This is the transcript from EntreArchitect Podcast Episode 224, Incremental Progress is the Key to Long-Term Success.
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Mark R. LePage: 00:04
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My name is Mark R. LePage and you are listening to EntreArchitect podcast where I speak with inspiring, passionate people who shared their knowledge and expertise all to help you build a better business as a small firm entrepreneur, architect. This is episode 224 and this week I’m speaking with architect, teacher, power lifter Marilyn Moedinger of Runcible Studios about How Incremental Progress is the Key to Long-term Success.
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Marilyn Moedinger, welcome to EntreArchitect podcast.
It’s great to have you here. This is going to be fun. Let’s introduce you to our audience here. Marilyn is a great friend and she is a longtime supporter and a contributor to the EntreArchitect community. She is very active in what we’re doing and she is a member facilitator of the infamous EntreArchitect academy small group mastermind number three. Yeah, she’s running that show over there doing a great job for us. Marilyn is an architect and founding principle of run studios based in Boston, Massachusetts. And in addition to practicing architecture, Marilyn has worked as a construction project manager or contractor and an estimator. So she’s got both sides coming. Coming to you. She’s taught design studios, construction detailing and theory courses at the Boston Architectural College, The Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology, and was the director of Practice Instruction and Community Engagement Projects at the Boston Architectural College, where she directed nearly 80 student led projects. She has lectured on her research and has been a guest critic at Northeastern University, Boston Architectural College, and University of Virginia, UC Berkeley, Harvard, GSD, you name it. She’s been there as either a guest or has lectured in many, many different places and in addition to all of that, she’s a power lifter. Yeah, you heard me right. As in terms of lifting big, heavy weights. She’s a power lifter, so I think that’s awesome. I’m going to talk about that a little bit. I think that’s a great analogy for the profession of architecture, truthfully and lifting these giant heavyweights. So it is. I want to get into that story, but before we do that, I want to invite you to share your origin story. Go back to where you discovered architecture. What inspired you to become an architect and tell us the journey from that point to where you find yourself today?
Marilyn: 03:50
So, I knew that I wanted to be an architect before I knew what an artist was, so I actually, like many little girls had Barbie dolls and I would actually play with, not in the sort of traditional way where you make them talk to each other and dressed them up, but I would build them houses out of cardboard. And I would also ask my mom to buy those planned books that used to be in the grocery store, in the aisle where you’re checking out and I would take them home and I’d get out this little tube of white out like little pot of white out and white out all the walls and redraw them where I wanted them to go.
I didn’t know that there was a job where you actually got to do that. I just thought that this was really fun. So I was always building things for and you know, all kinds of stuff like that. And drawing things and I just always wanted to do those kinds of things. And as I got through school, I didn’t know any architects growing up, so I didn’t really have anyone to say, oh, that’s the job I have. I remember taking an aptitude test in high school where the guidance counselor, Rami, and shared the results with me and it was a tie between two different professions, auto mechanic and theater stage actress. I was like, okay, well both of those sound pretty awesome, but I hadn’t really considered that. So, when it was time to look for colleges, by that point I had figured out that architecture was a thing and visiting to architecture schools and when I walked into an architecture studio at, it was at UVA where I went to school, and when I walked in for the first time at age 17 and I saw the studio and the maps and everything, I was like, these are my people, these are my people. This is how I think about stuff. I think about the practical. I think about the ones that goal, I think about all this stuff and I said, what do I have to do to get in here? What do I have to do to be part of this?
Mark R. LePage: 06:01
And if you think about it, if you take the stage actress and the auto mechanic and you smash them together, you get an architect.
Marilyn: 06:13
So it all kind of worked out. I feel like I fell into it, with complete luck. I was told at different times that I shouldn’t do it because I’m bad at math, which is not true. I am not bad at math and architecture as we know, it’s not just about. I loved architecture school and never looked back. So.
Mark R. LePage: 06:49
So you went to UVA, University of Virginia, once you graduated from there, what happened? Where’d you go?
Marilyn: 06:58
So my fourth year of undergrad, I was a project manager for project called Ecomod which was run by John Qualy, which he has now taken the project to the University of New Mexico, but in those days that was the first one at UVA and we actually designed and built a modular house, that was very sustainable and, and was also an affordable house and the act of drawing it and then building it with my peers just changed everything for me. I was like, I didn’t want to go work in an office, I don’t mind it to be out in the field building things. And I just love the process of actually me drawing company in the new building it.
We had wonderful mentors from the community who are helping us. With all the mess that that entails. And so I got a job working basically as a construction laborer as that project was winding down and just sort of worked my way up from there. And learned construction from the field and ended up being in that field for about four years. So I ended up actually getting to design some things that were built. I designed a school that I ended up building a school, which was amazing. I was doing things like managing framing crews and figuring things out on the field and, and hiring carpenters and doing all that kind of stuff. I had an amazing mentor at that contracting company. And I just really loved working in construction, but I always knew that I wanted to be an architect. And so I applied to grad school after about four years of doing construction and went back to UVA for Grad school. I was already in Charlottesville and so why not? So I went back to UVA for Grad school. and yeah.
Mark R. LePage: 09:15
You went back to grad school and so when you came out of Grad School, did you continue construction or did you then decide you’re going to pursue architecture?
Marilyn: 09:23
Well when I finished grad school there was this recession so it was tough to find work, and so I decided to go to Jamaica for the summer actually, it was a field school so I was applicable. So I was in school actually where we were documenting historic structures in Jamaica and I was learning historic masonry and carpentry meet along the way. So it was great. I always tell this to people who are just graduating, like this is an opportunity to go do something to take some time to go do something else and not jump into work right away because once you start working you get your 10 days of vacation and you don’t get to do it anymore. I had a couple of, sort of possible job offers, but ended up moving to Boston to work.
I was teaching at Northeastern and working for UTL here in Boston. I did that for a few years. I also had one SOM fellowship at that point, so I was traveling around the world doing that, documenting and speculating about vernacular architecture that I was encountering. So that was pretty fun. After that I had a stint at the Boston architectural college as an administrator where I was working on a community design build projects, basically connecting groups of students to work with local nonprofits on small design build projects. We did like 70 or 80 of those when I was there. And I loved that. I loved it a lot, at the same time I wasn’t being an architect and that’s what I love best. So I decided as one does one day to just start it from.
So I’m always amazed when I interact with EntreArchitect community or other groups where people are taking so much time and being really careful of being really thoughtful and setting everything up. And I was like, wow, I just sort of woke up one day and did it. Which I’m not necessarily recommending, although there’s parts of that that are good; you just do it. So that was four and a half years ago, so I’ve been a principal and Runcible Studios has been a going concern and operating in the black for four and a half years.
Mark R. LePage: 11:56
So when you, when you decided to start your own firm, was it something that’s sort of, you knew that you wanted to be an architect throughout the whole process from college all the way through, but the actual trigger to start, you said that one day you woke up and you decided that you’re gonna start this from, was it something that’s sort of just kept nagging you that you wanted to start it, you wanted to start wanting to start it and then finally said, okay, I’m just gonna do it. Or was it like you were working as an administrator and you’re like, what you’re doing? And this one morning you said, now’s the time, I’m just going to go do this. Was it sort of out of frustration or was it just an epiphany?
Marilyn: 12:32
A little bit of both. So I felt like being an administrator, like I said, it’s awesome but not necessarily the right step for me long term. And so I actually had to finish my AREs and I was like, I have three more to go and I have structures which was looming large for me. I thought, well, you know, I think I think I need to pass my exams before doing anything else. Whether I get a job as an architect or whether I started my own firm, I need to pass my exams so I actually left work without a clear plan of I’m starting or I’m going to work for someone else. My sole goal was to finish my AREs. I have to get those out of the way. So I did that. I discovered that I passed structures on Christmas morning, which gives you a little sense of my personality.
Like I did open that letter on Christmas morning, like either this is going to be awesome or terrible. It was awesome. So yeah, I basically, I thought I had a couple of little things that I could do that someone was going to pay me to be an architect for and I was like, okay, well I’ll freelance for a couple months and after four to six months I have enough work that I can see a future here, then we’ll launch. So I left full time employment at the end of November and officially last trench Runcible Studios in April 2014. Okay. So like four years or so. So I just celebrated my fourth birthday. That’s a big, that’s a big birthday number. Yeah. It’s like I’m almost ready for kindergarten.
Mark R. LePage: 14:28
Four years is a big deal because those first three years are figuring it out. We’re all still figuring it out, but to get to four it’s like, okay, I’m doing this, there’s no turning back here. You know, I’m figuring out enough to keep going and learning from my lessons and we’re getting better at this.
Marilyn: 14:48
Yes. And you have a chance to try out your systems few times in a row and everything isn’t the first time you’re doing it or even the second time, it’s the third or fourth time. And our projects take a long time. Like projects take a while. You can’t just quickly iterate. A project takes a year or two to complete.
This is where I just fly in the face of the advice, very good advice that you give Mark, I do not do a very good job of specializing. So my background is mostly in housing, whether multifamily or single family sort of custom stuff or developer driven. That’s primarily what we do. At the same time I see it because I see my practice as a long term thing, I also am taking on lots of different project types as a method of research, as a way to understand how different types kind of work together as a way to diversify and make sure that I’ve got like different sort of streams of income but also as a way to satisfy my rather boundless curiosity so it makes things difficult at times, but I enjoy being able to do that. We’ll do anything from like a small porch that’s under construction right now and we were only run into that because it was complicated from a zoning perspective, but we’ll do something like that up to feasibility studies for developers up to half a million square feet. We’ve done industrial projects, commercial and retail. Mostly housing, that’s most of our work.
Mark R. LePage: 16:41
Right. And you pretty much market to that, right?
Marilyn: 16:44
Yeah, I mean, yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Mark R. LePage: 16:48
So you have a target market you just take on other work too and that makes total sense. Especially knowing your background with research and that’s who you are. And so it makes total sense to do other things. And learn and want to experiment. So you’re right on target.
You said your firm’s name is Runcible Studios. I just wanted to just mention that because a lot of people probably are wondering why runciple, where that name came from and what inspired you to name your firm? Runcible Studios?
Marilyn: 17:18
Well two things. First, I didn’t want to name the firm after myself because first of all, no one can spell my name and pronounce my name. So that’s not a good idea. I also wanted the firm to have the flexibility to be able to work without having my name be at the front basically. The word Runcible is actually from a poem written by Edward Lear called the Owl and Pussycat, I think it was written in the 19th century. He never really defined the word runciple, but people speculate that it’s a descriptor of an object that is both utilitarian and beautiful. It’s a great word first of all, but that poem was actually the first book I ever read when I was a little girl and I had these beautiful illustrations, like all these interesting buildings and it actually then I would sit there and pour over this book when I was a little girl. I always thought what I would need my firm. I thought about it for years and years and years and then when it came time to name it a name came out of the blue and that’s what it was. Yeah. And it was none of the things I had been thinking it was best.
Mark R. LePage: 18:41
I love that.
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Mark R. LePage: 22:41
You go to your website, it’s Runciple Studios, runciplestudios.com. And you go to the about page, in that about page that talks about the background of runciple and there’s a photograph of the book behind the story. So if anybody’s interested, it’s a background so it’s hard to see it, but you can see the intricacy of the illustrations and why Marilyn was so attracted to it. Pretty cool. Or you can go to the library and get the book. So that’s, that’s awesome. And so I also mentioned in the beginning in the intro that you’re a power lifter and this is more, this is a more recent experience for you. And so you’ve been doing it for how long now? A couple of years?
I wanted to get into that a little bit because for one, I don’t know a lot of power lifters and you’re a friend of mine, so I follow you and I celebrate when you achieve your goals, but let’s talk about that a little bit. It’s important for us to all be physically active, especially as architects. We’re sitting in front of computers all day long. If you don’t get up and go exercise occasionally, we’re all going to fail and become ill and so we all need to do something physical. And so what inspired you to become a power lifter rather than just going to the gym and taking some aerobics exercises? What attracted you to power lifting?
Marilyn: 24:19
Like so many things, the origin story goes back a while. In college I had to take a phys ed class and I took lifting because I thought it would be a good thing to know how to do. I took the class and I really enjoyed it. Since then I had always just had lifting sort of as part of my gym routine and I always really liked it and I don’t like cardio very much at all, it doesn’t agree with me. So we do what we have to do to stay in shape and to be, you know, I’m reasonably active humans, but I just always felt like I enjoyed lifting. So I lifted just as a casual gym goer for years and years. And then, I actually made friends with someone who is a competitive power lifter and he said you should come to the gym with me and do a power lifting workout.
And I was like, okay. So I did and I just did whatever he did. I just sort of followed them around and did what he did with less weight, let that be known, and I was like, this is pretty cool. And so I started to work with him and he showed me the ropes a little bit. And then, I ended up getting a coach to teach me even more. As these things go at the beginning when I first started my friend or my coach or whatever, said you should compete, you know, this isn’t just a thing that you do to kind of do at the gym. You have to go compete. That’s what makes you a power lifter. And I said, yeah, right. That is the last thing I will ever do. I’m not getting on a platform in front of tons of people and lifting heavy weights in front of them, like I will never do that. Fast forward to a year into it, I was like, okay, yeah, I think I should try this. And that first meet I’ll never forget. It was just so amazing. It was so fun. I actually really, really enjoyed doing that.
Mark R. LePage: 26:35
What was it about it that you loved so much? Right up to the point where you did it, was it still sort of an apprehension and then after you did it, you’re like, wow, I love this? Or once you were there and you saw the excitement and you were ready to do it, you knew that this was something that you love to do competitively?
Marilyn: 26:55
Well, a little bit of both. I think that for that first meeting, let it be said, what I was what I was going to compete with, the numbers that I was going to be going for, were so low compared to anyone else in my weight class or other female lifters. Forget about what the guys are doing. Like it was just so minimal compared to other people. And that’s actually really important because to go into a place where you are definitely going to get last place and you’re not there because you have a chance of winning. You’re there because you have a chance at proving something to yourself, is really cool. The last lift of the day, I had a new PR on my dead lift and which by the way it is now a warm up weight for me, so speaking of progress, somebody took a picture of me and I’m like leaping over the bar and just pure joy and everyone in the room was cheering for me and was telling me after, great lift. That was so great. There is no like it was. So it wasn’t about the weight on the bar, it was about the fact that I had never done that before and everyone in the room could see how hard I worked to achieve that moment. And so that’s the moment I was hooked for sure. I was in the car on the way back and I was like, I’m doing it, I got to do this again. And so I got more serious. I got much more serious in terms of researching. I started listening to all these podcasts. I started to get much more serious about what I eat, and I’m making other life decisions that helped support my training.
Mark R. LePage: 28:51
Yeah. So you said there was something that you wanted to prove to yourself that first time there was something you were trying to prove to yourself. What was it that you were trying to prove to yourself?
Marilyn: 28:59
Well, I’m not sure if it was like a specific thing, but I guess it appeals to me to see something. So much on what we do as architects is the long game. You’re trying really hard to get a project completed or to build your business or whatever. There’s something so pure and so satisfying about seeing weight on a bar bell and it’s sitting on the ground and your job is to pick it up and you will know if you’re successful because you stand up with it. Done and done.
And I think that for me it’s, it’s a really great compliment to what I’m up to professionally because of that reason. So for me, I enjoy that part of it. I enjoyed the simplicity of it, but also knowing now having been more of a student of it for a couple of years, like how complex it is actually, like how complex it actually is to stand up with a really heavyweight. All that goes into that moment in that training and months and months and months leading up to it and all the choices you make. In the moment of execution, it’s very simple and it’s a combination of all that quantifiable stuff, all the numbers, all the training, all the careful way you plan your work and heart, like it’s both of those things. Both of those things have to come together. It’s the quantifiable and the qualitative, which I’m always saying to my students that that’s what architecture is about.
Mark R. LePage: 30:37
I can see that and I never looked at it that way, but if you look at it in terms of the technique and the every step of the technique to lift that much weight and to do it without hurting yourself and training yourself to do that over and over and over again. So it does become simple and easy when you do it. I could see how that would be very appealing. Because now you’ve been doing for a couple of years, there’s been lots of progress in the last couple of years. You’ve achieved much higher levels at this point. You actually just recently had a competition where you won, right?
Marilyn: 31:20
Well, okay, so a little participation trophy. So I won my weight class and age group, which there may have been another person or two. So yes, I have experienced a lot of progress for myself and my numbers, but I am by no means competitive with those numbers. Just give me time.
Mark R. LePage: 31:53
We’re talking weights here. So it’s not something that you just keep, you know, you can’t build that much muscle in that short amount of time. This is a long term sport. The only way you can get to the upper levels is to continue doing it every single day until you get to those upper levels. You can’t shortcut it.
Marilyn: 32:13
Exactly. Talk about another parallel to building a business. So you can’t show up on day one and be ready to compete with your business like that. You can’t. It’s all the little decisions that you make. It’s all the like making sure that this part is organized, making sure that you’re managing your stress, making sure that you know all these little things come together and it’s all the little decisions that after you make the big decision of I’m going to do this, then it’s every little incremental thing that builds something. It’s absolutely a slow process, but slow not in a bad way, just in a reality way.
Mark R. LePage: 33:02
It’s the long haul, it takes a lot of patience. And you also said when you, when you decide the trigger was flipped from, I’m just going to do this for fun to I’m going to do this competitively. You said the first thing I did was start doing research. It wasn’t about lifting more weights, it was about what do I need to learn to do this more effectively and more efficiently. So you went to the books or you went to a mentor rather than went to the gym. Which is why I wanted to talk about this because I see so many parallels between what you’re doing and the business of architecture that you don’t just jump in and start lifting giant weights. You just start small and you learn what you need to learn.
You get advice from people who know you, you try it, and you see how it works. If it doesn’t work, you try it a different way. Business is the same way, you have to do the research, you have to learn what you don’t know. You have to get the mentors, you have to put the right people in the right places. You can get a coach, like you said, you had a coach. And so there’s many, many parallels to business. How has it also affected you in terms of mentally and physically? Obviously after two years of lifting weights, you’re physically stronger. I’m sure there’s confidence that comes with that. How does your progress with lifting affect you in terms of your personal life and your business life?
Marilyn: 34:31
Well, certainly confidence is a huge thing. I mean, I think especially, you know, in a world where often women are told to not talk as much or to sort of be smaller or be not in the forefront of things, to have competence both physically and psychologically that you can handle things like competition, that you are just physically stronger, it makes a huge difference. Whether it’s like getting through a tough workout or something, you know, that has spillover for sure into how I have the confidence that I approach my business with. It also gives me confidence in the sense that, you know, not that long ago I didn’t know anything about this and now I do and I’m seeing success. So one of the things that I do in lifting that I have started doing my business, it was a direct carryover was in lifiting, I have these spreadsheets, like every single workout is planned ahead. I know exactly what I do when I go in there, so I don’t walk into the gym and I’m like, oh, I think I’ll do x and y and z today. I go in and there a definite plan. Part is practical. I don’t have time to dilly dally. I don’t want to waste any time in my training either, I want to make progress as fast as I can and as safe as I can so I have to have a plan doing it. So I have each month or six weeks or so I sort of plan out and I have the next six months planned out and then I have a spreadsheet which tells me the next month or so.
Then on that spreadsheet I make notes about my progress so I can look back and see at the beginning of the training cycle. It can feel incremental. Progress is frustrating and tough. Sometimes you’re like, I’m no better than I was. Like I feel like nothing’s happening, but when you look and you see today I deadlifted whatever weight five reps were three months ago, I could only get two reps, then you can clearly see that you have progressed and so keeping those training logs is really useful for planning future training and that kind of stuff. But it’s also a psychological thing. It’s also knowing that the incremental progress is happening. Then of course you compete and you see, wow, my numbers are all way bigger than they were six or eight months ago and you can see that progress and I think it’s carried over into business where there are certain numbers, whether it’s actual revenue numbers or other quantity numbers that I’m able to put together, but I can just track, I was doing it for awhile with my social media accounts, which I should do again. But basically I would write down each week how many followers I had because I felt like I’m not getting any followers and I’m not growing my social media accounts. When I actually tracked it, I could see, oh, I gained 52 followers this month. For me, it’s about writing it down and tracking the incremental progress that actually registers it as actual progress.
Mark R. LePage: 37:58
Yeah, I love that idea. And that’s key performance indicators, you hear KPIs all the time. You can go on the site, go to EntreArchitect.com/search, search key performance indicators, and you’ll find articles and podcasts all about it. That is how you not only can track your progress, you know, in terms of, okay, we’re getting better. But you can see where you’ve made the mistakes and where decisions you’ve made have slowed down that progress by tracking those things. And so it’s so important. And I love that analogy of have. You’re only going to get as good as you’re to get by these little incremental improvements, those little incremental improvements, one after another, just one step. And one step and one step, and one step finally leads you to where you need to go. I talk about small victories lead to great reward that if you just set these little tiny goals and hit this goal and then hit that goal and then hit that goal, you’re going to keep improving. You’re going to get better and better and better.
Marilyn: 39:02
The key is to that, the people who are the best have done that. And so when I talked to lifters who are way more advanced than me and I say, you know, there’s a sense of like, well, I can only bench this much, you know? And they’re like, well, I remember when I benched 50 pounds less than that, you know, like I remember my first time in the gym when I couldn’t even lift the bar or something like that. And you’re like, oh right, yeah, you had to learn this too. I think there’s this is a paralysis thing. Like we feel like, well I can’t, unless I’m going to do the big thing, I can’t do anything, right? It’s like, well, no anything is better than nothing. Well, that’s not true, not anything is better than nothing, but progress towards your goal is progress towards your goal. It doesn’t matter if it’s one step or 10 steps. I think actually doing that is really important. It’s a concept we all understand intellectually, but to actually do it is really helpful.
Mark R. LePage: 40:13
I followed Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about clouds and dirt. I love that analogy of clouds and dirt. He talks about clouds and dirt, that it’s all his success and success of any business is clouds and dirt. Clouds is the big vision. It’s the big idea. It’s the dream. It’s the thing that you want to achieve. And then the dirt is you get in the dirt and you do the work. You do it incrementally, you have patience and consistency and persistence and you just keep going step by step, by step in the dirt, down on the ground, in the dirt. So it’s all about clouds and dirt. It’s when you get stuck in the middle where you’re dreaming about what we’re going do and you someday I’m going to do that and you don’t make any plans and you don’t do the work and you just wait for it to show up. That’s when you don’t make that progress, but when you’re n the dirt doing it over and over and over again and tracking your progress while you’re in the dirt, you’re eventually going to get to where you want to be that you’ve been dreaming about with your clouds. I love that analogy and I, when he talks about that, I’m like, that is it. That is it. Get out of that middle area and get down in the dirt because I’m great at the clouds. My whole life is the clouds. It’s the dirt for me. Is that as hard? You know? Getting in there and doing it step by step and tracking your progress and seeing that incremental progress is the motivational piece, is the inspirational piece. That’s the thing that keeps you going. If you don’t do that kind of tracking and see your progress, then you get frustrated and you’re like, oh, I’m not making any progress, so why should I even bother? But when you track it and you see I’m making it. Look at what I was last month, look what I was last year, look what I was two years ago, look where I am today. And so, you know, there’s going to be progress and then two years going to be even better. So I love that.
Marilyn: 42:00
Well, the key to this is that it’s not linear. So there’s this idea that if I just add five pounds a week, you know, in three years I’ll be dead lifting 300 pounds. And you’re like, well actually no, that’s not how it works. So something else I’ve sort of started to learn is that tracking your progress and understanding progress is not understanding as a linear straight path, but saying like, I’ve experienced injuries and I’ve had to kind of work back from those injuries and that was very frustrating because I felt like all the work I had done was not undone and I wouldn’t be able to progress. I lost all this ground. Well, it turns out that I regained the ground faster than I did the first time because I had done it once before and it was tracking it and understanding it that made me feel that I was coming back from that. So to be clear, it’s not a linear thing. There’s certainly setbacks along the way that you have, but the more practice you have in sort of incrementally progressing, the less those setbacks will completely undermine your whole self.
Mark R. LePage: 43:15
Yeah. It’s so interesting. It’s so I can go on for hours talking about this, but it’s so interesting too. I mean, it’s inspiring and motivational to watch how you have dedicated yourself to this and to see the progress that you’ve made and the passion that you have for it and the excitement of achieving what you’ve achieved. I’m proud of you and I’m excited to watch you grow.
Before we wrap up here, I want to ask you the question that I ask everybody here. What’s one thing that a small firm architect can do today to build a better business for tomorrow?
Marilyn: 43:51
I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I want to say to this question. I think you should understand your value. I think you should find a way to understand your value. That could mean setting up a way to track your incremental progress. That could be looking back at a success you and saying like, yeah, I brought value to that situation. That can be on your next fee proposal, not lowering the number before the client tells you that it’s too high. That could mean a lot of things. To be successful in business, you have to believe in your value. You have to believe, you can lift the weight no matter what and you have to believe that all the work you have done plus the heart that you bring will get the job done. And I said whatever you need to do to understand and internalize the value you bring to the project or to your business, that’s what you should do.
Mark R. LePage: 45:00
To internalize it first because you can’t express it outwardly if you can’t understand it yourself.
Marilyn: 45:06
That’s right. It’s not a like hubris thing. It’s kind of the opposite of that. It’s understanding because it requires you to be humble, to understand what your limitations might be. That’s what I would say. Understand your value.
Mark R. LePage: 45:22
Good one. Very good one. RuncipleStudios.com is the website. Go check that out. You can connect with Marilyn at Runciple Studios on Instagram and Twitter. We’ll have links to all of this on our show notes. So just go to the show notes for the show, go connect with Marilyn and say hi and thank her for the knowledge that she shared here today at EntreArchitect podcast. Marilyn.
So there you go. Episode 224 with Marilyn Moedinger. Very inspirational story. Thank you Marilyn for sharing your knowledge here at EntreArchitect podcast. You right now listening right now, his is episode 224, EntreArchitect.com/episode224. That’s all I ask is for you to share that link. Type that into your browser right now. Share a link with your friend. Put it on Twitter, put it on Facebook, put it on Instagram. If you want to put together a little graphic, I would appreciate it. Just email it, post it to a friend. Just whatever you need to do. Get the word out there about what we’re doing here at EntreArchitect because that’s how we grow. We are growing exponentially and the only reason we’re growing exponentially because you are sharing the episodes. I see it every week. I see the bump every week where this episode gets shared by you, so please do it.
Do it right now and while you’re at it, go visit my friends at Archispeak and Inside the Firm, so Archispeak Inside the Firm and EntreArchitect podcast. It’s like a trifecta together. These three podcasts will provide you with everything you need to know about the architecture profession. Archispeak sort of covers the big picture. It’s like a virtual water cooler for the lots of experience, lots of knowledge, a little bit of gossip and tons and tons of fun, so go check out Archispeak podcast. If you haven’t listened to them, go do that. Go subscribe to their show and my friends over at Inside the Firm, Inside the Firm podcast, they dive deep into the details of launching and building and growing a small firm. It’s like you’re listening to a private executive meeting between Lance and Alex, the hosts. They’re partners in an architecture firm, F9 Productions, and they share their victories, their defeats, everything, everything right? They’re transparent. It’s not filtering anything over there, so go check them out at Inside the Firm podcast and stay here right here each week. I invite you to come back next week to EntreArchitect podcast for everything you need to build a successful business as an entrepreneur architect, so make sure you subscribe and don’t miss a show we have. We have many, many more guests coming in and sharing their knowledge. They’re all lined up, ready to go, so don’t miss a show. Go right now over to EntreArchitect.com/itunes. That’ll drop you over to iTunes. You can subscribe there and maybe maybe you can even drop me a review and let me know how we’re doing over here at EntreArchitect podcast. It’s a little quiet over here. I need some feedback. Let me know what I’m doing well, let me know what I’m not doing so well. Please do that, go drop a little rating and review, let me know and that will sort of tell some other people about what we’re doing over here. And the EntreArchitect community on Facebook. This is blowing up blowing and we get like 50, 60 new members every week. This is a private Facebook group exclusive to small firm architects. It is the most interactive, most supportive, most encouraging, most positive place on the internet for small firms. This is where you want to be. This is where you can go and ask a question. You’ll get 30, 40 responses to your most critical questions and it’s private. So only architects are in there. Nobody else sees what you’re posting. And it is 100 percent supportive. There’s no negativity allowed. I monitor the group, if it starts getting a little, you know, a cliquey or we start getting a little aggressive, which doesn’t happen because people know there’s a culture in there of support and encouragement and that we’re all in this together. It’s like a family and we just don’t do that stuff in there, so go join it right now. EntreArchitect.com/group. We’ll get you inside. You can request membership and if you’re an architect or studying to be one, we’ll let you in. If not, don’t even try. We’re not gonna let you in. Sorry.
The profit for small firm architects course. It’s a free course ready for you to download. We’ll show you how to build a profit plan for your small firm. That’s how you’ll succeed as an architect. Get your numbers right and you’ll have more time, more resources, you’ll have more fun as a small firm architect and you’ll have a practice that allows you to live that life that you want to live, a life that you’ll love. So go download profit for small firm architects. The course, it’s free. It’s a virtual course, digital course, a video course. I share what you need to know to build a profitable architecture firm and it’s free right now. EntreArchitect.com/freecourse. That’s easy to remember, right? EntreArchitect.com/freecourse. One more thing to remember my name. My name is Mark R. LePage and I am an entrepreneur architect and I know you are too. If you’re running a small firm and you are an entrepreneur architect and I encourage you to go build a better business so you can be a better architect, and these are the three things you need to learn. These are the three things you need to remember every day, every week. Share this stuff. Love, learn, share what you know. That’s all you need to know in life. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.
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