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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. Alright, what's up guys? This is Jake Lewendahl back on The Success Architect. Super excited to be chatting with you guys today. We've got episode three of our financial series discussing today money as a tool, not an identity. This one really hits home for me because I've had people ask me from counselors to my parents' friends to my personal friends, have asked me, Jake, when is enough enough? And I don't exactly know the answer to that. Number one, I haven't hit it yet. And the number the second answer to that is what does enough mean? The reason I say what does enough mean is because I said in the last episode, my personal view is that money magnifies who we already are. So if I want to help people, if I want to give to people, if I want to create a better life for my family and my community and my employees and the people around me, is there a number that is enough? Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, but this is part of the discussion today because most of the people that asked me that question thought, I believe, thought that I viewed money as an identity. Where view money as a tool in order to expand my identity. Again, money magnifies who you already are, and I want to magnify who I already am because I personally feel that I have a lot to give the world and want to make the world a better place. So I want the money in order to help me expand that. Now, today there is the question of the there's a huge amount of financial dysfunction when it comes to making money. And a lot of people, as I just talked about, make it an identity. It's something about who you are, your worth in our social culture, your masculinity, your femininity, your success as a parent, your standing in a community. So much of this can fall back to how much money you make if you let it. Whereas the alternate mindset is treating it as a tool in service of your actual values. Think again, magnification of who you already are. So a lot of people chase numbers. And the the interesting thing here is that people are chasing numbers that were never theirs to begin with. And what I mean by that is some people choose a net worth target or a per year salary target because somebody else hit that. A peer did it, or there was a specific lifestyle that this person wanted, and that was the number that they had to get to in order to have that lifestyle. And there's nothing wrong with wanting a good lifestyle. I'll be the first to say, I think I've said this on here, that part of growing up, I was always a big dreamer. And as I said two episodes ago, you know, my mom she grew up very poor. My grandmother was uh the coupon queen. I think they actually called her that at the grocery store, something along those lines. And uh also my mom had five sisters. So my my grandparents were immigrants. My grandmother stayed at home to raise six girls while my grandfather was a gardener. He had his own business, he was an entrepreneur, but he did gardening, lawn mowing, etc. And it was actually mind-blowing. He put six girls through private Christian school, raised them, and also mind-blowingly enough, I hear tons and tons of stories that he was not gone all the time. He spent time with them. He came home from working his ass off during the day and wrestled with them at night, helped them with their homework, and they went to church on Sundays. So I digress on that piece, but the whole point is that I had a bit of a different view of life than my mom had growing up. I had the benefit that, though that's how my mom grew up, I still was able to find an abundance mindset and a dreamer mindset in growing up, and both of my parents supported that, which was very positive. Whether that was their mindset or not, they supported me. I would constantly tell my mom at the age of 16 that I was going to have a catamaran yacht that had an elevator in the middle of it that dropped a wake boat out of the bottom of it, and uh that I was gonna travel the world on that yacht. How I was gonna get that yacht, I had no idea, but that's what was gonna happen. So there was a lifestyle that I picked, which could go back to this pattern, chasing numbers. The great thing that I will say about that specific dream is I could probably quantify the number right now that it takes to get to that, but I sure as shit could not do it when I was 16. And that is the beauty of dreaming, and that is when you don't let the numbers define you. You have a dream that you want to get to, but if your dream is so big that you can't even apply numbers to it, that's probably a good thing. Again, I digress. The whole idea here is that some people chase numbers that were never theirs. Whereas on the other side, the other way to think about this is if money had zero social meaning, nobody could see your house, your car, your bank account, would you still be chasing what you're chasing? And that's the question for today. That's what we want to talk about, where money is a tool and not an identity. So let's talk about this statement really quick. If money had zero social meaning, nobody could see anything that you had, would you still be chasing what you're chasing? The answer for me is yes. And whether that's surprising or not, the reason is because of the impact that I want to have on the world. And in order for me to have the most impact on the world, I need more money. Now, I've talked about this in counseling. Interestingly enough, that not all the impact that I want to have on the world needs money. And that is something that I have to remember every single day that I can still have impact today exactly where my feet are at, and I can be present in that impact with my community. Now, do I want to have more? Yes. And would money help me do that? Yes. Also, when it comes to looking at your house, your car, your bank account, if these have social no social meaning, what does it mean to you? For me, the reason I like to buy nice cars, which I have been given shit for by clients, by people outside of my family, I've always been a car guy and I love cars. Not because of what other people think about them, but because when I go to drive one of my cars, I smile every time I walk out and I open the door. And it literally makes my day driving to the office or driving to wherever I'm going in this specific vehicle. That's why I have the specific vehicles I have. And so whether anybody could see it or not, I would have these things. Same with my house. I don't really care what people think about my house, but my house happens to be perfect for my family and how we want to live. The backyard is exactly what I have dreamed of for many, many years because it includes the ability to do activities with my family that create memories. So in that case, the money does not matter, but the money does matter because it gets me the things that make me happy. And this is the ask that I ask you to ask yourself is are you doing this for social standing or are you doing this for yourself? Because deep down it makes you happy. So, in order to help understand this, let's talk about the difference between the identity and the tool. So, how has money become an identity marker? Its status, its comparison, there's the keeping up trap. Everyone talks about keeping up with the Joneses, and it is absolutely a real thing. If you live in a neighborhood that maybe is a little beyond your means, that is not a bad thing. I'm telling you, that's actually probably a good thing because now you're rubbing shoulders with people who have more money than you, which means you're probably gonna make more money soon. But if you try to keep up with those people and you go into debt doing so, that's not gonna help you. You know, this is, like I said, this happens in entrepreneurial circles. This happens if you live in a neighborhood that is a little bit beyond where your income maybe uh would usually have you. And the danger here is that you build a business or an income around what other people see rather than what actually serves your life. And that is the part to focus on. That is the part that I mention when I talk about the car. Yes, the car may seem like an outside, an outside stimulus, but for me, it serves my life in a very specific way. There's other things that other people like to spend money on that I don't give two shits about. So, question for you is are you building your income around what other people will see or actually doing it just to serve your life? Okay, so segment two, we jump into reverse engineering from values instead of optics. And this is how we go from treating money as an identity to then transferring to understanding values and using money as a tool. So, first exercise is name your top three or four real values. So, a couple examples might be family time, freedom, security, generosity, adventure, or cars, in my opinion. There's real values in all of this, and anyone can come up with 20, 30, 50, 100 values. Name your top four. Now, the question is is do these have to do with money? What financial philosophy would actually serve this value? And is your current behavior aligned with it or working against it? So, an example to help you understand is someone who values family time but has built a business model that requires them to be at every single meeting, to be gone from six in the morning to seven at night. They may be making a lot of money, but is that really serving your family time, the value that you put in your top four? Probably not. Sounds like these are in conflict, which leads to finding a way to make a change and in turn make money a tool in order for you to accomplish what your top values are. So again, let's reframe this saying, what is the money for? Before every major decision, not what does this money say about me? As you're making a decision when it comes to family time. Do I want family time? Yes. Does my business facilitate family time? No. Okay, does my does does my business make a lot of money? Yes. Okay, how can you buy your time back? How can you use that resource of money in order to buy your time back to then go have family time? And you might get both. You might get a lot of money and family time if you do that, which is just a bonus. When we talk about money as a tool, that's what I just discussed. You can also apply this in other ways. You can apply this to cancel that, just go back to the last sentence and stop at my last concept about uh the family time. So remember that money is a tool, and every tool has a job. So if a purchase, an investment, or a financial habit isn't doing its job in order to accomplish one of those top four values, or even your top 20 values, then it's not actually a neutral decision. It's actually costing you. And that is the thing that we all have to discuss. What are we spending our money on? How are we making that money in order to spend it? And is it accomplishing our top values? That is all that matters. Take the time to write down those values, do the exercise and see where you really line up. And at the end, do not forget that money is a magnifier, and money will magnify your ability to accomplish those values, to have the family time, to do the things that you want to do, to give to the people that you want to give to. Use it as a tool, use it as a magnifier. Last action step for this section. Pick one recent financial decision driven by image or comparison, because we all have them. Rewrite it. What would you have done if no one was watching? Let me know, guys. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Next episode is going to be our fourth and final for this series, and it's going to be about building a financial philosophy that you actually choose instead of letting everyone else choose it for you. See you on the next one. 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 up.