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. This is Justin Owens on Instagram, and some of you may know him as the New Age CEO, is his handle. When I heard it, I got quiet because I knew exactly which one he meant. But I think I took it a little bit differently than he did. See, I know I understand where he's going with that. But for me, I looked at it definitely a little differently. You have to be a lion at work. I mean, that's the whole premise. And you have to lead, you have to be aggressive, you have to be driven. And it's not a flaw to be a lion at work. And no one should apologize for that. But what I found is that when I go home and I try to lead my family with lion energy, it sure as shit doesn't work. And it actually goes really badly. So I've been trying to figure out like, how do you be a leader in your business and in your life and in your family? And Justin Owens mentions this, but it can be taken a lot of different ways. And I think everyone looks at it a little differently. So here's what happens to most of us. We try to lead like a lion at work, and then that transfers to the home. And we come home, we maybe not lead with a heavy hand, but we try to be like the man of the house and we try to lead hard. But when we find out that that doesn't work, that no one really likes it, you know, my wife doesn't like it, my kids don't like it. Then for me, what I did is I retreated and I became what he's saying here is the lamb. And I would let my wife kind of run the show. I would just try to be helpful. I would say nothing. I would do nothing. I didn't want to disrupt the ecosystem that had been created during the day that I was not there. I don't want to create tantrums. I don't want to create anyone being pissed off. And I just want to be quiet, fit in. But being quiet and fitting in, this is a choice. This is not just being neutral, it's a choice. And that is a choice that does not equal leadership, as all of us know. So the question I've been chasing is like, where's that line? You leave the lion at work, but don't turn into the lamb. So, like, what are you? Can't be a lion at the house, right? There's got to be something in between. What I'm after is leading with the foundation of the lion and the softness of the lamb. And that's where the two can combine together, not one or the other, both at the same time. And I gotta be honest with you, up front, I do not have this all the way figured out, but it's something that I want to dissect and talk about today. So a perfect day at work when I feel like I have led like a lion. I have solved problems, I've helped people, I have empowered other people to solve problems themselves and uh helped them go handle their business and be their own leader. That's that's the whole premise in our company is that everybody is a leader. And a fantastic day is when I have empowered someone or everyone in the organization to do so. On top of that, you know, if I've had a great day, I've probably had some really good sales calls. I have felt powerful and confident in those sales calls. I've gotten some work done, knocked out a shit ton of emails, or knocked out a spreadsheet that was super helpful to someone in the company with something they need to do. And on top of that, a great day means I've probably had like 30 minutes of quiet time to eat lunch and just have to myself. Now, this is the day that I feel like a line, I feel on fire, and I know that I have made a difference in the world. Now, what does all that add up to? Sales, real productivity, confidence, problem solving. Like this is a fantastic day. And what this means, and really what I take from this description of my perfect day, or a day where I feel like I'm on fire, is confidence. Confidence in what I'm saying, confidence in how I'm thinking, how I'm presenting it to those around me, and how I think it's landing for the other person. I know they're picking up what I'm putting down. That is confidence to me. All right. So, like, what takes me out of confidence though? What takes me out of being that lion from my day? And what that is, is let's say it's a day when I couldn't get out of the office on time and I get home right at 5:30 or even a little bit after. The handoff with the kids from our nanny has happened at 5:30. It was quick. And usually when it's quick and there's not time for transition, it's painful. And uh, this is not awesome. That's why I try to be home well before 5:30 in order to make this transition and move into dinner in a really peaceful manner. Um, but when I get home at 5:30, I'm frazzled. I've had no time to actually make the transition for me. I've had no time for my brain, my heart, my soul, everything to actually transition from work to home. And then a chain reaction happens. I haven't transitioned, which makes me not present because I'm still thinking about stuff at work. The kids can't transition fast either. They've had a peaceful, delightful day. They worked into their system, and all of a sudden they have to transition from what that whole day was to something else: mom and dad and dinner. And if it happens too fast, it's not awesome. Without a good transition, they act out, they cry, they whine about dinner. They also don't feel supported. And when they don't feel supported, we don't connect. And when I'm not connecting to the kids, it's hard for me to connect with Mackenzie. On top of that, I want to be a leader at home. I want to be a part of the ecosystem at home. And I want to be present with the kids. I want to talk to them. I want them to gravitate toward me and want to talk to me. But when I get home late and I don't transition properly and I'm not present, they gravitate toward Mackenzie, who was present with the transition and with them for some time in the day. The issue with this, though, not only am I not getting the benefit of connecting with my kids and my wife, but when they gravitate toward McKenzie, it puts more stress on her because they're gonna cling to her. They're gonna wanna, you know, just be held by her. They want to sit next to her at dinner, they want her to help with cutting their food or like little things like that, instead of me getting the opportunity to help. And these knights are the ones that I hate, and these are the ones that make me recede into the lamb, which is not where I want to be. That right there is exactly what the lamb is. I'm literally just there when I get home. And the sad thing is, is it's not even neutral. Me not transitioning and being there present makes it harder for them to transition. And then all of it lands on my wife the exact same night I had the lease to give to her because I've had a busy day at the office. All of this to say it leads to the notion that for some men, including me in the past, a home is harder than work. And that's just me admitting a fault that I'm not extremely proud of. Like honestly, it doesn't matter how hard of a day work is, sometimes work is easier than home. And it's for this reason. First reason is obligation. A lot of the times men run on obligation, and that's a whole different podcast that I want to talk about because we really should not. And that's something that I've been working on. But really, at work, we have obligation, and when we are successful in completing our obligations, it leads to confidence. We were obligated, we followed through, we solved the problem, and we do what we say we're gonna do. And it converts, converts into productivity, it converts into someone getting something done or listening to you, and that creates confidence, and that feels damn good. The second reason is instant gratification. Just like I just said, at work, we solve something, we close something, the payoff shows up immediately. We win a sale, we get money. We have a great conversation with someone and unlock them to go do their job better. Instant gratification that they are now doing their job, they're taking it off of my plate, and I get to go on with my day knowing that that thing is getting handled. There's money, there's instant wins, and on top of it all, there's visible progress. And visible progress is another giant piece of instant gratification. But at home, there's not really such a thing. I talked about this in a past episode about being a father, where I know that Mackenzie and I are doing our absolute best to be great parents. And, you know, we're not perfect, but we've done our absolute best. And for three years, we try and try, and you don't see the instant gratification from teaching your kids to be polite at the dinner table, to ask nicely, to try a bite of everything on their plate without whining and getting mad about it. Little things like that. But then all of a sudden, one night, we're sitting at dinner, and our daughter comes to the table without being mad about it. It's not a dinner that she really wants, but she sits down, she talks to us about her day, and she takes at least a bite of everything on her plate, and she does it without saying a word. And it's like, oh my God, something we're doing is actually working. And that's the really hard part about being at home and parenting is that that instant gratification is not there. And we have to wait so freaking long to see just a little bit of success. And there's absolute beauty in that, and there's also absolute terror in that. And it's really hard for us as humans, but also I think men to not see the instant gratification and to keep pressing forward with those little wins in order to see a bigger win at the end. When this comes to entrepreneurs, at least for me, I know I'm built to press forward fast, get big scores as fast as possible, and have drive and run as fast as I possibly can. But this isn't how it works at home. The metaphor here is that the guy who's exceptional at work then comes home and he walks into a room where none of his instruments read anything. And it's way too easy to go quiet when that happens. And that is the lamb. At work, being obligated turns into confidence. You follow through, you solve it, you get paid, and it comes fast. It feels really, really good. At home, you can do it right for a month, a year, three years, and see absolutely nothing. Then all of a sudden, one day, your five-year-old does something at the dinner table, and you go, oh shit. Like it worked. It's amazing. So why do we retreat? Why do we actually turn into the lamb? And here's the honest sequence that most of us run. I know I have. Is I bring work energy home a few times, and it goes really badly. The kids don't respond to urgency. Anyone who's tried to put a four or five-year-old to bed knows that that is the truth. And my wife doesn't want to be a problem that I am solving efficiently. Like, that's why women want to just tell you a story or tell you about their day without fixing it. And I know from experience that many of us men like to just fix shit. So we're also not stupid. It takes us a long time to learn. Sometimes we have hard heads, but we learn the lesson. Don't bring that guy home. So if we don't bring that guy home, who do we bring home? And that's where it gets complicated. Because I found that until I started to kind of work into leading at home, is that when I said I wasn't going to bring that guy, the confident work guy, home, I just did nothing. And the shitty thing is, is that doing nothing is a choice. It means you're not committing to anything. And here's where the push-pull is. Like, I know my wife wants me to lead at home, but I also know that she doesn't want me to lead the way I lead at work. So it's really hard to figure out like what's in the middle of those two things. So what I did in the past was I hovered halfway and halfway up, trying to figure out, like, oh, who who should show up at the house today? Who's wanted at the house tonight? And hovering, like I said, neutral is not a decision. It is, it's, or the sad thing is, is that neutral is a decision, but it's it's choosing to just be on the fence, and it looks super shitty one way or another. So this is the dichotomy that I'm finding is that the lamb is not the opposite of the lion. I'm realizing that my family doesn't want two different guys, one at work and one at home. Because if the lamb was the opposite of the lion, that just means the absence of leadership in a different place, in a different location. And when we choose to stay neutral or we choose to do nothing, that is exactly what we're choosing, is nothing. And that is not leadership, and that is not who our family wants at home. So to continue on with kind of the dichotomy so that we can get all of this out in order for us to all consider what is the solution here, how do we work through this? Is that the opposite of pushing isn't softness, it's stillness. At work, I drive toward a goal. And at home, the equivalent move to driving is being still and looking at peace. So, like, what does that actually look like? Sitting down, making eye contact, putting my phone down, and listening. And this is what I mean when I talk about presence. I talk about presence a lot on this podcast and is something that I personally struggle with. And I also feel like sometimes presence, even when I say it, it gets thrown around as kind of a catchword. But this is what I'm talking about, is what I'm looking at and how I want to lead when I get home, is that I want to sit down, I want to make eye contact, I want to listen. And this means for me that I have to transition properly and I need to actually kick all the work shit out of my head and slow down and be present. Now, for a lot of us, I know for me, it's really hard because simple conversation doesn't feel productive. And something that I'm working on is that not everything in life has to be productive and it doesn't have to feel productive. Turns out when we're leading at home, it might not actually feel productive because we're not seeing the instant gratification. But a conversation with my five-year-old daughter that has real eye contact and where my phone is not present and where I'm actually listening to her, the benefits of that are gonna show up in 10 years. And it's gonna be huge. But I have to remember that that is a long-term play. At work, I lead by pushing. At home, I lead by being still. Again, sitting down, eye contact, listening to a conversation, whether it's with my wife, my five-year-old, my 18-month-old. It doesn't feel like I'm actually producing anything, but that conversation, and what is going to come out of that conversation in 10 years, because I sat there and made that eye contact and actually listened, that is the product. Some listeners might be listening and just saying, like, hey, that's cool. Like, I can try to put my phone down, I can try to sit and listen. And you know, it's really, it takes practice. It's not that easy. And the reason is is because it's really hard for driven people, anybody, men, women, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, to just fit in. For me, everything at work is mine. It's my company, my team, my call. I get to make decisions. And though I try to delegate those decisions, again, another conversation for another podcast, I get the final say on everything. But when I walk into the door at home, I have to find a way to fit into a system. I haven't been there all day, and there's an ecosystem. There's a whole day's worth of events that I was a very small part of. I got to talk on the phone with them, maybe do a little FaceTime, see some pictures, but I wasn't there. So, what do most of us do? As I said earlier, we default to passive. I know that's exactly what I used to do. I would default to passive. I try to be helpful and I say, What do you need help with? What can I do? Like literally, I find myself still today when I walk in the door. What do you need? What can I help with? What can I do to help you? Mostly to my wife. And unfortunately, it feels passive. It feels shitty. It feels emasculating. And it actually doesn't even feel helpful, even though I'm using the words, what can I help with? Because like she wants a leader. And she doesn't want like a laborer in the house coming in to just do things for her. So there's a distinction here. I'm not actually being asked to do more. When I'm being passive, I'm asking permission to participate in my own home. And that to me is the definition of passivity, if that's a word. Those two things are very different, and only one of them is leading. Everything at work is mine. But when I walk into the front door and I'm just fitting into a system that I was barely a part of all day, I default to asking my wife, what can I do to help? Over and over and over and over. And that is passive, it's emasculating. And for a guy who wants to be useful, that is an absolute slow death. So what do we do? How do we find a way to lead with peace? Spoiler alert, I gave some answers above when I talked about presence. I talked about the opposite of pushing being softness, and that there is a payoff. That by slowing down and being present, that actually is productivity. But I'm not going to leave you with the answer here because there's a catch-22. The system at home has been running all day. The kids had a great day. Mackenzie had a great day. And there's peace, there's tranquility, and the ecosystem at home is working. And when I come home, I'm expected to fit into it, but I'm also expected to lead. And that's the dichotomy that I've been talking about. How do we lead something that's already working that we haven't been a part of without wrecking it? So here's the question for today How do I lead with peace? This is a question that I hope every listener asks themselves. Because everything has been working all day without me at home. And I'm supposed to walk in, lead, and not screw up what's already working. And I don't exactly have that one figured out. But what I do know is that leading with peace and presence is the answer there. Now, how to do that is a personal journey for every single one of us. So that I don't leave you guys without any answers at all. What I can say is lately what I have tried is a couple things. First one is a transition time. And that is me leaving from work at a time when I know I'll have at least 15 minutes at home to transition, to be in the house, to actually show my presence, even if I'm still like finishing a couple things up. At least I'm physically present for 30 to 15 minutes. And when it gets a little closer to say that 5:30 mark or whenever the transition time is, I put my phone down and I start trying to immerse myself into the environment, talking with the kids and being a part of that transition. All the while knowing that the ecosystem has been running all day and that I'm walking into it and that I need to be a helpful, useful part, but I need to lead. And that leading is going to come from peace and presence. A couple, like uh, I think I've noted it or said something about it on Instagram. But in making that transition, the other part that I've noticed is very hard is the transition from like the drive of work to the transition to peace. And this is why I'm not giving the answers because that transition from driving at work to peace at home is an internal transition that each one of us has to figure out on our own. I've done something like something stupid, like doing a bunch of burpees and then yelling out loud, which sounds absolutely ridiculous. But what's kind of funny is it actually works. It's not actually what I do every single time, but it does work, and it's something that I recommend giving a shot. So if you have figured this out, I would love to know. Please tell me. Because most of us men, we go through life steamrolling the piece, or we just disappear into the background because we're just trying to fit into the environment. And neither one of those is leading. Find the way to transition from drive to peace, and that is the way that we can lead in our home. 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.