The Cathedral Builders

What if you spent your entire life building something you knew you'd never see finished?

Would you still show up every day?

That's the question I want to challenge you with in this episode because we've become conditioned to expect immediate results. We want our businesses to grow overnight, our investments to double instantly, our fitness goals achieved in a matter of weeks, and our relationships to flourish without putting in the work.
But the greatest things in life don't happen that way.

The cathedral builders understood something we've forgotten. They dedicated decades—even lifetimes—to building masterpieces they knew they'd never experience completed. They weren't driven by instant gratification. They were driven by purpose, legacy, and a vision far greater than themselves.

Whether you're building a business, investing in real estate, raising a family, or developing your character, every small decision you make today is another stone laid toward the future you're creating.

In this episode, I share why adopting the mindset of a cathedral builder can completely transform how you approach success, leadership, and long-term wealth.

In this episode, we'll cover:
-Why the greatest achievements require long-term thinking
-The powerful lesson from the cathedral builders
-The story of the three stonecutters—and how vision changes everything
-Why purpose transforms ordinary work into meaningful work
-How consistency compounds into extraordinary results
-The danger of comparing your beginning to someone else's success
-Why legacy is built through thousands of small daily decisions
-How to build businesses, families, and character that outlive you
-Why your greatest investment is often the people you're developing
-How to stop chasing quick wins and start playing the long game

If this episode challenged your perspective, I'd love to hear from you.

Share it with someone who's building something meaningful, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a review.

Remember—you may not control how quickly your cathedral rises, but you always control whether you lay another stone today.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're comparing your foundation to someone else's rooftop. Don't do that. Today, let's talk about the cathedral builders. We've become so addicted to instant results. We expect our business to explode in three months. We want our investments to double overnight. Everything meaningful in life just it grows slowly. The difference wasn't the task, it was in the vision. Purpose changes ordinary work into meaningful work. So my challenge to you, stop asking, how fast can I get there? Start asking, what am I building? Because when you know you're building a cathedral, laying one stone today doesn't feel so insignificant. It feels like central. All right, let's go if you're tired of not feeling fit, tired of just not having a focus, tired of just not having the light that you deserve. This is the place to be. I'm Jason Your City today. Let's talk about the cathedral builders. Imagine at one point in time, you were given the opportunity to build the most fascinating building the world has ever seen. Just truly transcendent debt, beyond what the mind can imagine that you were given that opportunity that you became the one to build it. But there's just one thing. As part of this process, you would never ever get to see it finished. Would you still show up to work tomorrow or just even start this process? You know, this this question's fascinating to me for years because for hundreds of years, that's exactly what's happened across Europe. You know, many of these cathedrals that we admire today, they weren't built in five years, I mean, or even ten. I mean, some of these took decades, centuries, hundreds of years to be built. Think about this. You know, a stonemason could spend just forty years or more carving pillars, arches, and walls, knowing full well that what he was working on, he will never get to see finished. And maybe even his grandchildren could never even fully admire the full scope of the work that was invested. He laid stones for a future that he would never experience. Today, we've become so addicted to instant results. We expect our business to explode in three months. We want our investments to double overnight. We go to work out and we can understand why we don't have six-pack abs in six months. We uh want our marriages to just be perfect, right? That they thrive without actually uh ever putting in the intentional work. Everything. It's become about speed, right? AI today. We were not even thinking anymore because we're using AI to predict our thoughts or just uh put out our emails, right? And to to forecast all our results. Everything meaningful in life, just it grows slowly. You know, there's this old story where a there was these three stone cutters and a traveler came up to the first one and said, What are you doing? Then he replied, I'm cutting rocks. The traveler then went to the second one. Well, what are you doing? And that second one said, I'm earning a living. Finally, he asked the third one, and that man smiled and said, I'm building a cathedral. You know, all three of these men were doing the exact same thing, uh, the same work, just the difference wasn't a task, it was in the vision. That's true in our lives. You know, what one person, they see someone that is making a sales call, another sees it as a work in workout, another sees it as a bedtime story for their children. But someone else understands is that I'm building trust, I'm building discipline, I'm building a family, I'm building legacy. Purpose changes ordinary work into meaningful work. And history just it gives us incredible examples of this. The builders of the Great Wall of China didn't complete it in a single generation. It evolved over centuries throughout dynasties. You know, generation after generation, added another section, it just hundreds and hundreds of miles. And they understood that something we forgot. Great things, they're not inherited. They're rarely created overnight, and the same truth is of our business, our family, our faith, our character. These aren't built-in moments. They're built throughout thousands of faithful days. You know, I think about my own life. I uh people might see investments into apartment communities, into my businesses, into the these podcast episodes and investments, but that's not really what I'm looking at building. I'm trying to build men and women who who think differently. I'm trying to build a family who knows integrity matters. I'm trying to build a reputation that my kids can be proud of long after I'm gone. You know, one of the greatest things I can do today is to invest in my kids that in the future, when they're poised to make decisions in challenging times that I prepared them, that they can have the thought process to look at that challenge and make a clear choice of how to proceed. Things don't happen because of just one speed or a speech, one deal, or a podcast. They happen because you choose to consistently do them over decades. And the danger in our culture, I mean social media, it's convinced us that everyone else's cathedral was built overnight. Oh, look at this person. They've done so well, right? Look at this other person. Man, well, look at what they have, right? That they've all had this. And you don't see the 20 years of invisible mournings. You see this championship, not the empty gym. You see the business, not the years of rejection, the pushback, the failures. You see a marriage, not of the investment, of the conversation, of the time spent to be a great couple together. You're comparing your foundation to someone else's rooftop. Don't do that. I mean, the Bible says in Galatians, let us not grow wary in doing good. For all the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Notice it doesn't immediately say, it says a proper time, not right away. The harvest has a schedule. Your job is simply to keep planning. So my challenge to you, stop asking, how fast can I get there? And start asking, what am I building? Because when you know you're building a cathedral, laying one stone today doesn't feel so insignificant. It feels essential. That workout today, it matters. That meeting has to happen. The prayers, daily. Bedtime stories, the hard conversations, every stone matters. One day, someone else may stand inside the life that you've built and never realize how many quiet days it took to get there. But that's okay. That's okay because the cathedral builders never needed applause. They simply knew that what they were doing, the work mattered. So remember, you may not control how quickly your cathedral rises, but you absolutely control whether or not you lay another stone today. All right, that's what I have for you today. This is the Living Windows Podcast. I'm Jason Russi. Let's do this.