What are you actually leaving on the table?

My trainer — Brendan, who is absolutely phenomenal at what he does — works with a hockey team of teenagers.

One of them showed up to train last week wearing crocs.

Let that sink in for a second.

Not the wrong cleats. Not the slightly worn out sneakers. Crocs. The rubber garden shoe with the holes in it and the little decorative charms that eleven year olds put on them.

Brendan looked at him and thought — this kid's intentions and his commitment to the outcome are not the same thing. You cannot give a workout full throttle attention without the proper gear. The preparation tells you everything about what someone actually intends to put in.

I laughed when he told me. And then I thought — how many of us show up to our own lives in crocs?

Not literally. But in all the ways that matter.

What you put in is what you get out

This isn't a new idea for me. My dad and grandfather taught me this philosophy when I was young. It's been woven into how I think about work, relationships, growth — everything that matters.

And I want to be clear — I am not writing this from a place of ego, believing I show up fully for everything. That would be exactly the kind of thinking that keeps you stuck at 80%.

The honest truth is that I think about this constantly. Where am I not fully showing up? What am I leaving on the table? And more importantly — what is going on in my head that I'm allowing to get in the way?

Because the people who show up at 80% aren't lazy. They're not indifferent. Most of them care deeply. They just have something running underneath the surface that keeps them just comfortable enough to never find out what full commitment would actually produce.

The instant gratification problem

We live in a culture that has been programmed — and I mean genuinely programmed — for instant results.

Everything is faster, more convenient, more immediately gratifying than it has ever been in human history.

And our brains have adapted accordingly. We expect the return before the investment. We want the result before the process. We want the loaf without the four hour wait. ;-)

Which means the long game — the consistent, full effort, day after day, relationship by relationship, call by call — feels increasingly uncomfortable. It doesn't deliver fast enough. It doesn't confirm quickly enough that it's working.

And so we dial back. Not dramatically. Just enough to protect ourselves from the full weight of trying completely and having to sit with whatever the outcome is.

That's not laziness. That's The Gremlin.

The Gremlin at 80%

The framework I use to understand what's running underneath the surface is grounded in concepts developed by Bruce D. Schneider and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC). The application and interpretation here is my own, translated specifically for mortgage sales professionals.

Here's what I've seen in over a decade of coaching — the number one reason people show up at 80% isn't lack of effort or discipline. It's The Gremlin. That inner voice that has been protecting you since you were young from the risk of full exposure.

Because here's what full commitment actually requires: it removes the excuse. If you show up completely — give the relationship everything, make every call, prepare fully, be entirely present — and it still doesn't work out, you can no longer point to the effort as the variable. You have to sit with a different and much harder question.

The Gremlin knows that. So it keeps you at 80%. Just enough to stay in the game. Not enough to find out what you're actually capable of.

I am not enough — in the meeting, on the call, in the relationship, in the workout — that's The Gremlin's favorite story. And 80% is how it keeps that story safe from being disproven.

And if I'm being completely honest — for some it isn't even 80%. It's showing up inconsistently, checking the boxes when it's convenient, doing just enough to say they tried — and then being genuinely surprised when the results don't follow. Not because they don't care.

Because The Gremlin has been running the show so quietly — reinforced by a culture that promised results without the full investment — they don't even know there's a gap.

And when the results don't come? The market gets the blame. The rates. The economy. The timing. Everything outside gets examined before anyone turns the mirror around.

I'm not saying that to judge anyone. I'm saying it because I've sat across from enough talented, capable, genuinely good people who deserved better results than they were getting — and the distance between where they were and where they wanted to be was almost always an inside job.

The circumstances were real. And they weren't the whole story.

What this looks like in your business

The agent relationship you're investing in — but not fully. You show up. You reach out. But there's a ceiling on how much of yourself you bring because some part of you isn't sure the return will justify the full investment.

The client experience you deliver — but with just enough held back that if it doesn't convert you can tell yourself you didn't really go all in.

The prospecting block you commit to — but at 70% energy because you're carrying the weight of everything else you're worried about into it.

The video you record — but not the one where you're completely, vulnerably, unapologetically yourself.

None of those are crocs exactly. But they're close.

The question worth sitting with

My grandfather didn't teach me this philosophy because full effort guarantees the outcome. He taught me because full effort is the only thing that guarantees you find out what you're actually made of.

So before you close this — one honest question:

Where are you showing up in crocs right now?

Not to judge it. Not to spiral into self-criticism. Just to see it. You cannot change what you cannot see. And the gremlin counts on you never looking down at your feet.

 If this resonated, share it with someone who needs it today.

Gina is a certified high-performance coach (CPC, ELI-Master Practitioner, IPEC) with 26 years in mortgage banking and over 11 years coaching exclusively in this space. She works with mortgage sales professionals in the DMV who are ready to grow from the inside out. The concept of the Gremlin referenced in this post is based on the GAILS framework developed by Bruce D. Schneider and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC).