583: Leadership Secrets Architects Aren’t Talking About with Rion Willard: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

583: Leadership Secrets Architects Aren’t Talking About with Rion Willard

Enoch Sears44min

Rion Willard

00:00

Ruthless compassion comes from the understanding that there is a freedom that comes with carrying the burden of responsibility and leadership. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today we're going to be talking about something a little bit different. We're going to be looking at perhaps a component of leadership that we might not explicitly talk about enough or a lot. Or sometimes when we do talk about it, it gets misinterpreted, and it gets interpreted as being weak or soft. Or sometimes we can talk about it in a context where it has faith or religious based under or overtones to it, which can also mean that we we shut ourselves off to it. Okay? So my invitation in this conversation is that I will be using some spiritual references or references from different from various faiths, and if that is not from the faith that you participate in, or you're an atheist, or wherever you are on your belief system, my invitation is to remain open to the Wisdom that some of these texts and quotes have, and just to be self aware of your own cultural baggage that you may have accumulated that could sometimes prevent us from hearing deeper truths about reality. This is again, in the context of leadership. This episode is sponsored by smartpractice business of architecture's flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you, please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners. We hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it about the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month, interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us an email at support@businessofarchitecture.com I'll start by just outlining some issues that we often see with the leadership in businesses. The first issue is that in most businesses, priorities are all over the place. When I'm talking about the priority activities in a business, I'm usually going to be talking about profit as being the key focus. Okay, in today's conversation, we're going to shift that slightly and start talking about a higher priority than profit, okay, which is more in the world, realm of of purpose and your highest vision, and that profit is in service of those visions and ideals. But when we have a business where the priority is all over the place. It is not uncommon for the practice owners to be experiencing the bottleneck syndrome, ie there at the center of every single decision, and they haven't got the capacity to make any more decisions, and they feel overwhelmed, stressed out, fatigued, and often we'll see this kind of manifest itself in poor finances. The numbers are all over the place. The numbers are unknown. The numbers are ignored, or there's just small amounts of money coming into the business. Fees are too low. Salaries are too low. If the business owners are lucky, they might be taking out a meager salary. Okay? So we'll often see a lot of chaos and dysfunction inside of a business where their priorities are awry and they're all over the place. Okay? Often we'll see businesses put as a priority is usually everything above and beyond a cult like adherence to making sure that design is executed. Not to say that design is not a priority in a in a business. It's just that it supersedes everything else at the expense of everything else. And this becomes unhealthy. Okay? So number one problem is priorities are not in the right order. Number two, now this is a slightly more psychological one, but most businesses are driven by the ego of the owner. Okay, most businesses are driven by the ego of the owner. And this is actually quite hard not to do, if you're really honest. With yourself, and you look at how you're running your own organization, and of course, myself, Enoch, we're guilty of this ourselves, okay, that we end up putting ourselves at the center of the business, and this causes a lot of issues. So perhaps in the most easy recognize, easily recognizable way of looking at this is that we become the most experienced person in the business. And business is there to serve me, mine, my own ideas of design and architecture. Okay, so the business becomes ego centered. And of course, when we've got a business like that, then just logically, you are going to become the bottleneck. You are going to become the person who everybody goes to. This might not always be the intention of the of the owner, but the ego driven businesses, that's what most of us do. Okay, it's that's how that's the default scenario that we end up finding ourselves into we can look at it another way. Many businesses are born out of frustration or a constraint, or this idea of, I'll do it myself, or I can do it better my way. Okay, so sometimes, many businesses are born out of that frustration, and this could be a useful starting point for a business, but we need to grow out of that, okay. Otherwise, that energy, that frame, I'll do it myself, continues on for the life cycle of the business, and that becomes very fatiguing. Or you might have your own design ideas that you want to bring forth into the world. This is an interesting one, because many businesses, you know, when I go into organizations and we're talking with them business owners, and we talk about, what kind of projects do you want to be doing? I think we forget what a luxurious position we're in as architects to even be thinking about our projects in terms of the pro of of doing the work that would satisfy us. Okay, the kind of design projects that we me. I want to do that kind of work, and I want to be involved in that kind of of, that project, that kind of intellectual interest, okay, there's that drive that preference, a very strong preference, okay, is a luxury that's afforded, or I don't even know if it is afforded. You have to earn this luxury, okay, but it's something that we that drives the impetus of our of our businesses, and that can be problematic, okay, because it takes us away from being a service. It takes us away from being a servant. It takes us away from being able to see opportunities for how we could help other people on the maybe the most extreme example of that, or the more example that's kind of beginning to fade out more nowadays is the idea of the starchitect where it's their particular signature flavor of architecture that is desirable. Okay? And the business is built around this one particular figure, okay? Modernism is the sort of birthing of of a lot of a lot of that kind of structure, if we go,

Rion Willard

08:13

you know, be in a time before the advent of what we could recognize as an architect now, where buildings were built more communally, or they were developed as a result of a vernacular tradition. Okay, so it was, there was it was less one person who was signified as the originator of a of a of a building and of obviously, with technology, drawing, technology that allowed a singular figure to emerge as the architect or the Master the Master Builder. Okay, so it's kind of, again, I'm not necessarily saying that these are, these are bad things. They just have their constraints when they are the main force for driving our organization. Okay, the other form of ego driven business is a kind of flip of that, but it's the same side. It's the it's a different side of the same coin, and that's a business that's driven by fear, or it's driven by I'm not good enough, or I have something to prove, or it's driven out of scarcity or worry or concern, and we see that a lot happening in architecture firms, where they're frightened of doing anything different or being courageous in their in their design activities, that they're not really being of service to anybody, but they're feel like they're being kicked around and they're being undermined. And we have a, almost a passive, aggressive, uh, powerless, figure in a business, and that becomes very exhausting as well. But it's a, it's the, it's a, it's the same ego, just a different kind of form of it. Okay, so we're heavily identifying with somebody or something that's that's powerless, and. That the power is all outside of us, nothing I can do about it. And that is now driven, driving the business, okay? The that one is more sinister, in my opinion, because it can masquerade as, like a kind of victim, if you like, of the industry, of of business, and it becomes very difficult to get out of, and we can masquerade as acting very virtuous and doing things which are fantastic, but actually be undermining our own power with a litany of complaint and stress. The third problem that we can look at in architecture practices is a lack of empathy or a lack of emotional intelligence or a lack of self awareness within the leadership. Okay, so this can often come as a as a as a result of then having very difficult team members or dealing with a lot of stress, or we see team members that are disempowered and they're no longer being assertive or proactive in taking on new tasks and doing new things. We can often see team leaders becoming exhausted and frustrated and they get back into this well, then I'll just do it myself, because the team is not is not helpful. And again, on the other side of this, we can, we can go overboard because we're too agreeable or being too much of people pleasers, and our lack of emotional intelligence means that we don't know how to draw any boundaries with people, and we're frightened of having robust leadership conversations with others, okay? So this then goes into the other world where now being too harsh, we're now being way too soft, okay, and we're not able to inspire or empower other people from being victims of their own complaint. The fourth one is riffing off what we were just talking about there with the lack of empathy or emotional intelligence is a kind of result of that, which is a lack of trust within the organization, which means there isn't a safe space, and there's no ability to have the robust conversations which are a central part of Any human endeavor where there is more than one person involved, okay, so when we are operating in groups, teams of people, conflict will emerge, okay, friction will emerge. And having a trustworthy safe space in which to be able to deal with that, and having a leader who is has the emotional intelligence to be able to lead those kind of conversations, and does not shy away from conflict and knows how to deal with it, or the very least, is willing to learn how to deal with it through getting it wrong. Okay, that's a real important part of just being a leader and creating that kind of setup inside of an organization. We see a lot of conflict avoidance in organizations, which ends up unintentionally brewing and leading into resentment and frustration and other kinds of issues and things don't get spoken about, complaint then becomes a prevalent conversation in the organization, and this is really disempowering for everybody in involved. Okay, so creating a safe space and the place where robust conversations are able to to take place is essential. So the possibility that we're looking to create inside of our organization. Number one is where we have our priorities really locked in. Okay? So that means that we actually have our ultimate priority in a business, a higher vision, a higher purpose, is the thing that's really driving everything. And then we have our material priorities, the business priorities, that's the management and looking after profit and money and people making sure everyone is working efficiently together. And then there are systems in place. Those are all well communicated and structured throughout the business. And this, when we've had that in place, then it's very easy to say no to things, and a business can operate much more effectively and efficiently and can be a much more joyful environment. Number two of possibility is that it's a team business. It's no longer a business that's driven by a single ego, that, in fact, ego structures have become dissolved within the organization, and that the business and the leadership of the business is able to support other people through their participation in the in the business. And the business is driven by a purpose, an impact. It's driven by the ability to serve, to serve clients. Yes. Okay, so sometimes I see architects very good at serving third party stakeholders, like the people who may use the building that aren't necessarily the owners, or the ones who have funded the building, or they're very good at having buildings that are really well connected to the wider environment. Sometimes you forget about people who are paying for the business. Who are paying for the building rather Okay, Team business means having responsibility for the talent that you have and have nurtured, either in your business, in yourself as an individual, and that there is, you have a responsibility to do something with that talent. Okay, for it to serve something that's beyond

Rion Willard

15:45

team business also means coming from an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset. So that means that you can see opportunities rather people can't see opportunities that you deserve, expect and understand the power of finance and money and that you negotiate powerfully so that you're well, remunerated for your services and the team. Business is a place, an environment, which is emotionally healthy. We often talk about toxic business environments, toxic workplaces. We need to talk about what emotionally healthy and emotionally empowered workplaces look like. Okay, and it starts from the leadership and people being empowered to be able to do the self work and inquiry inside of their business context and are supported in being able to do that kind of work. Third is a high level of emotional intelligence, high level of self awareness. And what I might call you stress. Okay, so there's two types of stress. You've got distress and you stress. Distress is the stress which is just shit and it has no beneficial consequences to you whatsoever. So distress is just prolonged periods of negativity and of stress and anxiety, which just makes you unhealthy. You stress is the kind of stress which is when you're going outside of your comfort zone and doing something that's challenging. That's a good type of stress to have in your business. It's the it's more akin to the kind of stress that you put your muscles under when you go to the gym, where you're actually kind of stressing the muscles out, and you're tearing the fibers, but you're tearing the fibers in order for them to grow back stronger, as opposed to, just like, you know, cutting your arm and doing that long term damage to your muscles. So this idea of eustress, and that comes from being able to have a business which has got a high level of emotional intelligence across all of its leadership, and really that comes from having a high level of self awareness. So that's something that needs to be to be led by the business owners, the business leaders, is to develop that kind of culture, okay, and that. And then it's a culture where you're able to safely endure the stresses of work. Okay, that doesn't mean just putting ourselves under stress all the time, because that's what architects are very good, good at doing, but it also means more. So means being able to do things which are uncomfortable, picking up the phone in many cases is as simple as that, picking up the phone to resolve a conflict or an argument or to negotiate better. Okay? And finally, number four is that we've got an environment where compassionate conversations can take place, where robust conversations can take place, and there is a space of mutual respect and understanding and that we're not beholden to everybody's preferences. So let's look at some principles for making this a reality. The first thing I'm going to talk about is this idea of ruthless compassion and ruthless compassion comes from the understanding that there is a freedom that comes with carrying the burden of responsibility and leadership. Okay, now this is a it's not that much of a complex idea to get to grasp with. And again, lots of religious frameworks point to this kind of idea of of a sort of alchemy that comes with taking on responsibility, and it's something that we often shy away from a lot in contemporary culture, okay? And we end up pandering more to preferences, and we think of compassion ends up becoming a very soft and weak thing, where actually true compassion is very ruthless, okay, there's a fierceness to it. There's a fierce. Just to it, and there's a love and kindness to it. So these two ideas seem quite polar opposites to them, but they're age old. They're very age old. And being deeply compassionate means having difficult conversations. It means saying no to being overly agreeable. Okay? It means saying no to people pleasing. Okay, so that means kind of establishing some self boundaries, and for you to be able to again, your self awareness needs to be kind of on on point here. It means not being at the whim of all of your own personal preferences, because running a business, there are going to be a hell of a lot of things that you don't want to have to do, okay and to keep on running from the things that I don't want to do to just things that I do want to do, has its own set of constraints and consequences, and it makes it very difficult to to run a business. Many business owners, particularly business owners that have come from being specialists, like an architect, engineers or designers or cupcake makers or whatever your specialism is, we start the business from this egoic idea of, I want to do more of my skill set and put my thing into the eye, into the world, okay, that's great. That's fine. But then it means that we're not expecting the whole other world of responsibility that comes from running an organization, okay? And many of our team members as well. There needs to be an inquiry around your own preferences and what it is that you like to do and what you don't like to do, and also kind of matching up with skill sets and also recognizing that many of the things that you think you don't like, you might actually be very good at them if you give yourself a chance to learn them. There is tremendous personal growth that comes from doing things which you're not good at, and going through the humility of figuring out that's not actually where my best skill set is used. So there's a lot of kind of self discovery that's involved in just understanding your own preferences, and then recognizing where your zones of genius and your skill sets are, and then negotiating yourself powerfully into those positions. Okay, the whole process is, is what we're we're interested in, and this idea of being ruthlessly compassionate means that we're able to deal with challenges, with authentic communication, that we're able to have difficult conversations, and there's a willingness on the leadership to get it wrong, okay, and to and to where your mistakes and restore integrity, where is needed, and for the rest of the team to to also play a part in that okay, to play in part in your own integrity and for for an eagerness to take on responsibility. Because ultimately, what you're all there for, what you're all deeply desiring, is some form of the freedom that comes from a fulfilling career. Okay, it's very easy to get kind of just caught up in just being busy, busy, busy, and we no longer get to enjoy the fruits of the work that we that we are doing. Okay? So ruthless compassion is not soft and weak. Okay? It is not soft and weak, but it's rather loving kindness with fierceness when is needed. Okay, the second principle I want to talk about is ultimate priority versus relative priorities. Okay, so I kind of hinted about this beforehand, and if we use Maslow's hierarchies of needs, which I'm a big fan of, he laid out five kind of structures to his hierarchy. At the base level, we have physiological needs, so that tends to be things like warmth and some basic shelter and food and nourishment. Okay, so the real basics of human life, once that's in place, we have that, then we can start focusing on the next level of human needs, which is safety and security. So that might be having a home or having a job. So there's some kind of dependability, predictability and consistency. Okay, so there's income coming in great, and we can start to see as well how our businesses

Rion Willard

24:53

are vehicles for providing this for the owner and for all of the people that are involved in. Side of it, love and belonging is the next on the tier, which is being part of something, being part of a group, being acknowledged, feeling like you're part of a community and a team of shared values and ideas. The next, the fourth one, is self esteem. So this is actually being recognized as at being good at something. Okay, you actually got a skill set which you've spent some time grafting away at. Okay, you've spent some time being shit at it, and now you've developed some skill at it. Okay, so that idea of carrying the burden of responsibility, that's what's needed when we're trying to develop a craft or develop a skill. Okay, that there's some time where we're getting it wrong. You've got mud on your face. And from that is where we get self esteem. Okay, so that I again, this idea of carrying the burden of responsibility, or carrying this, this, this bit of a weight whilst you're learning something, that's that's where self esteem comes from, okay? There's part of that is, is a generator of this wonderful thing of self esteem, okay? So our businesses can be vehicles for cultivating that in individuals and and ourselves. Then we move on to the kind of higher levels here, which I would say, I'd say the bottom four there. These are sort of relative priorities, and then the ultimate priorities are in the world of self actualization. And Maslow, later on in his career, started talking about a sixth one called transcendence. Okay, so these are much more esoteric needs, if you like, of the human being, but if we start kind of having those as ultimate priorities in our business, and recognizing that a lot of what we're doing on a day to day basis is in service of something which is transcendent or pointing towards the organizing mystery of the universe, or you might use the word God, or whatever that means to yourself, or a higher power, or a higher version of your of yourself, and that's actually what the purpose of the business is, or that's the ultimate priority of the business, okay, that starts to give us a wider, broader perspective in being able to deal with the challenges that comes from running a business on a daily basis. Okay? So this idea of the ultimate priority is a grander, higher vision, a trans and transcendental vision, if you like, or self actualized vision of yourself and of of your team. And then you've got your relative priorities, which are all the mechanics, the doing aspects of the business, okay, and making sure that the business is profitable, and profit is being able to use, be used for serving a vision. Great. Okay, so ultimate, an ultimate priority, the ultimate purpose of the VIS of the business. What is it? What is it doing? What's the legacy of the of the organization? What's the thing that it's doing, even if you weren't able to make any more buildings? Okay, so the ultimate priority is beyond the actual activity of the business. Okay, now that's a I'll let you kind of do your own work around that one. It's not necessarily the easiest of ideas to to grasp, but tune it, join it. The next principle is principle of servant leadership. Now servant leadership is spoken about in many different religions. We could talk about servant leadership, as described by Lao zu in the fifth century in BC, where he posited that the ultimate ruler is someone who deflects attention. He's quoted as saying, The sage is self effacing and scantier words. When His task is accomplished and things have been completed, all the people say we ourselves have achieved it. Okay, so this is a very old Eastern philosophy of servant leadership. Buddhism has a lot of values of virtue which align very much with those of servant leadership. So, for example, rather than promoting how we should act, it emphasizes what sort of person we should be, okay, the being precedes the doing. Again, I'm kind of trying to make a sort of link here to what we were talking about in the ultimate and the relative priorities of of our business in 1970 Robert Greenleaf, who was a management expert, described how he conceptualized the idea of the servant leader upon reading journey to the east by the German writer Hermann Esser, the novel portrays the account of. Group of Knowledge Seekers in pursuit of the ultimate truth. Among them was Leo, a humble servant who performed menial chores and kept their spirits high with his positive attitude and song. One day, when Leo disappeared, the group fell into chaos. Their journey was over when one individual of the group encountered Leo. A few years later, he learned that Leo was actually titular head of the order that sponsored their quest, yet he had also been their servant and a noble leader. Okay, so since leadership was bestowed upon Leo by others, it could have been taken away just as easily. However, since he was a servant at heart and by nature, that was something that could not have been taken away in his publication, the servant as leader. Robert Greenleaf said this story clearly says the great leader is seen as servant first, and the simple fact is the key to his greatness. Okay, so I'll, I'm taking some of this from a website I found. I'll put some of the links into the into the chat box. Greenleaf described certain servant leaders are not motivated by traditional manifestations of power, but rather the servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assajo our suash, an unusual power drive, or to acquire material possessions, the difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other People's highest priority needs are being served. The best test and difficult to administer is, do those serve, grow as persons and become more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? I love that. I really, really love that. And again, just think back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and how our businesses can be a vehicle for providing all of those that different structure of needs to yourself and to the people inside of your organizations, with the top being this idea of self actualization or transcendence, we can also look, of course, to concepts of servant leadership in Christianity, if we go to Luke 2226 in the New Testament, But ye shall not be so. But he that is greatest among you, let him be the younger, and he that is Chief as he that doth serve, basically the one who rules should be like the one who serves so very much we see, you know, numerous examples of Jesus's leadership as being servant leadership, the act of washing the disciples feet, is a very powerful image of that kind of loving and caring leadership. Finally, in these principles, we're going to look at the concept of love. And one of my favorite writers on this whole topic of love is a Trappist monk called Thomas Merton, and he wrote many beautiful words on love, and he very much believed that love is the fundamental building block of the universe. It's the true identity of beings that are created in the image of God. And there is only one great stream of love that's pouring out an endless generosity, and it manifests itself in a multitude of ways, in different relationships. He writes, the law of love is the deepest law of our nature, not something extraneous and alien to our nature. Our nature itself inclines us to love and to love freely. The deepest and most fundamental extingency of the Divine Law in our hearts is that we should reach our fulfillment by loving. Now Merton saw a very deep connection between the human ability to truly love and freedom. And again, I'll link back to what we were talking about earlier on, with this idea of ruthless compassion and that freedom, this human experience of or human desiring for freedom,

Rion Willard

34:36

can come from carrying this burden of responsibility and that in many scenarios, love is being open to this, this burden and responsibility. Merton writes, the beginning of this love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves. The. Resolution not to twist them to fit to our own image. If in loving them, we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them. We only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. To love another person, we must begin by granting him or her his own autonomy and identity as a person, we have to love him or her for what he is or her he is in himself and not for what he is to us. We have to love him for his own good, not for the good we get out of him. And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which transforms us, so to speak, into the other person, making us able to see things as he sees them. Love what he loves, experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own. Now this is getting pretty deep in terms of being able to deal with other people, dealing with clients, dealing with our own team members, dealing with our own family and personal relations, just being able to give other people their own autonomy. Guys a very powerful thing about to do as a as a leader. Merton goes on to talk about the conflict that arises through love. As long as we are here on Earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish and some pain at the differences that come between them, there are two things which men can do about the pain of disunion with other men. They can love or they can hate. Pretty deep stuff. Okay, so again, I'll put some of the links into where I've been getting some of those quotes from into the information if you want to read more. Okay, so powerful stuff. And I think I'll just wrap up with a reading. And this idea of love this reading comes from Werner Earhart, who was the founder of the of est and the landmark forum he's written a lot on leadership and other topics like this. And actually, I got married very recently, and I had Enoch read this passage out at our at our wedding, something that my wife and I, we've reflected upon a lot, and so I offer it here for your own reflections, and hopefully it can bring some wisdom or insight. And I'd love to hear some of your insights and thoughts about servant leadership and ruthless compassion and how that can actually live, or how it can exist in your own organizations, at your own businesses, so run out, let me tell you. What love actually is. Love is the experience that someone's All right the way they are. What love actually is is the experience that someone else is all right exactly the way they are. To love somebody you have to choose for them to be the way they are, exactly, and they've got to be all right the way they're not. Now, if you make something all right the way it is and all right the way it's not. What's another word for that space the person's got the space to be. They can be the way they are, and they don't have to that's love. To be able to tolerate someone the way they are and the way they are not is loving them. And if you'll notice, there's no survival. The only thing that happens to a person functioning in that space is that they'll discover themselves. The person creating that space know what happens to them. They discover themselves. And what I'd like to do is take a little bit of a closer look at what blocks us from experiencing what love is. Because essentially love is, it is all there is all the rest of it is an illusion. You see, I love you is an illusion. It really is. If you take a look at I love you, you'll see that I love you has to come from the notion that I might not you see, it's got to come from a sense that there's something other than I love you. It's got to mean not other things, and not before I found out that I did, but now I love you and I don't love other things. I love you and not other things. You see this whole struggle that you and I go through to achieve love, to get love, to have love, to be loved, to love each other, but. This whole thing that everyone keeps preaching about is nonsense. The fastest way to destroy love is to make a goal out of it, because people who are trying to be loved come from a place that they're not loved, and people who are trying to love come from a place that they don't love, people who admonish other people about loving each other never got it. The truth is that love is all there is. And if you take all the barriers out of the way, if you take the pretenses out of the way, if you take those things you didn't, take responsibility for you in your own life, out of the way, what you have left is love. And that's really the whole story about love. Love simply is great. Thank you very much for your keen tension in today's podcast. If you want to hear more about loving leadership and integrating it into your own business, of course, the smart practice is the program that we lead here at Business of Architecture and lots of these philosophies and ideas around leadership are deeply interwoven into what we work through with our own clients, and I'd love to hear your own stories of ruthless compassion, of loving leadership, and how you bring these alive in your own businesses. Thank you very much. We'll talk again soon, and that's a wrap. Hey,

Speaker 1

41:24

Enoch Sears here, and I have a request, since you are a listener here, for the Business of Architecture podcast, Ryan and I, we love putting this podcast together. We love sharing information as much as we can glean from all the other industries that we're a part of, to bring it back to empower you as an architect and the designer. One thing that helps us in our mission is the growth of this podcast, simply because it helps other architects stand for more their value spreads the business information that we're sharing to empower architects together, so architects, designers, engineers, can really step into their greatness, whatever that looks like for each individual. And so here my my simple ask is for you to join us and be part of our community by doing the following, heading over to iTunes and leaving a review of the podcast. And as an expression of our sincere thanks, we would like to give you a free CEU course that can get you one professional development unit, but more importantly, will give you a very solid and firm foundation on your journey to becoming a profitable and thriving architect. So here's the process for that. After you leave us a review, send an email to support@businessofarchitecture.com we're let us know the username that you use to leave the review, and we will send you that free training. On the training, you'll discover what 99% of architecture firm owners wished they would have known 20 years ago, and the other 1% well, they just didn't even know that. They didn't know head over to iTunes and leave us a review. Now

Rion Willard

43:07

this episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architecture's flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you, please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners. We hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it without the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month. Interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us an email at support@businessofarchitecture.com the views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise, guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you be unstoppable. I.

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