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.
Hello, this is Corey. I'm excited for you to hear this episode. I interview Laura Susich and we cover some great topics. She left a high profile job. She was interviewing Shaquille O'Neal. She had been at Mike Tyson's house. Amazing, incredible things, left that to begin a whole nother journey. And in that journey, she is launched. What's it feel like which has 20,000 YouTube subscribers? Incredible. So we talk about that transition and how she needed faith and friends and have grace from her spouse during that time, what they're learning as a family, through the quarantine and about having real honest, open conversations in the home, it's awesome.
(01:08): Even gets a little emotional. It is a good time. Good interview. I hope you enjoy and get as many takeaways as I did enjoy. Thanks. Hello. It's Corey Carlson with the winter home first podcast, and I'm excited about today's guests, lower Sioux sick. I actually went to college with her university of Missouri, and we've really actually lost touch from a frequent communication standpoint, but knew what she was doing. She was a TV producer as 20 years of experience has been in local markets of Columbia than Cleveland than Indianapolis and st. Louis. And then really for the last decade has been doing freelance work. When I saw her again was actually on Facebook. It was a video that she did for what's it feel like something that she started based off of her daughter and her daughter's experiences and it's videos to help people. And we'll talk about that today, but what's incredible. Laura is it has 20,000 subscribers and so well done way to go. And that's how I ended up seeing you. And so then we talked man many months ago, reconnected and been communicating since then. So it's awesome to have you on the show. Thank you.
(02:18): Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
(02:20): Well, I was, it was fun to when I did go watch some videos and I've seen videos is, you know, you're big time now because you have ads in front of your, your videos. You know, you got to actually wait to skip the ad to watch him. And I thought that was pretty cool.
(02:36): Yeah. One of our videos actually has 2 million views, which is crazy, is a video that we did on what's it feel like to experience heroin addiction. And it was a girl who was overdosed when she was 15 and she tried it when she was 15 and five months later, she overdosed and nearly died and she tells her, but it felt like to be a heroin addict and physically what it feels like to take care of it. And then also what it felt like to, to become a come clean. And her brother actually died of an overdose while she was in rehab of heroin. So a lot of people connected to her and that story. And I was amazed at how many people watched that YouTube video and commented and shared. It was, it was crazy. Yeah,
(03:18): It's unbelievable. When I was looking at the site on YouTube and it seems like heroin is one of the most popular topics that's on there. I saw heroin. I'm, we're having, you know, half a million and beyond a lot of those views. Is that true? If looking at all the stats of all the videos, it seemed like heroin and then alcoholism was a big one as well.
(03:41): Well, yes, it's really interesting when you, when you break down the demographics of who's watching YouTube and who's watching Facebook though, but might ring true on YouTube. You got to think about the demographic of the people that are going to you. Two things more based on raising a child with autism or having multiple sclerosis or alcoholism as a parent really skyrocketed on Facebook because you got to thinking about the demographic of people that are on Facebook. So it's really serving two totally different demographics and having to manage all that has also been quite the learning experience. Cause you're speaking to two different, different audiences. And I actually had a couple YouTubers reach out to me alone and just say, Hey, you should make this channel, all this about addiction, which from a business standpoint, might've made sense. But from a, what I wanted to do standpoint, which was to cover all types of things about what's it feel like to be anyone or go through anything. I didn't want to just be like, okay, now I'm going to cover addiction because who am I as a middle-aged Midwestern mom, who's never suffered from addiction. I didn't want to just, I thought that would be running after the algorithm. And I do that because that's not why I started.
(04:48): Right, right. Youtube has a lot of addiction because that's in private, you know, where if it's on Facebook on the wall, if they like it, then Oh, everyone knows. Hey, you know, so and so over there they got addiction. Yeah,
(05:01): Exactly. That's issue. But it's also, there's a lot of people in their teens and twenties that are not only going through addiction, but curious about drug use, they're curious and they want to go and they want to learn more about it. And so that's where they go. They go to YouTube. And so you a video about, what's it feel like to be addicted to heroin? You'd be surprised. I mean the age, the average age group was 20 to 30 or if it was parents that were trying to understand, you know what, they're
(05:28): So neat, which I saw vaping was a super high one as well. So yeah. That's so interesting. It's neat. Your resource, you made a comment about how you started.
(05:37): No, you're married. You have two kids. Take us back to when you actually started this and why? Because that's such a cool story that I got the C yeah. So when my daughter was five and she's going to be 11 and 10 days, by the way, she was completely unmanageable. She had probably vomited by the time I, her to a psychiatrist at five, about 400 times in her life, which is how her peers manifested and her, that behavior started when she was about 18 months, we took her to every gastroenterologist pediatric visit. You could, she was perfectly healthy. There was nothing wrong with her. And we finally bit the bullet about going to see a psychiatrist. And she told us that my daughter had severe anxiety. And my first thought was who do you think you are telling you that my daughter has severe anxiety in the city.
(06:25): Right? And she should have been for what I have to pay for her about the cost of covering mental health in this country, which is a, which is a crime. But so I didn't know anybody that had a five-year-old with severe anxiety. There was no one in my circle, or I would, I even knew how to reach out to help me navigate what it would look like to put a child at that age on medical medicine, which she desperately needed to be on because my pediatrician was like, she can't, you can't just let her keep vomiting like this. It could create ulcers or scar tissue, which could lead to esophageal cancer down the road. And so anyway, it was a couple of years of very, very isolating navigation. And a lot of the pressure was on me. Not only because I'm a mom, but because I'm just that take charge, like I'm going to make this better kind of person.
(07:13): And I think I tried to just take on too much on my own. And in my husband's, who would admit he didn't know what to do. So fast forward a couple years ago, I had left a high profile, well pain, freelance gig that I did a yearly contract on where we interviewed people all over big athletes, all over the country and the world, you know, shack Russell, Westbrook, Mike Tyson, Brett Farb minimal. And I couldn't handle those things. And so my production house that I now freelance for was looking to start a con of like any type of like social media platform that wouldn't cost a lot out of pocket to start and wanted to know if I had any ideas. And I started sharing about a year before that. So let's take her if she was five diagnosed at about the age of like eight or nine one night, I shared my experience on Facebook and I'll put this all together and wrap it up in a bow.
(08:08): And second I shared with Greensboro and I cannot tell you the amount of people that inboxed me or shared that they had gone through anxiety as a child and where their parents would have done something. I mean, it was my whole body has the chills, even just talking about it right now, because I finally felt like where have all these people been? Where have all these people been that are going through this when I've needed it. And it sort of created this. I just kept sharing what we were experiencing. And people were coming to me and saying, Hey, I've been through this or can you point me in the right direction? We're experiencing this. And it was such a gift to me. And so when my production house that I was going to ask for asked me that I thought this could be something we could do on anything.
(08:52): What's it feel like to go through a divorce? What's it feel like to have multiple sclerosis? What's it feel like to have a disability? What does it feel like to have, be addicted to heroin, to lose someone to suicide? I mean, the list goes on and Facebook is the perfect place for it because it's a place people want to share things that makes you laugh that make you cry or makes you feel informed. Those are the three things people go to Facebook for. And I just took the chance and S and picked a couple topics off the top to do. And so I wanted to share the gift of me not feeling alone with other people and perspective and empathy. And that's how we started. What's it feel like what's it feel like with w H a T Z? What's it feel like with Z because I couldn't get it across all, all social media handles with.
(09:39): Oh, that's awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that. And, and, and, and just the raw emotion, obviously, it was such an impactful time to do that. And it says, I mean, there's so many directions to take this, but it says a lot about you and your husband's relationship, Mike, and that you've been navigated through it, and that you were able to get through that piece. I, you know, I don't know how all and I would have done it. And
(10:06): It was,
(10:07): How did you guys navigate through those times? Cause I do know of clients and friends that have difficult, you know, I don't know the levels of difficulty, their child, their parenting is, but I hear about it a lot. And it's a stressor for many, many people, especially with demanding jobs, which you had at the time plus Mike works. So how were you guys able to navigate through those?
(10:31): I would say three main things. Our faith, our kids go to a Lutheran school here in the st. Louis area where, you know, every Sunday at Cindy's I prayed a lot. And I talked to him a lot about how isolated, I felt all the time when he wouldn't try and fix it, because he would also always admit, I just don't know what to do. I just don't know how to react to her. I don't know how to handle it like you do. I don't have the patience like you do. And that is a common theme. I hear a lot when other people reach out to me, whether it's a male or a female, one of the two don't have the skills as much as the other one to handle mental illness or whether it be physical or emotional or anything that the child is going through.
(11:18): And also I would call my friends all the time and just say, okay, I just need to cry. So I allowed him to not be really great at it. And he allowed me to cry a lot about it. And we both allowed each other to be where we were and parenting her. Instead of asking why aren't you, they're supposed to be experts in how to raise a child with severe anxiety. There is no roadmap. And if I were to get mad at him all the time for not knowing what to do, it doesn't really solve the problem. It doesn't help her. It's actually taking away from her, right. For a while. I'd be like, you need to be at every, you know, appointment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then other times I'd realized that as the breadwinner, he needed to make appointments happen so we could pay for that therapy. I learned to give myself grace, I definitely learned to give her grace and him grace. And so that's kind of how we navigate and that's how we still navigate it. He knows that I kind of lead the charge and the knowing when to make sure we get an appointment or should we adjust her meds. But he also has taken the steps to learn and to come to therapy, to know how he can be a secondary support system to me.
(12:31): Wow. So the three things you said faith, and then friends, and then was a grace
(12:37): Race, allowing all of us who we were in that equation, because if you're at least something they can't be, you're not going to get anywhere. You know, just not part of who he is, but he's definitely there to support and back me up. And if I come home and say, okay, here's a new plan. Okay. Got it. You know, like, and some people might not be okay with that, but I was,
(12:58): Yeah. I love that because so often in all of our marriages, no matter really what the dynamics are is, is we put ourselves on this reality of where we're at, but then we expect our spouses, they are on this. They need to be over here on this pedestal. Like they need to be at this area. And it's so difficult. I there's this quote that I had heard while I was writing the book, went home first is we judge ourselves on our intentions, but we judge our spouses and usually others on their actions. And so, and for you, you were able to have this grace of, you know, he's trying to work through it his own way. And you saw that he was making some efforts, but instead of saying, Hey, you need to be up here. And then basically taking points away from him every day when he fell short.
(13:52): Right. Right. And it just, and then that also, like I said, took away from what the goal was, was to help her. I can't, I cannot allow a child that's struggling and needs help to be come secondary to my focus on what it is that Mike was or was not doing. I mean, he, it just doesn't that doesn't even help her in the long run, you know? And, and my space really helps me, allows me and gives me more understanding of what grace looks like by having faith. It's so much easier for me to give grace and to understand, and to understand the fear that lived in my husband of what if I don't do this right. Or respond. Right. I don't want to mess this up, you know, and that's, that's a natural feeling for him to be allowed, to have it came from a caring place that he didn't know how to handle it, and it didn't come to him naturally. And that's, I was glad he was able to admit that to me and felt safe enough to say that. Cause I think that matters.
(14:49): Yeah. That open. And that is that's huge. Especially when there's a open communication from a place of insecurity where I don't know what to do and that's pretty darn powerful. Yeah. That's good. Hello. This is Corey Carlson. Thank you very much for listening to this podcast. I greatly appreciate it. If things that we're saying or you're hearing what the guests are talking about, and you want to see how it can apply to your life, and you want to dive deeper into the content. And I invite you to visit my website at Corey M Carlson, to learn more about my coaching program, what I'm doing for clients like you and how it can help you start winning vote at home and at work and living in life to the full. So thank you very much for listening and back to today's episode. Thank you. So going from, you know, corporate freelance job, and then shifting to say, I, I need to get away from that. Put my focus on home, put my focus on, you know, this, this huge project, which is growing and taking more of your time. So why did you make the transition? Was it because of just the home environment and I can't be doing all this full time, plus going to all these doctor's appointments and staying up late for the puking of what she was going through. Why did you make the change?
(16:12): Well, it's interesting because when I left the television news business, as you mentioned, I worked in Cleveland, Indianapolis and st. Louis. I did that for about 10 years and I left the television news business knowing I was gonna, I would, didn't want to be pregnant in that environment. Cause that was back in the day when news reporters like had to work, they weren't like 20, like 24 years old working in big markets, right? Like the news was like a big deal. And I did the night news and you know, I wanted to have a peaceful pregnancy. And so at that time I had intended to stay home and you know, there's just, this there's this as part of me that always needs to work and feel like I'm, I'm doing something outside of the home that's contributing and this, this needed for me to always work.
(16:51): And so when I freelance with them, when I got this opportunity to work for this nationally syndicated show, as executive producer, I knew I was ready. I knew I had all the tools to do it. But unfortunately I was at the mercy of all these big name athletes of when they wanted us to come in and you know, Jack Nicholas three days with him traveling around with him, I mean, all these amazing experiences, right? Like Mike Tyson, we got to go to his house. I'm up, never forget, like leaving on a red eye flight from my brother-in-law's rehearsal, dinner, flying out to Vegas, working all day, taking a red eye flight back that night. So I could be there for the wedding that I was in the next day, leaving on my daughter's seventh, birthday night to go because taking a red eye to get to Shaq's house the next day, incredible experiences.
(17:37): Right? Like getting to hear these people's stories. Cause we'd sit down with them for a few hours, but the sacrifice he's always so large at home. I was missing things. So when I left that job, I'd read a book called I read a book and one of the lines, and it was caught, was said to live a life of significance versus a life of success. And I thought I had enough talent and enough knowledge of how to tell stories. I know I could do something on my own. And I had this kind of what's it feel like I do already percolating in my head and had yet to have this conversation with this production house about starting this platform with their partnership and support. But I knew that I had gone through something that would bring this platform to a very authentic place. So I took, when I left, I had no money and there was no like secondary backups.
(18:25): You know, it was like I told Michael, I wanted to leave. And he's like, if you're not happy, we'll make it work. And then also there was no money to be made off this platform. At first. In fact it still has not even made 10 grand this platform. So I freelance as well doing like paid projects for clients and do this at the same time. And how do I balance that all within my, well, I pick up my kids non COVID times, three times out of five days from school. Sometimes I work at night when they're going into bed and I prioritize how much workload I'm willing to take on as a freelancer because I have, that's what the beauty of being a freelancer is for me, you can decide and say, this is the level of commitment I'm willing to make. And sometimes I have to make sacrifices and say, there's a lot coming at, coming at me right now.
(19:12): And I need to take on this three or four week really busy season, but I prioritize it by saying, by just remembering balance. That's all it's about. And the what's it feel like platform has been a game changer in the conversations we have within our own households about drug use, about people that are different. It has been a blessing. My daughter will say, Oh mom, I just sat down and watched like five of them like videos. I really like this story from. So, and so that was so neat what she said. I mean, think about the conversations that we're scared about having with our kids at 10, 11, 12 years old about vaping or drug use. And it's opened up this door to be able to have conversations that was real people and their stories that are making it easier for me to have conversations, my kids that I need to be having. And in turn, they're also seeing me do something that drives me that makes me passionate. And it teaches them to not be scared to go after your dreams and take chances because you'll regret it more. If you don't do it, then you will. If you go for it, because if you go for it, it doesn't work. Then you have your answer.
(20:14): That's awesome. There's so many good things right there. One, I love the idea of having open conversations in the house. You know, there's so many parents out there that are wanting to protect their kids, or they're not old enough to hear this. They're not, you know, we'll wait to tell them. And you know, Holly and I heard this on early in our marriage if, you know, basically if you don't tell them, they're going to find the answer. And especially nowadays with phones, they can go find any answer they want. And because we are the source of the truth for them obviously, and you and Mike were my hope is that we will continue to always be where they go to answer before they go to their friends before they go to Google. And I know that I'm a little naive or not naive to think that, Hey, they're probably doing some of that already, but if I can get as if I can be their source of truth and not only can I answer, but I can also throw in some, some God pieces into it, of how it can actually, you know, help them.
(21:14): So that's incredible. Some of those conversations that you had because you're right. All those videos are on heavy, heavy topics.
(21:21): Very heavy. Yeah. I mean, we've told them, you know, because I met this guy that now opened up a huge, he was a heroin addict and he's like one of the biggest advocates for opioid recovery in the st. Louis area. He opened up a drug rehabilitation center in Dittmar, Missouri, which is about an hour outside of st. Louis. It's beautiful. He just knows everything about, you know, opiate addiction, especially and other addictions. And he gave me a sample of Narcan after an interview and a drug test. And he's like, you put that drug. Now, people are going to agree with us or not. They said, you put that drug test on there about 12 or 13 on that counter and say at any point in time, I'll be testing you. And it gives the kids an out to say, if they're ever pressured around their friends, like, Oh, I can't my parents like, but it also says, I know what's going on in this world and I'm not, and I'm not naive to it.
(22:10): I haven't put the drug test out yet. It's in my class. But in Narcan, which as people don't know is a nose inhaler that is used to help people that have overdosed to survive. And that helps them breathe again, two months after the interview I did with Robert, my husband was at a hobby lobby, getting stuff for a project. And because he watched the video and heard about what an overdose looks like and why Narcan helps. He walked into the bathroom and there was a guy overdosing in the stall next to him. He heard the breathing, he stepped over the stall. He saw the needle syringe on the toilet paper roll. And he immediately asked him to call police. And he was having a Hubbard overdose and ask them to bring Narcan. And the guy lived,
(22:50): Wow. Wow. And all because of this, I mean the awareness of the video, I mean, that is so awesome.
(22:57): I know it was crazy. We did a Facebook live about it afterwards. Cause I wanted people to know that like you can go to your suburban hobby lobby and people are, you know, shooting up in the bathrooms or, you know, addiction is all around us. It's in our families just like suicide and all the things that everybody keeps behind closed doors. We all know somebody dealing with it. And we can either learn about these issues or help feel less alone or become more empathetic if there's people brave enough to sit down in front of a camera and talk about it. And I've had almost a hundred people that have been brave enough to share some of their most inner most struggles and triumphs. And it's so humbling to me.
(23:33): Yeah, man. So Nate, we've got to figure out how to monetize this, to get the word out there even more because it is incredible. It is absolutely incredible. Going back to the Shaquille and the Mike Tyson, kind of all those, all those amazing things. Not many people would walk away from all of that. So well done on doing that, but what, and you weren't even going to anything necessarily, you didn't have it, you hadn't fully baked out this idea of what's it feel like? And was there a, obviously there's a line in that book that was the catalyst, but how did you, I mean, how did you pull it off? Because I know there's many people that have these decisions as they're listening, thinking, well, I'm doing this currently. I, my identities tied to it. My pride is tied to it. Maybe my bank account's tied to it, but there's something that I want to do differently.
(24:29): I want to pursue a passion. I want to take my past and turn into my platform or what kind of, whatever those different dynamics are. How did you manage to take that current reality that your identity probably was tied to somewhat and then say, I'm going to lay it all down and maybe just hand over my story for a greater story that God's got for me and I'm going for, how were you able to do it personally? And then as what, you know, you made it sound like Mike just said, yeah, do whatever you want, you know, follow your dreams. And I know it was more difficult than that.
(25:02): Right? Well, there's two things that I knew for sure. And one was that ironically, ironically, at the same time, I had been charged to be one of the co-chairs of the capital fundraising campaign for our school church to build a new school. Okay. So this was leading up to kind of me before I had, you know, made this decision. And before we kind of came out with the campaign, there was this pastor that was helping us as coach here. It's kind of wrap our minds around the idea of how we reach out to people to get them to you know, be part of this campaign. And we, he kept reading all these scriptures about God always provides, because part of the thing in the capital fundraising campaign was how are we going to convince these people to, you know, commit to 40, $50,000 over three years to the school who's going to be like, yeah, I mean, you can't get people to donate a hundred bucks a lot of times to charities, right?
(25:58): These structures I kept reading about and God always provides. And I thought about my life as a kid, you know, not having tons of money knowing, you know, I was lower middle class of the middle class area that I grew up in. And I thought about like, what we really, we would, I knew we would adjust to not having that money. I knew we could adjust. And I knew that the benefit of adjusting and the stress level that would be released from me and the presence of my peacefulness at home was priceless. And that God would provide. And that doesn't mean God will provide always monetarily, but he will provide what it is that you need. And so I remember saying to Michael, this, he knew it was, I mean, it wasn't even affecting like my skin, my stress level, because I mean, you're working with these high profile athletes.
(26:49): Like not only does it matter, but how you set up these shoots, but it matters what the product is, right. You want to make, you know, it's, this was, you know, a nationally syndicated show. It was all over the, all the country actually in parts of the world too. And the providing was going to be happening more from myself to my family. And ironically it was almost six figures. I mean, you know, just under a few whatever thousand. And do you believe that after we did all that we adjusted, I stopped just going and buying whatever I wanted to because the money wasn't in my account. I mean, I used to go and be like, I want to know I want a new coat first. So I would just go buy one. What? I didn't do that anymore. I just didn't do it. I just, I, the money wasn't there, like it was before filling up my bank accounts to therefore my spending changed.
(27:34): And the truth is that God, more than provided because not only did he give me peace, but he gave me this opportunity when I left in March of 2017 to reinvent myself with the second part of my career, what happened? And then nine months later, my dad had a major bowel blockage and he was in the hospital for 45 days and he almost died. And I was able to be at the hospital with him every day, advocating for him and taking care of him because, so he provided the ability for me to help save my dad as well. So that's what I would say to people is God always provides and have faith and know that if you can, if you know that you can do something that will make you happier in whatever aspect that is, like I said before, not knowing is so much worse than knowing, and I could always find another job and I did.
(28:25): Yeah, man, that's incredible. Oh way to go and have the faith to pursue it. And now on the other side, it's not always easy. As we were talking about before we hit recording just the, the volatility in both of our works, what it's happened with COVID and things are open. Things are closed. People are spending money, some art. And so it's affected us both. So it's not easy on the other side, right? God has provided during those during those times.
(28:51): And it's always face, it's not just always monetarily, which I think people need to remember. Corey is like, remember that God always provides doesn't mean dollar signs. It needs provides. He already knows what you need to be open to receiving it. Really the success of what's it feel like for me has never wavered on monetizing. Monetizing is great. I'm still working to grow Facebook and get 10,000 followers. But then I had start monetizing on Facebook, but the gift has been in what, the perspective and the lives that has changed by being there. And that is living a life of significance, which then you're already successful. I'm still working and making money on all my other freelance projects that I do. But the reward for starting that platform is tenfold more than if I ever make more than, you know, 20,000 on it. That's so all
(29:42): All the lies that are being impacted already. Very cool. So we mentioned quarantine, quarantines change a lot of us good, bad. And whether it's our schedules and the things that we're noticing, we talked about, the revenue changes that some people are experiencing. What about for you and your house? Are there things that maybe you were doing before quarantine that you've stopped and you'd never want to start back up again or vice versa. You've added things during this quarantine because we were able to slow down. We were able to actually kind of see what was going on in the world and be like, Whoa, this is, this is important. And now I want to keep this as a new habit, a new mindset, a new perspective. When we come out of this on the other side, what's it been like in your guys's house? From what are you learning? What are you hearing from God right now?
(30:32): Well, there's, there's two things. I would say from the God perspective, I realized how important it is for me to have a place to go to worship. Every Sunday. I do not like watching church on TV. And luckily we are at a place in our church where we're able to sign up. There's only certain people, if I can go and you have to mask up and sit, we have a space to sit far apart when I was able to go back and felt comfortable to go back and worship. It made me so much more grateful for the power of worshiping with others and the thoughts and the things that came back in when I wasn't really in the word every week, which I'm not going to be. I mean, I don't, I'm not opening my Bible every day, so I'm not as good as I should be about that.
(31:09): But knowing and seeing people and seeing faces, even though I couldn't hug them, but that reaffirm to me than having a place to go every Sunday was filling my cup up because it's, I feel a difference in my spirituality and my, my prayers and my faith have rebounded since I started going back about a month and a half ago. The other thing I would say is you probably know this from having three kiddos is you didn't think you could say, say no as much before. And we've all been challenged as parents to really have to make some decisions about no, I'm not comfortable with them going there, or I'm not ready for that. Yet. Most of the things that I have my kids involved in, in the end of the day, do not matter.
(31:52): I mean, is my son because he can't play all of his sports. Is it going to change who he is? Are there things that, are they being enriched by these activities? Yes. Are, are, is anything going to be taken away from them during this time? I think we've been okay. You know, and I've learned the power of no, I was working on it before and now I have no problem with it. Perfect example is Brady is really good at baseball. And we told him after this spring season that he could be done if he wanted to do some planes since he was four. And it's been just telling us inside, cause we don't want them to walk away from it. But you know, all this scheduling of baseball and all these things that happened and how much he hasn't been able to play now, what has not changed since he hasn't played baseball that much, he can still pitch really well. So if he decides in two years when he wants to go to high school and try out for the high school team and play again, he can. And if he doesn't, you know what be fine, he'll just go to school. You can get college.
(32:49): Yeah, no, that's, that's cool. And you just have that permission to say no. And I love that I'm seeing that myself, not only in our, our family, but even my own work. I mean, I used to meet anybody and everybody for a beer or a coffee, because I thought it would help the business grow, or I need to meet these people. Now I don't have that scarcity mindset. I've got to go meet everybody. I go say yes, whether I was doing it as a people pleaser, which can be a part of my problem, or I was doing it because of that scarcity mindset. I was doing it for provision because some days I forget that God's a provider. I think I am. And so I too have grown and individually as everything you just said there, so that's great. What's a key trait that you're seeing right now in your guys's house, as you're leading your family, kind of during this quarantine kind of that idea of when at home first, is there been something that you guys have just been reinforcing even more now and you want to continue to keep?
(33:49): I always have like these two or three answers. The first thing for myself personally, that I've allowed myself to do is give myself grace when I don't have good days or I let them on, I don't have the energy today to police the electronics as much as I normally would or get them out, making sure they're active and being on them. Nobody has a playbook on how to get through a quarantine, either as a parent, I would say it's one of the worst times ever to be a parent. So one of the things we've been allowing ourselves to do is take note when somebody needs a day to just be, because the stresses that we are all secretly going through as a 10, almost 11 year old, or as my son's going through my husband, we should allow all of our, all of ourselves in this household to have those days where we need to just do not say, or unwind or not try to, we have to do all these things and just stay on top of things during quarantine. Cause we're not really doing a lot like out outside
(34:46): How'd that day is to de stress. But what we're also doing on the flip side of that is saying, we're going to allow you guys to do that, but this also doesn't take away responsibilities of taking care of your bodies and taking care of, you know, we're going to be down here and have a conversation together. And we're going to have some time together trying to create as kind of, I'm saying two things that both sides of my mouth, but as normal as we can be. But with also accepting that this is not normal and you're expecting white as high as they were, because this is not normal for any of us. And we have to do the best we can do with what we're able to do. Right?
(35:23): Yeah. Well, it's just being intentional parents where we're balancing between that relationship being there for them being empathetic, but also challenge them in that responsibility that they're not just sitting around on their phones all day long. And so it's just being aware and maybe even pre quarantine. A lot of us maybe weren't aware because we were busy, we had our own stresses of work and we're traveling we're on airplanes or commuting back and forth to work, but now we're home. And so I do think that intention, I have parents is so important now and having that tough love that ability to just sit next to them and put your arm around him on the couch for a while. But then at the same time, be able to say, you gotta keep making the bed.
(36:02): Yeah. And the honesty of saying mommy's struggling today, I'm just having a stressed out day. I'm stressed about, you know, school and, and people say, well, your kids will react to how you do well. I think it's okay to admit to my kids that I'm a little bit stressed about how things are going to go because we're currently at our small school, five days in person. And I think there's a lot of benefits to that for my kids, but I'm nervous about how that's gonna play out and I'm nervous what's going to happen when the first kid tested positive for COVID in that class or what are we all supposed to do? You know, we all understand those stresses. And so I think it's good to share with my kids that I worry about things and that I'm scared about things and they can watch me work through that.
(36:38): I agree because they need to see how we handle these stresses so they know how to handle them. They know, and they know it's through conversations. It's through faith, it's through friendships. It's not just through vegging out and that's the only way. And so that's good. Well, thank you so much for this. I could keep talking for sure. Keep asking questions. Lot of fun to talk to you about well done on everything you're doing and the lives that you're impacting, and I'm glad we've reconnected. Why don't just end on two fun questions is what are you reading right now?
(37:13): So I am finishing reading the basically kind of novel of Elizabeth Schuyler. We're a huge Hamilton family and we love the history of Hamilton and she is, she was Alexander Hamilton's wife. Wow. Her life is fascinating. She actually, after he died, was responsible for helping raise money for the Washington monument and helping, you know, interview all the soldiers that fought with him. And she started the first private orphanage in New York city. She lived as she was like in her nineties. She was amazing. So
(37:44): That's cool. We loved Hamilton. And I was impressed at the, when we did the Disney stream, when they did put up her stats at the end, that was pretty darn impressive. The things that they should, a little bit of what you mentioned. Well, that's cool. What are you most excited about in the next 30 days?
(38:01): Oh, geez. Well, I'm excited about school returning and seeing how well it may go. I'm, I'm trying to stay hopeful that it will be safe and it will give my kids what they need. And if not, I'm excited about having some certainty after that. If that's not, if what the next steps are, there's still a lot of uncertainty and I'm excited about having some certainty in the next couple of weeks or some framework of how to adjust my mind to what the,
(38:32): So no matter what fall is, let's just get the plan I need some. Yeah,
(38:36): Yeah, yeah. And I'm excited progress. That's what I'm hoping. I'm very hopeful that we're going to see some progress in this country when it comes to this pandemic and hope that we all do our part.
(38:46): Well, thank you very much, Laura. And how can people get ahold of you, the listeners? How can they get ahold of you? How can they kind of plug into what you're doing?
(38:55): What's the best way. So if you, the best way to plug in to me would be to go to what's it feel like that's w H, Z, what's it feel like? And you can instant message me through there, or you can go to the YouTube channel. It's titled the same way. And there's ways to contact me for each of those. And if they have a story idea or a story they want to share about themselves they can email me at Laura at what's it feel like that come with the Z and share their story and see, we'll see if it's something we can't tell. Cause there's, we're telling stories differently now we're doing it remotely. So it gives me more access to be able to talk to people virtually.
(39:25): Awesome. Very, very powerful. All right. Well thank you very much. Thanks Corey. I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. When at home first, I am so grateful to hear from listeners like you, that this content has been helpful. So now I would love for you to pay it forward. I want to get this message in the hands of more listeners. We need leaders to be winning both at home and at work, especially during this time. So please take a minute to share this episode with somebody you think would find value in it, as well as rate and subscribe as a thank you, please visit my website@coriumcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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