How I Build
On Love, Belief, and the People You Choose
“You become who you build with”
Let me start this off by saying, I will probably post several lists of ideas I use as “rules” (or guidelines) for business, building, mindset, etc as they occur to me - usually along whatever thread is inspiring me in the moment.
If you were never to read another one of these articles and want the simplest distillation of what I’ve learned so far - it can really all boil down to this.
Do it with heart.
Give it your all.
Serve God, the rest follows.
You become who you build with. (or you become what you worship)
Today’s reflections really center around principal 2 and 4. If you find this style of article enjoyable let me know. And without further ado here goes todays coffee and cigarette reflections.
4 Rules for Business (that also apply to relationships)
Rule 1
Everything Is Your Fault
One of my mentors has a concept that went on to be a book called Radical Candor. Apply this to any issue the first three times. After that it’s time to move on, make new agreements, or ask yourself what pattern is asking to be healed.
When you take ridiculous amounts of accountability - being wrong, looking for how to improve, conceding that you could have done better - you open the door to people who do the same. And thus you find yourself working with people who operate on good faith and want the best out of everyone involved.
Blamers and people with victim mindsets are the same type of snake (no offense to snake).
Now first off, let’s make sure to clear any misunderstanding here so we’re on the same page. The world is full of people who will take advantage of a situation, of people who want to take shortcuts, take credit for accomplishments they didn’t earn, or those who take more than they give. This is inevitable. The key distinction here, is between people who know that we are all powerful co-creators, and those who see themselves as blameless and other people as the perpetual perpetrators of all their undesired experiences and outcomes.
Every single person on this planet has free will. Every single person you ever meet, to wildly varying degrees will be influential, creative, and powerful.
Self-pity and victimhood are almost always masks for someone who simply knows that’s a good way to get what they want, or who lacks the boldness to be demanding so they use other tactics. You don’t need to engage with people like this. They drag down your operation and you become who you surround yourself with.
When you are leading an effort, a project, or a relationship - giving it three full tries with full fault on your side means you always exhaust every possible avenue before projecting onto someone else. This muscle will serve you well. It gives you a chance to always find a way to improve, and at the same time develops the practice of always giving others the benefit of the doubt - within the boundaries you set beforehand.
It also attracts strong personalities who will help your vision or uplift the project, because nine times out of ten this approach ends up with a giver meeting a giver.
Approach situations from the perspective of radical responsibility and optimism. Solutions and problems are both things that need to be sought out. Birds don’t try to fly they just fall until they rise. No one teaches a beaver to make a damn. Trust others. Trust your instincts. Be willing to be the one who gives the credit and takes the extra load. There’s endless treasure for those who dig deep.
Try it and you will see.
Rule 2
Engage With People You Can Genuinely Love
In our lifetime we will see the most dramatic revolution in employment and business since the steam engine and the automobile. It is pivotal to the growth of your soul and the quality of your life that you find the people you can grow with and take up your life’s work with people you love.
When I say *love* I mean love in the Greek sense - from that unconditional agape kind of love, to philia - the love that brews from shared values, experiences, goals, and loyalty.
If by reading this you struggle to associate the word “Love” with work then I suggest you read up on the all of the other words for love, starting with the Greek language as I mentioned earlier. But in the meantime, zoom out from the word love as something between lovers or family and think of it in a more friendly aspect in the sense of people who you like being around, people you would be happy to live with or someone you would enjoy doing something demanding with, it could be anything from planting a garden, going for a long, strenuous, hike or taking a long trip with.
Love, according to the Beatles, is all you need.
But of course they weren’t the first to write that banger.
Before the British Invasion and long before we’ve got our beloved poet Rumi we have the Disciple John giving us what I think are the most important words in the human language: “God is Love.”
Now, language can open minds or close them depending on the writer and the reader and the experiences and knowledge in between. But one thing that is undeniable, from the stars in the sky to the cells in your body: someone set this whole dance in motion and that music never ends, it just moves, it transforms, it rises to the level of those brave enough to throw it all down on the dance floor. (insert God is a DJ pun)
When it comes to the word “Work” and our general perception around “Work” you can only reconcile that our relationship with WORK > TIME > MONEY comes with significant distortions that we can get into on another article. But for the sake of our topic: we have millions of people working jobs they hate with people they hate being around. As you can imagine, this creates extremely low vibrational energy that leads to low vibrational mindsets, which leads to low vibrational enviornments, which leads to low vibrational outcomes.
Is society going to change tomorrow? Probably not. But is it going to change in the next few years. Undeniably. We already saw this in 2020. How fast things can change.
Love will be the thing that shifts your timelines. Love will be the thing that brings you up along the vibrational ladder of experience. And if you spend 40+ hours a week working no amount of meditation is going to subsidize the sheer fact that you become who you build with and so you should make sure that what you’re building is yours or a meaningful exchange for your time and energy that allows you to build what you want in your free time, and of course, that you’re able to be genuinely inspired or feel some form of uplifting and creative or purposeful connection with the people you work with.
This doesn’t mean you have to romanticize every aspect of your relational life. But it low-key does. Working with people you admire is the best way to encourage good faith and good outcomes. Whoever said “never work with your friends” was a sociopath. How are you supposed to work with people you don’t like? That’s a purely exploitative way to live and leads to the same outcomes as the spirit it was entered in.
Think about what it actually means to build something with someone you genuinely love versus grinding alongside someone you merely tolerate. The difference isn’t subtle - it’s total. When you admire someone, you show up differently. You give more. You’re honest. You think faster. You show up better. You handle conflicts with more lightness and forgive easier. The work becomes an expression of the relationship rather than a transaction held together by contract or circumstance.
The best partnerships I’ve seen - and the best I’ve been part of - start from a place of genuine curiosity, respect, and belief in the other person as a human being first. Shared values always come first. Business second.
When that’s the foundation, the professional layer becomes an extension of something real. When it isn’t, the professional layer is all you have, and it’s never enough.
The more you love the more you attract.
The more you attract the more you give.
The more you give the more you grow.
Work, like love, like life, like nature - is based on reciprocal ecosystems.
Rule 3
Complaints and Fears Are the Devil’s Worship
Simple. You cannot do anything positive with negative people.
If you are around people who continuously voice fear, lack, or negativity, you are entertaining those who are worshipping a false god - and that god rules the inverted aspects of the material world.
There are 100 reasons why something could go wrong.
There are also 100 reasons why something could go great.
Those who think they can’t and those who think they can are both right
When we get curious about why we feel fear and where those fear comes from we open up the door to the type of reflections that give us strength and wisdom. It’s good to take time to cultivate this sense of deeper understanding - but NEVER ruminate or brood. When you want to learn to ride a bike to play on the monkey bars or grow a business or build a beautiful relationship it’s always the same. Find your balance and commit. And the only way you can do that is with a heart of faith and fearlessness.
Most people you will meet are likely consuming a diet of toxic media and corrosive content generated by people with subversive intentions and malicious mindsets.
Surrounding yourself with negativity creates a vacuum that sucks the life and the spirit out of your endeavor. Treat negative concepts like rotten food - throw it out immediately. It does nothing for you to have around.
Leave all that shit behind you.
Remember the fearlessness and faith of your youth.
The world is full of miracles.
There are a million instances of people overcoming the impossible, building something expansive with limited resources, doing something great from humble or hard beginnings. You are here for a reason! To be amongst them!
The second you start to believe, God opens every door that’s meant for you.
When you make the choice to be brave and move in faith something magical happens.
You become a beacon. You become a bridge. You become a lighthouse.
The more you vocalize the world you want to experience, the more you praise the positive and envision the highest outcome: the more doors you open for that world to come into being.
Rule 4
Build With Believers
Like all plants need sunlight and water, all good relationships and businesses operate on two foundational questions:
Do we believe this will work?
Are we willing to do the work it takes for this to grow?
You can train skill. You can build structure. You can figure out the money. You can come up with the mater plan. But you cannot manufacture belief in someone who doesn’t have it: you wouldn’t want to. And you cannot sustain a vision with people who are only conditionally in on incentives instead of committed co-creators of a shared vision and desired outcome.
Matthew 18:20 states:
“Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there I AM in the midst of them.”
Align yourself with believers and God will be with you. And when God is with you, there is nothing you can’t do. When you surround yourself with people who believe, you can accomplish anything you set your heart and mind to.
We are here for a reason after all. We are a race who naturally seek out opportunities to collaborate, to celebrate, to play.
These 4 rules are little threads for you to pull if you’re ever looking to re-orientate on your “what and how and why.”
Start with your “who” and be aligned on your “why” and the “how” will all come together in divine alignment and perfect time.
Another banger
Love it, thank you