How Anthony Amunategui Built His Dream Construction Empire

[00:00:00] Les: All right. Hope you guys are ready to fight for the common good of everyone, because as we move into this next space, it's all about your places and how those environments of your life supercharge you or drain you. I gotta tell you guys, this is one of those that I've lived in a lot of places.

[00:00:18] Les: oh my goodness, I don't even know if. Count how many places? I think it's been like 14 places since I've been married. And that's not even counting the places that we've lived. Prior to that, when in terms I was moving around with my own family, I have moved a lot. And so when it comes to let's just say leading indicators in our world today or let's, world place is not usually one of those things that is, well, it's maybe not even close to a leading indicator, However, that being.

[00:00:43] Les: The place for me is bigger than simply my house or the space that I'm living or the town that I live in. it is really all about the way that I create my space. you could see behind me right now that this beautiful ome symbol on a blue backdrop with this nice, clean look behind.

[00:01:02] Les: It brings me a great deal of peace to sit in this space that is mine, nice and clean when it is and the rest of my office it tends to be pretty clean most of the time. Right now it's not cause I got a few things that I'm moving around. But that is the stuff of, my life. To have this kind of space really brings me a sense of peace.

[00:01:22] Les: the car I drive. I find it to be an important part of who I am. like my license plate. Yeah. I'm one of those guys who's got a license plate that is a vanity plate. I would like to think of it not as a vanity plate because it says, Wins.

[00:01:35] Les: And that to me is a part of the place of my life. Like, I want to drive something that represents my heart and where I, really wanna be being a part of, groups where I can show up and be in a place with people those places where the environment is.

[00:01:52] Les: When you guys come to one of my events, I want the place to be something that is warm, welcoming, where it feels energetically positive for you so that you don't, get distracted by whatever it could be that distracts you about place. place is that space that you love to be in. Or right now, maybe you don't have that place.

[00:02:12] Les: And today we're gonna rate your Peace Index based upon the place in your life that supercharge you. And we're gonna talk about the things that will allow us to, overcome the spots in our life, the spaces in our life that maybe aren't what we wish that they could be. You know, I look back all my life and all the places that we've lived and I laugh a lot of times.

[00:02:32] Les: I laugh because I remember being stacked up in a house, a little 1300 square foot home with four babies basically while I was going back to school. And it was unbelievably, we were stacked on top and, at the same time, I had this office at the school. it was like a cupboard closet. I mean, we can't even call it a closet. It has to be like cupboard or something so small. I had to open the door and squeeze through and then, kind of step to the side, close it, and then sit down in my chair. But it was my place and in this library where I had to spend countless hours.

[00:03:04] Les: it was in those moments that I just remember how alive I was. I was so alive. And I compare that place to the time when we, actually were, had the luxury. When I was flipping houses, I got to build my dream house alongside my wife. we were flipping houses and we found this amazing opportunity.

[00:03:22] Les: That was right down the street from our, in-laws, and it was awesome here in Austin, Texas. And we were able to build this thing out. Beautiful backyard, beautiful pool, unbelievably high ceilings it was so luxurious and I remember we sat down after it was all said and done, and I just took a deep breath, is just started crying because it just felt so overwhelming that I could land in a space like this.

[00:03:46] Les: It felt overdone. it felt kind of lonely in a way, almost like I had isolated myself from the people in my life that maybe couldn't afford something like this. And the guilt and shame that I felt initially was painful, and I would've told you that day. Oh, and not to mention the amount of money that it ended up taking, like it was double the budget of what we were supposed to spend, and all these things were playing out in ways that made me feel so uncomfortable and put us in a little bit of a predicament.

[00:04:10] Les: So I had a lot of burden being placed upon this place in order to be able to keep it. Maybe you've experienced something like that yourself. and to shift the whole thing though is that space, I did what I could that was in my control at that particular time, and I made it not just my place.

[00:04:25] Les: But I made it an open space for everyone and anyone in my life to come at any moment. We hosted showers baby showers bridal showers. We hosted birthday parties. We hosted gatherings left and right for all sorts of different reasons. We hosted guests who were coming into town and needed a place to stay.

[00:04:42] Les: And it was in that moment that this beautiful place became not only. Restful place and a boat, but a place where people could come and experience joy in life and great relationships and find peace and several of the other places. That fulfilled my purpose on top of that as well. And so once I was able to do that, I did what I could that was within my control to create and make that place a special place.

[00:05:03] Les: And truly, truly, truly it was. So the question becomes, how is your place for you? And I think it starts with really addressing space questions and it really is all about how in this particular time of your life, if you were not feeling at peace with where it is.

[00:05:21] Les: I want you to begin to ask questions of what would it look like to actually create a place of peace for yourself? I go back to the example of when I had the office and the library. the cupboard closet if you will, in the library. It was like I made that small little space so warm.

[00:05:37] Les: I put pictures of my kids. There were no windows this thing at all. It was tiny. I brought my own lighting so that it wasn't that harsh, And I do that almost everywhere I go. I bring in my lamps instead of overhead lighting. I make my spaces very much a comfortable space. So where do you like to recharge the most in your home, in your office?

[00:05:56] Les: or outdoors? Where is it? And the questions really continue to grow from there. What needs to happen to make it feel better for you? Do you need better lighting? Do you need a fake window that you can post right there or make your screen of fireplace? I've done that before. Or I've had a TV in the room, or I didn't have a fireplace, but I'd run the fireplace during the winter to make it feel like it was warmer.

[00:06:19] Les: My temporary spaces incredibly warm. I love doing that. What space do you share the most with significant others and how could you improve that space so that it just makes that an even warmer space for your relationships to develop? What would make your house a better living space?

[00:06:35] Les: Can you make a plan for that? I'm not talking about dumping a ton of money into it. If you ever watch hdtv, my goodness, they have all sorts of things. I love this show where they actually put over here on the right side. I mean, they show you one, episode of what this million dollar room, and then the goal is, to do it on a budget like 10 grand.

[00:06:53] Les: And so they, grab pieces of furniture that people already have and they start to match it up and they create. A beautiful space that looks like the million dollar space, but it's using the stuff that you already have in your home. what is it that could do that for you? what would have to happen to take your office space to the next level for you Maybe you're in a, cubby hole or something. I mean, I've been there. You guys are gonna be like, what has he actually done? Let's just go with entrepreneur and pastor at particular times. All right, now I'm, playing the peace per for you now. as a peace entrepreneur, I am advising you that you can take your little cupboard and you can do what you want to with it. go buy wallpaper or something, or some sort of covering and, put it out. Create that space so that it makes you feel alive when you walk into it, even if it's just a little bit more.

[00:07:38] Les: And lastly, what needs to improve in your community for you to enjoy it more? this is a real key for me and my wife. Now that we are empty nesters, we have been asking ourselves what could break us into a new level of understanding what it means to be a part of this community. So we've been on the quest of finding activities and things that we've never done to find ways to create greater value within the community here that we have in Round Rock.

[00:08:01] Les: And we're starting to light that up. And not to mention that I'm getting more involved in the city and things that are going on, and we're trying to be more localized, which allows us to make this feel more homey for us by creating relationships with our neighbors and our extended neighbors that are maybe in other neighborhoods, but are still around Rocky.

[00:08:17] Les: And I think that's a word, but that's where we're gonna go with. Here's what I want you to do now is as we jump into this and, there's a lot more around place, we're not gonna spend too much time, I want you to ask yourself the question as you're going through this piece process, I want you to give yourself a rating as we have already.

[00:08:34] Les: That is from zero to a hundred percent, and I want you to start with these particular spaces, and then you can add some as well. Okay? And it's the same kind of. Your bedroom? Zero to a hundred. How much peace do you find in your bedroom, in your favorite living space? Zero to a hundred. Your backyard.

[00:08:53] Les: The entirety of your house, Your actual office space or desk. Cuz maybe not all of us have office space right now. What about your favorite restaurants or, maybe the areas of town that you are in now? You can add more to this if you would like. Go ahead. maybe, like I said, I like my truck.

[00:09:10] Les: I mean, it's one of my spaces at least until I get another vehicle. . I go through things in, those ways. maybe it's your workout, maybe it's your gym, maybe you don't like the lighting there or something, and you could find another gym. I don't know what it is, but you can add that.

[00:09:24] Les: But for our instances, I gave you six things. And so you're gonna add up all of those percentages and divide it by six or whatever number of things that you rated, and that's gonna be your piece index for your place. How does that feel to know that you have within your power, the ability to control these particular things in your life?

[00:09:47] Les: Now, I wanna be sensitive here because our places are one of those things that we don't always have control over. I know of a woman her family, their house, burned down to the ground. Instantly, your piece index is gonna go down to the bottom. I remember being in a house where we had, bitten off more than we can chew.

[00:10:07] Les: We ultimately couldn't stay there because it was a poor financial decision for us. And so we had to sell that place, and it was one of our first homes and it just broke my heart. And so my place went down really quickly until I found another place, and then I was able to control the controllables and was able to make that mine.

[00:10:25] Les: But barring natural disaster, which does happen, Or life circumstances, things that, relational breakups that occurred in that place, or somebody died, and so it doesn't feel as peaceful as it used to be. I can you that those are things that, maybe aren't always in our control. But we have to look into what can we do in those moments?

[00:10:46] Les: What can we control? How can we make the decisions that will allow us to move from this particular place of peace that we are in right now, which may not be very peaceful into a more peaceful place. With that, guys, I can't help you control the uncontrollable. Only you can decide what would bring you greater peace in those, places.

[00:11:07] Les: But I can't ask you the question. . What creative ways can you go about this? Because something may be holding you back. Maybe you're thinking to myself, Well, why don't I have the resources to do that? Well, again, Rinse and reuse . go find an old, shelf that's on Facebook that somebody's given away and paint it and do something like that to create that space so that you can have what you want.

[00:11:26] Les: Start creating a list. At least create a vision board for yourself in your mind's eye. Of what you ultimately would like to do, because I do believe that when we can create an idea of what we would bring us peace and we can stay focused on that and we can wrap up positive emotions connected to those things in that it's just spending our time there.

[00:11:45] Les: I'm gonna leave you with this. I mean, think about the perspective of when you imagine that vacation that you're wanting to go, You start to look, you have something in mind that you're just thinking to yourself, If I could just get to the beach and there'd be some beautiful rocks out there in the middle, and there's sailboats going by and sand is nice and fluffy, white sand, people are playing over here, and over here people are relaxing and the kids are playing, man.

[00:12:08] Les: You went there with me, I'm confident that in just that brief little space of time of just describing a place, you were able to find a little bit of peace. Just thinking about that and oftentimes when I have set a vision for the kind of vacation that I've wanted, the place that I wanted to be, I have found it purely because I knew what I really needed to provide myself with peace.

[00:12:30] Les: Do you know what you. Just spend some time there, delve into the controllables, understand that there are gonna be uncontrollables, and do your best to make incremental steps. 1%, 2%, 5% increases in your place of peace. With that, be it peace. As we move forward into the next section tomorrow, which is gonna be all about your personal health.

[00:12:53] Les: Love you guys and can't wait to find out how your piece is growing within.