Healthy Self
June 3, 2022

Leading Well and Living A Life Without Regret

Cory Carlson explores living a life without regret and excelling in work and family. Discover how to lead effectively with a God-first mindset.

Cory Carlson and I dive into today's podcast talking about how to lead well at work and in your family with a God-first mindset. We cover how to live a life without regret and practical steps to do that. If you've ever messed up big time, wondered how to become a better leader, or have wanted to know how to not live in regret; then this podcast is for you! 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 at home and work. Twenty years in corporate America gave Cory amazing opportunities as he worked his way up to the executive level. But he also saw brokenness: work without purpose, burnout, lack of focus, strained marriages, and absentee parents. Business leaders especially were often not living life to the fullest. When Cory discovered 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 is featured in Forbes magazine article '7 Books Everyone On Your Team Should Read,' Faith Driven Entrepreneur, Family Life Podcast of CRU Ministries, and OCEAN training community of entrepreneurs.

CORY'S WEBSITE: https://www.corymcarlson.com/

CORY'S WEEKLY PODCAST: Win At Home First

FREE ASSESSMENT: https://cory140001.typeform.com/to/kx9BQFJN

CORY'S BOOKS

Rise And Go: (How to Get Back Up with Courage and Move Forward with Confidence)

Win At Home First

CORY'S SOCIALS

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/cory.carlson.1023

LINKED IN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlsoncory/

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES FROM CORY'S BLOG

Calling All Men Who are Feeling Stretched Too Thin and Risking Burnout...

4 Things Needed to Overcome the Stigma of Cheating

How Can You See Your Child Differently?

Do People You Lead Have a Voice? What About Your Spouse?

How Do We Empower Employees?

Leading Well and Living A Life Without Regret

I have Cory Carlson on the show with me. He is the author of Win At Home First. Make sure you guys get a copy of the book. He's also the author of Rise and Go, which is his new book. He coaches and consults with business professionals about how to win at work and at home. How do you be intentional with your life as a leader? We're going to dive into leading well and how you live a life without regrets. I'm going to get to that with Cory Carlson.

Before I do that, make sure you go over to YouTube and check out our newly identified channel called Iron Deep. That is the name of our new channel. Check out IronDeep.com and subscribe to our newsletter that comes out each week. We're also putting together a brotherhood community. If you are a business owner between the ages of 32 and 57 and you love Jesus, we would love to welcome you into our community. You can apply on our website at IronDeep.com. I'll see you guys there. I want to introduce you to Cory Carlson. What's going on, Cory?

Brett, thank you for having me on. I look forward to our conversation.

I'm excited. I love what you do. I read the book. I got the book, Win at Home First. Check out this book. I've been looking at it, reading it, and studying it. I got it open as I chat with you here, the author of Win at Home First, Cory Carlson's book. You have a new book coming out, Rise and Go.

I am looking forward to getting that out to business leaders.

Check out Cory's new book, Rise and Go. I have you on the show. I always start out with this first question. That is, who is Cory Carlson?

I'm a broken man, trying to learn and get better every single day. I try to be humble and learn. I'm hungry to get out there, share my message, and help others. Part of my story is one of brokenness and making mistakes at home and work along the way. I don't want others to screw up. My whole platform is a how to help people win at work and home. A personal vision statement is to help connect people to greater performance and a more significant purpose. The performance is at home and work.

The purpose for me is a relationship with God. I've coached people who are atheists and think bigger than themselves. I do that through coaching, speaking, and writing. I have been married for many years. I have three kids. It's an emotional time in our house because I have a senior in high school who will be going to college. She wanted to go far away. She's going a couple of states over to the University of South Carolina. I've got a daughter who's in eighth grade. When she goes to high school, she'll be switching schools. We also have a little boy. There are a lot of emotions in our houses. We're going to go from a family of five nonstop and family dinners to one-off to college. Tears are flowing on different days in this house.

These are the seasons of life. You go through those seasons. That's why you wrote this book, Win at Home First. I want to dive into that a little bit. You talked about you are a humble man. You try to be humble and to learn. Tell us a time when you have been humbled.

One that a lot of readers can relate to is, in my twenties, I was cruising up the corporate ladder. I thought I was invincible. I worked for a civil engineering firm, which is a great firm. I was pushing to say, “I want to move up. I wanted to get more exposure.” They did a lot of great things. They had this leadership development class. I was the only one in my twenties. There are a lot of people in their 30s and 40s. We got to meet with the CEO and the leadership team. I had that going for me, but that still wasn't enough. It wasn't filling my identity because I was taking my identity to work.

I got my MBA and thought I was the man, but that still wasn't working. I took my identity of who I am to my wife. Taking your identity to another human is unfair. We can't get our value or worth from somebody else, even our spouse, because they have their bad days. When that didn't work, I thought, “I would take my identity and value as a man to another woman.” I ended up having an affair, which is the opening part of the story of Win At Home First.

That was awful. I don't recommend that path to anyone, but I did not get caught. I came clean a few years later through this cool experience. When we moved to Denver, I went through a leadership class with the church, and it was a pivotal moment. In that, I heard God say at this moment. I'm in this classroom in this church in Denver, Colorado. I heard God say, “You need to come clean of your affair.” I was like, “No way. I'm not doing that. That's a dumb idea.” I got promoted. I’m making more money now than I ever have. We've got kids. Life is good. I'll never get caught. It will never happen.

While I'm sitting there in this classroom setting, a lot of other things are taking place, but it's me and God having this discussion. Eventually, God was like, “You need to hand over your story for a greater story.” That's a phrase I didn't know. I never heard before that moment. I didn't even know what that meant at that time. As I was still having this wrestling match with God, I started to have peace about it, which sounded weird because I had no idea what the consequences were going to be. If I came clean, would my wife leave me? Also, the embarrassment that would take place.

In the midst of it all, there was this piece to me that was like, “Whatever's going to happen, it's going to be okay.” I didn't know what was going to happen. I eventually came clean of my affair. It was not cupcakes and balloons in the house, even though everything worked out. Holly and I began a journey of restoration individually to each of our own relationships with God, as a couple to each other, and to a marriage with God at the center.

It was an incredible journey. That was one of humility. Since then, I've had this posture of being vulnerable when it makes sense. I don't want to overshare. I don't lead every conversation talking about the affair. The value of a show like this is sometimes you have to get right to the meat on the bone to help readers from a relatability standpoint.

I don't lead with it all the time if I'm meeting someone for a beer or a coffee, but instead, I at least have this posture that I can share if I need to. I’m being more open-handed in that humility of, “I've screwed up. I've made mistakes. I still make mistakes to this day.” At least I can show up and be open-handed and open-minded to say, “What does God have for me now? Where will this conversation go? How can I be a blessing to this individual? Can I be in a receiving mode whatever they have for me?”

I appreciate you sharing that. We got right into it. We jumped into the fire. I want to ask if you have any advice. When you had this epiphany, having this conversation with God, had this peace, and were going to come clean with your wife, did you bounce it off of any other mentors or men? Did you ask for feedback or advice like, “Should I share this with this counselor?” Did you go for it?

Yes, I ended up going for it. I don't know if that's the best advice ever, but that's my story. It is what it is. For a reader, if they're struggling with some big thing to come clean or they're in the mix of a big thing, the thing that I had to my advantage is it happened, and a few years later, I came clean. When I came clean, I was a different person. Holly could be like, “You're no longer that guy. I can tell you're doing things differently. You're getting involved in a small group.” There was a change in my heart. God was softening my heart.

My recommendation is not to wait a few years, become a new man, and come clean because those few years were hard. It would creep up in my mind like, “I'm an idiot. I thought I was supposed to be a man of God, and I made this stupid mistake.” I'd go for a run, have a drink, or pull out my laptop and do emails. It would come to mind, and it would be a heaviness of like, “I'm a dirtbag. I'm going to get caught.” I don't recommend the delay. Even though it worked out in my favor, it was hard. For all those reasons, it was hard. That's one thing I want to mention.

The other is, when we moved to Denver, you know, I was supposed to be this man of faith. My wife was like, “Let's get involved in the church.” Even though I didn't want to because I knew I had a skeleton in my closet, we went for it. We got going to church. A cool part about the small group I was in was awesome real men who were vulnerable in sharing things like the challenges they may have with their marriage and work, selfish as ambition versus godly ambition. One guy had struggled with porn.

I had never experienced vulnerable Christian men. I always had that veneer. Anyone I was exposed to was talking about walking the Christian life. Life was great. It was amazing. That was hard to relate once I had a big sin in my life. God was using all those men in that small group to soften my heart and get prepared for it.

I did not ask for advice, or should I share this? God was using that small group and all those different steps along the way to get to the point that when I heard that, it was audible to me. I know it wasn't audible to everyone else in the room. That's all I needed because the work had been done leading up to that moment. When I came clean, there were some quick phone calls made to those buddies who were in that small group to say, “This is what I did.” They were right there to support me. I'm crazy grateful for that.

It sounded like you had some men that were surrounding you during this time. You had some close, deep relationships that you hadn't experienced before. That helped you start on this journey with you and Holly. I'm naming this show to put some things around it. Leading well and living a life without regrets.

The thing that I love about you, Cory, and reading this book Win At Home First is you're constantly talking about leadership, whether it's in business or at home. How do you be a good leader in your workplace but also at home? Give us a little summary of why you wrote this particular book. You're a coach. You coach a lot of businessmen in their life. Why this book? What were you seeing? What were you experiencing with other men and, even in your own life to come out with this Win At Home First?

I never thought I would write a book. I'm a civil engineer by degree. I got into sales, and I'm a sales guy. The reason I bring that up is there may be some of you reading this, and you feel this prompting to do something. You're giving it all the lies already. You're giving it the head trash of like, “I'm not that person to launch a new business, write a book, or do a podcast.” That's the backstory for me.

How that came into play is I was coaching individuals, and I kept finding myself, as they were talking about their business, I could tell something was amiss. Through the conversation, I could tell they were skipping their workouts. They were like, “I'm tired and sluggish.” I was like, “When's the last time you worked out?” They were like, “It's been a while.” You could tell something was maybe amiss in marriage. I was like, “When was the last time you were on a date with your wife?” They were like, “A few months ago, we went and did X, Y, Z.” There was this frantic piece. I could tell they were running from meeting to meeting. I was like, “When's the last time you slowed down and had your quiet time or spent time in the word?” Those were observations I had.

The next ended up saying this phrase, “You need to win at home first to have success in the workplace.” As I kept saying this phrase, using tools and helping make sure leaders are having success at home as well as in their personal lives to make sure and ensure that they are having success at work. That became a phrase I was using. In my quiet time, I felt this prompting to write a book to share my story as well as different tools and frameworks in the book. I ignored it. I was not obedient. Within about a few weeks period, I should have documented this to figure out the exact number, but almost every single client said something to the effect of, “You should write a book on this.” It was unbelievable, Brett.

I wasn't writing a book. I started writing some blogs and doing some different things. I hired a writing coach to take my 40,000 to 50,000-word mess that was in a Google Doc. He helped guide and direct the process. It ended up becoming the book that it is. I’m grateful. I wrote the book to get it out there. It's helped people I'll never meet.

IDP 77 | Life Without Regret
Life Without Regret: I wrote the book just to get it out there. It's helped people that I'll never meet.

A guy at Forbes said it was 1 of 7 books everyone on your team should read. I do know who it is now, but I did not know at the time. He didn't say anything about God, scripture, or Jesus in the endorsement. I always laugh, thinking, “Someone bought that book. They are mad that there's God in it.” That's why I wrote the book. I wanted to share my story.

I wanted to have leaders out there know that whatever they're going through, a crappy culture at work, a rough spot in their marriage, a bad teenager, or funk, they are not stuck there. No matter where they're at, they can recalibrate and get their life back. It's going to take some intentionality and hard work, but it can be done. My heart was to put this book and get in the hands of people to let them know that they can start to make some changes.

You start off in the book talking about you and being about that self-awareness. You talk about the five capitals, which I find good because, as businessmen, we're constantly measuring our success, revenue, and income, but rarely do we assess some of the other capitals. You talk about the spiritual capital. I think about that a lot. We talk about the relational capital, the physical capital, the intellectual capital, and the financial capital.

You're focused on the whole person. A lot of times, our financial capital might be great, but our relational capital is down. Maybe our relational capital's great, but we're not making any money. You are focused on the whole person and your coaching in this book. Can you give a little taste of the five capitals? How do you use that?

With those five capitals, I learned them several years ago. It is instrumental in my life. There are other frameworks out there. People will use 4Fs, 5Fs, faith, family, fitness, or finance. No matter which one you use, some of the key components, and that's why I gravitate towards the five capitals, is having that spiritual at the top. Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom and all the rest will be unto you.” We have this idea that we have to spend time in the word and get grounded.

In my quiet time, it is the story of Mary and Martha and how Martha was the hustler. She is always going. Mary was able to sit and be calm. As I was reading that, I felt this conviction that I don't sit. Even in my quiet time, it is like, “I'm about done. It is time to get those emails.” It's that reminder. By spending some time and quiet time, you can hear from God. Where can you make different movements? That's a big part.

With spiritual capital for anyone reading, it's how you can create space to reflect, spend time in the word, pray, and slow down. There are all kinds of data out there. There's even a great secular book called Lead Yourself First, which talks about the power of solitude and brings self-awareness and emotional balance. This is the benefit of solitude. Not only is it hearing from our creator and God, but it creates this margin that allows you to slow down as opposed to always operating at this high level.

IDP 77 | Life Without Regret
Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude

If something bad happens in your life, you can respond as opposed to react. That's why spirituality could be powerful. The first thing is to love God. The second is to love others. That's relational capital. Who are you doing life with? Home is a big part of it. I'll talk to a lot of clients. I was like, “Don't give others your best, and your family gets the rest.” Our day does not end at 5:00 or 6:00 when we walk through the front door. It ends when our head hits the pillow.

Are your actions doing that? That's a reminder that I have to tell myself because there are days I'm tired. I want to check out, but I can't. I've got kids I need to invest and be intentional with. I've got a spouse I need to love, care for, pursue, and think about how I can serve her. There are some days I don't want to do any of those things, especially if any of those people I mentioned are annoying or doing something that bothered me. That's relational.

The next is physical. Do you control your schedule? Does your schedule control you? What are you saying yes to? A huge watch out to every single business leader now on this is as the world is opening back up, people are going back to the office. There's no more excuse of COVID and even like, “I don't want to go.” I loved parts of 2020 and 2021 because I could say no to things.

I'm afraid, too. It's opening and back up. People have been away from it for so long. They're going to binge activity.

It's happening already. People are hitting a burnout. I'm seeing this with leaders because their calendars are jampacked. We're rusty a little bit. We don't have that endurance at cardio to go from meeting to meeting and go. Not only that, but we also have this like, “I liked it when it was a little slower. I like my family dinners and board games. I like being able to go to the gym.” I'm talking to a lot of folks about that. They're trying to figure out, “How do I say no to the machine? I got to go to these work meetings and networking events.” For a reader, if you can't say heck yes to a meeting, maybe you should say no. Figure out what you want to say yes to.

Physical capital, you talked about that. Intellectual capital, are you growing? I've hit seasons of my life when I've stopped growing, reading, and listening. I was burned out on it. You can get too much where you're choking on it all, and that's all you're doing. You're consuming content. You're not doing any of it. What do you take on your intellectual capital? How do you continue learning and growing in your mind and wisdom?

Intellectual capital is all about insights and ideas. How do you remain impactful to others you're leading? You don't become stagnant and stale. As you're consuming books and podcasts, what are you going to implement? There's no problem that all of us have consuming information. We do it all the time. We consume, but we're not implementing anything. You'll hear me say, “Information plus implementation will lead to transformation.”

IDP 77 | Life Without Regret
Life Without Regret: Intellectual capital is all about insights and ideas. How do you remain impactful to others that you're leading and how you don't become stagnant and stale.

If we are going to transform and be better parents, spouses, and leaders at work, there are things that we have to incorporate into our lives to get better. In that intellectual capital, are you creating space to learn and listen? Even with leaders, sometimes that is some think-time during the week when you're hitting pause from cleaning out the inbox. Hitting pause is amazing. You're taking what you've learned and thought about. You spend an hour on the whiteboard in your office to think about, “How does some of this stuff apply to your work?”

Financial capital is at the bottom because money doesn't buy happiness. If all of us are not careful, money can be a master. That's why Jesus talks more about money than anything else. Not money itself, but the spirit of money could be nasty to all of us in our marriages and the drive at work. For all of us, it's that idea of, “How can it be more about purpose over profit as we lead our companies and as we think through.” Those are the five capitals. There are seasons where one's getting more attention than the other. If you've got an injury or a health scare, physical capital is going to take a lot of intentions.

I'm in that season now where my kids are young and dependent. They want our attention all the time. In my marriage, it's hard to find that time because it's soaked up in our kids. That's one thing I'm trying to pursue, and how do I get that capital working more?

When our kids are young, we do date night in one room or the other room, but at least we're together. We try to say, “Please don't come in here. Stay in there. If you don't come in here, you get ice cream.” We can hang out on the porch and talk.

That brings me to my next question. Your next part in the marriage is marriage in your book Win At Home First. You talk about pursuing your spouse. We stopped pursuing our spouse. I remember when I was dating my spouse. In the first couple of years, we were all over each other. We were pursuing each other. We're several years in. I find myself thinking, “Why have I stopped pursuing her?” Why is that? Give us some practical tips. What does it look like to pursue your spouse?

There is a variety of reasons. We take it for granted. Our thought is we caught the big fish. We're under control. Let's focus on work, kids, or hobbies. We take the marriage for granted. We think, “They're not leaving. We're going to be fine. Let me focus on all these other things.” Some of this is this lie like, “I need to focus on all these other things, especially my job because I'm the provider.” It's all about provision.

What I remind myself a lot, as well as reminding clients, is our family wants our presence more than our provision. My kids would much rather have me around. My son would much rather me play catch with him than me get him the coolest brand-new shoes or backpack. We have some of those things in our house too, but they want the presents.

We take it for granted. We don't pursue them like we used to. There's this lie that we believe that we are a provider and we have to be working all the time. The reality is sometimes our spouses can get annoying. They are in bad moods. They have been nice to me. When I used to date them, they pursued me, too, and now they don't. They're tired or have a headache.

Yes, all that is true. It's annoying, but we have to persevere. If we don't push through those difficult times, it could become the end of times for the relationship. That's the reality of it. If many days go on into weeks and months where you haven't done the dates because you've been frustrated, the frustration is only going to build.

Holly and I have gone on some dates where neither of us wanted to go on the date. We had one of these when I got back in town from a trip to a speaking engagement in Kansas City. It was awesome. I was euphoric, but I was also tired. I came back. She was at home with all three kids. She's tired, and we weren't clicking. My jokes weren't funny. What she probably was doing that I normally appreciate, I wasn't appreciating.

I am a big believer in spontaneous and scheduled dates. Spontaneous is what a lot of people and all of us lean on. The weather is nice. We'll have a happy hour and sit outside. Scheduled ones are ones we don't have to do. Holly and I had a scheduled date that night. If we hadn't had one, we would've gone our several ways that evening, but because of the scheduled date, we went out to eat, and it was awesome. God showed up. We were there. We were able to talk through it, forgive each other, and move on, but without the scheduled date, I don't know what would've happened. We probably brushed it on the carpet for a few days or weeks.

Scheduled dates are important. My wife and I also do that. Anything else to be intentional with your spouse? Do you have any tips for the other guys out there on how they can do something, and appreciate their spouse?

Two things have been helpful for Holly and me. I wish we would've started this on week number one in our marriage, but we didn't, and now we know. Have two different dates. The idea of love dates and logistical dates. On Sunday nights, we will have a logistical date where we will get out our phones and go through the whole week.

It's informal. We're hanging out, and there's music usually going on. We're having a glass of wine and going day by day. In that, we talk about who's got carpooling for the kids. For the different nights, what events do any of us have on those nights? Do I have a networking event for work? Do I have a happy hour? Does she have something where she's getting together with the girls and her girlfriends? We lay out the whole week to know each person's role, and we both have a chance to share some of the cool things happening. I was like, “I have this podcast that I'm excited about doing. That's on Wednesday.” I get to hear some of the things she's got going on. We stay connected.

We talk about the weekend. I was like, “This is our plan for Friday. On Saturday, I want to go downtown to go running.” She wants to sew because she's creative. We'll make time for that. If we have talked about those things, I can accommodate. When we didn't use to do logistical dates, two things would happen. One was always last-minute planning. Who's going to pick Caleb up? I was like, “I was going to be over here. I can't go do that.” It makes it easy. There is no last-minute.

When we did not plan for it, and I wanted to go running, I couldn't because I now had kid responsibilities, but she wanted to sew, and I'd be mad. I was like, “She gets to do what she wants. I don't get to do what I want.” Every time I hear the sewing machine sew, I'd get frustrated like, “She gets to do what she wants. I don't.” Now, it's like, “I'll run in the morning, and you still in the afternoon. It's cool.” The logistical thing helped out significantly.

The other piece was the love dates. What happens is we've covered all the logistics and the carpooling. When we go on a date, we can talk about each other and be like, “It'd be fun to do this for a vacation.” It gets back to that dating field. Yes, we will still talk about kids' logistics a little bit, or a new curve ball came in, but logistics and love dates have been huge in our marriage.

That's the thing I've realized. We have our scheduled date. We do once a week. With the logistics, we're sporadic. I've found that during the love date, we talk about our schedules and what's coming up. It's not fun. We don't talk about schedules. We laugh together. We start to date again. We do some fun things. We go bowling or something we haven't done in several years. That's my wife. She always says, “I want to laugh more. I want to laugh with you and have fun.” We've been trying to do that more.

Cory, we're about out of time, but I want to dive into a little bit. You talk about parenting in the book. I’m not going to talk about that, but the last section is about work. The whole principle is how you can be not only a leader in your professional life but also at home. You're like that same person. You're pouring in and impacting people. You’re intentional with your life. When I look at you, I'm like, “You are intentional in the workplace, impacting people and pursuing your wife and kids.” What do you say that’s summing up intentionally in all of these capitals?

Yes, I'm intentional, and I'm not perfect. I truly mean that. For being intentional, sometimes I screwed up. I took my eye off of something over there. The reality is I can't have my marriage, parenting, writing books, and mindset perfect because stuff happens. If I lose a client, I get frustrated. I thought I had the speaking engagement book, but they've changed their mind. My marriage is going great. All of a sudden, I didn't like the way she responded, or I said something I shouldn't have said. It is the same thing with parenting, where something goes off. I may have snapped at my son the way he handled something. That's the real house.

Our house is not always winning at home first, I can tell you that. However, what I've learned over the years is all leaders get knocked down. It is that great leaders get up faster. I'm trying to get up faster by saying sorry, asking for forgiveness, and being intentional to course-correct quicker than I used to. That's what's helping and working. We have our bad days. There are a lot of dynamics in our house. A senior in high school is getting ready to go to college. There are a lot of emotions. They're good emotions, but they're also sad emotions. We had a rally of the troop together. I remind everybody that we're on the same team. I prayed off any spirit of isolation and anger. I invite Jesus back into our house.

It takes things like that because things don't always go perfectly in our house. Anyone reading knows that. My house is probably exactly like yours. My encouragement to you is to be intentional. Keep showing up. There are many things I do in my house that someone rolls their eyes at me. They were like, “Yes, Dad. You know. Let’s circle up and say a prayer.” It's the reality.

I've been doing the family meetings. I have young kids, and they're all crazy about it. My teens are rolling their eyes.

The good news, with rolled eyes, is they're listening.

Make sure you check out this book by Cory, Win At Home First, and his new book Rise and Go. Before we wrap up the show here, thank you so much for being a guest, but any advice for our readers out there and where should they go if they want more information about you? I know you do speaking, coaching, and challenges, which is cool. You have done an intensive growth period of 30 30-day program. Talk to us about the last advice and if someone is interested in getting to know you and what you do more.

Thank you very much for having me on the show. First of all, I love talking and sharing some of my wounds and brokenness to help somebody else. Thank you for allowing me to speak to your audience. My website is CoryMCarlson.com. All kinds of information are there. You can sign up for a weekly newsletter that I send out. I've also got a couple of free giveaways going on. One is 10 Ways to Win a Home, and the other is this whole idea of pulling your future forward. Any goals or dreams you've got going through this three-step exercise have been helpful. It's a cool client story that ended up with them sending me a painting. You'll learn when you download that piece.

As far as any last tip is, no matter what you're thinking right now as you read this, you're not alone. When I started coaching, I was an intimidated coach. I was intimidated to get the CEOs, business owners, or someone on the other end of a Zoom call or across a coffee table because I'm like, “They got all their crap together.” Once you start talking, you peel back the onion no one does.

Hopefully, you learn from me. I try to be intentional. I tried to win at home first, but I got my bad days. I got my days where I skipped the gym or my quiet time. Whatever is going on through your head, don't let the devil tell you, “You're the only one man. You screwed up.” No, you're not the only one. Get back up and be intentional with your day. Whatever that biggest frustration in your life or the biggest challenge, what's one action step you can take to make that better?

Check out Cory's website, CoryMCarlson.com, and his books, Win At Home First and Rise and Go. Cory, it's been awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show, and God bless you.

Thank you very much. It was awesome.

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