomorrow and then every day to get to this big goal. Sometimes people have these big dreams, but their work ethic does not

show towards those dreams. Like, you know, what's the saying? Like, you know, you know, you know, your, your work ethic of today is not aligned with your dreams of tomorrow. Right? Like, oh, I, I want to be this, but you're not willing to come in at 4am. Like someone's going to outwork you. It's going to be me or someone else. Someone's going to outwork you with a better attitude and they're going to get there faster. And so I guess my perspective is like,

That you don't need to find the sexy business or what's cool these days. You got to go find, because you can make money in anything. Like find me the best artist in the world, the best guitarist in the world, the best musician in the world, the best doctor in the world, the best mortgage guy in the world, the best podcast person in the world. Guess what? They probably make a lot of money. So focus on being the best at something that you love and that you enjoy and competing at, and you'll make money.

I was always taught and believe that education is the single greatest investment we can make in our future. When we hire people from our intern program, we hire people here at Jump, Sandy and my other portfolio companies. We do look at GPA a little bit. We don't want to hire someone who has a 2.8 GPA unless they have three jobs or supporting their family. They're playing a sport in school and have other very material obligations. But we really don't care at the end of the day about GPA. And I tell everybody that.

in our summer intern program and a lot of young professionals that at the end of the day, GPA doesn't really matter. When you show up your first day of work, no one cares where you went to school. No one cares what your GPA is. You're ready to go and you're just like everybody else. What's your view on the importance of education and how do you view GPAs when you hire at UWM?

Yeah, so good question. So I think we're aligned on part of it. And maybe I have a slight different take on part of it as well as like, like, I don't care about their, their GPA. I don't care about what school like, like you went to Harvard, you're the smartest guy in the room, like you said, or you graduated high school.

It doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is what you do here, right? And so what you do in our four walls. And so how do I find someone with heart, with work ethic, with attitude, with drive to be great? And that's what I'm looking for because I can teach mortgages. Like in this day and age, knowledge is becoming a commodity.

experience is different but knowledge is a commodity i can teach anybody mortgage it's not that hard it's not that smart like you can teach anyone like people can teach but i can't teach heart i can't teach someone that's gonna say i care matt i'm gonna show up early i'm gonna stay late i'm gonna do whatever it takes to make that client happy like i can't so how do i find those people and then so like how do you find them you ever do an interview with someone like hey uh like i

And what's your work ethic? I have a shitty work ethic and I want to show up late all the time. They never say that to you. So how do you find it? So to your point, sometimes finding good GPA or someone that's completed a task, whether it's a sport, a former athlete, a manager,

a military, a veteran, or someone that's completed things, that's like, okay, I know they'll finish something. That shows work ethic. That's like a first. Then when they come up for the interview, the interview's at 9.30 a.m. Do they show up at 9.30? They show up at 9.15. I start to put all these things together to find out who's my guy, my gal, who's going to be on my team. And those are things I look at because I think you can teach someone anything. If we're talking about brain surgery or some crazy, for the most part, 99% of jobs, I can teach

you. I can learn them too. And it comes down to my work ethic and attitude. How do you find work ethic and attitude? By the way, the attitude question I ask is this, give it away my stuff, but this is why I ask someone like, hey, why do you want to come work at UWM, my mortgage company? And they're like, if their first answer is like, oh, my other company, Flagstar or Rocket Mortgage, I hate them because this, this, and this, they say negative things. Like that's not my kind of guy or gal. Like,

Be respectful. Don't badmouth your current or past company. Say, hey, listen, you know, it wasn't a great fit for me at the last company. I've read so much about UWM. I really think this is a better fit for me. That's a positive attitude. Even if they've kind of gotten fired or treated horribly at that last company, I don't want to hear about that. I want to hear about going forward and why you want to be part of this. And so I look at those things, and those are big parts of the determining factor of work ethic, attitude, heart.

I think one of the most overlooked thing is in fact how people project themselves when they get to the office. Attitude is king.

I teach right out of the gate. The most common asked question in the world is, how are you? And it's something 99% of people in the world get wrong. They say, I'm good. And I equate that to a GPA. Good is a B. Do you want to be a B in the workforce to succeed? You got to be an A. I'm great. I'm fantastic. I'm having an amazing day. You can be creative and say, I'm verging on superb. It just sets the tone and the mood immediately in your interaction or a meeting that

in a whole different plane than if you just say, I'm good. And of course we don't like the fair answers. I'm okay. I had a tough weekend. Those are just terrible answers. Yeah, no, it's great. You say, yeah, I'm doing great. How are you doing today? Life good for you? Like what's going on? Like be a human being. Like that's who I want around me. I want people that are engaged and energetic and passionate about being a person, you know? And by the way, one other thing, when you come into my office security, like they're, they're, they're checking, like, are you talking to the security guy?

and being friendly? Or are you like, hey, I'm here to see Matt and just kind of give him your ID? Or are you like, hey, how are you? How's this place? How long you been here? What's your name? Nice to meet you. Like, are you a human being? Those are who we want. And that's what I would tell young people all the time. - Nicole and I had a nice conversation, by the way, exactly along those lines before you joined.

Let's talk about something often overlooked by everyone. I think the intangibles sometimes are more important than the tangibles because at the end of the day, people can sell mortgages, they can look at a balance sheet, they can prepare a financial statement. But talk about how important the little things are to our success.

Yeah. Well, kind of the same thing we were just talking about, like intangibles or like all those things that are subjective. They're not like, you know, attitude, work ethic, or like all the knowledge, like balance sheet, like anyone can read it and go through it. You can teach someone that. And so I look for things that are subjective.

that are, that difference makers, things that are different about people, that things that people really want to be great at. Like, like, what are you about? Are you about just, you know, yourself or are you about the team, right? Are you about knowledge and all my experience? And here's my, I was a vice president here. I was a, I was, you know, this, this, and this, or are you about like, what are we about here and how do we be successful? And so I think the intangibles are

are much more, and I won't say sometimes more, much more important than the tangibles in 99% of jobs. There are always some jobs that are exception. So, you know, I could have the best attitude and work ethic and heart,

But I'm not who the Phoenix Suns want on their basketball team. I'll still take Kevin Durant, right, or Devin Booker. So there's still things. There's certain talent and skill sets, no matter what, that you can't overcome. But 99% of jobs, I think it's heart, caring, it's intangibles more than the tangible things.

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Let's talk about our dreams. When I was young, I wrote all these letters. I wanted to meet with successful people. I wrote 300 letters. I got 80 meetings. One of them was with Bill Davidson. So I go to Detroit, who, for those people who don't know, was a member of the Forbes 400. He owned the Detroit Pistons basketball teams. He built the largest glass company for cars in the world, a company called Guardian Glass. I went in. I met with him. I remember walking into his store.

And it was like a football field how long I had my hand out waiting to meet him. And at the end of it, I said, Bill, did you ever think you would be a billionaire one day? And he paused and looked at me and he said, I never doubted it for a minute. And that was the end of our meeting. And I thought, okay, I had dreams. I wanted to be successful. When you were growing up, your mom and dad told you you can do anything you want. So let's talk about a few of these days. March 2nd,

2002 Senior Day, you said you lived your dreams. You played in front of 14,759 people at Spartan Stadium every year. January 22nd, 2021, United Wholesale Mortgage went public. And then December 20th, 2022, you bought the Phoenix Suns.

What's your advice to all those people out there who have dreams who said, I can never do this or I can never do that or the probability of being successful in creating a huge company or being a billionaire or whatever it is they want to do looks like it's less than 0%.

I love it. So as I say, you can do it. You can do whatever you want to do. Now, I would tell people, you aren't dreaming big enough. I didn't dream of those things. My goal was to make the NBA. I never thought about billions or millions. Never. I mean, it never crossed my mind. That wasn't the goal. The goal was to be the best.

And when I got in the mortgage business, I want to be the best mortgage owner. Like I want to be the best owner in the NBA and WNBA. Is that based on how much money we make or is that by how many championships we win and how the fan experience is and the impact in the community? Like that's how I'm measured. And so what I tell you people is like, like,

You can do anything you want. And I used to have a saying, and I still use it, is why not me? We used to talk at my company, why not us? Like, why can't we be the number one mortgage company in the country? Why not UWM? And you know what happened? We are the number one mortgage company. Years later, I said, it is us. It is us. People at Wells Fargo, they're not working as hard as me. The people at Rocket Mortgage, they don't care as much. They're not working like I do. And we had to create that. And so what I tell people is dream as big as you can dream and then dream even bigger.

And then say, when, what's important now? What do you got to start doing right now to get to that dream? A lot of people have dreams, but they don't put the work in. Like you're going to have to sacrifice a lot of stuff to be what you said, a billionaire. Like, I don't, like, I don't think of money. I think of like, be the best. If you want to be the best, you money always follows the best people. So like, that's how I think about it. And so dream.

Dream bigger. A lot of people don't dream big enough. Even I didn't dream big enough. People didn't dream big enough in business. Like, oh, I want to one day do this. Like, think crazy big and then work towards it. And usually good things happen. Let's talk about being a leader, especially at a big company. So many CEOs I know work in this tower. They lose touch with their customers. They're not responding to emails. They just don't really know what's going on. They have an executive team. They have eight direct reports, whatever it is.

It is. They really lose touch with what made the company successful. Talk to us about No Meeting Thursdays and how you respond to emails even at 3.30 or 4 in the morning from every person who writes you one.

Yeah, I respond to them. As you know, you emailed me and I respond right away. Everyone who emails me, I respond to, especially if we have, you know, and so from a business perspective, I'm trying to connect with people because I can learn from people all day. I'm always craving to get better. Now, my no meeting Thursday is something I've done for 15 years now. And it's been great. What no meeting Thursdays basically is like, I won't take a meeting on a Thursday, like all day, every day, Thursday, there's no meetings, right?

All I'm going to do is I'm going to come in early, get my work done, clean up my emails, and then I go walk the floor. I try to talk to different people, not my executives, not my direct boards, the people that actually do the job, the IT people. I'm like, hey, what are you guys working on? What project is this? Okay, where is it at? Let me see it. How's it going? And then we talk 10 minutes, 15 minutes, two minutes sometimes, and I keep moving. And I check in with people. Hey, what's one thing? I go in and look at them. What's one thing you'd change about the company if you were the CEO?

Oh, what about this? What's one thing you love about it? Don't ever change it. I ask these questions to people all the time. I walk the floor. I smile. I say hello. You're not allowed to take your phone. I don't walk with my phone out. I'm never showing that anything's more important than them. I always have my phone in my pocket. I walk. I make eye contact. I smile. I say hello. And I talk to people every day, every Thursday. Excuse me. I do this every day. But on Thursdays, I won't take a meeting because if I take meetings, I'll be in my office from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every 15-minute meetings.

And this is not as effective as me getting out and talking to the people. And so that stuff's really important to being successful. And that's how you stay close. I talk to clients. I still run a sales meeting on Wednesdays most of the time where I run it with thousands of people watching in person that are there. And I go and I talk to the clients. I go speak with our clients. I go to their offices. Like you got to be in the weeds of your business to be successful. And it starts with knowing your people and knowing your clients.

We've talked about work ethic a bunch, and I've always said that work ethic is the single greatest determinant to your success, not only in your professional life, but in your personal life as well.

I think a lot of people, especially the young professionals I talk to and even some career professionals, I've been a mentor to people in their 40s and 50s who just wonder why they're not as successful as they should be. And we go through an exercise and I say, well, do you have a good work ethic? And they say, yes. I said, well, what does that mean?

You get in at 4 a.m. When I started my company, I get in at 5.30 a.m. When I started to have kids, like you, I'm a very good dad. I'm home for dinner every night. I've maybe missed five things for my five kids in 22 years now of being a dad. I'm fortunate that I'm in a position that I can do it. But I go, I eat, I read, I go to whatever sporting events they have, clubs, performances, whatever it is. And then I go back down to my office and I do work. But I

But I think people really underestimate that really fine line that separates that 1% from the other 20% or 50%. Can we talk just a little bit more about that? And what's your advice to people who really are not working as hard as they should? Or is there a point where you're working too hard?

Yeah, well, I don't know if there's a point to work hard. So I think work ethic, and I throw in attitude, is the biggest determinator of success. And the only other one I like to throw in and talk a little bit about is you've got to put yourself in position for success, too. Opportunity. That's why some people go to a job and it's like, oh, I'm at this big corporate company. You're not going up. Go places that promote from within. Go places that will give you an opportunity. Sometimes go to entrepreneurial companies or at least companies that will show a path for success. But work ethic and attitude are everything. And to your point about work ethic, like,

I think every person watching this right now and hearing us talk right now could definitely get better with their work ethic. It could be as simple as like, hey, do you need eight hours of sleep? Can you get away with seven and a half? Like I'm at six hours. I'm 930 to 330, 930 p.m. to 330. Now with the suns and Mercury, the late games, I'm going to bed a little later and sleep a little later. But like six hours is all I need. OK, and maybe that's not everybody. Maybe someone is seven.

but people don't need nine. So they're just take that extra hour. Like you don't have to give up everything in your life. You don't have to be to this extreme, extreme, extreme, but, but,

You know, if you're someone that says, like, I just like to sleep my eight hours and I like to go, you know, like I like to work out. It takes me a couple hours to get ready in the morning and I like to go to work for eight hours and I get to go like that's great. And it's a great life. If that's what makes you happy, then keep doing it. But if you want to be the elite or the elite of your business, you have to make sacrifices like we talked about earlier. And sometimes it's sacrificing sleep.

Sometimes it's sacrificing TV. Like, I don't know what the cool TV shows are anymore. I don't watch TV. Unless it's a basketball game, I'm not watching it anymore. Like, and I haven't for years. I don't know why people say Game of Thrones or the, I don't know what the cool shows are these days. Like, I just don't do it. Like, I focus on,

on my kids and my business, and that's what I focus on. And it's hard to be great at everything. And so I think that sacrifice that we talked about earlier, along with that work ethic, and you just gotta figure out, and by the way, it's not only in business, you wanna be the best husband in the world, the best wife in the world. You gotta put the work in there. You wanna be the best dad in the world.

I'm going and coaching kids sports on Friday nights. I'm coaching basketball, fourth grade girls basketball. Like I'm giving up other opportunities to do that because that's what I care about most. My children, I'm sacrificing things for my kids and my business. And you can't, you can't do everything. You can't, you only got 24 hours in a day.

One of the things that's made me successful over the years is something that I call extreme preparation, which means that if someone's preparing three or four or five hours for a meeting or a presentation, I'll prepare 10, 20, 30, and in one case is 70 for a meeting that we once had with Marriott Corporation as part of my beaches company, Sandy. Can you give us some examples of extreme preparation and how they contributed to your success and how important they are in our lives and in our future success?

Yeah, well, I even take it to the extent, like I do that for every phone call I make. We even, our salespeople at our company, we require them to have what we call a game plan, sports analogy, right? What's your game plan for the call? What are we trying to accomplish? What are the things we need to talk about? What do they want to talk about? How do we make it effective?

And so preparation leads to success. And if you don't prepare, if you call me, I just call you right back. Hey, I'm not prepared for this call. I don't know what it's about. I haven't done my research. I haven't done my work. I'm not going to be as good as if I did. Right? Black and white. Same thing like we talk to our people like, have you done any role plays?

Right. Have you done role play before you call on this big client? You want to make this like you got a call with this new broker of ours. Have you role played it? Have you prepared it? Have you done your research? Did you know what companies he used to work at? Have you found your things that are aligned that he was to he went to Alabama University? You went to Michigan State, but you went there when Nick Saban was the coach and he's got he loves Nick Saban. Have you done that work to prepare for that call for that chance that football comes up and you can hit on it?

Or are you just calling because you want to do business with the guy that's in Alabama and do a mortgage business, right? Like everything is about preparation and being, it doesn't mean you're going to win. It doesn't mean it's going to work out. But I promise you, the more prepared you are, the more chance of success you have. And so I'm 100% aligned with that.

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and to make sure you're never disappointed by a beach visit again. Plan the perfect beach trip today by visiting sandy.com. That's www.sandee.com. The link is in our show notes. Stay sandy, my friends. Let's talk about the Phoenix Suns for a minute. What was the feeling when that deal closed and you looked around and talked to your kids and you walked into the locker room for the first time and said, holy shit, I can't believe I own an NBA basketball team after spending $4 billion doing it?

You know, it was such an unbelievable feeling. And the truth is, it's only gotten better and better every single day. Like, it's been so much fun.

running this organization with great people learning like i'm a fan i'm a basketball fan so these guys are i'm talking to some of these players i'm like gosh i i've watched them with my kids like i'm so excited like so it's been so much fun the business side the basketball side the fan experience the impact we made a community like i look at it like you know i'm the owner but like

It's the community's asset. It's their team. It's Phoenix's team. My job is to work for them, serve them, make the fan experience amazing, put the best winning product on the court as possible, really do great things in the community, investing. Like, how do I do great? And I,

I look at it like I took another job. Like I work for them. But it's been so much fun being involved. And I love basketball, so I know the game pretty well, playing for Izzo and being around and coaching. So I know that. I enjoy it. And I feel like I can make an impact in a positive way in the fans' experience, the community, and also on the winning, along with taking care of the team members, the culture at that organization.

Okay, so we talk about work-life balance. So many successful people I know have just the workaholics. They don't spend time with their kids. I know that you coach your kids' basketball teams. By the way, I coach Herb Simon's son. I spoke to Herb last week. He says hello, by the way. Herb's one of my favorite guys. He's a great guy. He feels the same about you, by the way. So what's it like being an NBA owner and you're coaching your girls' basketball team? People must think this is the greatest thing on the planet.

Yeah, well, I think they do when we win and the girls have fun, which we try to do every single week. And so, yeah, I coach my daughter's basketball. I coach both my son's basketball teams. I coach their flag football. I coach their baseball. I love being involved with my children. And I love also bringing positivity to young kids, whether they're 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old girls or 12-year-old boys or 8-year-old boys or not like.

Whatever it may be, like I like to bring positive energy. Like we don't talk like I might be the basketball owner. Like we don't sit there. I'm not X and O-ing everything. I'm talking about like, listen, when your teammate makes a good shot, high five her on the way back. That's what we do every single time. Hey, when someone makes a bad play –

Like, Hey, it's okay. We'll get it the next time. We're teammates. I'm learning. We're teaching you much more than basketball. We're teaching skills and life and personality and high five. And when someone's sad, like we go up and hug them. And like, when someone's doing great, like we're high fiving them. And like when our team loses to us and we beat them, like we're shaking hands and being respectful. And if we lose, we tell them great game. Like that's the stuff I love. Like I love being around my kids. I love seeing them learn and develop. I mean, I, I love it so much. It's, it's, it's, it's the best thing.

How important is giving back to our success? And what's your advice to people who think you have to have money to give back? Well, money giving back is only one part of it. And people give back a lot without one dollar. Time, money, or just spreading the word is giving back, like helping people, sharing things on social media about things like I'm big on giving back in any way you can.

It doesn't have to be money. We have a thing here called adopt the family. We adopt 150 families where everyone kind of raises money. And some people can't put any money into it, but they can go shopping for the presents for the family. Some people can't even have the time to do that, but they can wrap the presents. And some people can put money in and do some of it. And some people can pick out the items. And some people can go deliver the items.

Like everyone has a role in making a great impact in those families' lives. And so we do that all the time here. And so it's not about money. It's about time. It's about care. It's about trying to make an impact in a positive way. Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask more open-ended questions. I call this part of my podcast, Fill in the Blank to Excellence. Are you ready to play? All right, let's do it. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is... Working a thinking attitude always wins. My number one professional goal is... To get better every single day. My number one personal goal is...

Get better every day. Be the best dad I can be. The one thing in my life I'm most proud of is? My three children and how they're growing up and how I can impact their lives every single day. The one thing I've dreamed of doing for a long time but haven't done is? It would have been buying an NBA team, but I just did that. And so I got to recalibrate the goals, but it's, man, I don't have another one right now. I'll think of it. If you could have any player in the NBA join the Phoenix Suns today, who would it be?

They're already on my team. Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Brad Beal. I said this was a quick hot fire, but I said if I could start a team with anybody based on age and talent and skill set, it's Devin Booker. And I got him. I'm very, very lucky. If you could go back in time, the one piece of advice that you would give your 21-year-old self is? To dream even bigger. To dream bigger and don't listen to people that don't believe in you. Because as long as you believe in yourself, you can do it.

If you could be one person in the world, who would it be? My kids. They got it pretty good. They got a great dad and a great mother. My kids. I like to start over. I like to be younger again and do this again. The one question you wish I'd asked you is...

Man, I don't know. You did a great job. I feel like I covered it. I love talking about work ethic, attitude, business, personal. I think we covered almost all of it. I think you did a great job. I appreciate being on the podcast. Matt, I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. You're a fantastic role model, tremendous success. And I know everyone's going to love the show today. Appreciate you for being here. Thanks for having me. Have a great day.