If you want to, you will find a way!

If You Want To, You Will Find a Way: The One Question Every Construction Leader Needs to Ask

A trade partner said it in a coordination meeting on a construction project site, and Jason Schroeder has not stopped thinking about it since. It was not a rehearsed line or a borrowed quote. It came out naturally in the middle of a conversation about implementation and follow-through. Seven words. Maybe eight. If you want to, you will find a way. If you do not want to, you will find an excuse. And just like that, something that had been difficult to articulate for a long time became clear. The reason people do not implement Takt planning is not that they do not understand it. The reason projects are not clean is not that cleanliness is hard. The reason field walks do not happen is not that there is no time. The reason is simpler and less comfortable than any of those explanations: they just do not want to badly enough.

The Problem That Hides Behind Explanations

Every construction leader has heard the explanations. The schedule is too tight to focus on cleanliness right now. The trade partners are not cooperative enough for a Takt system to work on this project. There is not enough time in the day to do field walks consistently. The crew has too much on their plate to implement standard work. These explanations are detailed, logical, and almost entirely wrong. They are not diagnoses. They are defenses. The distinction matters because a defense is designed to protect someone from a conclusion, while a diagnosis is designed to produce a solution. As long as the explanation is accepted at face value, nothing changes. The moment someone asks whether the real issue is desire rather than capacity, the path forward becomes visible.

The Lesson From a Teenager Who Built a Podcast Studio

Jason Schroeder’s son Reno was interested in music and music production. Jason asked him to figure out how to set up a podcasting system. In three weeks, Reno taught himself Logic Pro, one of the most technically complex audio production applications available, produced original music for the podcast intro, built a workflow for recording and uploading episodes with minimal friction, set up Libsyn for distribution, connected the podcast to social media channels, developed naming conventions, identified keywords and search terms, handled editing, and engineered a system that Jason has been using consistently since. He did all of that with no instruction beyond an expression of interest. He wanted to, so he found a way.

Around the same time, Reno owed money to someone who had covered a shift for his small business. Jason asked him to transfer the payment. Reno said he did not know how. Jason followed up. Still did not know how. The conversation went in circles. Here is a young man who mastered a professional-grade audio production platform in three weeks and wired a complete podcasting infrastructure from scratch, and he cannot figure out how to send fifty dollars through an app. The explanation is not that he lacks the capability. The capability is obviously there. The explanation is that he does not want to send the money. So he does not find a way. He finds an excuse.

That dynamic plays out on construction projects every week.

What This Looks Like in the Field

When a company says they do not know if Takt planning applies to their scope of work, whether it is civil, exterior, or some other category that feels different from the standard interior build-out, that is not a knowledge problem. The information is available. The research is clear. The question has been answered by people who have done it. What is actually being communicated is that there is not enough desire to figure it out. And when desire is not there, the mind generates reasons why the thing is not possible. Those reasons feel real. They are not real. They are the brain doing what it does when the want-to is not there.

The project that is not clean is not clean because no one wanted it clean badly enough to enforce the standard consistently. The field walk that does not happen does not happen because it is not the actual priority it is presented as. The expense reports that do not get submitted, the mothers who do not get called, the flowers that do not get bought, the health habits that do not get built: none of these are capacity problems. They are desire problems wearing capacity problem costumes.

The Distinction Between Coaching and Learning

Here is where the honest leadership conversation gets delicate. Jason acknowledges in this episode that pointing this out from the outside, telling someone they are not doing something because they do not want to, is a judgment that is not always helpful and is not always the right call. The coach who tells a student they are not learning because they do not want to may be technically correct and still completely ineffective, because judgment from the outside rarely produces internal motivation.

But from the inside, from the learner’s perspective, this truth is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools available. When someone is self-reflecting on why they have not implemented something they know is important, why the marriage is not where they want it, why the project is not where it should be, why the habit has not formed, the question “do I actually want this?” is not an accusation. It is a clarifying question. If the honest answer is yes, then the next question is: what is it going to take to find the way? If the honest answer is not yet, then the real work is not implementation strategy. It is building the desire that makes implementation inevitable.

What Creates the Want-To

Leverage is the word Jason uses, and it is the right one. Human beings are remarkably good at finding ways when the stakes are high enough. The doctor who says you have two months if you do not change your diet and exercise habits creates immediate leverage. The spouse who says the relationship ends if things do not change creates immediate leverage. The employer who says the next performance review determines whether the job continues creates immediate leverage. In all of those moments, the capability that was absent before the conversation is suddenly present. The person who could not find time for the gym is running in the morning. The person who could not figure out how to communicate differently is communicating differently. Nothing changed about their schedule or their capability. The leverage changed, and with it, the want-to.

The problem with waiting for external leverage is that by the time it arrives, some of the damage is already done. The health crisis that produces the motivation to exercise is also the health crisis that required emergency care. The relationship crisis that produces the motivation to show up differently is also the relationship crisis that eroded years of trust. The project crisis that produces the motivation to implement Takt planning and real scheduling discipline is also the project crisis that cost money, time, and reputation.

The question is how to generate that leverage internally, without waiting for an external forcing event. Eric Thomas frames it plainly: when you want to succeed as badly as you want to breathe, then you will succeed. The work of developing desire is the work of connecting to the consequence of not acting clearly enough and personally enough that the desire becomes real. Not abstract future consequences. Real, specific, close consequences that feel as urgent as the present moment.

Applying This to Your Project and Your Career Right Now

Before dismissing an improvement effort as too complex, too early, or not applicable to your specific context, run through these questions honestly:

• Do you actually want this outcome, or do you want to be seen as someone who tried?
• If a doctor told you the project would fail in two months without this change, would you find a way to implement it?
• What is the real consequence of not doing this, and have you let that consequence become real enough to motivate action?
• Is the explanation you are giving yourself a diagnosis or a defense?
• If Reno can build a podcast studio in three weeks with no instruction because he wanted to, what could you accomplish in three weeks if the want-to was fully engaged?

Built for Leaders Who Are Done Making Excuses

The most powerful reframe in Jason Schroeder’s work is the shift from blaming the system to owning the role. Not because systems do not fail people, because they do, and identifying and fixing those systems is a major part of the work. But because no system improves until someone wants it to badly enough to make it happen. The superintendent who wants a clean project finds a way to make it clean. The project manager who wants a real Takt plan finds a way to learn and implement it. The leader who wants to develop their team finds a way to create the time and structure to do it. Elevate Construction exists to provide the knowledge, the frameworks, and the support for people who have already decided they want to. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Want It and Find the Way

The quote is simple enough to memorize in ten seconds and significant enough to examine for the rest of a career. If you want to, you will find a way. If you do not want to, you will find an excuse. Not because the excuses are dishonest, but because the mind is remarkably creative at finding reasons that protect whatever level of desire is actually present. The path forward is not to argue with the excuses. It is to ask the more honest question: how badly do I actually want this? And if the answer is not badly enough, the next question is: what would it take to change that? As Tony Robbins has demonstrated in his work on motivation and behavioral change, the moment someone genuinely connects to the consequence of inaction with the same urgency they give to immediate demands, the want-to arrives and the way follows it.

On we go.

FAQ

Why do capable people fail to implement things they know are important?

Because capability and desire are not the same thing. A person who can master Logic Pro in three weeks because they are passionate about music and cannot figure out how to send a payment because they are not motivated to do it is demonstrating that capability is available when desire is present and withheld when it is not. In construction, the superintendent who has not implemented Takt planning, maintained a clean project, or done consistent field walks is not demonstrating an inability to do those things. They are demonstrating that the desire to do them has not reached the threshold where the mind starts finding ways rather than reasons why not.

What is the difference between a diagnosis and a defense in explaining why something is not happening?

A diagnosis is designed to identify a root cause so that a solution can be found. A defense is designed to protect someone from an uncomfortable conclusion. When someone says they do not have time for field walks, that can be either a diagnosis or a defense depending on what follows it. If it is a diagnosis, the next step is to analyze how the week is structured, identify what is consuming the time that should be going to field walks, and redesign the schedule to protect that time. If it is a defense, the next step is to produce a second reason why even if the time were available, field walks might not be effective. The defense generates reasons. The diagnosis generates solutions. The question is which process the person is actually running.

What is leverage and how does it produce the desire that drives action?

Leverage is the connection between current behavior and real, personal, specific consequences that are felt as urgent. When a doctor tells someone they have two months without a behavior change, the consequence of inaction becomes immediate and real in a way it was not before the appointment. The capability to change was always there. The leverage was not. In construction, leverage can be created internally by connecting clearly and honestly to what happens if the current trajectory continues: the project loses margin, the team loses trust in the leader, the schedule slips, the reputation suffers. When those consequences are held close rather than pushed to an abstract future, the want-to increases and the ways start appearing.

How should a leader use this insight without becoming judgmental toward their team?

By applying it as a self-reflection tool rather than as an external accusation. The leader who tells a team member they are not doing something because they do not want to is making a judgment that rarely produces motivation. The leader who creates an environment where the team member can arrive at that conclusion themselves, through honest conversation, clear consequences, and genuine coaching, is doing the work that actually changes behavior. Jason Schroeder is explicit about the distinction in this episode: knowing that someone does not want to badly enough may be true, but it is not always the leader’s most effective tool. The most effective tool is helping the person build the desire themselves. The self-reflection version of this insight is powerful. The external accusation version rarely is.

How does this apply to implementing lean systems like Takt planning on a construction project?

It applies directly. The most common reason Takt planning does not get implemented is not that it is too complex or not applicable to the specific project type. The information is available. The methodology has been demonstrated to work on civil projects, exterior scopes, and non-repetitive work. The reason it does not get implemented is that the desire to figure it out has not reached the threshold where the mind starts looking for ways rather than reasons why not. The moment a superintendent or project manager genuinely wants the predictability, the flow, and the margin that Takt planning produces badly enough, they will find someone who has done it, ask the questions they need answered, run the first attempt, and improve from there. The want-to is the missing piece, not the knowledge.