Rich the Architect

Had an interesting response to a recent project proposal recently, which the title of this episode is a loose quote.  A response like this warrants a no response from me, but this response also signifies a trend I'm seeing this year with my proposals related to years past.  Proposal requests are looking similar but the number of projects that have started from these proposals is significantly less this year.  Is this a sign to come?

It's been a bit. When I say a bit I mean a year and some time.  I'm back now with a new approach towards the podcast.  I'm looking for guests and my hope that you can give me some suggestions.  Looking for people I find interesting and can be curious.  Happy to be back and look forward to getting this rolling again.  See you in a few weeks once I get back from a family trip. 

Have I been operating my company for the past 12 years in love with the idea of freedom?  What is freedom in a business sense?

This past week I finished reading 'Company of One' by Paul Jarvis.  In the latter chapters he discusses operating with ego versus operating with purpose.  I go into that and reflect back on my 12 years in business and realize that I've operated more with my ego.  I then think about how anyone can operate more with purpose in the long and short term.

In the book, 'Company of One' by Paul Jarvis, he speaks about how collaboration is more effective with less instances of communication.  I expand on that topic, which I agree with, with two real world examples I experienced where more communication caused less productivity.    

Let me know your thoughts on this topic.  Do you agree with my thinking, or is there a better way to be productive or creative with more communication.

Tyler Ardron is the Vice President of Risk Reduction Plus, which provides flood, homeowners, and other insurance for home and property owners across the country.  We dive deep (pun intended) into flood insurance and how rating for this insurance relates to the base flood elevations and other factors with properties near or next to the water, whether they are oceans, rivers, or lakes.    

If you have any questions for Tyler or want more information related to flood insurance you can reach his company at:  

https://www.riskreductionplus.com

As I looked into growing the firm recently I came across a book that hit a nerve with me.  The book, 'Company of One' by Paul Jarvis, speaks about how growing for growing sake isn't necessarily the best business approach, and doesn't actually lead to overall happiness in life.  While I've only gotten through about half of the book so far, in this episode, I speak about passion in business and how the book considers passion whimsical and often leads to business failure. Then I follow it with a real world example from one of my clients, and wrap it up with where I'm going to go from here.

Here's an Amazon link if you're interested in purchasing the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Company-of-One-Paul-Jarvis-audiobook/dp/B07KFNRRTS/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1626904862&sr=8-1

In the past couple weeks I've been trying to hire someone to help with my projects with little to no luck.  So the question I'm asking myself now is how do I deal with all this work without any help.  In this episode I go through what I've been doing with scheduling my time on a monthly, weekly, and daily level, and how its been helpful with dealing with the stress of having so much work to do.

Last week I received a phone call from someone I had a disagreement with back when I worked for an architecture firm 15 years ago.  When he called he ended the message by saying that he wasn't sure if I would call back.  Ended up I did and it led to a possible project in my town where the client is buying a property from an old client of mine.  This old project was never built so it may give me the chance to complete an unfinished project.  

This experience got me thinking about being open to communicating with others that I may have had disagreements with in the past, and then realized that a project I started a few months ago was a referral from someone else I had a major disagreement with a few years back.  

So here I discuss these experiences, but also dive into why not holding grudges allows you to grow in your business and personally.  Hope you enjoy.

Here's a link to the episode I mentioned about a difficult client I had:

https://anchor.fm/richard-sanford/episodes/Episode-16---Good-project--bad-client-e2fk5c

Today I dive into why I'm still doing architecture.  Rather than talk about my origin story of why I chose to be an architect as a kid, I go into why I'm still an architect almost 30 years later from when I started to take the initial steps of being an architect.  Basically it comes down to enjoying the process of helping people, and I go into three points of time where this occurs on any project.