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.
(00:24): Hello, my name is Corey Carlson and you are listening to the win at home first podcast today's episode. I'm excited to talk about physical capital. This idea. Are you controlling your schedule or is it controlling you? Because so often we just go about our day, not paying attention to necessarily what we're doing or how busy we are, or are we getting rest [inaudible] at the end of the day, if we're not careful, we could be exhausted and not have done anything towards our own goals or towards what we are going after. And so how are you controlling your energy and how are you controlling your schedule schedules? What we want to talk about today, physical capital is the idea of optimizing your time and your energy so that you can invest in others. We all know the old saying that we all have 24 hours in a day, and it's amazing what some people can do during that time versus others.
(01:22): And that's the idea of controlling your physical capital. All of us can relate to those times where we have had very, very productive days, and then there's been other days we've not been productive. We know what it's like when we stay up way too late watching a game or a movie having too much wine, or maybe too late of cake or whatever, it may be late at night. And that next day we're just dragging. We just don't have the energy to invest in people. Maybe we're irritable to our family members, maybe we're just not as creative in a work setting and we're just waiting for the day to end. But if we can manage our physical capital, then we have so much more that we can give. As we've talked about in previous episodes, the idea of the parable of the talents, where we want to basically bring a return on investment.
(02:14): And we are that investment. We have got to have our physical capital in order in three different areas that we see this get in the way. And I want to talk about each of them. One is that being busy is a badge of honor to many of us. I know I'm guilty of it. Number two is we do not know how to rest. Number three, I want to share a tool with you to help you think through how to manage your work verse your rest. Talking about how being busy is a badge of honor, a friend and client of mine Chris Cadel has said the phrase, Nope, quantity of your nose will drive the quality of yeses. I love that phrase. And some guy I never heard of until the last couple of years. Let me say that again. It is the quantity of your nose will drive the quality of your yeses.
(03:12): We all get asked and invited to so many meetings or functions. And a lot of us say yes all the time. I know I'm guilty of it. Especially one who is driven by approval. I don't want to let people down. And so I, it can have a tendency to say yes to a lot of different things. But if we say no, then that means the things we say yes to. We have more energy for work cited to go to that meeting or that event or that party. And so, as you think through your schedule and all the times you're invited at things, is this something you can say no to? Can that be one of the quantities of nos that you say so that you're ready to say yes to something else? There's a book I enjoy called master of one by Jordan Rayner.
(04:01): And it's this idea that in the book, yeah, we are called to pursue all things of excellence. Do all things of excellence to the glory of God. Jordan's position is we can't, if we are saying yes to everything we're saying, yes, just for example, we're saying yes to 10 things. We can't do all of them at excellence because we're exhausted. We're spread too thin. But what if we said yes, to just a couple of those things, then we can in fact give our best we can pursue excellence. So when we are too busy, we are not doing things to excellence because we're spread way too thin. So we need to start guarding our schedule. How can you block off time to make sure that you're getting your exercise in to make sure you're getting your deep work, your creative thoughts, to make sure that you are able to re work on the business as well as in the business, having date, time, family time.
(05:01): I know some of you are probably thinking, well, I don't want to schedule all these different things. The reality is you have to, because if you don't, you'll just fill it with somewhat time-wasters or you will find yourself committing to things that really don't align with your goals and what you're trying to do at the end. And so start taking a look at your day. How can you start blocking off your day? I love the phrase that your day starts the night before. I believe that to be so true. If we start making decisions on when we're going to bed, when we stop eating carbs, or when we stopped drinking, when we stopped looking at our iPhone, any of those items that may keep us awake longer or not allow us to go to deep sleep that affects our next day, just starting to get ahold of your night before.
(05:51): And then the day itself blocking off time for the different pieces of your day. It's emails, it's kids' activities. It's going to meetings. Those are the items that we want to make sure we get a control. One thing I've been grateful for is this recent quarantine that we've had due to Coronavirus. Not that I'm grateful for coronavirus, but just some lessons learned from the quarantine have been very, very impactful to me. As I mentioned before, I'm one that's driven by approval. So I could have a tendency to say yes to things, to help maybe a possible business or a partnership or a friendship, whatever it may be. But when the quarantine happened, we all had to say no to everything. And for me, I realized I survived. My business survived. My friendships survived so much survived with, with not having a tin to everything. So as we all start to ramp back up and get back to this new normal, I want you to consider, do you really have to go to that meeting? Do you really have to go to that event? Is it helpful for you? And if it is great go, but if it is not, and this is kind of that example of Sergeant control your schedule,
(07:11): You're unstoppable at work at home. It's another story sound like you. Good news. I'm here to help. 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 it all.
(07:30): Secondly, what is so critical to our schedule to managing our energy is resting. And the reality is we do not know how to rest. I'm guilty of this for a long time. I thought a nap or, or resting was a sign of weakness until I had mentors in my life. Talking to me about it, that importance of rest a book lead yourself. First is a book that really, really enjoyed. It's this whole idea that in order to lead others, we have to lead ourselves first, which a lot of us intuitively that makes sense. But one of the items that, or key takeaways from that book is that the authors believe that the, the decline in American leadership, this is corporate America. This isn't a political position, but the decline in corporate leadership is that people are not doing solitude because solitude brings self-awareness as well as emotional balance.
(08:32): So for all of us, we've got to be finding those ways to get solitude, whether it is scripture, whether it is reading, whether it's resting. I love in the book of Mark six, where after Jesus sends out the 12 disciples, they go out, they're cast out. Demons are very, very busy. And when they come home to report the news to Jesus of everything that took place, some managers would say, well, go back out there, do it again, keep going. You know, you're on a roll, but not Jesus. He knew the importance of resting. And in Mark six 31, he says to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile. This idea that Jesus knew that with all the momentum these disciples had, they just couldn't keep going. Cause it would lead to burn out it lead to exhaustion and poor decisions.
(09:25): So instead he said, Hey, come away with me. Let's ride rest. Same thing for us in our lives, when things are going great, we want to keep going. I know for myself, I just want to keep pushing, keep going, but there's this piece of, Hey, we've got to rest. Or how are you finding rest in your life? I know for me, something that was shared that was extremely helpful is, is your rest fruitful to your heart and fulfilling to the kingdom? What I mean by that is some rest is not good for anybody. No, just maybe sitting around and you know, maybe watching bad movies or just endless video games or whatever it may be. But how has rest helpful too, to yourself? Maybe for some others. I think of watching a football game. If I watch a football game by myself and my team loses by the end of that game, I am frustrated and angry and I did not get it quality rest at all because I think, Oh, I could have used this time to, to work on a project or to do some, you know, learning or training or whatever it may be.
(10:41): But if I watched that exact same game with a friend, I have a beer talk and the team still loses. I had a great time. It was awesome because I'm hanging out, resting, talking to a friend for my wife. She likes watching TV. She likes watching the show for her. That is restful. She can watch a show come out of it. Rested. When I watch a show, I don't come out of arrested. I sometimes come out with more stress thinking the stuff I've could have done during that time. So better understand yourself of how you are, what gives you rest. Some people don't even know what gives them rest. And so I encourage you to think through what is that, that gives you rest. What is that that makes you kind of come alive as you are resting in net. You're excited to get back to it.
(11:34): And this is kind of throughout the whole day, what it may look like you need to, we need to find those different moments of rest. Not only are we going to rest on the weekend, I'm also talking about resting throughout the day. So you can yeah. Dial back a little bit instead of that, operating at such a high level, you know, that's such a high level, but instead it's dialing it back a little bit. A lot of times when I talk with clients, I think through how to help them pull back, I think about just what are you listening to in the car? Maybe it is a podcast. Maybe it's the radio, but does it give you rest? When I lived in Kansas city, I was a big fan of sports radio. I would listen to them. Anytime between sales calls going from one appointment to the next I was listening to sports radio.
(12:28): But what I found is that it didn't necessarily give me a rest. There were some times I would get so frustrated. I just have this built up anger. Maybe the chiefs weren't playing very well or they were talking about making a trade at the time I lived there. There's this downtown stadium. Do we do? They take the stadium from out of the suburbs and bring it downtown, building a new one that got me worked up. Cause I really wanted a downtown stadium. And if it didn't go well, that just get me frustrated and that wasn't rest at all. So for you is if you're getting ready to drive from work to home, and if you're already stressed getting into that car, don't listen to NPR. Don't listen to politics. Don't listen to, maybe it's not the time to listen to a podcast. Maybe that's a time you turn the radio off.
(13:20): Do you think about your day? You're grateful. You start preparing for your reentry into the home. Maybe it's worship music. I don't know what it may be, but to listen to your mind, listen kind of to just your overall feel. What do you need to do now if you're getting in your car and you're ready to go home, but you're feeling good. Well, maybe it's great time to do NPR or politics or a podcast, any of those items that you can handle. And so I encourage you to just listen to your heart, to see what it, what it is you need in order to get rest. So that throughout the day, we're managing our body, our mind like a gas tank, where we are. If we start to see that we're starting to get depleted throughout the day, take a walk around the building, go into a conference room, shut the door, say a prayer, take a breather, do whatever it can to start filling up that gas tank.
(14:17): What I like to encourage my friends and my clients is our day after a long Workday does not end. When we walk through that front door, our day ends when our head hits the pillow. So you've got to have enough energy. So when you walked through that front door, you don't want to just plop on the couch and sit there and veg out and you know, have beer and not pay attention to any of the family. But instead it's that you have energy. When you come through, you're able to engage with the kid. You're able to engage with your spouse, able to help around the house, whatever may be. And so that's what we're playing for. We're not playing for just the end of the day at the front door, but it's making all the way to the end of the night. And so that is managing your energy throughout the day.
(15:07): The last item I don't want to share with you is this pendulum, this tool that I found to be very, very helpful when it's first explained to me is this idea of a work rest pendulum and the book of John 15, Jesus talking about iron, the vine. It says, I am the vine. And my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit. He takes away. And every branch that it does bear fruit prunes, that it may bear more fruit. And this idea, we're all familiar with the idea of a vine where it grows. It needs to then be prone so more can grow. So the weaker areas are not taking nutrients. So we prune those off in order that the, the ones that are bringing fruit can get more nutrients pumped through them. And so with that being said, this is a pendulum that goes back and forth because as we know wherever energy is exerted, there's going to be an equal and opposite energy that comes back.
(16:09): So if we're working hard, it's got to come back where we rest. And so this pendulum is divided up into four different pieces. One is that work fruitfulness, where in your life are you seeing great fruit? The things are going well, and that is good. And we want to continue to optimize and make that happen. Come back the down the pendulum, another ears grow. Where are things growing in your life? Maybe we want to invest some more in whether it's time, whether it's money, but things are growing and going well. Coming back on the pendulum, it's prune, where do you need to prune in your life? Maybe that meeting used to be 60 minutes. Now it only needs to be 30 minutes. Maybe that meeting was once a week. Now it needs to be once a month, whatever it may be. There's things in your life.
(17:04): You need to prove some are bad habits. Obviously prune those. Let's get those out of there, but some are good things. Well, we need to prune them out so that we can be focusing on the great things. And then the last piece of this work rest is actual rest and abiding, which we've talked a little bit about so far. So you've got these four different phases and we all go through these seasons in our life of these four different seasons. And so for you to be thinking through a good exercise is of those four. What do you need to do this season for them? How can you find more rest? What do you need to prune? Where are you growing and what is just going well and where that work is? So that's a very healthy exercise to think if we're not careful with this work rest pendulum where we often find ourselves overextending on the work, which turns into striving.
(18:01): And what does that also mean? That means we're going to overextend on the rest and it turns into crashing. It's a lot of us will operate at this whole striving crashing relationship, or we go, go, go working too hard. And then all of a sudden we crash. I did a workshop little over probably a year ago or so. And this woman, very successful woman was talking to me and convinced that striving and crashing it was good. And it was the season that they were in she had no negative thoughts about it. Even though I disagree with everyone, continue to talk about it. It's not sustainable. Yes. We all have to strive and maybe crash for quick season. We've got a work project that is due. The deadline is approaching. However, usually striving through crashing. You pick up bad habits. You pick up coping mechanisms, whether it's crazy amounts of caffeine, it's not doing solitude and being more dependent on yourself than God.
(19:01): Whatever it may be striving, crashing is not sustainable. You will crash. Literally you will burn out. And so we've got to think, Hey, how do we get into this work, rest rhythm, and where we are operating from a position of rest, as opposed to resting or crashing from work. And so for you, as you listen to this, maybe there's a few items that just really stood out that you need to be thinking about of how do you get better at managing your work. And so I'd like you to consider those areas in your life where you can be more intentional with how you are spinning your, your physical capital. Do you need to go for a run or work out this week? Do you need to watch less TV, maybe focus on a few other things. Do you need to say no to a few meetings? Maybe you need to change your food and eat healthier because that is depleting your energy and you're not lasting as long. These are all things that we need to do to manage our energy so that we have more to give others. So thank you very much for listening. Today's episode,
(20:15): Look forward to talking to you next time on intellectual capital and how are we perceiving our future? Is it one where we are growing and I look forward to sharing some insights and ideas with you. So thank you very much. You're unstoppable at work at home. It's another story sound like you. Good news. I'm here to help. 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.
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