483 Is Architecture Industry Collapse Inevitable with Enoch Sears and Rion Willard

12:28PM Aug 4, 2023

Speakers:

Enoch Sears

Keywords:

architecture

empires

business

architects

practice

work

ryan

happened

world

economic

starts

decline

industry

architectural

comfortable

challenges

put

money

tensions

firm

architecture as a professional must be more relevant.

Hello and welcome back architect Nation. I'm Enoch Sears. And this is the show where you'll discover tips, strategies and secrets for running an architectural practice that let you do your best work more often, and not just your best work. But how you operate your business flows over to every other area of life, your family life, if you have a family, friends, time outside of work, your passions, your projects, everything goes into how to have good business and how that business impacts the other areas of life cannot be understated. Now, if you run an architectural practice today, and you haven't already gotten access to our 60 minute from owner training, what are you waiting for, head on over to smart practice method.com And you'll be able to sit through a training you'll get learning education units for this and you'll get 10 years of expertise and and experience working with small firm owners distilled down into 60 minutes of how you can run your best practice now. Today, I'm joined by Ryan Willard Ryan, welcome. Thank you very much. Hey, Nick. And as you all know, are may or may not know, Ryan is our Director of transformation and consulting. So Ryan works with all of the practices that we work with here and Business of Architecture. So he has an unparalleled view of the challenges that small architectural practices are having, as well as some of the skills that are lacking some of the mindsets that are missing. He works with people on everything from leadership to management, to their processes, to the sales processes to marketing, Ryan trains on it all and he's in the mix with at any at any given time over you know, 45 different firms guiding them through a transformational program. So super glad to have Ryan here on the show today. Ryan is also the host of the Business of Architecture UK podcast. So if you ever tire of hearing me on this podcast, although as you know, Ryan does most of the nowadays he does most of the interviews here on the BYU us podcast as well. So his voice

is a it permeates through the architectural industry

permeates the asset it will be it will be a resonant and and familiar, a familiar town. So we're here to talk about this topic today. And this is an important topic for you if you're an architectural practice owner, but even if you're a younger architecture, working away throw up an issue. This is something that touches the lives of every single person involved in the architecture industry. And we feel it's our responsibility to raise a warning flag because of the things that we are seeing and that we have seen over the decade, the past decade. And what brought this conversation up for us was a recent video that Ryan shared with me, where Ray Dalio, who's the founder of Bridgewater and us, you can look it up, Ray Dalio has not only as the independently, independently wealthy and runs one of the largest and most successful hedge funds ever. He also happens to have written a great book called Principles, another book that's coming out right now. And and the video that Ryan shared with me deals with the rise and fall of empires. And what he's talking about is, where's the United States headed, and whether your system United States or not, this is a very important and relevant concept. But we wanted to relate this to the architecture industry, because in this video, Ray goes through and provides some very convincing data, some very convincing historical data about these patterns that societies and the government's go through when they they first start out kind of the startup phase. And they go into the phase of, of growth and expansion. And then they go into the phase of adoption. And then they're in the face of preeminence, where they're the kind of the world power for a bit, and they stay there. And then they start to get fat and lazy, shall we say, start to get comfortable, they start to split us apart internally, due to internal strife, they weaken, and then some other hungry nation in this case comes in from the outside, and the cycle starts all over again. Now, what was interesting is, as we were looking at this, we realized this isn't too different than the architecture industry itself. And we see the architecture industry heading for a very, very difficult and challenging time, unless we all put on the brakes immediately and start adapting and sort of evolving, instead of staying stuck in the way that we used to do things. So Ryan, let's let's set the stage here. So let's just talk about this video that Ray Ray Dalio shared it's and we'll put it in the shownotes here. If you head over to Business of Architecture, and look up this podcast, titled this podcast is the architecture industry about to collapse. And you'll find in the show notes, all the all the things we're going to be talking about here today. So Ryan, give us a kind of an overview. What was the what was the thesis here that that Ray Dalio was talking about in this very intriguing video that he shared?

So the video is his kind of he's not a historian. I think that's important to kind of just to note, but he's, you know, an incredibly successful investor who is always interested in the kind of macro events of cultures and organizations. And, you know, his kind of line of inquiry was, was was isn't it has always been understanding the economy and the growth and boom of organizations and the growth of booms of various economies, and, you know, the more data and information that he can understand about that gives him more insight to become a successful investor. And this line of inquiry led him to start to study, you know, 500, of civilizations, great empires, and to kind of look at, or what's the lifecycle of an empire? And what are the things that are causing them to collapse? Or to decline? Why did they decline? What are the some of the warning signals, and to start to try and look at the US particularly, and the kind of the West in general, but the US is the preeminent power in the West, for sure. And it has been the kind of economic mind on the planet for, for the best part of the last 4050 years or so, or certainly from the kind of the Second World War onwards. And obviously, his in his interest was, was kind of trying to foresee what was going to happen economically, for his own personal protection and for the protection of his, of his clients and his organization. And so, he was a he pulled out three main empires to kind of draw a comparison to. And, you know, he does make a kind of argument in a book, he's written on this that accompanies the video. But he, you know, there's other empires that he did that he didn't look at in great detail, but he kind of had an overview of about 500. But he focuses on in on the Dutch, the British and the American empire, and starts to, like, you've just outlined, they're looking at, well, what are the sorts of catalysts of decline? Certainly, because that's what we're interested in. And, and he's trying to look at, well, what were the what were the indicators in decline the British Empire, and, you know, the Second World War was one and political tensions were another what were the declines or the things that happened with the, with the Dutch, with the Dutch empire, so that we can see these kind of start to extrapolate some of these patterns, so that we can locate ourselves now, in, you know, whereas the US if we make a prediction, you know, is it in decline doesn't feel like it's doesn't feel like it's on the right on the rise feels like there's a lot of tensions, we've just come out of a pandemic, there's lots of global worrying, we've got this other superpower, China, that seems to be basically just being a complete monster, all over the world in terms of production, output, intellect, you know, it's a real powerhouse, I say, monster, in a kind of, you know, in a positive sense that it's, it's, you know, it's the center of innovation right now. And it's kind of, it's very competitive with the with, with the US. So this becomes very interesting. And he makes the kind of assertion that the US is, is showing signs of decline. And that this has an impact on near the kind of things that we're experiencing now, some of the signs of decline, that implies typically have always gone through, like we said, the tensions, internal tensions, so we're living in a society right now, where you're, we're kind of being forced to take a side on something. And there seems to be this kind of inflated sense of polarity, which, again, we've spoken about this in the past, were kind of cynical of the polarity, actually. And there is a kind of fabrication around it. But social media certainly has accelerated this and compounded it. And it becomes, you know, it's just creating tribalism. And when there's that kind of tribalism, that's happening, you've got internal conflicts, and it becomes more difficult for an empire or for an institution to make effective decision making. We see it in the US with the Democrats and Republicans, either party is more happy to just stop the other party from succeeding. Irrespective of if the decision is good for the US or not. It becomes much and so that's that's massively, massively ineffective. And he starts to make the make the point that when these empires start to grow, and get this kind of get massive like this and become bureaucratic, that their ability to be innovative declines. People at the top are fighting for to keep the status quo, wealth inequality starts to increase. So you've got the the haves and the have nots, and the difference between them starts to accelerate that causes and that fuels more and more tensions. And at some point, there's some kind of often that what happens is some kind of reset. Amiens, you might think, at the French Revolution is a good example of, of that, or, or what happened in communist Russia, with the, with the, with with Lenin and, and, and things of that nature. So what's the impact this is it's all very interesting to kind of consider this and to start looking at a kind of an economy and a society or an empire that we're part of, and we've taken for granted, I think, in many ways, and we've taken for granted stability, and, and growth. And, you know, we've, we've always expected things to go to just keep on getting better and better and better. But now we're faced with some very real questions of like, okay, well, what's actually what's, what's the future? And more relevant to our conversation? Well, what's the future for what does this mean for architecture? And is the architecture the architecture industry is is part of the larger economy of the of the US and the West. And we're starting to see quite, you know, this old model of running a practice, which is becoming increasingly ineffective to operate. Certainly, as this kind of world economy, world economy is beginning to shift and to change.

Indeed, right. And so when another thing that Dalio had talked about was he talked about how countries gained prominence and they gained a foothold as the world power established world power one, of course, their currency becomes adopted as the other as the current size through which the trade of the world happens, right, it becomes the reserve currency of these other nations, it becomes the bacon currency. So everyone, and that happened with the United States, of course, there was a point where as our nation's decided they wanted to use the US dollar, because it was the most stable, it was the strongest currency, they're stable, their currencies were devalued. And so they, they kept those on the reserves on the banks. And, and, of course, countries like the US, when we go through these economic challenges, they just print more money, which then devalues the money. So you have this cycle of printing money devaluing the money, there's inflation that happens. And then before you know it, some of these countries get fed up, and it leaves an opportunity for other countries to move in. So as we look at this on a broad, good run,

the thing I was gonna put in there as well is the is the debt of your house. And how debt is the kind of one of these massive, massive problems issues that these empires end up getting themselves into? And often they're, they end up borrowing lots of money from colonies, so the British was borrowing lots of money, you know, certainly, you know, for the for the wall, they ended up borrowing money from what became the Commonwealth nations and America is trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. So we've got this, it's basic business, right? You shouldn't be spending more than then you're earning? And when we do or,

if you are, if you are, you have a plan that makes sense in terms of you're investing in the business and, and the cash flow projections and everything like that, you're certainly not spending the money to support a dying business or for consumer consumer items, or things that don't produce revenue, right? Because certainly a case could be made for taking out debt to leverage to for investment or for for innovation, or for research, right, this is one of the reasons why economies have been able to innovate is because they're able to get financing for ideas, startup companies, like Facebook and Google are able to get financing to to to bring their good ideas to fruition. But that's very different from, you know, consumerism, where I want to buy a really nice house, and so go into this huge debt, and I want to have the nicest cars and the nicest clothes and, and, you know, nations do the same thing on a broad scale to support the, the living standards of the people. So, when we look at all of these different cycles that these countries go through, you know, when I look at my grandparents, my great grandparents, my great grandparents were my great grandfather was a day laborer, you know, he would stand out in the downtown Los Angeles in Downey, California. And, you know, just wait for someone to pick them up to work for the day. And if you didn't know and pick them up that day, he didn't work. Right. And it was it was scruciating back breaking work, you know, he worked on the railroad. He also worked on the Panama Canal was down there around the world war two time period. You know, this was like heavy duty. So these people worked hard through the blood, sweat and tears of their labor. And so as we look at the challenges that I look at my chances in my life, Ryan, and other people who are privileged enough to live in a first world nation to develop nation. Certainly, one of the challenges that we have considered is the challenge of being too comfortable. Right, so obviously, if you have lack of resources, you live in poverty, that's no fun as well. Right? There's obviously a downside to that. However, being in abundance and wealth and even even if you're not abundantly wealthy but even the upper middle class American is very British citizen you know, you name it Canada, all the first world nations are very comfortable. I mean, we can go like literally, we can go to the store and buy any food we want. We have climate controlled houses, we can pretty much purchase any vehicle we want, within reason, comfortable vehicles with all the latest acoustic accoutrements clean water, the turn on the tap with clean water, right right out of the faucet. We have refrigerators to keep the food cold, I mean, just every luxury have a pool, heated pool and a spa in the backyard, a little hot tub that we can always use public transport transit system, you know, banks where we keep our money, we can go we can use his little credit cards to swipe, we have Amazon that can deliver stuff to us in a fraction of the time that used to take when we had to go shopping. So all of these, we live in comfort, right? And so the challenge now and as we relate this back to architecture, one of the challenges that that wealthy nations face is they get comfortable. So when we look at the Roman Empire, when the Roman Empire declined, you know, there's the famous story about Nero. Right remember Nero What do you do he fiddled while Rome burned what the what the the story right is that the the wealthy people in in Rome at the time they were so wealthy that they started to ignore the popular same thing happened in Revolutionary France, right, Marie Antoinette, let them eat cake, right, she was insensitive to what was happening around her because she was in the lap of luxury lap of comfort. And so now when we look at this challenge that we face, like when we're when we're comfortable, we we lose incentive, we run the danger of losing the drive and the hunger. We lose the drive and the hunger, we run the danger, not necessarily because not everyone loses drive and hunger when they're coming. But it's definitely a challenge. Because unfortunately, human beings we respond better to pain than we do to pleasure. So we'll we'll do a whole lot more to resist losing something than we will to try to gain something as a matter of fact, there have been a number of behavioral economic studies that have been done, where there have been tests to see when they do this, like choice economics, where they say, Okay, if you will you be more likely to do to do something to prevent losing $1? Or to gain $1? Right. So for instance, Ryan, would you be? Would you be more upset if you didn't earn $1? Or would you be more upset if I came over to you and I took $1 off of your from your bank account without asking,

How dare you take $1 from me? Oh, I can't believe it

a pound. Give that back. Right. So there's this element that like, it's called loss aversion and behavioral economics circles, that loss aversion is the idea that we are more strongly motivated by preventing loss. And so when we look at this, you know, this is just human psychology. So as we're looking at high performing firms, as we're looking at creating high performing teams, one of the challenges it's going to face a high performing team or a firm is that they get so comfortable that they lose their edge. We see this with companies, we see this on every scale, macro economic down to the very detailed view, right? So we can look at something in the US like IBM, the rise of the personal computer, right? So IBM in the 50s, and the 60s, they were growing their infrastructure, Big Blue, they were the de facto producer of what at the time were they called the International Business Machines. So the early counting machines, the card punching machines, and you know, they thought this whole thing about personal computer, a computer and everyone's person's house, that's That's rubbish. That's never going to happen. We don't need to do that. They got soft, they got fat, they got lazy, they took the off the ball. And then we have companies like Apple and Microsoft came from behind and ended up completely revolutionising the world. And now, of course, IBM is I mean, they're still around, but they're, they're irrelevant. You know, they moved into enterprise software. So they've managed to reinvent themselves. But that's just another example of how when we become big, when we become successful, we end up getting lazy. Right, this is one thing that I that I see is I look at the architecture industry. We talk with different architecture firm owners, there's a lot of times they seem very content to deal with, with with it with what might be considered another terms mediocrity, or maybe they're just happy with the way things are. But they're not pushing themselves to innovate. They're not pushing themselves to embrace the list. technologists are not staying on the cutting edge of the industry. They're wanting to relax and be like, Man, and I get it because running a practice is not easy. And maybe even listening to this now may feel a little bit overwhelming. Like ah, I'm having difficulty just paying the bills and payroll and all the products that we're working on right now, let alone trying to worry about AI and figuring out how to out what impact outsourced teams are going to have on my practice. But these threats are they're real. So we can do the fiddle while Rome burns. Or we can pay attention to the fact that Rome is burning, get out there with the bucket brigade and start to put the fires out in a productive way. And even better than waiting till Rome Burns is actually strengthening the walls and never letting them get so weak that the fire start to break out in the first place.

I think this is really, really interesting because, you know, on the one hand, we hear and see a lot of strife and struggle inside of architectural practice, and complaint, if you like, and in a way, for some people, when the pain gets bad, then they seek out help, and they seek out change. And actually, that pain is great. And the complaint is great because it can lead to change. And it can start to know the pain of the practice not working can lead to people starting to want to become innovative. The The other aspect of this is people who are not innovating, perhaps are not aware of the changing, like global order, if you like. And, you know, we see it with a lot of the older model of architectural practice and, you know, reluctance to outsource or take advantage of, of geo arbitrage, you know, the kind of idea that you can outsource a lot of work, and actually empower people here locally, to be much more editorial and curatorial with what it is that they're doing. And they can find no skill drafts people in different countries, yes, that takes there's an energy and an investment and time it takes to be able to do that properly, for sure. But reluctance to being able to to doing it means that somebody else will do it. And our businesses become vulnerable. We're about to enter into what we're starting to see lots of practices take advantage of, of AI and artificial intelligence. And we're not far away from, from this kind of technology, doing away in replacing a lot of the mundane, or the archaic parts of architecture for the best for the better. And for some practices, it's going to be a tool that they get to master and utilize and become more effective and efficient. And for other practices who are reluctant to investigate, innovate, change, are much happier with the status quo, and would rather complain about things changing, then those are the ones that are going to struggle. And that's where we're going to see a lot of a lot of casualties, unfortunately.

I mean, it's the the analogy comes back when, you know, like when the when the automobile was gaining prominence over the horse and buggy. It's right the carriages that used to get ready to take people around. Right. So what what happened when that gigantic economic shift happened when people started discovering that they could purchase these automobiles that didn't didn't, didn't require feeding, that didn't require upkeep, they couldn't break a leg that didn't take a crap in the street. And now, and, you know, so businesses like blacksmiths who were there, their soul, their soul, livelihood was reissuing and shoeing horses, if they didn't pivot their business, they went extinct. They were out of a job. Right. And it's sad, and it's unfortunate. So you know, one of our jobs here at Business of Architecture, since we have we do we do feel a stewardship, we do feel a responsibility to raise the flag to let you all know, to let the architecture industry know, as you have your heads down, as you're working, these are the macro economic trends that we're seeing, these are the things that you need to know about. Because I mean, we would feel remissed would feel very, very bad if we didn't raise the warning flag and let you know about these things that are coming down the road. And then it ends up impacting your life, your family, your livelihood, your team's livelihoods, right.

I think one of the things that we talked about a lot here, and that were kind of really committed to is this idea of economic empowerment, and the power of money. And we're not talking about it in terms of just like, just all out the love of money and greed, but rather recognizing the power of money to be able to facilitate things. And if we're really waving the banner of all of these noble causes, from sustainability, to diversity and equity, and, you know, making the profession more accessible. These are great, these are great causes. But there's there needs to be agency behind actually, having those things work and money, whether we like it or not, is the great facilitator of making stuff happen. So learning how to nurture it, control it, attract it, and investing in our businesses and seeing our architectural practice not as an art and art discipline, or solely an art discipline, but actually it's a business that's providing As a service and that solving problems for people, then we'll have a much greater ability to be able to attract, retain and create value and earn money, and then allocate those funds where he wants to where we want to use them.

Indeed, I mean, it's it's pure, cold hearted capitalism. Now, it doesn't need to be cold hearted, it can be conscious. And that's what we're proponents of here. Ryan, you were talking with recently, you're talking with an architect just today, as a matter of fact, doing a little pre interview for the show. And we won't drop the name. But we will talk to talk about the content of that conversation is very interesting, because this architect who's a respected thought leader in the profession, had some important causes that he was championing championing.

Yes, so and so this is, this is something that I see, I've spoken with quite quite frequently as that and we'll see practices that are championing causes, such as, you know, social justice, and making the profession more equitable and fair, and allowing people from diverse backgrounds to be able to get access. And one of the one of the kind of arguments that exists at the moment is that or to make practices more accessible to people from different diverse communities and backgrounds is that architecture is professional must be more relevant, we must be more engaged in the designing and the helping of the communities that these people are from. So those people see the active contribution that an architect is doing to, to their community, and that they feel empowered to be able to be part of that, and to want to contribute to it. Great, I think that's fantastic. Don't don't disagree with any of that. However, one of the main issues why the profession is not attractive to other to people from diverse backgrounds is because if you're from a working class background, or first generation of person to, to get educated, or if you're from a foreign country, or different culture, or whatever. And you, you're looking, you've come from perhaps a economic background, which is a little bit disadvantaged, and you're looking at where you're going to be making your investment. And it's a big effort, it's massive effort to go to architecture school, it's flipping, you know, in the UK, really, it's the best part of 10 years. And now it's similar sort of thing in the US, it's probably way more expensive in the US as well than it is here. Okay, so it's a massive investment of time and resource. Don't forget the time, because it's like 10 years, where you could have been doing something else and earning loads of money. It's a big, it's a big investment of time and resource. And then for the pay of an architect, it comes out the other end. And well, I could have just bought a Chick fil A franchise, or, you know,

could have worked my way up to manager and the Chick fil A franchise,

yeah, and be earning more so that the return the act, the economic return on investment doesn't make sense. So great, if we're into if we're interested in this as business owners of these things, and the economic, the economics of it needs to be at the forefront, and it's us, it's us that needs to be responsible about it, because we need to be putting architecture, you know, in the place of it's a business, and it operates as a business. And, you know, architecture, whether you like it or not, it's used as a financial instrument for all of our clients. So why don't architects get a seat at the table this in these types of conversations when it comes about money?

I love your answer. Your your response, when this architect was sharing his very heartfelt convictions about making architecture relevant. And what you told me as you quipped, well, or you could just pay them more. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we spoke about this before in podcast, the the rise of, of unions in architecture, of unions for workers and a kind of these are basically police groups, if you like, calling architects practices out when they're not paying people, we're living a living wage. And this has some benefit because it will force some businesses to kind of pay more to their, their team members. It's also going to just cause a whole lot of businesses to you know, if they're going to be put into under pressure, they're just going to collapse. They just disappear and they won't survive. And, and, again, the kind of economic impetus behind an architecture practice is still not a primary Focus. It's not an interest. Now, what is my honor about no one's waving the banner about let's get more capitalist? It's almost the opposite.

I mean, let's look at what changes to soak up the socio economic profile of a disadvantaged community. It's one thing there's a reason why they call it social economic is because it's money. Yeah, right. If people have money, if they're trained how to use money to turn down investment, they're well compensated. And they're given incentive to earn a lot of money. This is then going to give the ability for them to invest in education, this is going to break the cycle of poverty, this is going to break the cycle of of single parents, right that are stretched thin trying to provide is going to break the cycle of drug abuse, it's going to because there's a lot of these things that disappear or change in their nature, once someone has their basic needs to provide it for but not just that, once they start to actually build wealth. Right, so. So when we look at when we zoom back, and we look at the architecture industry right now, it's not very difficult to see how a lot of times the conversation around architecture is, is starting to lose the focus on the economics. So the economic foundation is sort of like you, you know, you go get your portrait taken, but your teeth are rotting out. So you keep your mouth shut, because you don't like your smile, you know, well, first of all, go at least get your teeth fixed, get your teeth, go those cavities out, get those teeth whitened and then come back for the portrait photography, right. But what we have, instead we have people focusing on other things they're focusing on, on all these all these issues that are that are hugely important. Wow. And this is the key while the foundation is crumbling. So what we're saying here is not that these issues shouldn't be addressed. But what we're saying is that the crumbling foundation is what needs to be shored up first. And then as a result of that, then we have the ability we have the abundance, we're paying our team members, enough. This is what's going to stop the flight out of architecture. Is there any reason? Is there any surprise that it's difficult, very, very difficult to hire architects right now to hired mid career professionals? Well, it's because there's not a whole lot of incentive. It's simply it's simply reward risk reward kind of equation here. Right? The reason why we lose people from the industry is because they find something else they find greener pastures elsewhere, they're like, Wow, this is a lot of work, or I'm not getting paid enough for the flexibility is not here, I've reached a ceiling, or it's not it's not enjoyable, it's not what I thought it was going to be. So they leave. And then this loss of talent in the architecture industry, we don't need to go on and on about how how now this is decimating the industry. And so what's happening as a result is other other innovators are coming in to fill this gap. So if we don't fill the gap within architectures just like the Rise and Falls of empires, right, once the Empire starts to decline, the other hungry Empire comes in and starts to take over, what's going to happen is there's going to be solutions like AI, there's going to be solutions, like outsource providers for architecture, who else knows what else will be innovated and created to fill this gap. But there's the architecture profession is under such a such a tension right now, because of this lack of, of workforce, and also being affected. I mean, it's not all of our doing right, we're as architects were impacted by the macro economic cycles. So there's these boom or bust cycles that the architecture industry is is is affected by an influence.

We've, we've long been there, the construction industry has long been the kind of canary in the mine, you know, of economic change, and whether one of the first businesses the first industries to kind of feel economic decline and slow down. And so now we're very much at the forefront of that. And if we're not taking economic responsibility, if we're not investing in time to be looking at and this you know, this is, this is us, as individuals running practices that you become interested in the business aspect of it, and you put money is going to be crass and put money, Profit First, your money and profit first. And if you've got problems with those words, of money and profit, then you need to do some work around what your money is being used for. If you've got a mission at play, that you're saying that you're standing for, then you should be putting money first to be funding your mission. It's as simple it's it's really, as it's as simple as that.

Yeah, I was talking right I was talking with an architect recently. One of the client firms that work with architecture firm owner and he was telling me you know, we're just kind of discussing his income goals, his target where he's at financially and he's doing doing relatively well. I mean, bringing home 100 and under and $70,000 a year, which in a big city in the US doesn't go very far. But at the same time, you're not below the poverty line. I mean, that's that's a good professional wage for a professional right. At the same time, it's not he's not independently wealthy, and he's not going to be retiring any sooner. And he's certainly not building massive amounts of wealth with this kind of income and salary. And as we got to talking about money, of course, you know, He said something that oftentimes we say in the architecture industry, which is, well, I'm not in for the money or the money is not the most important thing. Or, you know, you know, the money, you know, yeah, that's fine for me. And I get that, right. But what we had a conversation about was we had a conversation about this particular architects, his desires to make an impact. So he has a great heart, he has a great heart to give back to his team members, he has a great heart to give back to his community, he has a great heart to improve the lives of everyone that's around him. So I asked him a question. I said, Mr. Question, do you think you have more ability to impact and give back to your community and your team members? When your firm is churning out, you know, 15% profit? Versus if your firm is churning out? 30%? Profit? Right? What does that look like? What does it look like the guy who's earning and taking home for himself $500,000 versus the guy who's taking home $175,000? Now, if you don't want that money to live on Sure, you can keep that money in the business than what ability do you have? I said, What the world needs more is the world needs more people who are wealthy, that have right hearts, about their wealth. And if the only people that are getting rich nowadays are people who are out to exploit others are people who are out to, you know, rape and pillage the environment, or people who are out to extract every living cent they can out of their employees, then that's the kind of world we're gonna get. So what happens when you know good people sit on their laurels, because they're comfortable, instead of actually tried to do some self improvement instead of trying to focus on realizing that profit is the purpose of a business? It is what businesses are about. Businesses are about making profit and making money. So what would happen in the world if we had all the ethical people, the good hearted people, the world, people that have that that heart of caring? If they were the wealthy ones should open up a new conversation?

Yeah, they were the things that were that were were campaigning for what's with the facilitated a much more rapid rate, that'd be more agency to make change. Yeah, and be the direct change.

And this is what we this is what we stand for here Business of Architecture is helping architects become insanely profitable. And doing it without sacrificing their health, without sacrificing their relationships, without sacrificing the personal morals or ethics, but actually putting them in the place where like you said, Ryan, they have a seat at the table where they can make these decisions, where where, you know, people are coming to them for their advice, where they're, they're not only making design decisions, but also other decisions about business structures, about how things are compensated closing deals, being able to make an impact in the way that this world moves ahead. So right now more than ever, what we need, we need, architects that aren't going to get comfortable, that are going to get lazy, that aren't just going to rest on our laurels, throw our hands up, because we're overwhelmed. And we have too many things on our plate, we don't know what to do. But start with start with simple business principles, right, which is what we teach in smart practice. Start with the simple business principles that you never learned in school, and work your way up from there. And the possibility is amazing.

Absolutely. A little bit of financial and business education goes an enormous way. And being able to facilitate your mission.

Yeah, and, and let's face it, when you're when you're taking vacations when your team members are taking vacations, when you're doing the things that money affords, when you're investing in things like, like staying up to date with the latest AI changes, the latest software packages and how architectures, progressing. If you're going to the conferences and putting yourself in the rooms where these conversations are happening. Your overall quality of life goes up as well. Because you're no longer stressed out, overwhelmed, worried about all the vicissitudes, all the challenges of running a business, but you're actually really focused on your life's mission and your purpose. And, you know, there's a great saying that I love which is where much is given, much is required. And I take this to heart, Ryan, where much is given much is required. So I count myself very privileged, very blessed that I was, I live in a nation where wealth and abundance is so is so accessible. And I do feel a responsibility to to do everything I can to raise other people up to help them to help them become prosperous, to help them become abundant. And this is the way that we have to go forward as a nation and as an architectural industry.

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, Ryan, well, that's

probably a good place to end it here today. What are some tips that we would recommend for architectural practices? What can we do as architects, we've kind of set up the problem. We've talked about the macro economic challenges, we've talked about some of the challenges that we have, so the mindsets that we have in the industry that that prevents us from from responding, and adapting and evolving. What are some suggestions? How can how can practice owners make this applicable? How can we actually apply this and move forward? What changes can we make in our lives in our practices as individuals

Joining the smart practice program.

Absolutely. If you haven't done that yet, number one, you must take money. And number two, you must eat free time. But other than that, now this is true we have we have a we have a soup to nuts, solution for your whole practice operating system over at Smart practice, get access to that, go check it out over at Smart practice method.com. And at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. Right it comes down to investing in yourself investing in your practice, you know, investing time, money, energy and resources, but ultimately, not getting comfortable. staying

hungry. You know how we'd love it. I love it. When we speak with practices, whether they're clients or guests on the podcast, who are being proactive, who, you know, they were sick of there was they were sick of the clients they were working with, for example, and they weren't getting paid enough. And they've negotiated and they learn to negotiate better and get themselves into stronger positions. And then they start becoming more inventive with their services. And they start becoming developers themselves or they invent new services or they start pioneering something. And they reap the rewards both philosophically and being able to further remission and also money wise.

And that's a wrap. Oh yeah, one more thing. If you haven't already, head on over to iTunes and leave a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, the world's leading step by step business training program that's helped more than 103 architecture firm owners structure their existing practice. So the complexity of business doesn't get in the way of their architecture. Because you see, it's not your architecture design skills that's holding you back. It's the complexity of running a business, managing projects and people dealing with clients, contractors and money. So if you're ready to simplify the running of your practice, go to business of architecture.com forward slash smart to discover the proven simple and easy to implement smart practice method for running a practice that doesn't get in the way of doing exceptional architecture. The views expressed on the show by my guests do not represent those of the hosts and I make no representation promise guarantee pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment except to help you conquer the world. QRP Diem