Wednesday Wisdom with Tammie Gravlee

WEDNESDAY WISDOM 

On this week’s Wednesday Wisdom Podcast, we had the pleasure of sitting down with the incredible Tammie Gravlee, and she shared a piece of advice that I believe so many of us need to hear:

“Don’t dress for the job you have. Dress for the job you want and deserve.”

And I believe this goes far beyond what we wear.

How are you showing up?
How are you speaking about yourself?
How are you carrying yourself into the room?
Are you waiting for the title or opportunity before you start acting like the person capable of having it?

Sometimes the first person who needs to recognize your potential is YOU.

Start showing up today as the person you know you are becoming.

Listen to the full episode of Wednesday Wisdom to hear Tammie’s incredible insights, advice, and perspective on owning your value and moving confidently toward the career and life you deserve.

Because your next chapter doesn't begin when someone gives you permission.

It begins when you decide you're ready for it. 💙

#WednesdayWisdom #Podcast #Leadership #CareerGrowth #WomenInLeadership #makinglivesbetter #PersonalGrowth #Confidence #BelieveInYourself #ProfessionalDevelopment

🗓️ **Mark your calendars!**
- New episodes drop every Wednesday.
- Available on all your favorite podcast platforms. 🎧

🎉 **Join us for an enlightening journey** as we explore the minds of those who shape our world. Whether you're a mortgage veteran, a creative thinker, or just someone who loves a good dose of wisdom, this season is for you!

Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more inspiring content! 🌐👍🔔

Subscribe to my Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOyeiwxez-y4ss2sPx7LqZQ

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Thank you for joining us today for another episode of Wednesday Wisdom. Today, we are in for a treat because we are joined by the amazing Tammy Gravley. She is the president of Mortgage at Bank of Tennessee. Tammy, thank you so much for saying yes, and I truly appreciate you taking some time with us today to kick us off the way that we start Wednesday Wisdom. We go through our lives and we pick up little lessons and we we gather things from different places. But certain pieces of advice or wisdom sit with us on our hearts. We would love to kick us off with Tammy. What is something that you have learned or a piece of advice that you would like to share with all of us?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Probably advice I never followed, actually, but to begin with, thank you, Laura, for having me. You do a great job at showcasing many, many women, and I'm very honored to be a part of that. So thank you so much. Best advice. I would say I've gotten a lot of advice. Um, been very fortunate to have many mentors who guided me and led me in the right directions. Um, as we all know, in any industry, you can be trained by good or you can be trained by bad. I was very blessed to be surrounded by people who really were passionate about the business and taught me the right way. And I think it started more so though, as I was um a young, I'll call it a young lad, so to speak, before I even got in the business. The first piece of advice that I still stick to today, and it probably is because my background was that I was going into fashion merchandising. Like everybody else, though, I fell into mortgage accidentally, and I did that at a very young age, and I did it with the intent of going to specialized college, uh, actually in Atlanta, several years ago for a fashion merchandising degree, and therefore did not finish college. Um, that's a regret of mine. That's not a good piece of advice, but that's definitely a regret of mine. Um, however, I wouldn't change it because my path has been great. Um, but my dad always told me do not dress for the job you have. Dress for the job that you want and that you deserve. And so that was one of my very first pieces of advice that always stuck with me, no matter how I was dressed. And people still today make fun of me about that. I can go to a ball game and they're like, hey, did you know you were going to a ball game? Um, it just kind of got instilled, but it also was my love for fashion merchandising. And I think the other piece of advice that I got from a professional perspective from one of my very first dear mentors was no matter what you do, no matter when you do it, do the same thing when people are looking and when they're not looking. Be transparent, be honest, and treat others the way you would want to be treated. So it was kind of like a lot into one. But the biggest thing was do the same thing no matter who's watching.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Wow, that's both of those things are very powerful advice. And uh, I think your father and my mother should have um gotten together on that because I was I was I was taught the same lesson, and many a person, if anyone out there is listening that has worked for me, they know you don't see Laura Brandeo in blue jeans, you don't see Laura in shorts, you know, like to your point about the the ball game, yeah, me and you would be the best dressed people at the ball game, probably.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Well, we can be best friends then, so we'll connect and make sure that we just travel together. You know what?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

To everyone listening, perfect example. Now, Tammy and I, yes, we've been in the mortgage industry probably forever and a day together and and all of that and run in the same circles. But Tammy and I did not know each other, like we don't know each other like from a personal level. And I encourage everyone out there, absolutely please, please. We have so many wonderful people in our industry. Never be afraid to make that new connection, whether it's digitally, whether it's in person at conferences and shows, never be afraid to reach out. Because that example, as Tammy was saying it, I was smiling on the inside and outside because I was like, look at that. That's something we have in common, not even having to do with the mortgage industry. And that's one of the reasons why I love doing this, because it's an opportunity to get to know people and again taking this big industry and making it very small. So thank you for that, Tammy. I appreciate it. No worries. All right, and then the second one wonderful piece of advice, right? Especially for everyone listening out there, right? Don't put the mask on and act one way when you're in front of a group of people and then do different actions or act a different way when maybe someone isn't watching, because that consistency is the key to everything, right? Because then people know the trust and reliability and accountability and all of those things. So fabulous advice. So love that. Okay. Well, Tammy, congratulations on the fact that you are becoming the lead and the chair of CMB. Congratulations. We certainly want to recognize you. I'm so proud of you, and thank you for what we're looking forward to all that you're going to do. So, with that, Tammy, I want to go in the direction of our industry. I think everyone listening to this would agree. Things are changing fast. I mean, I think since COVID, we have gone through so much change, from one type of change to another change to many things. Now, of course, we've got all the different technology components that are coming in here. So you've got everything from market conditions to regulations to technology changes to mergers and acquisitions and everything all happening at one time, right? And I think I know for myself, I've always said I want to leave our industry better than I found it from the time that I came in. And I think we all strive to continue to do that. But I'd love to hear from you, Tammy. What are some of the ways that you think as a whole, right? Not just individually that you're doing, but as a whole, what are the things that you think we should be doing as an industry to bring the other generation behind us, you know, forward? How to pull people up, how do you continue to educate and encourage others to step up and be part of these different roles that are out there so that we can kind of hand this over to them when it's our time to move out.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Wow. So there's a lot packed into that question, and we could probably talk about it for hours because um I don't think I have a um just a handle on what we one thing that we could do. I think there's a lot of things that we could be doing. I think um, and this may not be a popular statement, so I'm I'm not accusing anyone of this. This is industry-wide, and I've been doing this since 1985. So for those who need an HP to still calculate that, it's 40 years. Uh, started when I was two, so let's just put that aside. But I think one of the things that we need to learn how to do is to be loyal to the people that are loyal to us. And what I mean by that is in every company that I've ever been with, which are great companies, by the way, um we tend to lose sight of taking people who do not understand this industry, bring them in green, and teach them the right way from A to Z. The majority of our industry is very siloed in what they understand. They understand what they do. If they originate, they understand originating. If they process, they understand processing. If they service, they understand servicing. We as an industry, in my opinion, fail at teaching the full picture so that there's a true understanding and it creates that passion for someone who knows nothing about finance, nothing about mortgage, to move into it and understand that there's more than one area to actually work in. Um, I think MBA is doing a fantastic job with that in education today. We have definitely expanded that with our mortgage-bound classes in many states. Um, we do that here in Tennessee, and I'm part of that, and I love it. It is amazing the uh energy that I get when I go into that room thinking that I'm gonna teach those college students something, and then I realize I leave better than I came. And I have a lot of those guys that still reach out to me and they'll say, I would like to know more, or can you help me here? And I think that's what we really need to focus on. How do we really trigger the energy in the next generation to come in and do what we've all done? I'm gonna be real honest here. I'm old school, I did not learn how to originate process or anything in a formal training setting. I was given a laptop or a computer and a rate sheet back in those days and said, best of luck. And I figured it out. And as you learn more about the business, you realize it wasn't necessarily that you didn't know what you were doing, but you didn't understand how what you did affected all those other areas. So I think in order to leave our industry better, when I'm either dead and gone or enjoying retirement on some island somewhere, um, I would like to feel like that we had done everything we could to teach that new generation how to be as good and better at it than what we were, because it is not a self-serving industry. At the end of the day, no matter where the circle ends up at, in the middle of that circle is our consumer. And that consumer should be at the top of our priority list at all times. And in order to give that consumer what they really need and what they deserve, we should be preparing the people who are assisting them to the best of our ability.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah. So number one, yay! Love everything that you said, um, can relate to all of it. And you know, it's funny, many, many years ago, I mean, this was before COVID, maybe I don't know, 2012-13. I started realizing that I needed to do something at my company at that time because we couldn't get enough good. You couldn't get you number one, it was it was such a battle to get the experienced people. It was just like a money grab, right? Like you couldn't, you couldn't keep the people in their seat at one point. And somebody that worked on our team went through a training program at Citibank back in like the 80s, I think it was, or something at that time. And he came to me and he said, You know, Laura, back in the 1980s, I was part of a management program at Citibank. And I said, What was the program? He said, Well, we graduated college, we didn't know anything, and we were put at Citibank during a mat with a management program, and for three months we moved around departments, and in that three months' time, we learned secondary, and then we went to operations, and then we went to sales, and at the end of one year, you decided which of those four areas did you feel the most energized and the most not like you were that was your passion, and that was the track that you went on to get your position in secondary or sales or operations or whatever it was. I gotta tell you, I copied that model and had huge success with bringing the college kids, putting them in those different, I only did it for two months at a time instead of three months. But those people all went on to be leaders in each of those sections. And maybe something that happened back in the 80s at Citibank had the right premise that sometimes you don't know. And to your point, the industry is disconnected in most situations. In most situations, servicing doesn't understand origination, and origination has no idea what's happening in servicing, and secondary is like a foreign land that nobody has any idea what wizardry is happening over there, right? So it's like this confusion of disconnected, to your point, making it cohesive to where you have that full understanding, that is where, to your point, consumers win the most. Because that is where we're all about serving, right? That is our mission. That's why we're in this industry. At the end of the day, we no one would stick with the cycles of the up and down and in and out if you didn't have that servant mentality at the end of it. So, Tammy, I think everything you just said is a perfect example of why I know you're going to do amazing things, and we can't wait to celebrate and support you in all of these efforts that you're going to be, you know, doing both at the company you're at and the MBA and everything that you're doing. So thank you for that. Truly appreciate it. All right, Tammy, this is how we wrap up. I this is my favorite part. All right. So I'm a big believer. I know. This is my favorite part because I believe that sometimes people don't dream big enough. I believe that we put limits of, oh, that could never happen. And I also believe that when you throw things out there and you say them, it kind of plants a seed into the future of things that can be. So I'm gonna pull out my magic wand, and I'd love to say to you, if I was to give you one wish, and that wish can be anything, it doesn't have to tie to business, it could be business or personal, unlimited resources, unlimited knowledge, you can accomplish this one thing. What would that one thing be?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah, that's a toughie because I think everybody has a list of things they would like to do. But at this present moment, um, and I'm sure this has changed in in my previous years and will probably change going forward, but at the moment, if you were to give me that magic wand and I could make anything happen, I would do everything in my power to influence the cohesiveness of our nation. Um remove the walls and the separation of which we have created over the last few years in politics, in uh everything from politics down, I guess. Um it's it's uh uh it's saddening to realize that we can't accomplish things that are really truly, and I'm not trying to go political, I don't care which side you sit on, but things that should be bipartisan that we can't seem to make people be bipartisan about any longer. Um again, focus on our nation, the needs of our nation, and what we need to do to better ourselves while we also better others. Um, I know that's one of those things where it says, oh, world peace. I, you know, I get we can't actually always have that. But if I had any fl any influence and any power, I would work very hard to try to remove those barriers. That to me would make a lot of other things that I would ask for happen.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Makes complete sense. And I think that is a beautiful wish to have happen. And I certainly hope that that does occur for sure. Tammy, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for spending your time and sharing your brilliance with all of us. And Tammy, I'd love to hear for everybody out there how can people learn more about you, connect to you? How can they get to know you?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Well, I'm on LinkedIn and um you caught me off guard. I don't even know what my but you can, you can, it's T-A-M-M-I-E. G-R-A-V-L-E-E. You can search me and find me. Um, I'm an open book. Uh say yes to pretty much any volunteer thing that comes up. So you probably see my name a little bit of everywhere. And uh if not, I'm sure there's plenty of people that can reach out to you and find out how to get me. So and I am happy to help anyone I can and do anything I can to serve our business and to move us forward and make us better. Thank you so much. And please keep shining bright. Thank you, Laura. I appreciate it.