Building your own house

Blog #3 - March 7, 2022

I hope you all had the chance to read last week’s blog entitled “Creating a Mental Scorecard.” Checking in on your Mental Scorecard is a great way to ensure the life you’re living leads to fulfillment because it focuses on qualities and characteristics that are within one’s control, as opposed to success and status that lie externally. If you haven’t had a chance to read Blog #2 and implement the Mental Scorecard into your life, I would encourage you all to check it out.

As I mentioned last week, Joshua Medcalf’s book “Chop Wood Carry Water” is absolutely fantastic. There are numerous concepts illustrated in his book that have left a profound impact on me and in my interactions with clients. This week, I’m going to be discussing another concept from his book called building your own house.

I am going to paraphrase a story from Medcalf’s book. There was an elderly Japanese home builder who throughout his career built magnificent homes. Each home he built, he put extreme care into ensuring all the materials were the highest quality because he was proud of the product he produced. However, towards the end of his career he wanted to retire. He wanted to spend more time with his grandkids and enjoy the finer things associated with being retired. When he asked his employer for his blessing, his employer said he had one last project for the home builder to build. Reluctantly, the home builder agreed, knowing this would be his last one. Throughout this project, his heart was never into it. He was less hands-on with the project and stopped purchasing the finest materials for the home. He no longer had the passion and enthusiasm for building the perfect home like he used to. He knew this was not his best work, but he didn’t really care because he knew this would be the final project of his career. When the project was finally finished, the home builder went to his employer to once again ask for his permission to retire. To the home builder’s dismay, the employer said he had one last thing for him. Before the builder could lash out in rage, his employer pulled out a box and handed it to him. Inside the box were a set of keys. His employer said for all his hard work, the company wanted to gift him his own home. The home builder felt terrible! Had he known he was building his own house, he would have put the energy, dedication, and passion to ensure it was perfect. Now, the home builder was left with regret towards what could’ve been and wished he could turn back time.

This story is a perfect example in terms of how we are also building our own house. Every day is an opportunity to ensure we are building the house of our dreams. Each decision we make can determine if we are going to get there. Why waste a moment today that won’t get you to where you want to be. Whether that is deciding to finally eat clean, exercise regularly, or spend time with family and friends, or contrastingly to consume harmful substances, become overworked, and not prioritize self-care, we should consider how this decision will affect our house. Each day, we have a responsibility to our future selves. Nobody wants to look back at their life and think what could’ve been. That’s why we need to think about and consider the kind of house we are building today.

Now, I’m going to leave you all with a question … What kind of house are you building?

Until next week,

Tyler