Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Happy Tuesday, gang. Welcome to Ed and Ken's mini podcast.
I'm Ed Fordyce and my star super bowl champion from the suburbs of Philadelphia, Ken Jordan. How you doing, brother?
[00:00:15] Speaker B: What a. What a week, man. What a week. That was the most dominating football performance I. I can remember, especially in the super bowl, man. Especially. It was. It was. It was really cool. I had a lot of fun. I know you. You're down in Florida. There's a lot of people down in Florida that are Philly natives, right? Yeah.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: It's a chance to hang out with.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Some people or what?
[00:00:35] Speaker A: We. We did the family thing. I had my granddaughter dressed up in her Phillies or our Phillies, her Eagles cheerleading outfit, and it was fun, man. Yeah. Wings pizza. Yep. Yeah.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Getting together with people who have different views on a lot of different things, but they all agree on one thing.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. You're not kidding. So maybe next week we'll get into some, like, how that was dominated, why it was dominated, because there's a lot of strategies that we can take there and implement them in our business. But today I want to get into, I think what is the most important part of our relationship, of our tribe, of life in general. And that is how precious life is, how precious time is with our family before we get into. Into the meat of it. Like, the first thing we have to do in our Google calendars, our paper calendars, is schedule that time with people that we care about most. So, you know, for those that don't follow us, you know, and I'm gonna let you take it away. I mean, I know you had a big loss in the last week and not just like with. The feeling I'm getting is like this spiritual loss, this leader loss, this family loss, this father in law loss, this business partner loss, and just avoid, man. So why don't we just dedicate this to Mason and honor him and all the fun and joy that he brought, you know, I'm getting to know him through you and so many other people. All the joy that he brought to so many people, man. So take it away, my brother.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it was an interesting.
It was an interesting experience to go from, obviously something so, so sad and difficult and of course, you know, celebrating, you know, the super bowl is great, you know, as we would like to have fun and our energies are usually great, you know? You know, but yeah, it was hard to lose sight of the loss that we, as a family and as an industry and as a company and as a team took on with the death of Mason. Mason Hudel was a 30 year mortgage veteran in the, in the industry. And he was also my father in law, also my friend and mentor. And it's been, it's been a rough, it's been a tough couple of, it's been a tough two weeks for sure. You know, so many, so many lessons from his life became blessings in my life. You know, he was, he was the kind of person that he took risks, he didn't play it safe all the time, was learned, I got to learn from some of his mistakes, which wasn't bad but, but just an incredible void, an incredible loss to the, to the community, to the mortgage community, to the real estate community and, and of course to, to myself and my family. And it's, it's been, it's, it's been interesting.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Oh, just, just gut level man. Like a couple of like the, the lessons that you learned from him personally, professionally, spiritually, whatever the case may be.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: I think the first lesson that I learned from Mason early on and, and as consider, you know, I came on the Mason's life As a young 20 something year old kid and we all know what we were like at 20, right? We all thought we knew everything. You couldn't, no 40 year old guy's gonna teach me, you know what I mean? Like, he's out, he's outdated, he's, you know, you know, you just, you have this like, and it's okay to have this As a young 20 year old, this, this kind of naive confidence because you really haven't been beaten down yet by the world.
Like yeah, you kind of especially like, you know, some people's upbringing, we all have difficult upbringings, but some are worse than others for sure. But, but coming into the mortgage business, one of the things I learned first lesson was, you know, nothing replaces work ethic, man. Nothing replaces hard work. And, and what, what I, I, I've been able to, to do over the years is become more effective with my energy.
But they're, you know what, that's what we're here to do. We're here to work, we're here to serve, we're here to teach, we're here to help in an abundant way. And in order to do that you have to be willing to give your time. And, and that's what Mason did. Mason gave his time. I mean that dude worked his butt off sometimes harder than he had to, I think. But I, I was blessed to be able to kind of teach him some things too. He was, he was, you know, coming up in the 90s, I, I, you know, I show up And I'm like, hey, let me show you this, this smartphone. Let me show you this social media thing. Let me show this email. And he was always open to it. And had he respected me and, and, and. And what I. What I had to teach him. And of course I respected him and all of the things that he taught me. But my first lesson for, for sure was, was, was his work ethic was admirable. And I. I always tried to at least work as hard as he was working. You know, mortgages is a lifestyle, Ed. It's not a job. I love it. I love everything about what I do. But you have to be okay with someone calling you on a Sunday. Like, do you want boundaries with your family? Absolutely. Do you want to be able to enjoy life? Absolutely. But if you get into this game, you have got to know that it's a lifestyle. And, you know, to the degree you get better at determining what's important and what's urgent. And I think that's a skill that takes time to learn. But my referral partners will tell you, like, if they need me, they get me. And that's. That's an important part of. Of that work ethic lesson that I got from Mason.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: And it's, you know, and I see that I. From. What I see with your agent partners is you have that trust. And maybe you learned this from Mason, this trust where they're not going to reach out to you on a Sunday unless it is almost an emergency. Now, they may reach out to you, tell me if I'm wrong, say, hey, Ken, I need this, but it can wait till tomorrow, because you've built that trust, and you've built that they know you're a lighthouse. Like, there's not many lighthouses in your industry.
Like, there's no question.
And I know this is about Mason, but it's probably something that you learned from him through the years where you have become a lighthouse, where when I refer either a client to you or an agent to you, it's out of my brain. It's. It's gone with others in the past eight hours later, like, you can tell me you've never gotten a text from me going, hey, Ken, did you follow up with hey, Ken did, right?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: No.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Because you're a lighthouse, right. And others, unfortunately, I've had to do that with.
And that's why, you know, that's why I'm working with you. That's why you sponsor events. That's why. Because I know wholeheartedly. And this is, again, this is about Mason. But it's turning into a little bit about the gift that you have is what agents need, brokerages need. Clients need, is us to lead them. And it sounds like Mason was the type of human being with the unique combination of charisma, professionalism, compassion, and execution.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: You nailed it. You nailed it. Charisma, compassion, execution. You and I just used the term not long ago, just short time ago. The servant leadership. Mason never wanted to be the boss. He never wanted to be a manager or be in charge of people. But that didn't mean he wasn't a leader. He was a leader in a lot of ways, especially with his referral partners. You know, leaders. Leaders are trusted. Leaders have a plan, Leaders have a vision. Leaders execute the vision. Leaders move people forward towards their goals. And as a real estate agent, he moved agents closer to their financial goals, to their business goals by helping them close transactions that other lenders just flat out refused to do. He led his. His. His clients to the dream of home ownership. And he led people like myself and other loan officers that were younger or at least that were in his vicinity who were willing to listen by showing people the ropes. And he was a. He was a great.
He would send these emails that were a riot, talking about, I blazed another trail.
If he sent an email where it started with, I believe, another trail, it was code for, like, all right, I up. Here's what happened, or here's the crazy thing I didn't see coming, or, here we go. Like, I forge on and blaze the trail for those that come behind me. And, man, he's had. He's had some doozies, you know, but on the other end of it, there were lessons for all of us to. That we didn't do the same thing that he did or that we get to see around the corner where he didn't see it coming, you know, so. So that was. And it was a big part of his. His. His charm, too, is his sense of humor. He. He didn't.
Nothing held him down for very long.
He. Don't get me wrong, he's taken his lumps. He had business failures. He had. You know, he sometimes, like, after a rough month, you know, you get some loans at the door that really took a lot out of you. And he would say, like, yo, I need to lick my wounds for a couple days and then get back at it. Like, what kind of a sick person, you know, gets their head handed to them with these really, really rough transactions and then turns around and says, all right, give me more, right? Like, you need a minute to reset, which he did. But nothing held him down for long. And he always showed back up the same level of enthusiasm and humor and, and, and it was. I think that was one of his superpowers, you know, his ability to just, you know, take a minute, reset, and then just get right back after it.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: I think that's. Maybe we can start a category, Masonisms.
And he just taught me something that I'm going to take of. My favorite color is gray. Let's just say that, okay, actually it's black, but let's just say gray for business purposes, and I could have used that. Well, let's start out with. I blazed another path.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Meaning I'm probably going to have to ask for forgiveness, but I have such charisma that I'm going to make you think that it's a learning moment.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Dude, that's.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Is a man. I love that. Another trail.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: I blazed another trail. That is good. That's solid gold, man.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Hey. He was humility and, And, And. And just very human. Human nature. He was. He was okay with saying, you know, learn. Learn from. From, you know, from. From my mistakes. You know, we did. I was very lucky. My. My. My friend Joe Ardell and I have a. Have a podcast selling the dream, and we were able to interview Mason shortly before he got diagnosed. He was diagnosed in 2022 with melanoma.
It was October of 22nd. We. We interviewed him, and I'll share. I'll share the interview in the comments when we post this, but he walks through, like, his. His life lessons and business lessons and what he learned, and he does a much better job than I'm doing right now as far as explaining, you know, the. The trails that he blazed. He's got some great stories, though, man. He's. They're really, really funny stories. And from all of them, all of his stories, you know, he. He was the first person I. Not that I don't think he invented the line, but he was the first person I heard said he graduated from the school of hard knocks. Like, he did not have a degree. He had a. He had a PhD in life lessons, you know, and. And then he was not. He didn't keep him to himself. He shared whatever he learned with anybody that was standing by, man.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: You know, I'm just saying, I, I never. I never met him, but that whole PhD, and I'm gonna get a little spiritual on this now. And I think I told you, dude, I learned this from Anthony Robbins. The two reasons why death hurts so bad is number One, and we're probably going to go a little longer today. That. That's all right.
The reason why death hurts so bad is number one, we don't think it ever should happen.
And number two, when it happens, we feel like we're disconnected. And if we choose to believe that souls never die, they just change form, we can lit like right now, I literally can feel again, I never met the guy. I can feel his sarcastic loving presence right here. Like, literally it's. I'm feeling it in my heart and my soul and I'm like, it's, it's hitting me. I can feel his love. And this is. I, I'm going deep here. But it's like he literally just went, all right, now I'm going to take you off track and make you forget what you were going to say because that's, that's the way. That's the way he is.
Completely lost track.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: But you're. Where are you. What I, what I love about what you were saying, one of the other lessons, you know, from Mason and from anybody is the reason he. You feel that energy. The reason I feel that energy present is because of the contribution he had in my life and the way he made me feel, what he taught me, the way he connected with me. As you know, could have most. Some father in laws are jerks, right? Like, but here's a father in all that was basically treat me like a friend from the beginning.
That, that if you want to live forever, connect with and contribute to as many lives as possible.
Because then when people talk about you, you're there because your presence is there, your energy is there. What he, what he instilled in me, it's present, it's here. And I believe you 100%. And I think he is with us right now. And I think my mom is with us. I think you're nephew is with us. I think that some of the people that we talk about that have passed on, you know, they're, they're, they're with us because they connected and they contributed to our world. And you know, every day millions of people die, right? Every day. But if they weren't in our lives, if they weren't. If they're connecting, if they weren't serving and contributing to us, then of course it makes sense that that energy is not with us today. Right? But I do think, yeah, I think, I think he's with us. He's. He's with us in that energy and he also lives on. He'll live on in stories which know are an important part of the process. He'll live on with, you know, humorous jokes, which was another big thing, by the way. He loved to laugh, man. And he loved. He. More than laughing. He liked to make other people laugh. He would rather tell a funny story than hear a funny story. And he loved to post. He loved to post jokes on Facebook. We. If you go into Facebook, where I posted a day past that, we. It's like almost 600 comments. Not just likes, but comments. And that's. That's a testament right there over and over again. I never met you, but I loved following you. I loved hearing your jokes. I loved your adventures with Luigi. His wife, who he. Her name is Teresa. They called her Luigi. Like, people who never met him woke up in the morning eager to see what was going on, what Mason had to say, because he was so authentic and so himself. And that makes life a lot easier when you can just be authentic and trust that your authentic self is good enough for everybody else and forever, it's not good enough for so what? Right? Another. Another great, great lesson from Mason. You know, just, just, just, just go out there and make people laugh and tell people your story. And the ones that love you, the ones that like you, they're going to stick around and listen, and the ones that don't, you know, it's okay. I struggle with that with social media. I struggled with it for a long time trying to curate my Persona. So to spe. Stop doing that. Just. And you're. You're a big part of teaching me that, too. Just be yourself, man. Be yourself. Just be yourself. And social media will work for you from a business perspective, for sure.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: You know what I'm. What I'm thinking is his intent. It's one of my words. In business, it's going to be lifestyle. In my spiritual world, it's intent. It sounds like his intent. Mason's intent was to make someone else's or actually make as many people's day as he could every day.
And, you know, in our business, I heard this from one of the agents that I mentor about ego in this business. And it sounds like Mason lived this way, that we're pretty good at what we do, but they're probably not going to name any park after Ken Jordan or Ed Fordyce. Who knows? Maybe we'll do something philanthropic where. Yeah.
But one thing I can tell you is that the day, the day. When the day comes that the good Lord takes you and me from planet Earth, there will be a line, very long line of telling our kids stories of how we impacted their lives. In fact, that's. That's what I said. And you better come to my funeral, dude. And you better tell my kids a funny story.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: I got you.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: But that's. That's a life worth living, man. Like that.
That is so cool. And, like, we get all.
In our business, you know, we act like we're. Sometimes the business leads us to a place of ego where we start acting like the second coming of Christ priced. And it's like, how about if we chill out? We're in the real estate and mortgage business. Yeah, we help people yet, but no one's name in a park after us, man. So why don't we be like Mason and go, hey, how do I make somebody laugh? How do I make them? Help them ease their anxiety, maybe for the day. Be a friend, be a leader, be a trailblazer. Be a trailblazer.
Yep, I'm taking that one.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: One action item today.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: And today, if you're still listening at 21 minutes and 51 seconds into the podcast, God bless you that you get recognition for that. To begin with, Mason's favorite thing was to post jokes. He would steal memes and jokes from all different social media channels, and he would save them in his phone. He would take a screenshot of them, and he loved posting jokes. So I know how it impacted people's lives firsthand because he made people laugh. And they said it. That's what they said about, I never met you, but I always. You always made me laugh.
Post a joke on social media. Go onto your social media today. Find a joke, post it. Don't ask permission to tell it, just post it. Make someone laugh today. And I think that if. If everyone listening to this, if there's anybody listening to this, if everyone goes out and makes someone laugh today, I think somehow or another, the world's just gonna be a little bit of a better place.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: All right, so Mason just sent me an old joke from my bartending days.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Let's hear it.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Did you hear about the termite that walked into the bar and said, is the bartender here?
[00:20:19] Speaker B: That's a good one.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Get it? Bartender. It's a termite. Right? I should tell that.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: I got it. It was good. I liked it. That's awesome, man. That is awesome.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: I won't give up my day job.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: I'll leave. I'll lead with. With my last. With my joke.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Gosh.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: What's loud and sounds like apple?
[00:20:39] Speaker A: What's loud and sounds like an apple?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Apple. That was a dove. I love it when they blow the eardrums off the listeners here.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: I love it. That's good. Makes you laugh. Let's not take life so serious today.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: That's it, man. And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about this stuff. We got some great stuff coming next week. We're going to get into some really cool execution stuff. Especially. We're going to keep on that AI train because I think there's just too much there to talk about. I hope all the people listening today enjoyed our little chat.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah, brother. Thanks, Mason.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Thanks, Mason.
