00:00 Chris
Welcome to the lion within us, a podcast, serving Christian man who are hungry to be the leaders they’re predestined to be. I’m your host, Chris Grainger. Let’s jump in. All right guys. This week, we’ve been talking about the area of self and winning at home first and today I have with me the author of winning home first, Mr.

Corey Carlson, I’d say why I’m so excited for this conversation and the scripture I asked Corey, I’m like, give me some scripture. What scripture do we want to get our guys focused on? He gave me a second Corinthians three 16 through eight things. I’m going to read that for you real quick, guys. You got to get some scripture in.

Did he get going? But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is. There is freedom. I love that freedom. My Bible actually says Liberty. So, and we all who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the.

Who has the spirit guides. That’s a beautiful piece of scripture. So Corey, who is this guy as an entrepreneur, former executive husband, father of three. He understands the pressures working parents face. He’s very passionate about helping business leaders win at home and work. So 20 years in corporate America gave him amazing opportunities as he worked his way up into the executive level, but he also saw broken.

Work without purpose burnout, lack of focus, strain marriages, and absentee parents. I’d say what business leaders, especially, or often not live, not living life to the fullest. And when core discovered coaching, it helped him become a better leader, husband and father. So he left his corporate career to help other leaders, leaders achieve a healthier work-life better.

And currently he lives in Cincinnati with his awesome wife, threes, amazing children. He has a civil engineering degree from university of Missouri MBA from Rockhurst university. His first book releasing 2019 title went home first for those on YouTube. Check it out. I’m holding it right here. Amazing book.

This thing was an inspirational guide for work-life balance. It was an Amazon number one best released in three categories listed in Forbes as the seven books. Everyone on your team should read the Jose leadership podcast and went home first, top one and a half percent global podcast for listener notes and just an all around.

Awesome dude. So welcome Corey. How you doing today?

02:20 Cory Carlson
Uh, Chris, doing great. Thank you very much for the time. Look forward to this conversation. I enjoyed the previous ones we’ve had and look forward to talking today and thanks for letting me share some of my testimony and story with your.

02:32 Chris
Oh, I’m so excited.

Cora, so excited. I’d tell what for, for the listeners. This will be the book of the week. You know, we, we feature a book every week, say what? I couldn’t put it down. I mean, it was just, it’s so impactful. So many different areas. I love the scripture, the way that you pull out that the questions that we’re going to unpack a lot of that, but maybe just let our listeners, I just went through an intro for you if you will.

But that’s just me talking, our listeners like to hear from, from the men themselves. So give us a little bit more about your back.

03:01 Cory Carlson
Yeah, definitely. You know, I think as you talked about the opening, the scripture, I use ESV English standard version. And the one part of that scripture that you read that stands out to me a ton, and I just want to reinforce it here.

And hopefully it’s helpful to listeners as we talk this, you know, today is we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. And so much about what I’ve seen in my own life, as in, as well as clients I work with just people is like by one degree at a time, we’re either growing closer to God or further away from God.

And so, as we talk today, just anything that I say that could help you grow closer to God. I mean, look to implement it. There is so many podcasts out there. There’s books out there. We are all consumed with a ton of information, but if we don’t. There never will be transformation. So it’s gotta be about implementation.

So as we talk today, we have our conversation for the listener. Just sit there, you grab something, just go implement. Don’t let it just be another podcast you listen to, but one that actually can help you grow closer to God, one degree at a time. And that’s a lot about weaving what my story is is that that CA you know, the very crappy cruddy falls I’ve had in my life, where, because I got off track one degree at a time.

You know what I mean, dive in right into the book and the introduction. And a lot of my story is I ended up, you know, basically I graduated from university Missouri’s you mentioned civil engineering degree. I started my career in Kansas city at a great firm, but I was taking my identity to my job, even though they’re doing all things they could to help move me up the corporate ladder.

And I was getting a lot of new opportunities, but I was taking my den into my job, which is never fulfilling. We can’t fulfill. That God’s size void with temporary things. So when that wasn’t working, I decided, Hey, maybe I’ll take my identity, my worth my value to my wife. Can she validate who I am as a man?

And that she can, I mean, no, no broken human can help another broken human. I mean, that’s what we need God for. So when that didn’t work, when, you know, cause my wife has bad days, I have bad days, some days we’re miscommunicating. But when you take your identity to your job, that won’t. When you take it to a spouse that won’t work.

So what I chose to do, which I don’t recommend it to anyone, but I went and had an affair and ended up, you know, years later came clean of the affair and that’s, you know, part of my story restoration, um, you know, whole story, our marriage is, you know, we’re good, we’ll be engaged 20 or nine engaged married 24 years this summer.

So it’s been an awesome story for, you know, Holly and I and restoration. But as far as that, you know, a fair piece, it was one degree at a time where I maybe stop spending time daily in the word, boom, there’s one degree. Then I do something else. Kind of one degree. I know another big degree that I try to get people on is, you know, my wife and I, we stopped necessarily going on dates.

We were doing a lot of double dates, but our group dates, but we weren’t going on one-on-one dates. And so that’d be another one degree. So it just kept moving me further and further away. So eventually obviously having the affair. And so for me, it is staying focused on that verse of, Hey, one degree, am I growing closer to God?

And so for me, it’s, I gotta be spending time in the word. I gotta be surrounded by a good community, talking to, you know, leaders like yourself were holding each other accountable and kind of pushing each other for growth and getting better. So anyways, just kind of reinforcing that for all of us, as we listened to today’s podcast.

I

06:43 Chris
love it. I love it. I mean, at one degree it makes all the difference in the world. I mean, for the line within it. And you know, I kicked this off saying this is a self episode, so I break it down to self health and wealth. And I think you, I love, that’s why I loved your breakdown. You marriage, parenting and work.

Those are, you know, those four areas. I guess if we, if we can try to help these guys, one degree in each one of those sections today, that’ll be mission accomplished.

07:08 Cory Carlson
Absolutely. Yeah. So you just laid out the, you know, those are the four parts of the book, and I actually believe those are the correct order that they need to be, that you got to start with you in order to lead your family.

Well, Lord or lead your work team. Well, you have got to be in a good place because if you’re an unhealthy personally internally, then that’s going to have a ripple effect to everyone you lead. That may mean you lead from an anger position or no patients or to control. Or short sighted, self-limiting beliefs, whatever you’re battling internally, if you don’t take care of that yourself, it will have an effect with your spouse, with your kids and with your team.

So on that ups, the very first part taking care of yourself. There’s a great book called lead yourself first. And it talks about how there’s the decline in leadership in America today. And it’s not a political statement at all is talking about leadership across everything. Uh, military, just everything in the reason leaders are declining is because of the decrease in solitude.

And it talks, it gives great stories about military leaders who said, you know, should we go to battle? And it’s like, well, let me sleep on it. Let me let let’s think about it. It, the book ends with a big pivotal quiet solitude moment that Martin Luther king Jr. Had the night before his, I have a dream speech, quiet time he had at his kitchen table.

And so there’s these examples like. Where it just kind of proves the point that we all need solitude as leaders. And so if we’re going to grow better, one degree at a time talking about the you section is you listening, you know, what are we, what are you doing to help grow in your quiet time? You know, some of that is quiet in the morning, like spending time in the Bible journaling and throughout the day, praying as Paul talks about never sees.

That’s a little bit of what we’ve got to do is throughout the day, thanking God for the meeting, we just had praying for guidance and wisdom on the next meeting. Now, as the world’s opening back up, we’re going back to the office. We’re back to commuting. What are you doing on your commute time? Are you listening to sports radio?

You listen to the stocks. You listen to politics, or are you turning the radio off or the podcast? And thinking and praying and spending some time and solitude. So it can look a whole lot of different ways other than, you know, some people think when I say the solitude, especially a clients, they’re like, oh, you want me to start waking up at four 30 every day?

Well, yeah, sure. Go for it. You can. But there’s other times throughout the day that we can just hit pause. So we’re not constantly going from meeting to meeting any moment of stillness. We grab our phone and just to see what the feeds. So that’s a big one degree is, Hey, how can you find more solid dude in your life?

09:58 Chris
And some of it may be, Cory guys are just uncomfortable with that, that solitude to right. That’s what we feel like. We have to feel it. We have to fill that with something, you know, and I think that’s why we grabbed these, these smartphones that I feel like we worship at the alter to smart phones.

Sometimes it just drives me crazy. And Hey, guilty party included, you know, versus. Just be quiet, you know? Cause often got it. That’s when he speak, the Bible says it’s a whisper, right? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s not, but you have to be in that quiet time sometimes just to be able to hear that whisper and to be in a position to even receive a word that he’s trying to give you.

10:32 Cory Carlson
Yeah, absolutely. I think a, you know, a hack on that is maybe getting a devotional book to at least give you some promptings. You know, I mean, when writing this book, I put a lot of questions in there because that’s what I actually need. I’m right with you, Chris. I’m right. With that listener who. When you get, you know, alone in quiet time before I know what I’m doing, my to-do list, right.

You know, this is what I need to do today. Oh man, when’s this quiet. Time’s over. I’m going to start doing these things. And so it just turns into this like planning session. But if I have thought provoking questions, it can at least help me stay grounded. I think the biggest thing is just pen and paper.

I’m a huge fan of journaling because it kind of causes you to slow down. And I don’t journal with an iPhone. I mean, yeah, there are times I’m out and about, and I may put in a thought into my notes, but when it comes to quiet time, I want an old school Bible and pen and paper because it helps me stay kind of grounded in the moment.

11:28 Chris
Right. And there’s something about when that pen actually hits the paper and he had to make that thought and transfer it into writing. There’s something magical about that. And I’m with you. I mean, Even when I do want to teach Sunday school, when, if I have to do that, if it’s my week to do it, for instance, I find there’s a tremendous amount of value.

There’s a leadership guide. I can read it. I could go literally walk in that class and read the guide. I choose to write my notes because it forces me to think through how I want to teach us how the, how the person is going to receive it. But it just there’s clarity when you do it.

12:02 Cory Carlson
Yup. Absolutely. Not only did you said magical.

I mean, science backs it up, that when we write, we remember more things and we have kind of more ahas when we’re actually writing than just thinking. I know in my own experience, if I’m just thinking, like, I’m just going to think about this for, I know it, I mean, I I’m way off I’m daydreaming about something completely irrelevant.

And, uh, so anyway, Like the old dog

12:29 Chris
would a squirrel that’s right, exactly. Right. Well, I I’ll read that section. You know, what really jumped at me with, I love the five capital, you know, we’re spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual, and financial that just jumped out. Cause you really broke down each section and it gave some thought provoking questions around each one of those areas too.

And you know, just, just hats off to you for that structure as well. But you know, Maybe what led you down that path? You know, what, why those five areas? What, what, what was the reasoning behind trying to get guys to think about that when they thinking about the section of

13:03 Cory Carlson
you? Yeah, well, just, uh, be, um, clear.

I did not come up with it. My coach, Brandon, who’s been my coach for a decade and he came up with him and it’s basically the foundation of his coaching company, which I work through called the 5k. And anyways, the reason I used in the book is I loved it. It helped me. And there’s other versions of it. I mean, there’s people that do like the 5s F’s faith, family, friends, fitness, something in finances, right?

I mean, so there’s something like that, no matter what you do. Um, and a little bit, like you write yourself health than wealth was what you said earlier. So there’s that flow. And even in yours, you did wealth life. And I think what I’ve loved about the structure of the five capitals and even all the others that are out there is we have to start first with whether it’s spiritual capital, it’s the, you know, that self or the faith, whatever it is.

And some of those other ones is this idea of there’s a greater purpose. We can’t just think it’s about e-mails and it’s about money, but we’ve got to understand there’s a greater purpose. No, this is a faith based podcast. W even when I do like secular ones where you don’t talk about scripture is people have to understand that there is something greater than just themselves and slowing down and kind of thinking through.

So that’s why that spiritual capital is such a big deal. It says solitude peace. It’s, that’s where you should go to get your identity. I need to know. And I learned this obviously in later years. My identity is a beloved son of God. It’s not my job. It’s not now that I’m a coach or an author. It’s not that I’m married.

It’s not that I’m a father. Those are all ways I live it out, but my identity is a blood son. And by having spiritual capital to top, it reminds me of my identity. It reminds me of what my purpose and calling are from there then goes in that relational piece, which is it’s about who I do life. And I put a quote in there in the book that I saw when I was writing the book was no one ever talks about Jesus’ greatest miracle.

And it’s the fact that he had three close friends in his early thirties, you know? Cause the reality is we don’t, I mean, we were super employee during the week or super husband and super dad on the weekend. And we forget to have friends. Well, part of my challenge over the years at different times when I’ve gone off track is I lost the intentionality of spending time with friends or when I did get with some friends, I kept at surface level, we talked sports, we talked weather, but the best times of my life is when I also had that good tribe, that good small group, that good group, where I was vulnerable, they were vulnerable to me.

There’s accountability. There was high challengers, high encouraged. So when it comes out, relational capital, it’s the family and your friends. And so who are you doing life with? Who are you pouring into? And who’s pouring into you. That’s right. And then next is a physical capital. It’s about time and energy.

So it’s health, it’s what you’re putting your body. It’s getting to the gym. It’s how you manage your schedule. Right. Does your schedule control you or does your, uh, or do you control your schedule? I think a big thing on physical capital, I’d say right now to everybody listening. And this is a reminder to myself.

As the world’s opening back up, we very well could fall into old 2019 habits of saying yes to everything. Like I loved 20, 20, 21, the, not every part of it, for sure. But the part of all these family dinners, all these card games, just the slowness of life. You hadn’t, you had permission to say no to things you gave me.

If you didn’t want to go somewhere, you could literally just kind of blame it on COVID. Even if they’re like, I don’t want to go, no one questioned it now there’s this whole guilt. Oh, I better go to that birthday party. Oh, I better go to this. And so I think now, as it opens back up, if you don’t want her to say, you know, heck yeah, to go on, then don’t go.

17:22 Chris
That’s right.

17:24 Cory Carlson
Yeah, there’s this powerful quote that a mentor said to me is the quantity of our nose will drive the quality of our yeses. Right? So really the more times we say no, that means those few times we say, yes, we can show up. We can be intentional. We can be present at the board meeting or the small group meeting or our kid’s soccer game, because we have said no to all the other extra things, they may be good things, but sometimes we’ve got to say no to good things in order to go do great.

I mean, I’ll talk to a clients a lot. It’s like, man, maybe you don’t need to be on three boards. You know, maybe you don’t need to be in two small groups. Let’s just dial it down some and be intentional and give your all, and then that allows other people to step in and rise up.

And then the fourth capital’s intellectual capital, it’s all about insight and ideas. And then the fifth one’s financial, which is about money and generosity. You know what we’re doing at those things. So yeah, those are the five capitals and I know listeners have heard variations of, of, of those, but super powerful to have some framework to think about and kind of help you recalibrate.

18:32 Chris
Definitely, definitely. I mean, th they all speak to me. They definitely speak to our audience. I mean, I love basically you’re, you’re coaching people to be intentional about how they act in these different areas. And I just loved that advice about learning how to say no, I think as men would need it.

Oftentimes, we, you know, you hear the phrase. Yes. Ma’am, uh, we don’t, we don’t need to be, yes, man. We need to be, you know, very particular, very, very intentional about where we spend that town. So, Corey, we’re going to take a quick break and then let’s jump into the next area of the book, because I’d love to get your take on the marriage and how to make stronger marriages, because I know our listeners out there are trying to do that as well.

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It won’t give, Cory’s going to get some insight on marriage. And when I, when I looked at the different section of marriage, Corey, you know, that United and serving really jumped out to me. I’m really big on servant leadership too, but I feel out that resonated well. So give us some insight there on marriage, on what we need to be thinking about how we should be acting intentionally to win at home first.

What are married?

20:49 Cory Carlson
You said the, the serving piece, anytime he asks older couples, who’ve been married a long, long time. You’re like, oh yeah. How did you do it was a 50 50. And they’re like, no, it’s a hundred hundred. And the times that Holly and I are at our best is when we’re both serving each other and somebody is listening to this and they’re thinking, serving like that’s exhausting.

Or I run out of time if I’m always serving, I said, what’s crazy. As I serve her, I almost can’t out serve my wife. Like I, I will do something nice. And before I know it, like she’s done three things nice for me or help me out in some way. And so not that you want to give to get, but there’s something cool when serving, when there’s a serving mindset in the house, man, you don’t eat, you don’t out give.

And even if you it out give it’s just, it’s what we’re called to do. Right. We are supposed to serve others. And so what I, what I’ve found is when I’m selfish and it’s all about my schedule and getting my stuff done, man, it just puts a wedge in the relationship. But when it’s about serving, Hey hun, how you know, especially when the kids were younger, my kids are now nine, 13 and 17, but when they’re younger, if I watched the kids so that my wife could go so, or go be with her friends, She would always, it would get flipped back for me where she’d watch the kids that I could then go out with my buddies or I could go on a trail run or I could do something.

And it was unbelievable. But those times were, were kinda nitpicking or a buzzword we have in our house as roommates, when we act like roommates, I would remember those times where it was. I don’t want to watch the kids so she could go do something because I don’t get to do anything. And so we’re just frustrated and it’s just, it’s awful.

So, you know, looking to serve your spouse, I mean, it goes, it goes miles and you know, those five love languages, knowing what your spouse is, what do they need? Words of affirmations mine, my wife. So it’s like, if, if I tell her thanks for what she’s doing and serve her by acknowledging her, that’s a huge thing as well.

So surfing’s a big component of it. And you know, on that United piece, it’s when marriage, we become one. And so it’s, it’s sharing what’s going on in your life with your spouse. I know a lot of people, as they start, their careers starts progressing. They, they share less and less and less with their spouse.

And so there comes this moment where you got nothing to talk about. And we’ve, you’ve got to stay engaged and have those conversations because I also coach people who, as they, their kids have all moved out of the house. They’re kind of looking at each other, like, who are you right now? There was even this buzzword, uh, last fall came out called the gray divorce in this idea that people, they, as they get gray air, they can get divorced.

And it’s all because. They, you know, the kids are out of the house and they’re kind of reason for, to being together, ended up just being logistics and getting kids from point a to point B. Now, no one’s around. It’s kinda like, ah, I don’t want, and so that United is, is stay, stay engaged in what’s going on in each other’s lives.

You know, if you do share work stories, guess what? The next time you share a work store, she’s going to remember the players involved. That’s right. That’s right. You know, we think that they don’t know, but they, they can retain pieces of it and they don’t need to know every detail. Well, just them engaged.

24:17 Chris
Why, why do you think we have that hesitation to as man to, to not share it? I mean, is it because we’re tired at the end of the day? Does that mean we’re trying to make excuses or was there something deeper there?

24:29 Cory Carlson
I think it’s a lot of it. I do think a big thing is I think we stopped too early at the end of the day, meaning I’ll say the end of our day ends when our head hits the pillow, not when we walked through the front door of the house.

So I think there are guys out there and I, um, I’ve been this way at different times of my life where, I mean, I give it my all during the day I hustle I’m out, trying to sell, uh, managing up, managing down. I mean, I’m crushing it. Income five, six. O’clock when I walked through the front door, I’m like, Ooh, I’m done.

I’m just going to sit on the couch, check out. I’m going to check out. Oh, I’ve had a long day. I provided for my family. I’m just going to check out and, you know, look at my phone or pull my laptop up. And watch TV, but that is that, that is so wrong. And we even saw this with our middle child where we kind of came up with this phrase.

We don’t give others the best and we get the rest. And this is because my middle child is absolutely awesome. What was happening is she did exactly what I just said as a kid, she was giving her all of her energy to class and she was. Studying hard, good classmate then go to gymnastics, gave her all. Then at the end of the day, when we got her, it was awful.

She was tired. She was cranky. And, and we had her parent teacher conference and my wife and I were gonna go, boy, we’re going to get this as the parent teacher college, we’re going to be told we’ve, we’ve got a challenging kid. Our first kid, we always got rave reviews. This one’s gonna be. And just keep in mind this story’s not over a span of decades.

It’s like, there was just a short window where our middle child was this way and we always would go to the parent teacher conference and we’re ready to hear how challenging our kid is. And praises, we got praises of how good of a kid she was. And we’re like, what? Wait, wait, wait, what’s happening here? So she gets praised at word.

We’ve heard her from her coaches. She’s incredible, but we’re not getting that in. Everything that I’ve been talking to leaders about is I got to see this play out in a 12 year old. She was giving everyone else the best she was showing up doing great. And then when she got home, she was just tired. She just let her guard down.

And so she gave others the best. We got the rest and that’s the exact same thing. I think a lot of us listeners do is we go so hard during the day. And then at night it’s like, I’m done. And so my encouragement to you. Manage your energy throughout the day so that you can make it all the way till bedtime.

Right. So does that mean turn off sports radio or politics? You don’t get fired up when you walk in the door or more drained. Does that mean making sure you get quiet time? Even if you office out of the house? I noticed this when you, uh, probably about seven, eight years ago, I went from a corporate job that was in, you know, a big building to.

Obviously not in my house because the combine I worked for was headquartered in Florida and I still got to live in Cincinnati, man. That first transition where I worked in the basement and my wife was upstairs as a whole new deal. But what I found I had to do is I could not in my day and walk right upstairs because I would either be angry.

Cause maybe the call didn’t go well or I’d be way too excited because the call went well. So I had to put into my schedule. The 15 minute window from when, my day into, when I went upstairs and that allowed me to calm down and a level set and to realize, Hey, now I’m almost like changing my uniform on to like say now I’m going in the game of being a father and a husband.

Yeah. It was pretty powerful. So those are just some things as listeners think about it. Hey, what do you need to do to shift your energy, to shift your mindset, to know that you need to go all day long and into the night. What,

28:17 Chris
now that 15 minutes you got me curious. W w what did that 15 minutes look like?

Yeah,

28:22 Cory Carlson
for me, 15 minutes, I was doing a, a few things depend on the day. Um, it could be brain, like I I’m getting ready to go upstairs and I just need to calm down, you know, whether my frustration or my excitement, whatever it is, just kind of calm down and be present. Hey, how can I serve my family? Well, okay.

How can I go up there and ask her? I’m guessing computers off. Yeah, computers off. I was listening to some worship music at times some days. Some days, I just kind of tied it at my desk. Um, and just kind of just try to slow down.

28:56 Chris
I love it. I mean, that’s just great advice right there. And then also going back to what you said earlier about the love language, I think you said your wife is a words of affirmation.

Yep. No guys, we need to know our, our wives love languages. I mean, and you also need to know yours as the, as, as the, the head of the house. I mean, the leader out there and, and your wife needs to know what your language is, you know, from. It’s a quality time. So I know for me, for me to connect to my wife, if I don’t, you know, intentionally schedule and put, you know, make it a priority to have that quality time, it doesn’t matter how I try to serve her.

I’m not going to check her box unless I’m doing that quality time. Right.

29:35 Cory Carlson
And is, I mean, situational leadership too. I mean, we lead people the way we want to be led well, for whatever reason that God has opposite detract and leading our spouses away, we want to be less. Doesn’t work because just like you said, there, I don’t know too many people where they have the exact same, um, love languages or spouses.

I’m sure there’s a statistic, but I know Holly’s and mine are opposite and many people I know it’s opposite. It is

30:01 Chris
wild. That’s right. I think God has a sense of humor in many ways. Yeah.

30:05 Cory Carlson
Yeah. That’s right. I mean, it’s, you know, by seeing all these other versions of God through, through our spouses. Yeah.

None of the versions, other characteristics,

30:15 Chris
right. Well, I mean, again, this, this, this marriage, you know, area of the book serves so many people in so many different ways. It definitely, it encouraged me, it challenged me. It’s making me think, you know, I mean, hats off to you for that. And, and, and that kind of dovetails right into the parenting.

Right? I mean, and that’s where, to your point a what’d you call it gray divorces. I see this so many times with people I work with as well, you know, it’s there, they’re living for the kids, you know, and it’s, and it’s all about basically being like, I think you call logistics company or a cab or a taxi, just trying to get people to the right stuff and showing up.

But, you know, and then when the, when the, the, the nest is empty, he look around like, who are you? You know, you have that, that moment. So, uh, again, great stuff, but from a parenting stamp, You, you mentioned a couple of things and then it really jumped out to me that I was hoping you don’t pack. Maybe that invitation challenge matrix that, that really, that, that resonated and any other areas.

So maybe just you have the floor here, Corey, from a parenting standpoint, what would you like to share with the listeners out there?

31:23 Cory Carlson
What our kids need the most is a loving marriage to. C to be modeled. Cause our kids will feel more confident, secure when they leave a house that they feel safe and that they feel loved and encouraged.

And, and so by going on dates with your spouse, by serving each other, by making sure that marriage is strong, your kids are going to reap the benefits of it just by watching you. And we have conversations now in our house as are now, as I mentioned, our kids 9, 13, 17. It, you can say all you want, but if your actions don’t show up to it, the kids are smart.

They’re paying attention, your actions. They don’t care. Really what you say. And I think when they’re super young, they probably already get all that. It’s all about actions, but man, as they’ve gotten older, it, for sure it is about action. So I model that strong marriage and that strong family unit, because it’s going to pay divots.

I think another thing that I would talk about would be that discipline, which is that invitation and challenge matrix. It’s an incredible matrix. And basically it’s inviting your kids and anyone else’s as a leadership tool as well, inviting them into relationship. Hang out with them, have fun, go get ice cream, you know, go get coffee.

They’re a little older, just whatever it is, environment. But then challenge them into responsibility, you know, make the bed, we’ve got to get good grades. We got to show up to all our practices and give our best effort. And so it’s that invitation challenge. And what we see a lot is parents are kind of an either or, and we want to get to the both, both.

And, and so a lot of parents will be high challenge. It’s like, I’m just going to crack the whip. You got to get straight A’s. You’ve got to do all these different things, make your bed clean your room, but there’s no relationship there. They’re not inviting them in to hanging out. They may drag them along in a negative way to, Hey, let’s go to home Depot or let’s go to, um, you know, wherever I got to run my errands, but there’s no really relationship.

And so how you kind of see that play out is, you know, the kids will rebel at some point, you know, uh, There’s just not a strong relation. And you see this with employees. I know we’re going to get to that work section, but employees, they may get their job done during the day. But at night they’re looking at LinkedIn for new job and, you know, kids, they may not, obviously they can’t go find new parents, but they sure go can go find people to go spend time with.

And once they go off to college, you know, they’re going to look for other people to influence them, verse their pants. The other is that top left of that matrix, um, that it’s all invitation is no challenge. And so you get a cozy environment. Kids are spoiled, this is the parents that say yes to everything.

Can I spend the night? Yes. Can we go here? Yes. Can we do this? Yes, they will leave the house spoiled. And what we’ve got to do as parents, just like Jesus did to us is come follow me very invitation. But then go and make disciples high challenge. And so it’s inviting our kids into doing life with us, but then challenging them to get things done.

It’s kind of freedom within the framework. And so that’s a big piece and I’m so grateful as parents. We learned that early because that’s how we’ve done it. I mean, we have fun in our house and we do say yes, matter of fact, we, you know, we had people spend the night this weekend. It was awesome. It’s great.

But there’s also a challenge. I mean, there’s chores, there’s helping out. Let’s, you know? Yes. We’re all going to, you know, I don’t care if you had someone spend the night, Hey, we’re all going to church, you know, on Sunday morning and you know, that way. And it’s just, and it’s so cool to see when now that they’re getting older, how there’s this good foundation, because they know they feel loved when we invite them in relationship and we challenge them and responsibility.

We do that combo a few love. Employees feel empowered. And so it just, it’s been an amazing framework has been so helpful.

35:29 Chris
Now I’m curious to, do you have boys girls, which when are your kids? Not 13, 17,

35:35 Cory Carlson
17 year old is a girl she’ll be going to college in the fall, which is crazy. Then I have a 13 year old girl who started high school in the fall.

And then I have a nine-year-old boy who will be going in 10th grade or not. So super fine. I mean, there’s a spread is four years spread on each of them, not that, uh, you know, you know, from having, you know, as going up the whole kid world, that’s out of our control. So we try to have kids sooner than that.

But four years is what God’s plan was.

36:02 Chris
Well, the reason I asked too is cause he, you know, you talk about that model, kids need a model and they’re looking at your actions and that is so important, but you know, what’s, you’re teaching those girls, you know, your, your, your 17 year old, your 13 year old you’re teaching those ladies.

What it looks like for a godly man, you know, to, to lead his home so that they’re going to be, they’re going to be comparing any potential partner in the future to you, you know, and those actions you’re setting. So hats off to you there cause you you’re setting a standard in their mind. Okay. This is. Uh, golly man, a father, a husband.

This is how he should treat me. And, and the guy who doesn’t open the door, they going to just keep on moving because they’re seeing your actions and your son PC, how a godly man treats his wife. And then, you know, that’s, that’s going to steal values in him as he goes. I love that you went there. That’s how people it’s, it’s more, more is caught than taught.

You know, you can speak all you want, but your kids are paying attention to what you’re actually doing. So hats off to you for being that model. Cause that is, that is so impactful.

37:05 Cory Carlson
Yeah. Well, I mean, thank you. And I think maybe because of that, my, my daughter does gotta push together the boys alone. Yeah, the pastor of our church, uh, Brian told him, wrote a book called five marks of man great book, but his whole kind of thesis of that book is there a 45 year old boys and 15 year old men, there’s a difference.

And so I want my daughters to date and fall in love with spiritual men. I don’t want the boys that are video gaming, the boys that are live and just for the day mode. I have nothing wrong with video games, but I’m just saying, if it’s all about now and not about planning for the future, if it’s all about what does culture say and not about what does their, you know, biblical foundation say, just whatever it is.

I want that idea then be them to date, marry spiritual men. And I want my son to be a spiritual man. And the only way that can happen is if I model that in the house. And, um, you know, we talk about it, but I gotta model it just saying, I can’t say. Go find a great man that treats, and then here I am yelling at my wife that that doesn’t work.

38:12 Chris
Right, right. That’s right. But say what Cory’s meant. Phenomenal areas. Yeah. We’ve been unpacking. Let’s take a quick break. Cause then I want to jump into the area of work and I know this is something you’re very passionate about and I think there’s a, there’s some insight here that I’m hoping we can touch on.

That’s going to really serve the listener as well.

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All right guys, we’re back here with Corey we’ve, we’ve unpacked several areas, you marriage parenting and the last area that he covered in his book, his work and Corey, one thing that really jumped out. Cause I, I, I preach this a lot with, with people I try to serve as well is the idea of boundaries, you know, and the inside is outside boundaries and the importance of those.

And maybe you can cover that as well as anything that you think would bring value in this. Uh, guys that are out there listening right now so far as the area of work and how to win at home. First

40:07 Cory Carlson
with that, a lot of ways to take this boundaries. One and boundaries are so important. I think the first thing that comes to mind, I don’t know why this is coming to mind at this moment, but, uh, man, turn it off.

Turn off your notifications on your phone. Any notification you’ve got coming in that aren’t a phone call or aren’t text. I turn everything else off. We do not need to know breaking news from CNN or breaking news from. When it happens, we don’t, we do not need to know that your baseball team just scored a run or your basketball team just made some points or your stock price just went up a little bit, whatever it is that push notifications you have, I turn them all off and make it more of a pull versus push.

So right now, everyone is trying to push everything to you because they want you opening their app. They want you to look in, they’re pushing to. But if you really want to set boundaries up in your life, so you can be present where you’re present and then turn off notifications, even email. So that it’s a poll.

Instead of people pushing to you, you go in your ready. When the kids aren’t around, when you’re in the right mental space, that you can then go get your emails or go get those sports scores or go get those stock prices, whatever it is for you. That’s how you can have boundaries. Because a lot of times we are at home and our phones.

Instead of playing with our two year old on the floor or ten-year-old, or having coffee with our 17 year old are on a date with our wife. We can be present cause our phone’s dinging or someone’s going to say, well, I have it on vibrate. Yeah. The light goes off. The light goes off, everyone sees it at the table or it’s buzzing.

And you know, in your pocket, it mentally distracts you. And you’re like, Hmm, I wonder what that. I actually, I think I need to get up and go to the bathroom so that I can see my phone to see what that is. And we’ve all done. It is we go look and it’s like, oh, so no this happened. Yep. Isn’t that? Not a big deal.

So if you want boundaries and in fact, set up boundaries, start setting them up so that you can kind of control your environment as opposed to being controlled by your environment. And so that’s a huge one boundaries that I see with a lot of. And so that’d be one easy step that everyone can take term notifications.

The second one is man Psalm 1 27 1, and two has been so powerful for me because it talks about, you know, the person who gets up labors in vain. I mean, it’s this idea of everything we do. If we’re just striving, we’re do not a vanity, but instead we’ve got to have confidence and faith that God’s got the nightmare.

So if we work our, you know, our tail off during the day, we have gotten to believe that God’s got the night shift, that when I come home with my family and I do dinner, I’m hanging out with the family, I’m doing those things. I don’t have to worry about work. God’s got the night shift on the weekends.

God’s got it. And for me as a sales guy now, you know, as a business owner with my practice, like there’s never a time. I can be working. Like there’s always another LinkedIn connection I can make there’s noise. And another speaking engagement, I can go try to find like it’s never ending. Same thing for all the listeners.

It’s another proposal. They could send out another phone call that they could make. It’s all that. And man, part of what I see in my own life, but also when I work with people is we can never release control of our day because we think it all depended on it. And God’s got the night shift. There are things that are happening.

There’s conversations going on right now with a prospect saying that they’re going to need your product or your services, and God’s softening their heart before you even reach out to them. And when you do reach out, they’re ready. And so I think that’s a big piece on this whole work section. I don’t even talk a lot about that in, in, in this book and in the standpoint of, but that’s just been a big piece and it’s actually coming out in the second.

Um, but it’s just that, that’s what I see so often is this whole we’ve got to release control. Yes,

44:11 Chris
no doubt. No doubt. I tell you what, that, that the advice to own it, that, that pull versus push. I’ve heard so many people talk about notifications, turn them off. That’s one thing I had never heard anybody put it that way.

Corey. That resonated. I mean, that impacted me. I mean, that, that, that’s a very convicting topic. And in general for all guys, something, I think we’ve all been sitting there on the can, you know, looking through our, you know, trying to catch up and we feel like we’re doing it in secret. And not that we’re trying to hide anything.

It’s just, you feel like you’re trying to make the most out of every moment. So why not? Why not take advantage of the bathroom, but man, I tell you what, it’s the swats. Amen. We worship these freaking smartphones and we gotta stop it. And that’s a great way to do it is pull versus push. Love it.

44:52 Cory Carlson
Nope.

44:54 Chris
May I say what any so for, from the work standpoint, you know, I like the guy’s got the night shift.

That’s wonderful too. And I’m excited. So you kind of alluded. So is there another book coming? Yeah, there

45:04 Cory Carlson
is. Yeah. The second books rising. That’s the name of the book, you know, 20, 20, 20, 21. We’re hard for all of us and myself included, you know, I had a mental rollercoaster, um, you know, different times where, you know, I jumped all into coaching, speaking all in a hundred percent, March, 2020, right.

Then the world shuts down. I lost 35, 30 5% of my income because the speaking engagements were over and it was like, oh my gosh, what did I just. And, uh, it, obviously you got scared for a little while and just thinking it, so some of my quiet times became, uh, you know, kind of intense say, God will, you know, what the heck’s going on?

What are we doing? And I thought you were calling me into this new space, and now this is happening, you know? Yeah. And over, I’d say the rest of 2020, there were different scriptures. There were different stories. There were different things that helped me kind of get out of the valley that I was in. And so the idea of this book is it’s a tool to help leaders.

We all get knocked down. Leaders are always getting knocked down, whether it is we lost a client, the prospect said, no, our employee that we’ve invested in quit, whatever it may be, or maybe it’s even a teenager rebels a little bit, or our spouses and, uh, you know, is, is awesome that day is we want them to.

We have self doubts. The devil’s getting our head, whatever it could be, we all get knocked down and, you know, God is calling us to rise and go after that next big, bold move that he’s calling each of us into. And we don’t do that when we’re sitting and kind of wallowing in our self pity, our self doubt, our self-limiting beliefs.

Through this book and it provides some tools and some resources to help all of us leaders as we get knocked down, basically to rise and go to what God is calling us each to go after.

47:03 Chris
Well, it sounds like there’s going to be a powerful book and it’s going to have to be another podcast. Cause we go, we’re going to have to attack rise and go, Corey, we, you got lines out there.

Think about that, man. That’s not. That sounds amazing.

47:13 Cory Carlson
Yeah. Thanks. I’m super excited to get out. We’re in final stages of editing. And I’m, I’m excited to get out there. I mean, so these are things that helped me. And then quite honestly, over the last probably year, parts of them have been battle-tested with clients and helping them and this idea of, Hey, how do we elevate our mindset so we can go expand the kingdom for each of us.

I

47:31 Chris
love it. I love it. Well, I guess maybe my last question for winning at home burst. And this is, this is maybe just from a personal standpoint for the guys out there listening, you know, what does winning at home first look like for you specifically?

47:47 Cory Carlson
And that’s the, uh, you know, that’s the hardest part with all of this when at home is, um, there’s no KPIs right at work.

We got those key performance indicators. We it’s revenue, it’s EBITDA, it’s all these sayings and I get it. It’s hard at home. And then one other thing is just because I wrote the book, went home first does not mean every day. My house is absolutely amazing. Um, you know, we, we have our, we can have our tensions.

I, you know, I can do a cold shoulder to my wife. She can, you know, do something to me. Our kids can, you know, we can, we can have our challenges for sure. So I don’t want anyone to think and be part of the rival wrote this book is because I, these are things I was trying and learning and tweaking. And so therefore I was like, Hey, some of this stuff worked.

I want to get it out there. So that’s one thing, but it’s for me, man, winning home first for me is I think all of us know what that feels like when we walk into our home. And it just feels like. Yeah. Like, I know there’s no frustrations. I’ve got towards my wife. I’m sitting in a good place knowing she’s probably not too pissed at me.

You know, my kids, like when they come in, we’re, we’re, we’re excited to see each other. We want to be in the same rooms of each other. You know, when we’re in the cars, we’re talking to each other, there’s no iPod or iPods in our ears. You know, it always saddens me. When I see it, look over the car next to me.

And it’s a parent and their kid and the kids got their. You know, air pods in their years. It’s like, man, that’s precious time. That windshield time is gold when you’re driving and you can just talk. So, um, so for us, I mean, if there are some KPIs, we try to get two dates a month, my wife and I, two days a month.

Um, and that’s huge. It’s as a huge matter of fact, speaking of our houses and perfect, my. I had to speak in engagement. My wife was also traveling a lot because I’m a competitive dog or a daughter who’s a better dancer. And another daughter is a competitive gymnast. So she has been busy with going to different cities because there are events.

And then I had some travel speaking engagements. So when we finally kind of got back together after a couple of weeks, mean we, we, we weren’t necessarily seeing eye to eye my jokes. Weren’t as funny as they used to be. And you know, all those things. So we ha there there’s some tension. Thank goodness we had a date planned.

’cause sometimes I think there’s power in scheduled dates versus spontaneous dates. Spontaneous dates are great, right? When everyone’s in a good mood and it’s gone spontaneous date, but if you’re both frustrated each other, you’ll never plan. You’ll never do the spontaneous date. You’ll just go in different parts of the house.

But by it being scheduled, we knew we were going to do that Tuesday night. We both went and man is just cool. How it all kind of, we were able to resolve everything and just talk and get reconnected. And it was all. So that’s the power and scheduled dates. Just don’t try to wing it. Oh yeah. We’ll we’ll try to go out two times this month.

No, get them scheduled. And if a spontaneous one happens, great, go do it. Right. So that’s a big thing. So KPIs. And then I try to get one-on-one time with each kid where we go get ice cream. We go get coffee. And we just, we kind of just talk. I try not to coach a lot. I try not to parent a lot. I try to listen and just hear about the, uh, you know, the, the dramas in their worlds.

50:55 Chris
Well, wonderful advice. I mean, I’m really big on all that stuff. One-on-one time with the kids, daytimes being intentional about your calendar, you know, really putting that down. We’re we’re the same way Corey, we put on a counter that way it’s there. We know, and it gives us some anticipation, you know, we get to look forward to it.

We get to think about where we’re going to go to things we’re going to talk about. So, I mean, this is ton of insight, great information you’ve gave us here today. You know, where do you want people to go? W we’ll make sure those links are in the show notes, but is there a website somewhere like that? If, if, if, if guys are listening, they can just type that in right now they can go check you out and, and learn more about what you’re offering.

51:30 Cory Carlson
Yeah. Thanks Chris, for having me on today, website is Corey M Carlson. So Corey C O R Y M as in Michael Carlson. I have a weekly email that gets sent out every Wednesday morning that readers find value in. So you can sign up for that. And then, um, yeah, there’s all kinds of more information there as far as coaching speaking and other ways to connect and obviously all your social media places and went home versus Amazon and audible.

51:57 Chris
There you go. Guys. Check the show notes. We’ll have the links there for all star Corey’s material. Highly encourage everyone to get the book, you know, go ahead. Lean into it. It went in home first, read through it, take notes, reach out to court. If you need insight, you can connect with them directly. Or again from remember the question in a week, the strata, when at home, as hard as you do at work, you know, that’s what I want you to leave you guys with.

So be thinking about that, Corey, anything else you’d like to share with our listeners here today?

52:25 Cory Carlson
Oh, that’s a fantastic question. He just left him with, by the way, uh, may I implement something? Out of this call, just grab one thing. I mean, if you can do 2, 3, 4, great. But just get at least one thing that you’re going to do differently because of this podcast.

52:42 Chris
That’s right. I know for me, um, I’m thinking that pull versus push. I mean, now that was the impactful, the way you said that. So I’m thankful for you, my friend, he has been a blessing to have this conversation. Guys go to the line within that us. You’ll be able to go to the show notes page for. Yeah, we’ll check out all that stuff as well as our Bible study.

Don’t forget that Bible studies alive. Now go check that Bible study. Yeah. We want to serve you with that to help you grow as a Christian leader, that’s, you’re predestined to be give us that rating, write a review, all that kind of stuff. It helps guys. So you’ll take the time to do that. It really makes a big impact now to go out and unleash the lion within.