Patty Arvielo: The New American Dream

We’re shining a light on the difference between luck and blessings when Patty Arvielo, co-founder & CEO of New American Funding, joins host Chris Schembra on this episode of Gratitude Through Hard Times. Running the largest Latina-owned mortgage company in the U.S. while nurturing a network of younger women coming up behind her, Patty is all about leaning into humanness. She shares the many ways in which gratitude and empathy have served as beacons professionally, as a parent and throughout a 27-year marriage that embodies commitment and respect. You’ll learn about how Patty and her husband, Rick, founded New American Funding in 2003 and grew it into a juggernaut that has underwritten 250,000 mortgages worth $69 billion and employs 4,000 people – a majority of whom are women and 41% of whom are minorities. All this success is rooted in Patty’s intentionality around core values, like creating positive impact and improving the lives of others. Want to manifest abundance and overcome fear? Patty is here with words of wisdom and perspective you won’t want to miss!You can learn much more about what Patty is up to and the mentorship opportunities she hosts by clicking this link to follow her on Instagram and following #WeAllGrow and the many initiatives she supports.Cultivating moments of meaningful connection is hard – and perhaps not a value central to our workplace cultures. But if we show up in vulnerability and truth, we erase poverty of the soul while building great businesses!If you’d like to learn more about Chris and his 7:47 Virtual Gratitude Experience or subscribe to our newsletter, please visit this link.Click hereto hear more fascinating conversations with Fortune 500 CEOs, professional athletes and entertainers who have shared their human stories on Gratitude Through Hard Times. KEY TOPICS:If you could give credit or thanks to one person in your life that you don’t give enough credit or enough thanks to – that you’ve never thought to thank – who would that be? Her husband, Rick, who has committed his life to the project of building a life, business and family together.It All Takes Work: How her commitment to marriage mirrors the commitment Patty believes is required to establish and grow anything meaningful in life.Expressing Gratitude: Why it’s so important that we teach our children to appreciate and cultivate a sense of appreciation in the day to day.Consider This: Are you using fear or a lack of gratitude as a protection mechanism against pain or disappointment?Managing Fear:Look at life holistically as a full range of experiences, including adversity.Build self-awareness and spiritual strength into your framework.Prepare for hard times.Learn from setbacks (and how to stop repeating them!).Climbing Out of the Hole: How life’s hard times provide us a necessary invitation to growth and human connection.Being Blessed: How Patty’s commitment to doing the right thing combined with hard work and gratitude add up to “getting what I give.” It’s not luck!Dreams v. Manifestations: About being fully awake to the visions we want to work towards and building a solid infrastructure for what we want.Being in the People Business: Why the heart of Patty’s daily work is understanding, developing, mentoring and celebrating the people with whom she’s in business.Seeking Change and Practicing Radical Acceptance: How Patty pursues her goals and dreams while also tempering them through self-awareness and understanding the “why.”Questioning: The key to growth, purpose and recognizing what’s most important!Daily Impact: How Patty is using her experience and skill set to empower and support younger Latinx women embarking on their entrepreneurial paths.Closing Thoughts:The person Patty respects most on the planet is her husband, Rick, with whom she has built a committed and intentional life.Because of its positive nature, Patty felt good about visiting the GTHT pod.Promoting empathetic leaders in all their humanness is a core value and priority for Patty, who leads with her heart.The levels of despair among members of the American workforce – including among executive ranks – are troubling. You can push back by focusing on abundance, gratitude and human connection. QUOTABLE“(My husband and I) see commitment as a daily event in our lives. Not just walking down the aisle and a piece of paper.” (Patty) “When I feel fear or am scared of making decisions, it’s in action that I’m able to move forward. I’m not complacent. I don’t hide. And I don’t complain.” (Patty) “If you look at a negative autobiographical experience that put you in a hole or a moment of adversity, the positive benefits far outweigh the negative. You can actually be grateful that that thing occurred.” (Chris) “Anything you intend to do to impact your life and make it better is creating blessings for yourself and putting in the work to create the life you want. That isn’t luck. That’s work!” (Patty) “I find myself getting a lot of satisfaction in helping others and creating happiness for others when they’re aligned with things that I’m doing.” (Patty) “If you’re competing with companies that are like yours, they have the same journey and struggles as you. When you’re around like-minded people in the same business as you, it’s really an ‘aha’ moment!” (Patty) “When you seek out and find your purpose, things will become clearer to you … I know my purpose is to impact others. It’s what I enjoy. I love the little wins.” (Patty) “Yes, cultivating meaningful moments is hard. It requires unyielding vulnerability and courage and deep trust and truth … but it erases the poverty of the soul. It’s the way to build a business that you’re proud of.” (Chris) LINKS/FURTHER RESOURCES:Check out Gary Chapman’s book, "The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts."Find out more about the Hogan Personality Assessment.Click here to find out about Kurt Vonnegut’s “Man in the Hole” theory.About "Grateful Processing," a concept developed by Prof. Phillip Watkins of Eastern Washington University.Explore Mike Foster’s "Seven Primal Questions."Follow this link to learn about “Ubuntu” and how the South African philosophy triggered one of the biggest turnarounds in NBA history. ABOUT OUR GUEST:Patty is an award-winning entrepreneur and Co-Founder and CEO of New American Funding. A first-generation Hispanic, her path to mortgage industry began at age 16 with a hard-work ethic and an entry-level position at TransUnion Credit. From there, she landed a job at a prominent mortgage company, where she would rise through the ranks and learn the business from the ground up, eventually becoming branch manager and assistant vice president. In 2003, Patty and her husband, Rick Arvielo, launched their own mortgage company, New American Funding. In the years since, Patty has helped transform the company into one of the largest independent mortgage lenders in the United States today with a servicing portfolio of over 250,000 loans for $69 billion. She also oversaw the creation and expansion of the company’s retail lending operation, which grew a small local operation to a national powerhouse with more than 170 locations and thousands of employees across the country. Today, Patty oversees nearly 4,000 employees, 54% of whom are women and 41% who are minorities. FOLLOW PATTY:WEBSITE | LINKEDIN| INSTAGRAM | #WeAllGrow ABOUT OUR HOST:Chris Schembra is a philosopher, question asker and facilitator. He's a columnist at Rolling Stone magazine, USA Today calls him their "Gratitude Guru" and he's spent the last six years traveling around the world helping people connect in meaningful ways. As the offshoot of his #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling book, "Gratitude Through Hard Times: Finding Positive Benefits Through Our Darkest Hours,"he uses this podcast to blend ancient stoic philosophy and modern-day science to teach how the principles of gratitude can be used to help people get through their hard times. FOLLOW CHRIS:WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | LINKEDIN | BOOKS