In an earlier post “Becoming a Mortgage Broker: The Exam” I advised keeping your day job while you take the licensing course. But even though the Mortgage Broker course is self-guided and you have a year to complete it, many people say they don’t have the time.

Let’s think about that.

If you work a 40-hour week, plus a few hours of overtime, and you sleep for seven hours a night, you still have about eight hours left each and every weekday. Many of us mismanage that time. We spend it consuming rather than creating. We spend it numbing our minds rather than stimulating them. We spend it in the past rather than the future.

If you’ve got an hour for lunch, brown-bagging from home can cut meal time to ten minutes. You just found 50 minutes to read or listen to an audiobook while going for a brisk walk.

Commuting by train or bus provides even more time for reading and studying.

These suggestions circle back to not quitting your day job to take the brokering course. Once you are licensed we will take a hard look at jumping in with both feet. We will map out how to fill those first file-free and client-free days. Getting started as a Broker, in my opinion, requires a minimum of 60 hours a week, so why not get used to that schedule now and invest an extra 20 hours per week, in addition to your current job, to get yourself licensed?

You also stand to benefit from maintaining your current job, especially if you are doing it with excellence and staying engaged with fellow employees. You want to be displaying a vibrant and energetic attitude; you want to go out with style.

Do not be a downer about the current job you have; that will not serve you well mentally or otherwise. The people you work with today could very well become future clients and/or referral sources. I have watched a new Broker land client after client from his previous workplace. He never put the job down, never put the employer down, and now he is invited back by management to give seminars on credit scores, first-time buyers, etc.

Be positive with your time, be laying the foundation now for the new work you will be doing. Imagine the hundreds of hours saved prospecting for new clients if you have maintained strong relations with all of those you currently work with.

Don’t throw away those warm relationships. Don’t think, “I’m leaving all you suckers behind; I’m out of here.” View your current work environment as a building block, a cornerstone, of your new business and career. When you’ve moved on, you want former colleagues to remember that you were happy and worked hard to do your job well.

Two good reasons to keep your day job while you’re preparing for your new career as a Mortgage Broker: 1. Getting used to your future schedule, and 2. Cultivating potential clients.

And as a bonus, all the while, you’re still collecting a salary.