Tuesdays with Mary

Tuesday, June 17, 2025 While you’re reading this, I’m likely somewhere in Pittsburgh; either racing down a hallway at the NS3 conference or standing in the back of a packed session trying to gauge the mood of the room. Maybe I’m helping with a panelist’s last-minute change or moderating a Q&A. If the timing is just right, I might even be having a quiet cup of coffee and thinking about how this whole thing came together…or a talking with a colleague over a glass of wine and wishing it would never end. Conferences like NS3 often look seamless from the [...]

Tuesday, June 10, 2025 I was in Florida recently, attending a conference at a resort with one of those wave machines — the kind where people can hop on a small board and try their hand at surfing without the ocean. Most people treated it like a game. A laugh. They’d wipe out gloriously, bounce back up grinning, and race to the back of the line like kids on a waterslide. They weren’t trying to master surfing; they were just doing something fun and out of the ordinary on vacation. But one person caught my attention. He wasn’t playing. He [...]

Tuesday, June 3, 2025 In the rush of daily life, it’s easy to lose sight of the small moments that ground us. Whether it’s work deadlines, family demands, or just the constant hum of information, we rarely pause long enough to breathe deeply and simply be. That’s why I’ve come to appreciate the importance of carving out a serene space; a place that feels like a little refuge you can visit every day. This space doesn’t have to be grand or complicated. It can be a nook, a chair by a window, a spot under a favorite tree, or even [...]

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 By the time this posts, I’ll have gone again. I’ll have walked the familiar path through the Speedway, found my seat, watched the traditions unfold, and felt the crowd rise around me as the fighter jets thundered overhead. I’ll have tried to take it all in — the joy, the noise, the flags, the memories. And I’ll have thought about him. A lot. It’s been one year since I watched my brother stand — or more accurately, will himself to stand — in what became one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever witnessed. He was [...]

Tuesday, May 20, 2025 On May 19th, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a summary judgment in the closely watched (at least here) case involving the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). The court found that the removal of board members, the attempted replacement of leadership, and the transfer of real, financial, and personal property were all unlawful, ultra vires, and without legal effect. This ruling’s order isn’t just about internal politics at a (somewhat) government-funded institution. It’s a case that touches on foundational legal principles: the sanctity of private property, the importance of observing charter [...]

Tuesday, May 12, 2025 Every now and then, a word from the past sneaks back into the headlines and makes you do a double-take. Stagflation is one of those words. If you lived through the 1970s, you probably remember hearing it on the evening news. If you’re younger, it might sound like something from a history book—one of those “bad economy” terms we learned to avoid. After all, we’ve had decades of economists, experts, and policymakers fine-tuning things. Surely, stagflation was a problem we figured out how to fix for good… right? Well, maybe not. So, What Is Stagflation? In [...]

Tuesday, May 6, 2025 It’s easy to believe that growth is a solo act. We attend the webinar. We read the article. We make the tough call. We sit quietly at the end of the day and wonder if we’re doing enough. From the outside, it can look like progress is all about individual hustle…digging deeper, working harder, figuring it out on our own. But the truth is, we don’t grow alone. We grow because someone challenged our thinking during a hallway conversation. Because a colleague asked a question we hadn’t thought to ask. Because we heard something in a [...]

Tuesday, April 28, 2025 Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much of life, and work, involves making decisions before we have all the information we want. It’s easy to fall into the trap of waiting for perfect clarity, especially when the stakes feel high. But in reality, the best decisions often aren’t made because we have all the facts; they’re made because we have enough to move forward thoughtfully. In the real estate and financial world (and honestly, in nearly every part of life right now), uncertainty seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Markets are shifting. Regulations [...]

Tuesday, April 22, 2025  In an order that’s already making the rounds for its eloquence and urgency, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote something that stopped me in my tracks. Reflecting on the responsibilities of the judiciary, he said: “The Executive may view the ends as all-important; we cannot. Our branch is about the means. Our duty is to ensure that the process comports with the Constitution, the statutes, and the ordered liberty they protect.” He was making a constitutional point, of course—defending the role of the courts in holding the line, especially when process is inconvenient or messy or [...]

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 There’s something about this spring that feels suspended in midair—like we’re all holding our breath, waiting for something to shift. Maybe it’s the promise of lower interest rates that hasn’t quite materialized. Maybe it’s the long tail of regulatory uncertainty. Maybe it’s that in places many of us live, spring weather hasn’t quite yet come to stay. But I’ve noticed it everywhere: conversations that trail off into maybes, decisions put off until “after we see what happens,” and people—smart, capable, thoughtful people—just...waiting. In our industry, that’s not unusual. Real estate, lending, and compliance have always moved [...]