Mo Isom-Aiken - Real Life Story

Episode Info Sign up for the FCA Coaches Challenge Here: https://fcacoacheschallenge.org Join hundreds of coaches as they study through the New Testament of the Bible together in 2021. A weekly reading plan, optional daily text reminders, and the power of knowing you're not alone in the journey! Sign up today! Cory Carlson joins us on the podcast and shares some important insights on how to win at home and with your team! Topics include: - Date Night tips - The Five Capitals in life and how to prioritize each - Identity - The powerful impact of coaching Cory's Story: As an entrepreneur, former executive, husband, and father of three, Cory Carlson understands the pressures working parents face. He is passionate about helping business leaders win both at work and home. Twenty years in corporate America gave Cory some amazing opportunities as he worked his way up to the executive level. But he also saw brokenness: work without purpose, strained marriages, and absentee parents. Business leaders especially were often not living life to the fullest. When Cory discovered leadership coaching, it helped him become a better leader, husband, and father. So he left his corporate career to help other leaders achieve a healthier work-life balance. Currently, Cory lives in Cincinnati with his awesome wife and three amazing children. Cory's Website: https://www.corymcarlson.com LinkedIn: Click Here Buy "Win at Home First" book on Amazon: Click Here ------ Please subscribe on whichever app you use! -------- Nate (00:00): This is the coach to coach podcast, episode number 38 game time. Music (00:21): [inaudible] Nate (00:24): Hey, what's going on guys. Welcome to the coach to coach podcast, where we believe every kid deserves a coach that cares, and every coach deserves someone in their corner. I'm your host, Nate Sully. And this podcast is sponsored by the Northern Kentucky fellowship of Christian athletes. We are incredibly grateful to our donors, our supporters, our board members, volunteers, prayer partners, everybody that contributes to this movement of God. We call it Northern Kentucky FCA. We have another great episode coming at you in just a second. We are going to be talking with Corey Carlson today. Corey is currently an executive coach that lives right here in the Cincinnati area. He is a entrepreneur, former executive, a husband, and a father of three. He is crazy passionate about helping leaders when both at work and at home in his message, I believe is going to be super valuable to those of you that listen, that are currently coaches, but also all of our, uh, all of our FCA family and friends, uh, that'll be around as well. Nate (01:24): You'll be able to take something away from this episode. Absolutely. That will help you in your personal and professional life. He is the author of win at home. First. It's an inspirational guy to work life balance. It was an Amazon number one new release in three different categories, and then listed in the Forbes article as seven books. Everyone on your team should read. He also has the one at home first podcast and is active on some social media channels. So I cannot wait to hop into this conversation with Corey Carlson. All right, guys, we are here with Corey Carlson today. Corey, how you doing brother? Cory (01:59): I'm doing great, Nate. Thanks for having me today. Nate (02:02): Yeah, I'm glad it's worked out well. I've already given the listeners a little bit of, uh, just kind of the highlights of your bio, but would love to just hear a little bit of more, um, elaboration on just a little bit about Corey kind of background and how you got into what you're doing these days. Cory (02:19): Yeah. Thanks Nate. Well, I mean, what I, what I do now, I never thought I would be doing, which is, you know, now it's it's coaching, speaking, writing, but I never thought I was going to do it. I went to university of Missouri, graduated a civil engineering degree and I started my career in civil engineering. I had always thought I'd be the corporate guy and climb that ladder and eventually be an executive CEO. That's kind of what I always thought I would do. And start a career in Kansas city. He got promoted, moved to Denver, was there for awhile. Then got promoted, moved to Cincinnati where we live now. And about nine years ago, I was kind of in over my head where I was VP of a hundred million dollar division. I found myself taking my identity to work where if I had a great month, I thought I was the man. Cory (03:10): If I had a bad month, oh, I thought I was gonna get fired. I was kind of looking around the corner. See if my boss was walking down the hall to terminate me. And it started to affect my, my life. I mean, I was skipping gym workouts. I was tense at home. I just, I needed help. So I reached out to my boss and he said, get an executive coach. I've always had one. So I did, I jumped on that, had an executive coach and Nate just say it. And it changed my life. It sounds extreme, but it is true. One. It did change my life and then obviously changed my career because now it's what I do. But what ended up happening with the coaches? I just, it shifted priorities. It shifted what I focused on, what I, what people were telling me. It was important. Cory (03:52): I was able to discern what is really important. So I became a better father leader husband at that company. I took one more corporate move where I was president of sales for a national contractor. And a lot of the things I was being coached on, I was actually coaching everyone else. When I saw them become better spouses, better parents, and yet profitability for the company improved. I was like, I want to do this for a living. So I few years ago started leaving the corporate to build the coaching practice. And that's what I do now. So I went from basically being a client because my life got upside down to now. I'm trying to help other executives when both at work and at home, Nate (04:33): Man. Yeah. A lot of that just being, I think it's the most powerful when you're now a walking testimony of something that somebody built into you and you're giving it away when you've been personally impacted in that way. I know that's a big deal and then I'm sure it was helpful. And you're saying you were teaching the other, teaching others what you were learning along the way. I'm sure that helped you really internalize it and walk out where you were taken into. Cory (04:56): Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think we all become better teachers and our discipleship is better when we're actually turning around and sharing with others because through part of the teaching, you may expose your own weakness or, oh, wait, I better work on this area as well. So yes, by, you know, quickly employ, I remember know teaching my different employees. Like I would say I learned a triangle for example, Nate. So he learned to try and go, Hey, here are these three points I remember teaching. And maybe I would've forgot the third point while I'm teaching someone else. I'm like, okay, why don't you focus on these two in next week? We'll get to the third one. But today you just worry about these two. Cause I'm like, I don't remember the third one. So sometimes I would teach a little too fast, but it was, it was just fun. Cory (05:40): And it was, you know, a big difference. I see with those that I lead and you probably see the same thing is we can give them all the information they want, whether it's a triangle or it's a square or it's, you know, these five teaching points. There's plenty of information. You and I both have bookshelves behind us as we talk. So we're not lacking information. But what I see to be the, the gap is implementation is to get individuals to app actually implement what they're hearing on a podcast or in a book, you don't have to implement all of them, but there's some, hopefully something from like this podcast, our conversations, some every listener and grabs at least something to try to do differently than they did yesterday. Nate (06:21): Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes, it makes a ton of sense. I certainly don't need any more. One of my, uh, took the StrengthsFinders test, uh, I guess it was, I don't know, probably not three or four years ago now, but one of my, one of my strengths was learner, which I was like, oh, cool. That sounds, that sounds awesome. That sounds good. But it describes in kind of the, the full picture of a learner. What is a strength can also be a weakness to where as a learner, all kinds of research, take in, take in, take in, consume all this information and then not actually do anything different about it. And that's like the whole point of taking in the information is that is to implement. And, and this was a question I was going to maybe ask later on in the episode, but I'd love to just go ahead and maybe mention it. Now you've worked with a lot of different leaders. What's the biggest issue in that sense of like the information to the implementation. What's the biggest obstacle from taking somebody from knowing, knowing what to do and actually seeing the results and seeing the transformation? Cory (07:15): Yeah, I think a lot of the issue with implementation is that they don't have a guide. They don't know what to implement. And what I mean by that is if, well, before I had a coach, I would listen to all the podcasts and one podcast would say, Hey, here's this, if you want to be a better leader, use this triangle with your team. Then I go to the next podcast is like, you want to be a better leader, uses a square. And then you go, the next podcast is like, you want to be a better leader, use this circle. And I would just it's that paralysis by analysis. I was like, I don't know which of these shapes to use. And, and so I would bump into that quite a bit. And then when I got a coach, it was like, Hey, they're all great. Cory (07:55): Just go with the triangle because I know it works. It's going to work. Let's go. And it's a great, no, that's all I need. And then off I went, so I think what ends up happening as we're consuming all this different information, we're, we're getting kind of locked up because we don't know which of the great information we should use. And so I think, I think there's a little bit of that where it's just having the discernment of what to use and then the confidence to go forward and keep pushing through. Because as you do roll something out, your first person that you share it with, maybe, you know, it's like or they don't, they themselves don't implement it very well. And then you give up and you're like, oh, I forget it. I'll just go back to my old ways. So I think it's just that the discernment to decide what to implement and then the discipline to continue with the implementation. Yeah. Nate (08:42): Yeah, no, that, that's, that's a great point. And I've even heard it on those that are trying to figure out, um, different Bible translations knowledge, you know, which one, which one's the best, you know, and I've heard somebody say, well, the one you, the one you'll read the is the best one, whichever one is the one that you feel best with and you're going to read, uh, that's the one you go with. It's not necessarily, which was the best one. That's like, Hey, whichever one, you're going to read, take that and run with it. No, that's good. That's awesome. Well, the first time I had always, I been, you know, we'd have some mutual connections and some different things. I think I discovered on social media originally, um, real quick plug, like you're one of the best, uh, LinkedIn, uh, Facebook, uh, connection. So know, make sure you look Corey up on social media after this, because you just create a lot of value on there. Nate (09:29): I just remember the different, um, one minute videos or tips you give out. But when we met in person, the first time we ran into each other at crossroads Florence and the atrium, and then one of the things we had discussed was the thing that, that you saw maybe even experience yourself, but you were seeing with leaders, coaches, or business people. Like I was just the lack of a big night. I know they haven't had that dedicated time with their spouse. And just how, how, how frustrating it can be to hear stories of man it's been three, four or five years since they've had a date with their spouse. Um, so I know that that's something that you definitely address and in some of your messaging, your content, but, uh, just for, for our coaches and our listeners today, what would be some tips that you found of what makes a good date night or, or how to, you know, how to maybe take a couple steps towards having a, uh, having a big night rhythm? Cory (10:21): Yeah. With Day night. It was a problem in our marriage where we didn't go on dates. You know, we were so busy, we do a lot of double dates. This is, and just, we just didn't make it a priority. We didn't think it needed to be. We thought we were kind of fine. And in fact, we weren't, I've after seeing in my own marriage, what a lack of date night did the lack of commitment. The, we became roommates, all those components, we had to do something different. So through some, you know, basically a Bible study class that we were at in the church, we went to an in Denver, started talking about just dating, you know, your spouse, dating your kids, dating all the, you know, kind of, and it sounds so overwhelming when you hear it, but then it's, well, why I'm out with some guys having fun. Cory (11:09): That's when my wife can have it a fun, intentional date with the kids, vice versa. When she's out with her girlfriends, I can then have intentional time with the kids. And then we can, we also have our nights date nights. So there starts to be a lot of overlap that takes place like this weekend. My wife is in Florida with girlfriends. That that is so huge. Now it's a heavy lift for me because I got to take the kids everywhere. I feel like all I'm doing is making lunches and walking dogs and, you know, driving kids around it mixed doing with my job. But by starting to, you know, allow people to kind of date their friends, date, their kids date, each other, that was a game changer for us. So that was one piece, but then zooming in on the dating, the spouse, you know, for Holly and I w by just going on dates and spending time together, there's connection. Cory (11:58): Otherwise we in fact will become roommates and it doesn't have to be a heavy lift. It doesn't have to be go the route, you know, most expensive steak house. It could just be going for a walk going coffee, but it's that making eye contact, letting them know that you see them, you appreciate them, you hear them. So, you know, that's kind of been, been a big piece, but what I found is a lot of people don't go on the dates because they, you know, they're too busy, this particular season, whether, you know, whether you're an executive or your coach it's oh, well, you know, it's, we're in the season right now. I can't go on any dates. We'll get it. We'll we'll date at the end of the season. Well maybe, I mean, who knows it will the marriage still be there? I mean, it, to be honest, will it still be there in a day? Cory (12:44): Doesn't have to be this Friday night deal. If he can't do it because of, you know, the sporting event don't do a Saturday morning breakfast, just do whatever it could be. It could be at night, it could be a day. It could be a brunch. It doesn't matter. But just the time away, you neither, one of you, you're looking at your phones, neither one of you, you know, there's not kids around, you're just hanging out, talking, connecting. When I work a lot with executives that, you know, they, they go weeks, months without going on a date. That is, I mean, that is that's kryptonite to a, to a marriage for sure. Nate (13:22): No. Yeah, no. Well said. And I think one of your recent posts even talked about something that you guys have tried where you have two different locations for a day. Uh, do you want to elaborate on that a little bit? A little bit? Cory (13:33): Yeah, for sure. Well, I noticed that Holly and I would always, when we go out to dinner, we would be talking about, it felt like kids and schedules the whole time. And we just couldn't like get off of that topic, talking to my coach. And he just had made the comment to do two different locations. And so we started doing that and it has been a game changer. So we'll go to two locations. The first location is really to talk about the kids, the logistics pull out, maybe the phones out we're, we're talking Nate (14:06): About Cory (14:08): It. It really is a business meeting. And that's what we talk about. And then we go to the second place and that it's no more logistics is no more business meeting instead. It's a couple connection. Yes. Do the kids get brought back up? Yes. Does do we end up talking about something budget related again? Yes. But at the end of it, but big picture, the first parts of business meeting, the second, one's more about connection. Where do we want to go? What are we dreaming about? What, how are you feeling now? And it's just, it's, it's been awesome. We have absolutely loved doing it. Yeah, Nate (14:43): No, that's great. Awesome. Well, switching gears a little bit. I know something that you've been certified in. I think its term is five capitals and it's something that our church I'm connected to crossroads. As they've mentioned on different times, it's been a part of, um, a life and eyes. Uh, we do an annual retreat kind of looking at the next year and we try to evaluate these five areas, but I just think it would be super helpful for, for the coaches because, um, I know we're going to talk, you know, we've already talked about the home side quite a bit, but I do think there's this, there's this lie that, um, if we, if we don't give a hundred percent of ourselves to the bottom line, whether that's our win loss record as a coach or as the bottom line of the financial side on a, on a, as a business leader, then somehow if it's always like a, trade-off like if you can't have all the, all the areas it's constantly, you know, you're going to be getting behind or not winning the way you want it with your team or at work, if, if you're not giving a hundred percent of that. Nate (15:39): So we'll just love to hear, um, just an overview of the five capitals and maybe how that's helped you along the way. Cory (15:46): Yeah. Five capitals is a coach organization that I am certified through. As you mentioned, one of the key frameworks that they use is in fact called the five capitals. There's many other tools that they use. But when I first learned the five capitals, which was about nine years to go, I mean, it was a game changer. And in my personal life, we talk about with the family, as you mentioned for you and your wife, but then also has a business application, which we'll we'll hit on as I share it. But the idea of the five capitals they're they're based off different Bible verses, and I won't necessarily unpack all those on this or even, and then also the parable of the talents and a few other pieces. But the five capitals is this idea that there is this different currency in Jesus. In John 10, 10 says that, you know, he's came to give life life to the full, and this idea that if we live these five categories in that right order, then we can in fact have life to the full. Cory (16:46): The hard part is a lot of times we don't live in the right order because the world tells us to live them differently. Our own flesh tells us to live them differently. So life can feel busy. It can feel chaotic. So the five capitals in the right order, the first one is spiritual. And it is about your relationship with God. You know, if you're a coach you're listening and you like that idea of, of these five cows, we talk about what I, what I share a lot with the spiritual piece is I've got atheist who are clients and say, it's spiritual. And it's for a lot of us who believe in, in Jesus and God, it is that it's our connection there. But if you've got an atheist on your team or someone you're talking with, it's, it's just, it's a greater purpose. Like what is life outside of you and your own self? Cory (17:35): And, you know, Harvard business review did a study years ago that all great ideas come from the shower. And it's this idea that no one, no spouse's nagging, no phone is ringing kids. Aren't crying. You're just sitting there thinking. And that's that idea of, Hey, how are we growing in our spiritual capital to spend more time with God, spend more time in the word. If you're, if you have that atheist on your team, how are they spending any journaling time? Are they thinking, are they doing reflective questions? Why did they lose their temper on the field? The other day, that idea is it's the spiritual capital. And so it's growing in wisdom and power. So that's the first one. The second one is relational. So, you know, at the first command is to love God. The second one is to love others. Yeah. It's a relational capitals by who you're doing life with. Cory (18:21): And so that's a spouse. That's your kids. That is your, your close friends, maybe your teammates, but it's who are you investing in? And then who's investing in you. And what's interesting about the relational is especially for the men that are listening is if we're not careful, we've been so absorbed in our career. We've been so absorbed in the sports program or the company we worked for that we've let go of friends. And there are, I remember when I wrote the book, when a home first I came across, this quote is super timely, but it was a, uh, a quote slash kind of joke, but no one ever talks about Jesus's greatest miracle. And it's the fact that he had three close friends in his early thirties, Cory (19:07): You know, cause that's so true because we have great friends and I school then college, and then we start our families. We start our careers. And before we know we've said no to different friends. And so that relational capital is a huge one to make sure that you're spending time with friends with loved ones, because I know you've had other guests, offices of Brian told him, he talks a lot about the lone Wolf gets taken out. And, and, and I totally agree. And so for anybody listening to make sure that it's not about quality, I'm sorry, it's not about quantity of friends. It's about quality. Like, are there people in your life you're having conversations of depth with right now? I'm just talking sports, not just talking weather, but conversation of depth, Nate (19:48): Right? Yeah. And someone, I would just want to insert there real quick too. I've noticed just in my own life, it was a lot of my friendships were already kind of ready, made up through college because you have roommates. I was on a, I was on the baseball team. So you have that locker room, you have this core pool of people you're already spending a ton of time with. And a lot of those relationships are kind of already architected for you. But like once you get out of that scenario, it happens in both places too. You don't have a set, you know, workout time that you have to be there in the waiting room to go work out with your team. You got to figure that out yourself, you don't have this set friend group that you're already spending all this time with and you have to go create that. And I think that's a huge adjustment and probably part of that reason. But now that's, that's a great point. Cory (20:35): So the third capital is physical and this is about time and energy. How are you managing your schedule or is your schedule managing you? And what's interesting about the physical capital is if we're not careful, it, our schedules, you know, control all of us, you know, whether you're a corporate executive and it is the schedule of, you know, I got the quarters coming up, I got to make sure I get everything done by year end or end of first quarter, or you're a coach and it's here comes a season or here's spring training. And then here's the season. And we just say, you know, yes to everything. And don't really think it through. I had a mentor share with me that the quantity of our nose will drive the quality of our yeses. So meaning, you know, depending on how many times we say no to different things, when we say yes, we actually can in fact show up, we can show up with excitement. Cory (21:36): We can show up and be present and actually be present where we're present. And so that physical capital is a big one to make sure that you're controlling your schedule, whether it is, you know, if it is sports season, then make sure you're saying no to the stuff that's not contributing to your top priorities. Save it for next time. You know, there's a, the, the thought of, if you can't say heck yeah, then say no. And so if it does not align with your purpose, if it does not align with investing in those around you, then it's, it's probably time to say no. And maybe in a couple of months revisit it. Yeah. And then physical capital is you can't do anything if you don't have the energy. So it's taking care of your body. What time you going to bed? What time are you waking up putting the phone down and actually just having some time to let it to the brain slowed down. Cory (22:24): So that's this idea of the physical capital. The fourth one is intellectual capital. This is about insights and ideas. I'm bringing different strategies to the team, bringing creativity to, to your work, whatever that could be. And so that intellectual capital what's interesting is, you know, it's, it's down there forth. A lot of times we are told it needs to be at the highest. Yeah. But I, you know, I've heard it said before, like in the sports world, what makes, you know, being an offensive or defensive coordinator. So challenging is once you show that secret play is now known, everyone knows the secret play and therefore it's not. And that's why intellectual capital can be down is because information is free and available. Thanks to Google, thanks to phones, grabbing videos, and posting a play up on the internet. And so intellectual capital is important, but it's not as important as a lot of us get tripped up thinking it is. Cory (23:16): And then the fourth, the fifth capital is financial capital, which is, which is money. And it's money is obviously important. We we've got to steward our resources well in a sports department and a family and a company, but it can't be the end all be all. If you are driven for profit, if you are driven for revenue ticket sales out of the, you know, the box, then there's things you're going to sacrifice. You're going to make poor choices. If you're, you're, you're gonna start cutting costs because you care about the bottom line. And so it can get you tripped up. So those are the five capitals to live in that order, both as a personal lens, which we can talk about further as well as even a company corporate lens. Nate (24:01): Yeah, no, that's really good. And it just, I was just kind of writing them down and, uh, I, I know I was aware of all five, but I think I had not heard the order recently. And what's interesting as I look at this, you have spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual money. My general vibe from just American society in general, it might just be a perfect flip as far as just like the general, uh, our culture. Like it's like money first. And then you got to get it's all intellectual get degree stuff. Then you got to get healthy. And then there's kind of this friendship community is down there too. And then spiritual it's like truth is kind of either it's either just your truth or whatever it might be, um, on the, on the bottom rung there. I just thought that was interesting that, you know, kind of the, the way that, that God's kind of designed it to thrive is, is, is really almost like a flip of a lot of the messages that the world world sends us. Cory (24:54): That's absolutely right. Nate, the world tells us to flip it in some of us. I mean, this is a great self-awareness tool for anyone listening to, is to think through on your bad days, how would you rank them? You could the kind of thing, the acronym halt, you know, when, when you're hungry, when you're angry, when you're lonely, when you're tired, there's a, w there's the F or the capitals that we lean into. Like for me, on my worst day, it's financial, you know, guys, some different financial took kind of wounds from growing up where my dad had a couple of moments of losing his job. My mom had cancer then eventually passed away when I went to college. And so I had to get loans and I just, the devil comes after me with the lie of, Hey, it's all on you. Hey, you're on your own. Cory (25:45): And so I'll hear that. So even to, to, to this day, the devil will try to use that same lie. Just have it look a little differently because I'm the sole provider for our family. So if I don't have enough prospects coming in or speaking engagements, I start to get all nervous. And so financial becomes my number one on my bad days, which leads to number two will intellectual. That means I better consume more books. I better listen to more podcasts because maybe I'm not getting hired because I'm not the best coach ever, or I'm not the smartest guy then. So the third piece is physical where I start just working all the time, uh, because I'm sending LinkedIn things, I'm sending emails, I'm listening to podcasts, I'm working within the fourth one. If that doesn't, if that's not working, then I'm going to see my friends got any ideas. And then the last one, if none of that's working, I'll ask God if he's got any ideas. And so that can be how it is. So from a self-awareness tool for listeners to think through how are you on your bad days, pay attention to that. And then what can you do to recalibrate to get them in the right order? Yeah, Nate (26:43): Yeah, yeah. That's so good. Uh, whether it be, just be just a quick handle on that, like yeah. So evaluate the bad days. And then what would be a good first step for a coach? Who's kind of hear this for the first time. Uh, just for them to reflect it. Is there any, is it just kind of like, Hey, look at each five and give them rank them from one to 10 and kind of why, or, or how would you might coach somebody if they just kind of wanted to do like a self-evaluation of these in their life? Cory (27:07): Yeah, absolutely. So the first observation be, how would you rank them on your bad days to what does that order? So what comes to the top? Is it financial because you are the sole provider, is it intellectual because you were always told growing up that you're the smartest in the class, and you still think that, that you need to be the smartest in this, in the athletic department and you still need to be the smartest in the conference like that still is playing tricks on you. Maybe it's physical, you always were the best athlete and physically, you could pretty much kind of conquer anything you go after. And so you still got some identity wrapped around your physical ability. And so just have some awareness of what your, the worst one is just so you can figure out how you, how to conquer it. And then the next one is take each of those five and just kind of evaluate on a scale from zero to 10, where would you rank yourself? Cory (28:00): I mean, I was spiritual. Are you in the word daily? Do you feel that you are spending time in solitude, reading scripture, praying and really just in reflective and you may, it may be a season of your life. You're like, actually, if I'm being honest, man, my spiritual is pretty, is pretty weak. I go to church, uh, you know, once a week or whatever that's about it. So if that's the case and let's look to increase that relational, where does that rank 10 being your marriage is thriving. You got great engagement intention with your kids. You got some good buddies you spend time with, maybe you in fact, go on guide trips or a women trips. Like my wife is right now, or is this a wake-up call? And then the physical capital one is, is your schedule controlling you? Are you skipping out on gyms? Cory (28:46): Are you eating crud? Because you're just at the mercy of your busy-ness, then maybe that's the wake up call. So those are just some of the ideas Nate to kind of think through. But man, it's a, it's a framework that I look at a lot. I, I, I know on my good days, my capital in the right order, I know on my bad days, I some got tripped up and it's a reflective question I ask at the end of every week and what were my capitals and what do I need to do to get the lower scored ones better for next week? Nate (29:16): Right? No, that's so good. Yeah, for me, I think on my, on my bad days, I think it ends up being, um, I don't respond and try to over-correct on the physical, but I know like my, if I get overly stressed or the calendar is kind of controlling me, then I go to go to the pantry and eat, eat some, eat some junk, or get some chips or whatever, kind of the short term thing. Or I'm definitely guilty of being, uh, embedded in my phone when I know we need to get more sleep and then, you know, either phone or Netflix or whatever that is in that exact moment, it feels like, oh man, we're kind of coping here, but I know we're paying for it in the future days. It's I just think it is. It's just, it's a it's um, you know, even as we're talking, it's just a bit of a reminder for me to be aware of those and, and to not just kind of take that, that short term feeling of, of making it better, but actually just looking at the whole picture. Nate (30:08): And I th I think too, one of the things I want to make sure we're touching on is, uh, actually in the early episodes of this podcast, I didn't know you were going to eventually write a book called when home first, but, uh, I would say it, the, my son offline was keep growing, keep learning and keep changing lives on your team and in your home. And I was thinking, as I was thinking about that as like, I just deeply believe that you could win a ton of ball games and transform lives or that a business guy can have incredible profits and also truly care about his employees and have them having thriving lives. But I do think there's this lie of, like, you can't have both, and you're saying you you've seen people when you even had seasons of life potentially where kind of all five capitals or earn a healthy level. I mean, is that even possible? Because I feel like a lot of our world just says like, no, you gotta, you gotta grind grind, grind on this one area and everything else has to be tossed to the wayside to be successful. I mean, w what would be your response to somebody kind of thinking that or feeling that Cory (31:08): 100% is possible. Absolutely. Now within that a hundred percent possible there's days that it's going to get off track, there may be a week or two that it gets off track and that's okay. Recalibrate come back. I mean, if, if you're in the middle of an intense sport season or a four week run, and you look at it, then it's a conversation with your spouse, Hey, babe, busy, busy season. This looks to be the great, you know, the great run that we're going to have as a team. So, but on the other side of this, like, this is what Holly and I have done over time is I've had busy travel schedule. This is back when I was in corporate, and I can still have busy travel schedules now, but we will play in a staycation on the back end. So we, anytime you have a busy season, look to bookend it with some rest and relationship where before you go in that busy season, do some intentionality. Cory (32:05): And then on the other side, do some intention items. So I think that, you know, that's just an idea of it. Doesn't have to be, Hey, I got this new job at this new school. I'll see you in five years, babe, because on the end, who knows what that's gonna look like? Right? So I think that's what was one thing is if someone's listening, it's like not every day is gonna be perfect, but to know that you can recalibrate, you can T you know, make some changes. And I think the big thing, whether you're a coach or you're an executive is ideally the family is the team that you're with forever, where we have all I'm guilty of it. We've gone to the company or a coach has gone to the team and you give your all, well, then you get fired. And, you know, you have your kind, your, your head down your tail between your legs and you go, and your family is kind of in shrapnels cause you haven't given them any intention. C ory (33:00): And so the big thing that I work with executives on, and so for any listener to hear is, you know, we can't give our all to something that just views us as temporary. We are the temporary coach. We are the temporary executive. We are the temporary. It may be a long, amazing career, no doubt about it. But when we take our identity to something that's temporary, and then that goes away, we're a wreck. And so to put our job in the right place, that is not our identity. It doesn't get all of our yeses. Instead. We make sure we are investing in our kids, that we are being intentional with them, taking them, go get ice cream, sitting on the couch and hanging out with them with zero phone nearby, throwing the ball with them, like real intentionality. Same thing with dates with our spouse is real intention. Cory (33:49): I, with our spouse, seeing how they're doing, how is their job going? How's their, you know, career going and having real conversations with them. Because if we don't do that, if we don't put some discipline intention around home, we in fact will lose at home. Great. You had an, you were an amazing coach. Awesome. Well, unfortunately there, you got some shrapnel in your life and that's what I want to avoid with anyone I run into, because unfortunately for me, I want to work for at different times where I lost at home. And my, my passion is to make sure that no one loses at work and home again. Nate (34:27): No, that's great. And it's super encouraging a to know it's possible. And to know you can just kind of compensate, you know, for those high seasons. Like my wife has, she has one more month of high school volleyball season, and then they're performing really well. And, you know, they do a lot, but we ended up having an unexpected move. It was a really good thing, but a situation where we moved houses, um, over the month of August was kind of our closing time while we were going to take our 10 year anniversary trip in there. But we had to end up canceling on that. But right after her season, we have a big FCA event on November 5th. And then after that, we're going to actually, it's going to be delayed, but we're going to take that, that, uh, that anniversary trip after that to kind of book in this really high season, uh, for both of us. Nate (35:08): So we kind of unintentionally already kind of followed that advice. And I was like, man, that makes a ton of sense. Like there was going to be a week where it, we did, we recently had a week where it was super hard between volleyball, FCA stuff. We kind of have a, uh, a family, um, a funeral would be around and, and it was just a really, really hard week. But to know that there's, we're going to come up for air on purpose, you know, a little bit later, I think does take the pressure off of everyday having to be perfect, but just look at the whole corner of the whole year, the whole season, and are already managing that as well. Yeah. Super helpful. Cory (35:39): And I love that example, Nate, because what ends up happening, whether you're an executive or you're a coach, you've got a plan for your team. Like these are the practices we're going to have this. We're going to be doing on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays with trains going to look like these are the different drills. We'll do this with Tuesdays and Thursdays look like, then we've got our games and we travel here, we're home here and we've got it all laid out. But then we go look at our family schedule or our family plan. We wing it. We've got no idea. I'll figure that out later, but you took attention. I say, Hey, we've got a busy season. We want to put something on the back end of that. And I think that's the big thing is we often are guilty of winging it home, but given all of our strategies, all of our creativity, all of our intentionality to work and we just kind of think we can get by at home and it doesn't work. Nate (36:28): Yeah. I don't, I, I I'm. Yeah. I came from some trial and error to just going back to the date night just for a second is I didn't trust myself for those to happen unless I put them in the calendar. So I just have a, it's literally in our Google calendar for every, or week on Thursdays, I think it is, or Wednesdays or in Bible season, like until Jesus comes back, like there's no end date on that to where I at least have to deal with that. Each time that comes up on my calendar, even if we can't do that night, I'm always trying to figure out like, where can we move that? Or how else, you know, okay, well, we did this whole thing. This, we went to a wedding together and it had some good stuff and coffee after whatever. So that kind of counts. So I'm always having to deal with it when I put it on. I just go ahead and put it in there first. Um, then I know it's going to happen because without it, I just know I'm not going to wing it. Well, I don't trust myself. Cory (37:11): I mean, it's the rocks in the jar. We all have heard, seen that a different metaphor where those are the non-negotiables get the non-negotiables in the calendar and it's amazing how everything else still kind of falls into place. But if you don't get those rocks in, they don't happen. Nate (37:29): Yeah. That's good. Well, Corey, thank you so much for, for bringing it today, man. It's just a super, super appreciative of your time. Uh, if people want to connect with you or kind of see some of your content or get in touch with you, how would you, where would you direct them? Cory (37:45): Well, I appreciate the nice plug on social media. Sometimes it feels like a black hole at times where you're just putting stuff out there and you never know what's going to happen, but yeah, at Carlson Corey on everything, LinkedIn is definitely where I hang out the most. Um, but yet, and then I also have a website, Corey M carlson.com. You can go there. I send out a weekly email to leaders and sharing information that, um, I'm learning as well as what's going on with clients. Yeah. Nate (38:11): Well, if I'd have been in better podcast status, I would have already read the one at home first, but a book. But I did go ahead and order that this morning off Amazon. So I've looked forward to getting that this weekend, I'll be diving in, uh, and, and seeing what all is in there. But I know you've had a, um, a lot of, a lot of good feedback from that. So thank you for putting all that time and effort into putting that together. I know getting a book out is not easily done. So thanks for pushing through. I know it's a blessing to many and uh, just this podcast today, hopefully it's been helpful and people can, people can grow from it. So I appreciate it. Cory (38:42): Yeah. Well, thanks for ordering the book. Yeah. The book is on Amazon. It's also audible. You can hear my voice, do the audible. So for those that listen to it, but yeah, I mean, I'm grateful for the book and it's, it has impacted folks and it's really just sharing tools in my own testimony that I'm wanting to get out there. So, yeah. Thanks Nate, for getting the book and having me on here today. Nate (39:03): We'll see ya! Music (39:11): [inaudible] Nate (39:12): All right, everybody. That was our conversation with Cory Carlson. So grateful. He was able to come on the show and share some wisdom with us today. If you want to go a little bit deeper or for more information on this podcast, you can go to N K Y fca.org/podcast to see previous episodes. And you can also check out our blog for the show notes as well while you're on there. One other favor we'd like to ask is just to share this episode with at least one person in your life that you think it might be helpful to. If it's been valuable to you and serve you well, please don't keep that to yourself. Pass it along to, to a friend, maybe even in the coaching network, uh, of, of your own. And we would just want to serve more people. That will be a, be a great way to help us do that. Nate (39:56): One takeaway that I need to look at myself is to do that five capitals evaluation. It has been a while since I've looked at it personally, but just look at those five areas and take a quick account and reflect a little bit and just see where you're at scale of one to 10 on those areas. And then where do you go on those bad days as well, taking, just trying to apply. What was it, what was even said? The information is out there. Our heart is to truly serve you and to help you grow to be all that God's called you to be. So I'll, I'll do the throwback sign-off line, keep growing, keep learning and keep changing lives on your team and in your home.