SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Success Architect, where we don't just build homes, we build legacies. I'm your host, Jake Lewendahl, 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.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

What's up, guys? This is Jake Lewendahl back on The Success Architect. Super happy to be here today to run through some fun stuff today. So, today's a solo episode, and I'm gonna talk about how my income got cut in half in 2025. Which is a real bummer. But I want you to do something for me. I want you to, as you're listening, be safe if you're driving, but I want you to fold your arms right now. After you fold your arms, now I want you to switch the way you fold your arms. Does it feel uncomfortable? Does it feel like something is broken or it's just not right? Well, the thing that I want you to understand is that just because something is uncomfortable doesn't mean it is not right. Change is an okay thing. And though it's uncomfortable, it is absolutely something that an entrepreneur, any person in life needs to grow. You can you can put this in any part of your life, whether it's relationships, fitness, anything, because being uncomfortable is what helps us grow, helps us push past things, and it helps us get to the next level. So in 2025, actually right at the end of 2024, we made some big moves with hiring systems and trying to find some ways to get past our ceiling. Because in 2023 and 2024, we had done somewhere around 11 million in revenue, and we could not move past that. So we did that with roughly four or five employees. And in 2025, we had a pretty good pipeline. Everything was looking really good. We had a lot of work and it was really difficult work, and those four employees, as well as myself, were just getting hammered. Our bandwidth was low, our creativity was low. And so we added people to the team. Through 2025, we over doubled the size of our team, which of course doubled our monthly overhead. And it effectively cut our company profit in half. Because in 2025, even though we increased our overhead and added people to the team, we did not increase our revenue, which was very interesting. So was this the proper way to prep for growth? I would say maybe not. There's probably other ways to do it, but the idea here is that we did not just double our overhead for fun. The idea here is that we were investing in our future. And investing our future for positive change is how you have to go about it. Now, I'm not telling you you need to double your overhead, but I am telling you that you're probably going to need to do something that is less than comfortable. And that is how you make moves into the future. So, where's momentum for us going from here? And I want to tell you how you can be smart about change and do things in a bit more efficient manner than I did. Where's momentum going from here? We have had two years, 2025 and well, a year and a half, half of 2026, of investing in our systems, our processes, our people, and really learning how to work together so that we can then double the size of the company. And that is the goal in 2027. So that's where momentum is going for us. And these are the things that we are doing in order to change, to be more efficient, and to keep our culture, to keep our culture with our owners, which is raving fans, to keep the quality on our job site, and to compete with a lot of guys who are far bigger than us, but do it in a very efficient and high quality manner. That's the direction for us. Now, how can this work for you? This idea came from me reading a book by Dave Burke called The Need to Lead. So this is the third book in the extreme ownership series. And he's a marine fire pilot and a top gun instructor. So there's a chapter, chapter eight, where he talks about change. And the chapter basically talks about how he was one of the most experienced fighter pilots in the entire world. He had years and years and years. He was certified on multiple aircraft, he had flown combat missions, he had done all of this stuff that a ton of other people had not done, no matter how long they had been flying. And he got chosen to transition into an F-22 Raptor program. So it was a new generation of aircrafts, fifth generation aircraft. And the idea of these fifth generation aircrafts is instead of being just fighters who go all in, they are stealth machines. And the way that you fight with this different plane is 100% different than you fight with fourth generation planes, things like F-16s and stuff like that. So because Dave was an elite fighter pilot, he was one of the best in the world, every instinct had him basically listening to his instructors and then letting it fly out the other ear and not listening to this new way of using this aircraft. And so he went out and he started flying it with his old habits. And he kept failing, kept failing. And finally, he had to decide that he had to admit what made him great prior to now was holding him back and learning new things from people, sometimes with a fraction of his experience, was the way that he became very successful in this F-22 Raptor program. So for me, this fits where my company is at right now. We are trying to break through a ceiling. We are trying to modify. And in construction, one of my least favorite terms, but also a very prevalent term, is we do this because this is the way we've always done it. And it's a terrible, terrible saying in business. It's a terrible saying in construction, but it's used all the time because construction has a lot of guys who have a lot of experience, and everyone touts on that experience being the end-all-be-all on building a good house. And the change that we are making in our company is taking that experience and having the mindset of understanding and using that experience to its best, but not getting stuck in old habits and being okay with the uncomfort of change. So, how can you do that? There's a couple of things I want to talk about before I kind of give you the list, but one of the biggest warnings, and that's where I'm at right now with experience in our team, is that our past success is not proof that our current habits are right. This is where experience can get you into trouble because everyone builds routines, builds habits from the experience they have. And in construction, we've been doing it the same way for God knows how long. And if it works, why change it? But I'm saying that you do have to change it. We have to make it better. And I can talk about a lot of things that we have to change. We don't have time for today. So I just want to talk about the mindsets and a couple little tactical pieces for entrepreneurs and anyone else out there listening to make changes in their life, even if their habits are good right now, and even if you're seeing success right now, we need to be open to change and take a proactive approach to change. So, first question for you to consider where have you personally felt tension lately in what you're doing? Where the way we've always done it is bumping into something new that you're trying. So keep that in mind as we go through this. The thing that we have to be honest about here is resistance to change is human nature. It's uncomfortable, it's unpredictable, and our instinct is to avoid it. None of us are wired for that feeling. We search for comfort. We want homeostasis and we want our body to feel good. But pushing into change or or leaning into it is uncomfortable, pulls us out of homeostasis. The thing that we have to remember is that if we decide to grow, avoiding change isn't just a neutral thing where you're not making a decision. That is actually a decision to avoid something. So when you are avoiding something that maybe is a little uncomfortable, and you think, hey, I'm just not going to do anything about that, you are actually making a choice not to do something about that. And that is the thing we need to remember. We do not, by doing that, you are letting an outcome happen to you instead of choosing your outcome. So choose your outcome. Now, let's get into a couple high-level tactical things that you can do. And these are essentially mindsets, but these are things to consider for yourself, in your personal world, and for your team. First is humility. We have to be willing to be a beginner again. In this book, Dave talks about how he ended up talking to like a what 23-year-old uh uh new new guy in his program who had barely flown planes, and he started talking to him about the habits that he had created because this guy came straight into the F-22 Raptor program instead of coming from another program with habits. And what was interesting is this kid had all of the answers for Dave on what he was doing wrong. And it felt so weird talking to someone with so little experience, but getting such incredible input from him. And that's where humility comes into place. And, you know, this is something that you can have in your business. This is something that you can have in your relationship. And that's that's something that that's something that I have to work on is having humility in business with not always having the answers because I love having all the answers. I love being a hero. I love fixing something and getting an adrenaline rush out of taking care of something for someone. And it hurts me in my business. That also hurts me in my relationship. It makes me walk all over my wife in my relationship on those specific things. It makes me not listen and it makes me not be present. So being willing to change routines and being able to have humility around these things helps in business and in relationships. One thing that I want to go back to is the discussion of an investment in change, specifically for entrepreneurs, but also anyone in entrepreneurship or in their personal life, change is hard and it is an investment. And this is where the humility is a big piece of it. And what I want to make sure is very clear is that if you are trying to break through a ceiling, if you are trying to move fast and grow, by doing an investment in your future, by say, in my case, cutting my income in half, talk to your partner because this is something that my partner and I had to work through. And unfortunately, I came into this without really realizing this is what we were doing. This was not exactly a conscious decision until we were in the middle of it. So it hit us like a ton of bricks. But we had to actually change our lifestyle for the last two years in order to make this investment for growth with the basically the bet and the gamble that we are going to increase and that this investment is going to give us ROI. So props to my wife Mackenzie for being a part of that investment, and also props to my team for being a part of that investment on the personal side and the business side. The second piece is you change while you're winning, not just while you're losing. And this is the one that I really had to learn because usually I just change when things are going bad. And that's how that's human nature. Most people are like, oh shit, things got really bad. Now we're going to make a change. The thing here is to be proactive. Be proactive with changing while you are winning and not waiting until you're losing. Question number two for you to answer for yourself is what's one thing we do well today that you think we should be willing to change or improve, even if it's working? This can be in your personal life, this can be in your business, this can be in your relationships. Okay, five mindsets for victory. And this is a repeat from the extreme ownership series, but I want to make sure that these are talked about quickly so that when you go into making a change, when you go into making an investment in your life, and when you go into being a teammate with your partner in that investment and the pain that you're going to have to go through together, like what Mackenzie and I have gone through in order to get to where we are now and where we are going, it takes these mindsets and you have to be on the same page. So, first one is discipline equals freedom. Don't forget that is not the other way around. Discipline creates freedom, which is amazing. When you have habits, routines, system, processes. It seems reverse, but all of these things create freedom in your life. And part of that change is you must build these things, then find the consistency in order to keep them. Number two is default aggressive. So this does not mean being reckless, but aggressive. It means aggressively hitting problems and going after solutions and not standing by and letting an outcome happen to you. It means creating an outcome and making a conscious choice to create that outcome. And even if it's the wrong choice, you own it and you move on. Innovate and adapt. This is the biggest one with change. Obviously, these go together. And everything, when someone chooses to change, to make an investment in themselves, in their company, in their relationship, they are investing in change. And you must be willing to innovate and adapt and not get stuck in your old experiences. Number four is humility, just like we talked about. Looking at other places outside of your own experience, even if it is people with less experience than you, and being okay listening to these people. Listening is the key here, something that I'm pretty freaking terrible at, but I am working on. I'm sure my wife would like me to work on it a little bit harder because listening and having humility is what will allow you to see where you need to change. And it'll probably help you make the right choice as to having the fastest and best results from that change instead of getting stuck in this gap that change sometimes creates. The gap between where you were and where you are going. By listening to other people, by having humility around this, that is the way to shorten this gap. Number five, last one, extreme ownership. If you don't know what this means, go read the book. But if you're listening to this podcast, I assume you know what extreme ownership is. And this is the foundation for everything. Sometimes you make a wrong decision when you are going to make a change, and that's okay. You own it, you deal with the outcome, and you make a new decision. You don't stand by, you make a new decision to find a new outcome. The final idea here for every listener in business, in personal relationships, in fitness, in absolutely anything that you are going for is that everyone is a leader. You are a leader in your own life. Your spouse or partner is a leader in their life, and you two are leaders together in your personal life. Same thing comes with business. Every single person in the business is a leader, not just a boss. By giving everyone the opportunity to be a leader, to take ownership of change, to take ownership of the growth and the things that you want to do and the decisions that you're going to make for the outcomes you're going to get, everyone has a say. And by allowing this and by building this culture of everyone as a leader, you will have faster change, better change, and better outcomes. Again, the final, final piece of this is just don't forget, innovate and adapt. By choosing consciously to go through change in your life, things will be uncomfortable. But by being open and having humility around innovating your life and adapting to new circumstances, you, your team, your partner, everyone is going to be happier from it and everyone is going to go see amazing outcomes. And even if you don't get the outcome right the first time, innovate, adapt, pivot, because you will find that outcome you're looking for. Final question I want you to consider for yourself is what is one change, big or small, that you'd commit to leading yourself over the next 90 days? Choose something simple. I don't care if it's in fitness, if it's in your relationship, if it's in your business, if it's in your spirituality. Make one small change over the next 90 days. And if you'd like to, feel free to message us what that change is going to be. And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. Talk soon.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

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 Lewendahl, on social for daily tips on health, wealth, and building success that lasts. Until next time, keep designing, keep building, and keep leveling up.