Welcome to the win at home first podcast. I'm your host, Corey Carlson. This podcast is where we talk about how successful business leaders win, not only at work, but also at home. On this podcast, we will go behind the scenes with great leaders to hear stories of how they win. Thank you for listening and on to today's episode.
God wants to tell you something. You just need to slow down, listen and do it. Hello, my name is Corey Carlson and you are listening to the win at home first podcast.
(00:37): This is episode number six where we'll talk about what God is telling you. In the previous episode we discussed the five capitals, a framework that I was taught about eight years ago, 10 years ago. That has been life changing for me and over the next few episodes we will unpack each of the capitals and how it applies to your life and how you can grow in each of those capitals. So today will be the spiritual capital, which is that relationship with God. How are you going to God to gain wisdom, to reconnect your identity, to get clarity on where you are and where you're going? And Jesus modeled this the best for all of us. In times of stress or busy-ness, he would step away. I love the verse in Mark one 35 and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed.
(01:36): So Jesus had her a very, very busy day of healing the sick. He was casting out demons. He Rose up early in the morning and went off to pray and be with God. I know myself, I'm guilty where if things are going well and if I was healing [inaudible] casts out demons, I just keep it going. I would keep the show going to see how many more I could get. So if I've got speaking engagements and things are going well and I've got prospect meetings, I would just keep going, just keep going. And so Jesus, is that the model, the example of how we are to do it, no matter how busy we are getting it is to take time, spend time with our father. The devil loves when we are busy because [inaudible] does just that. It pulls us away from God, from our source of wisdom, our source of just energy and direction.
(02:27): So the three areas that see us all break down, especially me and my own life is number one, we don't spend time with God. Number two, when we do spend time with God, we'd do it wrong. And number three, when God does speak to us, we don't do it. So over this episode, want to unpack each of those three to show us how we can start to move forward and break down some of those bad habits that all of us have, including myself. So the first one, two addresses that we don't spend time with God. I know for myself, I could be very guilty of this as I'm busy with work or maybe I sleep in, get to the gym, don't have time to do my quiet time, or I do my quiet time in the morning, but then throughout the whole day I'm just go on about the date, my own way and not connected with God or do I ever just sit and actually sit in his presence, whether it's journaling is praying, is asking questions.
(03:32): A few months ago had the opportunity to, to be at a spiritual retreat and when I went out into the quiet time, had some moments of solitude. I went out there with just this heaviness over me, almost this feeling of defeat. I was trying to grow the coaching business, coaching practice, thinking through how do I get more clients, how do I get more speaking engagements, need more content. I need a launch, a podcast. Do I write a second book? Just all this different heaviness of the things that I wanted to do for the business, but then I felt this frustration of [inaudible] God wasn't around. God wasn't helping me anymore. It was almost on my own. And as I sat in this chair and journaled, I just started writing a bunch of questions down and taking my fears to God of, yeah, what if I put on these live events and no one shows up?
(04:23): What if I launch a podcast and no one listens? What if I can't find new clients? And this whole idea of leaving corporate America to pursue coaching, it comes to an end. You know, the book seemed like a God idea. Why is it not selling across the world, you know, virally and impacting all kinds of people. So all these questions and doubts and frustrations, I started just writing as fast as I could. None of the next page, or I remember riding Lord [inaudible], where do I not have faith? Why do I not have faith and God, where am I not all in? And as I'm writing and kind of answering those questions and out of nowhere I just hear this, this voice is feeling of how far I've come. And I wrote that note on the paper and just started riding below that. All these people I've met events I have been a part of speaking engagements, clients I've worked with just out of nowhere, started writing this down as if God was telling me, reminding me that a lot of neat things have taken place and he has been a part of it.
(05:35): The companies that I've worked for, the prospects I've talked to, I didn't know a few years ago, they actually were relationships brought into my life and God has something to tell me that day and if I would not have taken the time to hit pause, [inaudible] journal to be vulnerable in my prayers of right, your frustration, then I never would have heard it. So for you in your life, maybe you've got a piece of that or you're not taking the time to hit pause, take your frustrations, take your celebrations, take all those different pieces to God to hear him actually talking what he is trying to, to tell you because we're not spending time with him. When I do talks, there's a picture I love to show. It's written on a whiteboard [inaudible] basically like an easel in front of a Starbucks. Someone wrote in it says, I saw a guy at Starbucks today.
(06:35): No iPhone, no tablet, no laptop. He just sat there drinking coffee like a psychopath. What I love about that sign is we need to do that. All of us listening to this, trying to grow in our spiritual capital. We have got to find times in our life where we just sit there like a psychopath. There were a psychopath to other people because now the norm when you're at Starbucks is have your iPhone out or a laptop or wherever we go. We have a device in our hands. We are never spending time with God on her own. Even in a red light, we could pull out our phones. Even on the toilet. We can pull out our phones. I know I'm guilty of this where we are not spending time with God. What I love about the five capitals in the spiritual word is yes, it is our connection with God.
(07:28): When I have to go talk to companies and corporations and I can't actually talk about God, I'd just say, it's your greater purpose. It is a bigger entity than yourself. It may be God for you. It may be you know something else for you know somebody else and what's interesting is they're in the 1960s there was a time magazine. I said all great ideas come from the three B's and it was on the cover of a 1960s time magazine. And so the three B's were a boss bed and bath tub about a decade ago. Harvard business review did a study that all great ideas come from the shower. That same idea that if we just slowed down, whether it's this in the 60s and we were on one of the three B's or it's in the shower, if we can just connect, and for a lot of us listening it is to God.
(08:19): I had a client, he was with a fortune 50 company. We could not talk about God. Matter of fact, he didn't believe in God, he personally, but the company asked not to talk about God. However, I knew that there was power in journaling. There's power sitting in stillness. Whether you believed or not believed, just a lot of those examples I just shared. So with this individual he would get frustrated with some different meetings or be discouraged. And so I encourage them to journal and to sit and stillness and ask, why did you get so frustrated? And I send them off in between our coaching calls to journal on why did you get frustrated, why are you disappointed, how can you think about others? And the upcoming meeting and what was incredible is I believe in fact he probably was connecting with God. He just didn't know it.
(09:08): He started to get great insight and wisdom when he first started coaching engagement with us. We always have people fill out some paperwork on one of the paperworks just to get started here. Actually put on there, people are idiots. And the reason he put that or he had been driven so far in his career on just pure competency, just on dependence of himself and he wasn't dependent on really other people, even though you know, he would eventually see that he needed to be, it also depended on greater power. And so in that process of him journaling and reflecting, there's a phrase I've, I've heard many times before, I've, I've said it before on here, but that change of pace, change of place will bring change of perspective, and so this individual, as he would change his pace, right? He'd slowed down, start to think and reflect.
(10:02): He would get a change of perspective. One of our next coaching calls, he said, Corey, I've, I've got something weird to tell ya. I was like, well, nothing. I hear these zoom calls. A lot of our coaching is done via zoom. It is weird. I, I've heard it all. There was no, this is really, really weird. He said at my recent meeting in the boardroom, as people were talking, I actually started to kind of zoom out. I could see what other people were wanting out of the meeting almost. I had these thoughts of, I'll allow bill the hat to win this argument because I don't need to, or I'll allow Susie [inaudible] voice her opinion allowed just to sit there and not show how it's wrong. It was just, it was incredible that he was almost zoomed out and I, I got excited because that was a, a connection with God, an ability to see other people's perspective of an ability to bring everyone together really for the greater good.
(11:01): And that's what I love about this idea that all of us can grow in wisdom by spending time with God. So how can you spend more time with God this week? Is it getting up 15 minutes earlier in journaling? Is it finding a devotion book to read? How can you grow in your spiritual capital this week by spending more time with God so that you can hear what God has for you? The second area that we see a breakdown I know in my own life is when we do spend time with God, we do it wrong. I know that sounds so odd to say we do it wrong. You know, how can you do it wrong? Some people do worship music, some people journal, some people are on their hands and knees. God will take any our time and our commitment to him and I completely agree.
(11:50): However, I see the breakdown in this [inaudible] in my own life as well is most of the time we're just asking for things that we want. We're only asking God, please grow my business. Please get me prospects. Please help me find a wife. Please help me get better finances. It's all about me, me, me. Jesus teaches the disciples there. They continue to stumble on how to pray and he teaches in the Lord's prayer as a way to pray, and if you're looking for a way to pray, look at the Lord's prayer. It's a great example of prayer from acknowledging God our father. So it's stayed in the identity. It's talking about provision, providing our daily bread. It's confessing of your sins. It is asking for protection and guidance, and so you started to see this breakdown in the Lord's prayer of a way for us to pray and it does is a huge help.
(12:51): I know for myself, if I'm not careful, I can fallen such a narcissistic habit because I am wanting to grow the business and provide for my family. Yes, my intentions may be good, but the prayer becomes very, very selfish. So where our prayer should be more about praise and confession in serving God as opposed to just asking for things that we want. In addition, Lord's prayer. A couple ways that have helped me grow in my time of trying to recalibrate prayer correctly versus this acronym of acts. It is too acknowledge God and his presence and awesomeness. The sea of acts is to confess, to confess your sins. T is for Thanksgiving, to be grateful for all that we do have and the S is for supplication. That is, that's where we can ask of what we need or what we're desires of, but it's after we've done that, the gratitude and the acknowledgement and the confession.
(13:56): And so I know for me that acronym, even though it seems so simple many, many years ago, but it's a good reminder of what to do. Another exercise that I was taught that it's been super helpful is when you start that quiet time is just to have your hands down. Yeah. Have them out and down. Almost just like pouring out your own selfishness of you're handing over everything over to guide guidance, have my business, have my Bill's, have my frustrations, and then after you feel you've done that and hand it all over to the point of emptiness, you turn the hands upside right side up. So now they're facing the ceiling. Now it's asking him, you know, pour in to your love, your kindness, your goodness, your direction. I've found that as a good way just to slow down and to be still and to be very helpful.
(14:48): A good reminder for me is, is also God is at work with or without me and I it, it's painful to obviously to admit, especially for those that are wired to achieve and go, but God's at work. If I have that posture of he's at work already, a prayer that I will have is God, you know, what are you doing today that I can be a part of? How can I shift my business, my doing my actions into what you're doing almost as posture. Coach put me in, I'm ready, put me in. And so for you in your quiet time, how can you change your posture to one more of put me in coach, more of a servant mindset of confessing, of being grateful and not so much asking about what you want. That'll come for sure cause God wants to help and see us grow, but how can we change our posture? You're unstoppable at work at home. It's another story. Sound like you. Good news. I'm here to help
(16:01): If you're ready to win at home, then go to Corey M carlson.com and download your free copy of 10 ways to win at home.
(16:13): The last area I want to talk about today is that when God in fact does speak to us, we don't do it. I know I'm guilty of it, of it, which is why I can speak to it. Have you ever had the nudge to buy groceries for the person behind you in line? Had the nudge to go swallow your pride and apologize to a coworker, apologize to your spouse, maybe go on a fast from alcohol for a week, but we choose not to do it. We choose to do it our own way or maybe they're, the other end of the spectrum is [inaudible] going a hundred miles an hour just doing, maybe he's trying to grow your business, setting up partnerships going forward and never actually asking God for help. I love a Nehemiah bin pointed to that book recently in some quiet time, the Nehemiah, when he hears about his people in crisis, he starts to pray and goes straight to God asking for help, asking for guidance.
(17:17): Then as he, he is the cupbearer for the King. So when he goes and talks to the King, [inaudible] King asks him a question of basically, why is he sad? Because I, you know, if, if, if he has sad as a cupbearer, then maybe the King thinks he's going to drink something that will kill him. So the King is asking why he is sad, never sees a sad face. I love how the scripture says that he prayed and then he answered the King where his Nehemiah's default was to go to prayer before he did something. And I know we've talked throughout this episode so often for me it could just be just go do and not ask God for help and for guidance. In Matthew seven verses 24 through 27 Jesus has done with the sermon on the Mount his longest discussion. That is where we get so many different teachings but he with the wise builder.
(18:14): Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and then it goes on to say, and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man. [inaudible] Five capitals. We've put together this matrix or this quadrant hearing verse doing do you have the humility to hear from God and you have the courage to do and fill out four different quadrants based on this scripture. And we can find ourselves where we are in that top left quadrant where we are hearing from God but we are not doing, we hear those nudges but we don't take the action to do it in the bottom right quadrant is where we or just doing, we are working hard, we're striving, we're going, going, but we're never coming up for air and having the humility to ask God to help us.
(19:07): So for you, how can you pull God into what you're doing? Where, what are the areas in your life that you are in that bottom right quadrant where you are headed towards burnout. You are not asking God for help, but you need to come lift your head up, ask God to speak into areas of your life, of your business, of your family, finances, where you are just going hard and doing it on your own. How can you look at those nudges you're getting from God, what you're hearing, whether on this podcasts or other podcasts or books you're reading or in your quiet time that you can actually take action on it. God is wanting to tell all of us something. He wants to help connect with us and build relationships, but we can't. If our heads are down and we're always working, it's whether you fall in any of these categories. I know I do at different times and unfortunately sometimes all the time I'm, I'm hitting on all of them. How can you spend more time with God when God does speak with you? How can you do it from a posture of gratitude and confession and one of serving God to do relationship in life with him. And then the last one is when God does speak, how can you have the courage and the boldness to actually go forward and do it.
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