Viewing the Recession as Natural Selection
Adapt or die — it’s potentially true for commercial mortgage brokers
By Bob Davies, president, High Performance Training Inc.
The recession has touched
most mortgage brokers in some
way. Perhaps your pipeline is down
significantly. Maybe you’ve lost your biggest
clients and the large chunk of revenue that
came with them. Or perhaps you own your
company and must consider layoffs.
it’s easy to blame the economy. There
may be something else at play here, however: evolution. Brokers who understand
the concept and who apply it to their
business could find success through this
recessionary period.
The theory of natural selection — or
the survival of the fittest — has helped us
understand not only biological adaptations
but also politics and even our universe. a
main concept of evolutionary thinking is
that organisms that are best-suited to their
circumstances are most likely to reproduce
(i.e., be profitable), spreading their adaptive traits and driving out the competition.
Natural selection creates a dynamic, ever-changing environment that is driven to
evolve by genetic variation, adaptation to
different environments and competition
for limited resources.
This same thinking describes the increasing complexity of systems such as the
stock market and the real estate market.
Certain complex systems not only arise but
also adapt over time to the constraints the
environment imposes, as living systems do.
are these changes a natural part of a
system? as a mortgage broker, must you
evolve to survive? Could the recession be
a natural way of cleansing and pruning out
the weak in our industry? is this natural
selection in business?
By forcing the weak to declare themselves and the strong to reinvent their
purpose, this recession may indeed be the
business version of survival of the fittest. if
you are having a difficult time, it could be
because your product or service is not valuable to the masses. if so, you must change.
it also could mean that business is out
there but that you must adapt your behavioral approach to getting it.
The recession is pulling people off track
and away from their goals. an adjustment
is needed.
This doesn’t mean complaining and
looking for a handout. rather, you should
evolve, adapt and become more relevant to
solving today’s problems. You must find your
true value and your true contribution to the
industry. Then you must put forth enough
energy to bring the results you seek.
in today’s market, you are challenged
to adjust your products, your attitude and
your efforts. Survival of the fittest requires
the organisms with variations most favor-
able to living passing on those genes to fu-
ture generations.
Think about it for your business: What
small change must you make to have the
highest probability of predictable success?
You can’t stay the same and expect to suc-
ceed in an ever-changing environment. You
must evolve. That is, you must adapt your
product, service and intensity levels — and
that doesn’t include acting the victim and
blaming the economy. in many cases, sim-
ply getting back to the basics and executing
the activities that you should be doing is
the necessary adaptation.
recently, a construction worker was
walking in my neighborhood asking peo-
ple if they wanted to save money on elec-
tricity by upgrading their windows. i’ve
never seen this type of prospecting before.
is this evolution? is the construction com-
pany adapting to the environment? Should
it have been doing this all along?
There is a solution to surviving in this
economy: if you want to be busy, then
get busy. Plan precisely and execute your
plan with intensity and purpose. By doing so, you will prosper regardless of the
marketplace.
Bob Davies is president of
High Performance Training
Inc. in Lake Forest, Calif.
Davies was named as one
of the world’s top 100
thought-leaders in personal
performance by Leadership
Excellence Magazine in 2007. Davies started his
company of training business professionals in
1983. He has a master’s degree in psychology
and a bachelor’s degree in health. Reach him at
(949) 830-9192 or info@bobdavies.com. Visit
www.bobdavies.com or www.bobdaviescoach
ing.com for online coaching.
