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Welcome to the Success Architect, where we don't just build homes, we build legacies. I'm your host, Jake Lewendell, custom home builder and coach. Each week, I sit down with builders and entrepreneurs who are ready to 10x their business, their health, and their mindset. This is where blueprints become breakthroughs. Let's get to work. All right, what's up, guys? Welcome back to the Success Architect Podcast. And we are in day five of the leadership capsule. I am excited to tell you about this last one. It is the law of relationships. So in my business, relationships is one of our core values. Um, everything we do is based around people, which theoretically every business should be. Not uh not every business is, but in my opinion, it should be. But relationships are interesting. People are messy and relationships are messy. So as a leader of a team of people, when your core value is all about relationships, we have to be very careful about uh being friendly but not familiar. And those are the two words that uh I could come up with in order to help define this uh for myself and for you guys. And the the I guess main idea here is that you can love people and still lead them. We can be friendly, but not familiar. So in order to care as much as I do, there also has to be a professional boundary in relationships. Now, this could look differently for everyone, but I prefer to maintain a level of curiosity and care without being too ingrained in my team's lives. Now, what that looks like, which I will come back to, is yes to dinner on occasion, going out to dinner as couples, but no to sitting on the couch every Sunday and watching football. And that's the best way that I can describe this uh in my own words and in my own life. So the key point here is talking about friendly. As a leader, there's warmth, there's respect, there's a defined mission, and there's consistency. Like we talked about the past couple days, consistency is our standards and how we uphold them and our guidelines and the communications we have when someone steps outside of those guidelines, having a very quick conversation about it, but also doing it in a respectful and warm manner. Familiar is the other side, which I try my best not to step into. And this is where you can blur boundaries. Uh, there could be a risk of favoritism. And this is where it also becomes very prevalent for a leader to avoid hard conversations. So, this is where as a leader, I prefer not to be. I prefer to be friendly, not familiar. In my opinion, yes to a dinner on occasion, a professional dinner, no to sitting on the couch for football every Sunday. So, how as a leader do you step into this role? This is a constant day-to-day thing for you, and this is something that you have in the back of your mind as a leader. This is where we take every single law of leadership and implement it in our lives, to where we care about relationships, but we take ownership for those relationships. We have clarity, we have standards, we have boundaries and guardrails, and we have very specific communication around the results that we are after. Because when we have results and we have metrics, it can be a very objective conversation if a team member is not hitting those metrics. Doesn't have to be subjective, it doesn't have to be about feelings. This is where you can step outside of the realm of feelings in the relationship and stick to very specific objective measures. And that makes the conversation not only easier to have, but more logical and easier to verbalize and easier for the teammate to understand. And when you have those conversations and you do them often in regard to objective measures, not only do you as a leader become more comfortable and it becomes easier to have these conversations, but the team members progress toward the results faster and faster and faster, which is why we're here. We're here to grow business. So be friendly, warm, enjoyable. Uh, for me, that means doing team days where we'll actually take uh everyone on the team plus their spouse or significant other out on the boat to go surfing. And going out on the boat and going surfing is a really intimate experience. Um, we're out there, we're in really small, close quarters, we're all talking. Most likely, it's mostly talking about personal things, which is super enjoyable, and it's a really great way to increase your relationship with your teammates. Now, this happens maybe twice a year. But then again, I'm still not sitting on the couch watching football every single Sunday with one teammate. Now that becomes too ingrained and it starts to blur the boundaries that you have set as a leader and the standards that you have set as a leader. So one thing that you can do as a challenge today in order to press forward on this is to connect with one person. Connect with them in a very personable way, with warmth, with respect, and with feelings. But then also hold one standard that you have in the business very calmly. It can be a one-sentence deal, it can be very simple, but there is a way in order to be friendly but not familiar and have the absolute best relationship you can ever imagine with your entire team. Go give this a shot today. Thank you so much for listening. This is day five of our leadership capsule, and I really hope that you were able to glean a lot of information. I hope over the last two weeks that we've dropped these, you have been able to actually implement them, take the day or two between the drops that we're doing these in order to implement these in your lives to actually become better leaders, which makes you as a leader and as a person just feel better. It it increases confidence and it increases your potential and uh you knowing that you are in the right spot, you are growing your company, and you're going to crush this. So let me know if you have any questions in the comments. Please reach out on social, anything of that sort. Go be a better leader today and crush the week. Thank you for listening. Thanks for tuning in to the Success Architect. If today's episode helped you lay a stronger foundation for your business or your life, subscribe and share it with someone ready to do the same with theirs. You can follow me, Jake Lewendah, on social for daily tips on health, wealth, and building success that lasts. Until next time, keep designing, keep building, and keep leveling.