You built your business to create freedom and control over your future.
But if you’re lying awake at night thinking about tomorrow’s problems, fielding client calls during family dinner, or feel like you’re constantly putting out fires, something’s gone wrong.
The business that was supposed to give you control has become the thing controlling you. And that’s not sustainable.
Right now, you’re probably feeling like everything, schedules, budgets, demanding clients, your team is controlling you instead of the other way around. When you’re constantly reacting rather than leading, your business becomes overwhelming rather than empowering.
But here’s what we’ve learnt after working with hundreds of builders: regaining control isn’t about working harder or longer hours. It’s about implementing simple systems and boundaries that put you back in charge. Systems like regular weekly site meetings that create structure for you, your team, and your clients.
The builders who make this shift consistently tell us: “I can’t believe we ever ran jobs without this structure.” When you regain control of your business operations, you regain control of your life.
Watch the video now, or read the transcript below. Be sure to also subscribe to the Live Life Build YouTube channel.
Amelia
Do you feel like your business is running you instead of the other way around, and you just want to feel in control of things?
Duayne
In a building business, it’s very easy to feel that you don’t have control over everything around you. Schedules, budgets, and your team is taking control of you and your life. It’s important that you get systems and processes in place and work on yourself to get out of this. If you’re constantly feeling like everything else is controlling you, it’s a bad place to operate from.
Amelia
We find that this is where you start to get into the territory of feeling incredibly burnt out, where you’ll be keeping yourself awake at night trying to remember all of the things that you haven’t got done, or that you feel you should have done differently.
All of the stresses, concerns, and worries that you’ve got, will get you spiraling in a sense of losing control of this business that you’re running because you feel so out of your depth. You don’t quite know how to bring things back on track.
Duayne
Something as simple as having regular weekly site meetings with your clients. Get a structure around everything you do so you know that at the same time, the same day, every single week, you’re meeting with your client and your team.
This won’t only help you, but it will also help your team. You’ll be able to have systems in place to manage your team’s understanding when they can talk to you,
what they need to have ready, and what your expectations are when you get back to site the next time.
All these little things might not sound like a lot, but doing these types of things will give you back a lot of control. You’ll start to get rid of that overwhelming feeling that everything is just piling down on top of you, and you can’t escape.
Amelia
I find it interesting working with builders who haven’t had regular site meetings with their clients. You talk to them and they say, “Well, I don’t understand how that’s going to work. My clients work and they want to do that on the weekends, but I don’t want to be available on the weekends.” Then they’ll say, “Oh, you know, we managed to deal with everything anyway.”
Then you start to unpack it: What does “dealing with everything anyway” actually look like? What it looks like is:
- they’re regularly on the phone after hours,
- they’re dealing with emails coming in at all times,
- they’re communicating via WhatsApp and other channels.
They’re doing all of this different communication in all of these different places, trying to keep the project going, and at the end of the day it’s just created chaos for them. The client probably feels like they have to be on all the time, and remember everything.
There hasn’t been any opportunity to create a central hotspot of communication or project discussions to give the client some confidence that they’re going to have an opportunity to discuss what’s concerning them at the same time every week.
When builders say to us, “There’s no way in the world I could get a client to come at the same time every week.” Well then, that’s part of setting expectations with the client. You need to talk to them about the fact that this is a project. You are running a business, and they need to find time to fit discussions around the project within their weekly structure.
It’s interesting to see that once builders are given a framework and shown evidence from other members who’ve put it into practice, they’ll often say, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we ever ran jobs without weekly site meetings.”
It has completely changed everything. For you as a builder, this makes it possible to say, “By putting these kinds of things into practice in my business, I can feel in control again. I can see how this actually makes things a lot easier.”
It’s quite amazing for builders to think they have no control. Everything else is controlling them, yet they won’t take these small steps to regain control.
Duayne
Duayne
It’s quite amazing for builders to think they have no control. Everything else is controlling them, yet they won’t take these small steps to regain control. The truth is, it’s really simple. Once you take control of your business, you also start to take control of your life.
Amelia
Do you think builders get scared that if they start taking control, clients might push back? That someone will tell them to back off, refuse to work with them again, or create backlash that becomes difficult and uncomfortable to deal with?
Duayne
The reality is, if it’s your business, then it’s completely up to you to take control, set boundaries, and set expectations. You get to operate your business the way you want to.
If you’re trying to set standards with your clients and they’re pushing back, for me, that’s a sign that they’re not the right client. I don’t want to waste my time with someone who doesn’t respect the values and the structure of my business.
Can you imagine going to a doctor’s appointment and being told, “You need to book a time”? You’re not going to stand in the waiting room and throw a tantrum. You’ll book with the receptionist and come back when the doctor can see you.
It’s the same in construction. Every other industry has structure, so it’s time for builders to do the same. The thing is, you don’t have to control everything yourself, you just need to make sure everything gets done.
Taking Back Control.
The conversation you just heard between Amelia and Duayne isn’t just theory, it’s the reality for hundreds of builders who’ve implemented these principles through Live Life Build.
The weekly site meetings Duayne mentioned? They’re just one small piece of the larger framework that helps builders move from feeling overwhelmed to feeling empowered. When you have the right systems in place, you’re no longer reacting to your business, you’re leading it.
Here’s what we know after working with builders for over five years: The builders who regain control of their businesses don’t just see improved project outcomes and better client relationships.
They sleep better.
They show up differently for their families.
They remember why they loved building in the first place.
Your business should support the life you want to live, not consume it.
If you’re ready to explore how the right systems, boundaries, and mindset shifts can transform both your business and your wellbeing, learn more about our ELEVATE programme where we guide builders through this exact transformation.
Because when you build smarter, you live better—and you actually get to enjoy the life you’re working so hard to create.