I Always Knew
My Path.
From a Grade 5 school project to co-founding a company — the through line has always been the same: decide, execute, don't wait for permission.
Architectural Designer. Landscaper. Tow truck operator. Equipment rental founder. Content creator. Podcast host. Coach. Not a winding road — a compounding one.
20+
Years Working the Trades
2
Businesses Founded
Thousands
Following the Build
9+
Podcast Episodes Live
“When opportunities present themselves — if you don't try, you'll never know.”
— Matt Mak
The Real Story
The Blueprint Was Always There
It started with a school project. Grade 5 — build a 3D model of a house. Most kids just wanted to finish the assignment. I wanted mine to be real. I spent hours on it, not because I had to, but because something clicked. That project wasn't homework. It was a preview of who I was going to become. From that moment, I knew: I was going to be an architect and design homes.
I Had a Plan Most People Never Make
While other teenagers were figuring out who they were, I was mapping out who I was going to be. Married at 25. First child at 27. Not a daydream — a decision. I wrote the blueprint for my life before I even understood what that meant. And then I went to work on it. Looking back, that's the thing about me: I've always known my path. And I've always executed.
Architectural Designer — Goal Reached
I set out to become an architectural designer, and I did it. I got the credentials, entered the profession, and proved to myself what I'd always believed: if you know where you're going and you don't stop, you get there. But achieving a goal doesn't mean you stop moving. It means the next chapter begins.
Every Job Taught Me Something Different
Architecture gave me the eye. But the years that followed gave me the edge. Landscaping taught me what it means to work with your hands and build something from nothing. Towing taught me accountability — the call comes in at 2am and you show up, no excuses. Each experience compounded. Not a detour. A curriculum. I was building a skill set most people can't put on a résumé because they never lived it.
Founder, J&J Equipment Rentals
When the opportunity to found J&J Equipment Rentals came along, I didn't overthink it. That's the thing I've learned — and lived — over and over again: when an opportunity presents itself, if you don't try, you'll never know. I said yes. And from day one, I wore every hat in the building. Equipment maintenance. Transporting. Sales. Admin. Mechanic. There was no job beneath me and no manual to follow. You figure it out because the business doesn't care that you're figuring it out — it just needs to run. Now, with a staff in place, those hats have been passed down — and the time that bought me back has gone straight into building our next chapter: proprietary software built through AI. Because that's what operators do. They don't stop when the business stabilizes. They use the margin they earned to build the next thing.
The Chapters Nobody Posts About
In October 2024, a 3,500-pound machine pinned me to the ground. I broke my ankle and my knee. I was back on a job site before most people would have left the hospital bed. Not because I had to be. Because I have never known how to stop.
But the hardest chapters were never the physical ones. I have run a business while watching a partnership strain under the weight of two completely different visions. I have sat at a kitchen table at midnight trying to figure out payroll while my wife was upstairs grieving the loss of her sister. I have worked years without paying myself, maxed every line of credit, and still showed up the next morning with the same energy people say they feed off of.
I am not sharing this for sympathy. I am sharing it because this is the part that nobody talks about — the part where you are holding everything together while quietly falling apart. And I have learned that the people who make it through those seasons are not the ones with the best strategy. They are the ones who found the right people to survive it with.
That is what Built Without Permission is really about.
Built Without Permission
Looking back, I discovered something at a young age that I didn't even have words for yet: you truly make your dreams a reality. A Grade 5 school project. A teenage plan for marriage and fatherhood. A career goal set before I had the credentials. A business built without a blueprint. A recovery nobody expected. A marriage worth fighting for. A partnership worth navigating. All of it real. All of it executed. That is the story I am still writing — and it is the same story I coach others to write for themselves.
Not from a stage. Not from a highlight reel. From the same trenches you are standing in right now.
You truly make
your dreams
a reality.
I discovered this at a young age — before I had the language for it, before anyone taught it to me, before I had a single result to point to as proof. A Grade 5 kid building a model house because something inside him said: this is who you are.
That belief got tested. Hard. Financial pressure that tested everything. Near-death recovery. Partnership friction. Seasons that tried to convince me the blueprint was wrong. Every single one of them failed.
None of them won. And I coach from that place — not from theory, not from a highlight reel, but from a life that has been through the fire and kept building anyway.
Grade 5 to Architectural Designer
Set the goal before I understood what it would cost. Achieved it anyway.
A Life Plan at 13
Married at 25. First child at 27. Decided early. Executed on time.
Every Opportunity Taken
Landscaping. Towing. Equipment rental. Said yes when others waited for permission.
Still Building
Co-founder, content creator, podcast host, coach. The work doesn't stop.
Hear it in my own words.
I go deep on all of this — the Grade 5 model house, the teenage life plan, every pivot along the way — in the first two episodes of the Built Without Permission podcast. No script. No polish. Just the real story.
If this resonates,
let's talk.
This room is not for people who have it figured out. It is for people who are still in it — and refuse to let it break them.
Let's Get Started