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. And on this next episode, you're going to hear from Chad Allen. He was my writing coach for the book winning home first. So I spent a lot of time with him over the course of a year, and just getting to hear his wisdom and his insight. And on this episode of the podcast, we talk about the importance of a long term vision. The idea of almost creating your eulogy for yourself. We talk about the power in a wise statement, or even called a power statement and why we all need to have them to help us get out of bed each and every day, we talk about his transition from going from a corporate job out on his own and how that may help you with any future dreams, ideas that you have, you want to start pulling forward.
(01:05): So I think it's an awesome episode. I hope you enjoyed as much as I do so onto today's episode. Thank you. Hello is Corey Carlson. Welcome to the winter home first podcast today. I'm excited about having Chad Allen as a guest because he was my writing coach for the book, went home first. So he took my, my messy words and turned it into an actual book. So you got to know he's a talented man just from that, but I enjoyed our time together a ton and wanting to bring him on to share his insight and wisdom with all the went home first listeners. So Chad, thank you very much for being on here today.
(01:43): Oh, this is a pleasure, Corey. Thanks for having me.
(01:46): Oh, you're welcome. Well, let's dive in. What do you think are some key traits for leaders to win at home?
(01:53): Yeah, I think it starts with a vision. I mean, if a long term vision, if your vision for your life, your vocational life, your life with your family, your spiritual life, et cetera, it goes no further than what do I need to get done before lunch today, you're going to make one set of decisions. But if your vision goes beyond that to what do I want people at my funeral to say about me? You know, what do I want my wife, like, just assume you'll die before your wife does. And your kids and your friends, what do you want your wife to say? Or your, or your husband? What do you want your children to say? What do you want your friends to say? What do you want your colleagues to say about you when it's all over? And if you can have a vision for that, I know that's a little, it's a little morose to think about what people are going to say at your funeral, but I think it's a useful exercise.
(02:51): And to actually go ahead and as if you were them write out what you want to hear them say, you know, what or what, what they will say, what you want to say at your funeral. Just write it out. That can be a hugely helpful exercise for determining how you spend your time each day. So I start with vision. It's so fun to ask leaders like yourself, what do they think? And you're one of the things a few would say vision, but I completely agree. And just as you teed it up there from your decisions before lunch, after lunch, how big of a difference it can make, how do you recommend people setting that up? I mean, is it just literally just sitting down and writing that, that eulogy for themselves as well as one for the family? Well, I think when at home first is a great resource, another great resource is living forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy have you, do you know that book?
(03:52): I do know that book. Yup. Okay. And so there's this kind of a two step process. One is the eulogy exercise you actually. So I've actually sat down and wrote out what I hope my wife will say at my funeral, what my kids will say, what I hope my friends will say. And then you determine the life areas where you want to be intentional. So your marriage is obviously an important one. Your relationship with your kids, relationships with coworkers, friends, your financial life, your vocational life, your intellectual life. And then basically you develop a vision for each of those life areas and develop goals, or at least at least things like an envisioned future for each one of those areas. And then you get really honest about how you're doing now, compared to that envisioned future. And then you say, okay, given that gap, and there's always a gap between what you hope will be and what currently is given that gap, you know, what are a handful of bullet points that you can put down for things that you want to do, you know, in each of those areas?
(05:04): So that's kind of the process that I use. And then I review that's called the life plan and I review my life plan at least once a quarter. And then I do a big revision once a year. How long have you been doing that in your life? I would say I have it all started with a retreat. I did a blog post about it called the best thing I've ever done for myself was the blog post. I think that's w is from three or four years ago. So I just keep every year I go on a spiritual retreat and one of the main item on my agenda for that is reviewing my life plan and making any adjustments that I think are necessary. Wow. That's incredible. What have you seen to be the most fruit that has came out of just that the last three years when compared to before like the, before you, and, and now after what has been that difference of going through that process?
(06:01): I know where I'm headed or at least I know where I want to head, you know, and I don't have a lack of clarity about what I want to accomplish and all these different areas of my life, because I've done the work I've S I sat down you know, over the course of it only took two or three days, and I think it's smart to get away. I went, I go to this little, this little it's called the Hermitage in three rivers, Michigan. It's literally like think Henry David Thoreau, his cabin in the woods, no electricity, no running water. And, and I've been there four or five times now, but the first time was just a start, the life planning process. And I start a fire and I have my journal and obviously I have some extended periods of prayer. And, and and, but because I've done that work, I know I can pick up, I can pick out my life plan and remind myself.
(06:57): And then what comes from that, Cory is when I set my goals for the year or for the quarter, I do that with my life plan in mind. So, okay. If this is my vision, what should my goals for this quarter or for this year be? So those goals in the life vision or the life plan are, are in sync. And just that clarity has been, has been really helpful. I love it. Do you do a personal one and a family, one and a consult? You're your own business one like almost three, or do you just find them kind of just getting melded together? Oh, that's interesting that you asked that. So in my life plan, I do have these different areas and all of those areas are included. So I have a kind of an envisioned future for my marriage, for my relationship with my son, for my relationship with my daughter, for my business and how I serve my clients.
(07:50): I have an envision future for my relationships with my friends. Like what kind of friend do I want to be? You know? Yeah. But then in addition to that earlier this year, I created a more elaborate, a longer vision for my business. And that was a really helpful exercise as well. That came from Michael Hyatts book, the vision driven leader. Have you heard of that earlier? Yeah. Yeah. I've not read that one, but yes. Familiar with it. So to be honest with you, I'm still trying to decide if the vision I wrote out is the one I want to pursue, but it was a useful exercise, the really useful, really useful. And I, I highly recommend the book know it's excellent. And you pull your wife into it or like in the process or you come back from your re your retreat and then it's kind of a, a throw up, Hey, here, this is everything I did.
(08:43): Or how do you do it? Because I've done the firehose method and it doesn't always work. I have to do more of the drip. What processes have worked in your house? Yeah. So the first time I did my life plan, I really did. I came home and I shared it with her and we had, we had a discussion about it now. I mean, we kind of, we check in with each other, we try to do kind of a deep dive at least once a week, kind of just what's going on. How are we thinking about the fact that school is starting up during the era of COVID, you know, like we do a deep dive and during those deep dive talks, I'll bring up. Here's what's going on with me. Here are the goals that I'm pursuing. And so we kind of stay in touch that way. That's that's about, that's about all that we do to, to stay in touch on it.
(09:29): Yup. That's good. Part of your story that I like a lot is we have some similarities from the standpoint of you did a corporate career, and then you transitioned to entrepreneurial business on yourself. You spent about 16 and a half years at Baker publishing, which is a significant publishing house. I may be saying the exact words wrong, but Baker significant. Then you decided to leave and do your own thing. What have you seen as you've pursued that to be the difference helping you be successful in your business, successful at home? What are some of those different components look like?
(10:06): Yeah. Well, for one thing, you know, I'm home now, all of us are home because of COVID, but I was home, you know, two years before COVID. And so what that meant is I got to be really, I got to be present in the mornings, whereas before I was basically gone before anybody was up. So now I'm, I'm home. Just this morning, I was doing my, my reading and my little girl came out. She's nine years old and she sat on my lap for 15 minutes. And she told me about how excited she was to go to school, supply shopping, you know this is a big deal for her. So that's made a big difference. I, we eat dinner together every night. I mean, I hear, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts like you Corey, and every now and again, a podcast host will say something like, yeah, we actually dinner together for the first time in a long time.
(10:57): And I'm like, I couldn't do that. You know? So I, we, we dinner and sometimes dinner is only 15 minutes, you know, but at least there's that 15 minutes where we sit at the table and eat together. And then typically we, we are hanging out together in the evening, at least, at least during the summer, we've been hanging out together. You know, you and I both follow James Len Hoff, a financial planner. He talks a lot about the importance of shared experiences. And so I'm always encouraging us to think about not what not, but stuff we can buy, but what are some shared experiences we can have together? Because I think those in the long run are a lot more valuable. So as an example, this past weekend, you might've seen on Facebook, we went jet skiing for the first time ever. I've never been jet skiing and none of us have. Yeah. And man, it was a blast and that is something, you know, we'll keep looking back on and I had so much fun and I know, I know they did. So I dunno, I'm kind of, I'm kind of rambling, but that, those are the things that come to mind.
(12:02): Yep. No, I love to share experiences just a few weeks ago, I took my son cast fishing or fly cast fishing, and it was incredible. It was fun. And it was just, it was just needed. That shared experience. We both did something new together and all kinds of lessons learned and he got it. He got to see me try things, which I think is such something our kids need to see us try. They need to see us fail. Then you see us succeed, all of that. So they give themselves permission to fail. They also want to succeed as well. So, and same thing on your jet ski, you know, you've got to, they saw the ups, the downs, they didn't have answers to all their questions. You're like, I don't know. I've never done this before. So I think that's great
(12:48): Just to piggyback on that. Like when we were coming back from being out with the jet skis, we had trouble finding like where we were like, there's a channel that would take us back to the, to the jet ski rental place. And like kind of, I mean, we were on this huge Lake. And so coming back, it was not clear which way we were supposed to go. And besides that, the rental place was very clear that to us, when you come back, you need to be coming back at a pretty good clip because it's weedy. And if you slow down, the jet ski will get bogged down by the weeds. You'll end up burning up the motor and that's a $5,000, you know, this kind of thing.
(13:26): Oh yeah. Make sure you sign on the dotted line right here too.
(13:29): So Alyssa, my wife and I were coming back and we're like trying to figure out where we're supposed to turn where's this channel, you know? And so, and it was heck it was tense. It was really tense. Cause we knew that we were supposed to keep our speed up yet. We didn't know where the channel is. Obviously the story has a happy ending. We did find it. We didn't, we didn't come up the engines, but, but our kids got to see us in that moment of kind of panic, you know, like, Holy crap, what do we do? We do, you know? And I think that's actually beneficial to them, for them to see, okay, there are going to be times in life when it gets really stressful, but you probably figure it out, you know? And that's what they witnessed on that trip. So that was good for me and good for me.
(14:15): Yeah. I agree. 100% are
(14:18): Kids need to see that experience at themselves. Absolutely. 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 both at home
(14:52): And at work and living in life to the full. So thank you very much for listening
(14:56): And back to today's episode. Thank you.
(15:04): Yeah. Are there things that you're doing now that you would go tell your old corporate self to start doing from a family perspective? And I ask because I have the luxury of working from home as well and control my schedule. There's a lot of listeners who don't, they are, we're ramping back up. They're going back to the office, you know, Monday through Friday. It's not all the way back to pre COVID times, but it's getting closer. So for you, what would you knowing what you know now you've been doing this a couple of years, what would you go tell your old self that is say stuck in the office, more of those corporate hours? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, Corey, it's, it's one thing to be with your family. It's another thing to be your best self, your best healthiest self with your family last night.
(16:00): I was, you know, Alyssa was going to take off for the evening for a little, a little break and it was my job to kind of get dinner on the table and then clean up afterwards. And and my daughter came in, she said, so what are we going to do tonight? And this was after dinner, what are we going to do tonight? And I was like, honey, look at the kitchen. Like, I've got to do this. You want to help me? You know, like I was a little short with her, you know, it was a pretty innocent question on her part. Like what are we going to do tonight? You know? But I was snippy. I w and I, the reason I was snippy is because my day had not gone as well as I had hoped I had not been as productive as I wanted to be.
(16:42): So, so the takeaway for me is that part of being the best father, the best husband, I can be a big part of it is being the best person. I can be the healthiest person I can be. So for me, I mean, we've all heard this term self care. And I think initially when that word started going around, people were like, what the, I mean, the word self sure. Sounds like selfish. You know, I think, but I think we're getting over that. I think we're recognizing, you know, what, the more we take care of ourselves, the more we have to give others. So one thing that that I've started doing is a morning ritual, which includes prayer and reading and exercise. And yesterday I missed out ritual and I think it was part of why I was sticky with my daughter at 6:00 PM in the evening. So that's a ritual that I'm pretty faithful yesterday was just crazy. And I didn't, but that's a ritual that I would've told my older corporate self look, you, this is important. It's a, yes, it's important to spend time with your kids, but what value is that time? If you're a cranky, you know, jerk during that time. So the way that I, that I stay centered and stay healthy is at least in part this morning, this morning ritual. So that's one thing.
(18:05): Oh, that's great. One thing I was, when I was asking the question on your eulogy, that your long term vision, that idea, how often do you revisit it? I mentioned to you in previous conversation about hiring a coach to help me grow my business. I still have, you know, my executive coach, but this was a coach that help scale and in mindsets and things like that, I do have a morning routine, but I haven't been because of the leadership or the advice of this new coach was to incorporate some like vision thinking mindset into it. So I too, in prayer, I'm reading my morning team, but now I'm actually daily doing some like vision boards. So for you, if you could pull in maybe a paragraph or two from your eulogy and pull it into your morning routine, I've found since I've been doing this and whatever, it's been five months, six months, that's been a significant game game changer because I feel I show up differently throughout the day. I'm showing up almost like as my future self would, like, I believe more in my coaching abilities, my parent abilities, my husband abilities, because, you know, I've, I've been kind of sitting in that in the morning. So if that could be of help to you, then go for it.
(19:29): Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. What was it Napoleon Hill's think and grow rich where he talks about just the importance every day of being really clear about what you want, you know, out of life and just the habit of saying it, or at least reading it every day somehow makes it happen. You know, not always, but, but often. And I think that's really good advice. I'll definitely be thinking about how I can incorporate that.
(20:01): Well, and for some who listening, it may kind of like, like woo stuff, kind of weird, like say it, but what I've heard. And I even seen in my own life, if I continually tell myself what I want working towards that, then I'm more likely going in that direction. If I don't, I'm more of, I don't want to say victim, but lack of other words right now, more victim to other people's wants. And before, you know, it, I'm a buoy in the water, just kind of bouncing around to what anyone else wants as opposed to staying straight. You know, my ship is pointing in the right direction.
(20:36): Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
(20:39): So, yeah, that's just, it's just fun to talk about why I love that idea of being your best self and taking a good self care. We have talked a little bit about kind of the quarantine and what that's looked like because of quarantine. Are there new rhythms that you are doing personally or your family's doing that you want to keep as school gets back and, you know, just more and more kind of old schedule started to show back up that you're going to hold on to
(21:07): One of the gifts that has come from co, but I heard it, I heard a guy say, you know, at least, I mean, I think people are cautiously venturing out a little bit more than they were back in April of 2020. You know, back then this, the speakers said, you know, we've, we've all been sort of forced into this, this monasticism, you know, living in our little cell where we're having to pick up, it's like this forced monasticism forced to be monks. And one part of that that I've really come to value is just the importance of staying home. Like, I, I mean, I love travel as much as anybody and, and intentional travel can obviously be a great benefit and part of the richness of life. But I think I was just mindlessly, you know, going places, the coffee shop the store, the other store, the third store, you know, and, and, and we, in this environment, every trip is more intentional.
(22:11): You gotta grab the mask, get, gotta grab the hand sanitizer like you, when you are going someplace. Now you're thinking about it a little more, you know, can I be socially distant in this, in this setting? And so because of that, we've, as a family have just become more deliberate about the comings and goings that we do. Whereas before we were pretty mindless about it, now we, we choose like, okay, we're doing this, you know? And I just, and just, and also we were just home more, we just stay home more and it has made for a simpler, less hectic lifestyle. And that's something I want to keep, not that I don't ever want to go to a coffee shop again. Of course I do. But just be like, don't go, go, go. Like, think about it. What are you, what do you, what do you want to accomplish today? And how does, how does getting into a car serve or not serve that purpose? I think that's been really valuable.
(23:08): Yup. Yeah. I love that. We are, we're in the same boat where I think sometimes we don't leave because of the hectic, the things we got to put on, you know, things we've got to do. And I do know we've also one thing that in the beginning, Holly and I would not do a go on dates cause of COVID. Now it's now we're going. And you know, restaurants are open at least here in Ohio. And so we're able to do, to do our, our dates every couple of weeks and keep that rhythm going. So
(23:38): If I can piggyback off of that, Corey, I had a, a ritual or a habit of hanging out with with a buddy once a month. Typically I would, I would make sure that I got that. I would connect with a friend at least once a month. And typically we'd go to a pub, you know, have a beer together. Well, because there was so much anxiety about that. I mean, some of the biggest hotspots for a COVID in Michigan have been bars because of that. A number of times now, I think it's been three times now. I've actually gone on a walk with a buddy. Can you believe this? I can't believe I'm saying this. We go, we go to a Walker as a 1920. I know it's like walk around a Lake for four miles. So it's about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. That's a four mile loop. And then we typically will have a drink or something at the end of it. But it's been such a healthier way of doing it than just sitting in a pub, like to get out and actually walk, get your blood moving a little bit. So that's been awesome. That too is something that I'd love to keep.
(24:40): Oh, man, I love that. Well, in the book I talk about the five capitals, right? Spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual, and financial. And so often I'm encouraging well myself, but also just friends clients is how can you do a few at a time? So if you can actually go for a walk relationally, connect with a buddy and have some fun, obviously, you know, there's some spiritual element in that depends on the conversation as well as intellectual growth. I mean, that's a, that's fine. That's a home run and that's all it is. What's so fun to get to do that and have those conversations. Yeah. Speaking of the book went home first in there and talking about how to write a vision. It's a little bit different than what we talked about at the very beginning and that whole big eulogy. This was about more, just a vision statement.
(25:24): And I use a framework of these five PS, but I use you as the, the example. And so anyone who's read the book, this is, this is the Chad Allen that I talk about for passions and everything I said in the book, I truly meant where, when I called you out of the blue, you're referred to him by someone we both know Todd Henry who said, Oh, he'll help you get the book and help you get across the finish line. When I called you. It was, I mean, your questions of what happens if you don't write the book, what happened? You know, what do you want to happen if you do write the book? And it was just these neat questions that you weren't trying to just sell me to get me to hire you as a coach. It was helping me really process and think through about my next project.
(26:11): So I used that your passion and that's you and your passions, I feel deeply called to help creative people do their best work. And she said short, concise sentence. That means a ton. So I just loved that. And I think that's neat how you embody your vision throughout. Is that a, that vision statement? Do you find yourself going to that a lot, a little bit as a RA RA or, Hey, I've got a prospect calling. I got to remember this. I can't think financial capital. I can't think maybe scarcity or I've had a bad month. I've got to think, Hey, I'm here to serve. Is that how you get yourself fired up for calls?
(26:48): Yeah, absolutely. So, so whether you call it a vision statement or somebody else might call it a why statement, I've heard them called power statements, but it's just a short sentence that gets at the heart of why you're doing what you're doing. So when the going gets tough, because the going always gets tough. You have something to go back to. So that, that statement really came from what back when I was blogging, I was still in my corporate job and I was blogging early in the morning. I get up sometimes four 30 in the morning and go to a coffee shop in blog. And so four o'clock would row would roll around and I'd have to get myself out of bed. And I remember, you know, when the alarm went off, I remember going, I feel deeply called up creative people do their best work.
(27:38): I feel deeply called to help creative people do their best work. And I say that enough times that eventually my right foot would come out of the bed and I'd get up and go, you know, so yeah, it is a call to arms. It's a reminder, it's a way to just quickly get, get on task and, and, you know, onto to the work that I feel called to do in the world. So, so that's a, that's an easy one for people to, to develop for themselves, you know, steal mine or adjust mine. If it's helpful, I feel deeply called to help creative people do their best work. What do you feel deeply called to and how would you say that in a quick, easy to remember sentence and just keep going back to that and it'll help you accomplish more than you would otherwise.
(28:24): So good. I'll put in the show notes for listeners, those five PS and how to get access to them and even did a podcast earlier in regard to setting that up. So I think that'd be very helpful. So going back to when you got a four 30, why were you getting up at four 30? Like, why were you doing that? What was the, the edge, you know, the, the need to get up and do that?
(28:46): Yeah. Well, a few, a few things kind of converged into that decision. I had been thinking about blogging for a long time, had some things I wanted to say. I had some creative expression that wanted to come out. I wanted to talk to writers because in my corporate job at Baker, a big part of my role was saying no to writers. And I wanted a place to say yes to writers, and I knew my blog could help me do that. And I had just read platform, the book platform, how to get noticed in a noisy world. And so those things came together and I started blogging and one thing led to another and that I can draw a pretty clear line from those first blog posts to the work that I'm doing today. I just felt this calling. And so that's why I was getting up at four 30. So yeah. And I love talking
(29:42): To people. And even on this podcast, by that time, you kind of hand over your story for a greater story. And I think that it sounds like that's a lot of it where you've left the corporate identity, the, the corporate call security, obviously sometimes there's not security and corporate anymore, but just that salary, the insurance, there's all those pieces. You're like you put that aside to fall this calling of coming in and helping those creative people get their word out to the world.
(30:11): Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. I, my, my story that I gave away, like as, just as you gave your story away is I was tired of saying no to writers. And so I started saying yes with the blog that led to a product called book proposal Academy, which led to coaching, which led to a membership site and so on and so forth. Now my whole life, you know, or at least my work life is one big, yes, to writers. You can do this. What you have to say matters your message or your story.
(30:48): We need to hear them.
(30:49): And let me help you, let me help you reach as big an audience as possible. And let me help you get published either self published or traditionally published. So, and it really all comes from frustration, really frustration with how the, the deck is stacked against writers and wanting to subvert that for the sake of writers and, and helping them get their message into the world. So Todd Henry says that he he's an arms dealer for the creative revolution or something like that. I really resonate with that. I mean, there's something really subversive about, okay, let's, let's see what we can do to build this audience. Let's see what we can do to help you reach this, this group of people that you want to serve. Let's make that happen, despite how the, the, the odds are against you, let's make it happen. And there's something revolutionary and exciting and subversive about that. That gets me all excited. Yeah. And
(31:50): I think there's, there's gold in that word frustration, you mentioned from the standpoint, I think that's when many people kind of, when they hit that frustration point is to look inside that, what, why are you frustrated? What is the opportunity inside that frustration? And to go do something different? I mean, I think that's true of anyone who's course corrected. They were frustrated about something, maybe it's a career or as a relationship. And then by attacking it from a different angle, another way there was breakthrough, as opposed to sitting and allowing that just to defeat you and my life sucks. And it's, this is just who I am and accepting that lie. And in there for now, you just become complacent with it. It's whatever you're frustrating, your life, job relationship, financial situation, physical ability, just look at it and how from a different angle, do we get breakthrough and new opportunities? And I think that's so powerful hearing you talk about that.
(32:50): I mean, obviously there are some times things to run away from, you know, like it could be that you have a, you know, a really toxic relationship with your boss or something, but it's also good to have a sense of what you're running toward, you know, so sure that run away from the things that you need to run away from, but make sure you're running towards something, make sure that, that frustration, isn't just I'm gonna blow this whole thing up and move on, but you actually have a constructive vision for, for what you want to pursue. And you'll often you'll get a lot further that way, if you not only know what you're running away from, but you're, but also what you're running towards.
(33:34): Yeah. I love that putting you on the spot here. So selfishly, but you were in, in every single sentence and pretty much that went home first book. Is there something that you took away that you got out of it versus other projects that you've done? You've, you've obviously helped a lot of books, much more successful than mine. What, what was helped you out this book that other listeners need even here in case they never do read the book?
(34:00): I really loved, I loved the five capitals and the one that really resonated with me was actually the intellectual capital and thinking about how can I put together a plan for my intellectual progress and development. That's going to help me have more focus and be better prepared for the projects that are coming up. I love that idea of being intentional with the intellectual capital. So tool that I use for this as good reads, both to track my progress with my reading, but also to pick books that, that I want to be reading in the future. And and so that has been a huge help to me in your section, in that chapter on how actually Jesus modeled, this was also really helpful. So that's the chapter that I, that I, that I, I mean, I resonated with the whole thing, but that chapter in particular stuck out to me.
(34:54): No, that's, that's cool. That's a, it's neat to hear you started blogging at four 30 in the morning. So from when you had the, kind of the initial idea, you started to take action for three in the morning. How long did that process take until you left Baker? Just start to be on your own. What was that length?
(35:15): I think it was six or seven years. So I was blogging on the side for six or seven years and began monetizing a few years in. And then that, that revenue growth reached sort of a critical mass. And, you know, our story is we started to put money away when I realized that I wanted to make, make a change. We wanted to build that security fund if you will. And so my wife and I had
(35:43): Really close to heart to heart conversation,
(35:45): What would help us feel comfortable making this move? So I got to that number. We had a number in mind that we wanted. It was basically a year's worth of expenses is what we wanted in the bank. So I got there after yeah. Six or seven years and she's, she threw one last curve ball at me. She said, well, what about health insurance? And I was like, okay, I'll go figure that out. So I went and figured out, how do we do health insurance as self employed people? And I figured that out and I said, okay, can I, can I put in my resignation? And she said, yeah, I guess so. So yeah, so it took a while.
(36:25): I love that. I think the encouragement for any listener out there as they hear your story, six to seven years is whatever you have start the process. Now, whenever it could be, whether it, whether it is blogging a few days here and there, or it's the idea of starting new business and starting the LLC and in getting your EIN number or whatever it could be just to start the process. I will talk to people who are just kind of frustrated that they want to do these things, but yet they never leave the start line. And to hear your story is, you know, just progress over time to eventually six, seven years later, ready to go. Mine was similar. I kind of started thinking coaching doing got certified before I was on my own, like all of these different pieces. So when the time came, it was, I was ready to go. So I think that's just great encouragement, an exercise I'd use. A lot of the clients is talking about the future and Hey, how can we start pulling your future forward? Like, there's no reason to keep it out here. You know, there are some things that are time sensitive. I can't be a grandparent until my kid has kids, but there's other things in my future I can start pulling forward. Yeah. So I love just hearing your personal testimony of that six to seven year journey,
(37:42): And it can feel, it can feel like such a huge mountain to scale. I remember when we came up with that number that we wanted to have in the bank. And I, and I just remember like kind of laughing, like, ha that will never happen. Are you kidding me? And then I opened a bank account and I slowly started making deposits, making deposits, making deposits. And then like, to be honest with you, my grandmother died. And she, she gave us some money. That was a huge deposit we could make toward it and more deposits. And eventually we got there. So I guess what I would say to your listeners is, you know, if you have a dream like this and it just feels insurmountable, like there's no way that's going to happen. Start, like you said, Corey, just start doing it and keep at it. And you'll be surprised. Things
(38:36): Happen. The universe sort of seems to conspire to bring you that thing that you, that you want, as long as you stick with it and you keep pursuing, it goes right back to the very beginning of what we talked about, the vision declaring what you want and having a mental and physical focus towards it. Just like with you, you are mentally focused on it. You were declaring it, you and your wife and going forward. And then the beauty is God provided along the way. You know, I'm sure you got an extra bonus here and there obviously, unfortunately for your grandma passing, but that provision, because you're focused on it, that money, you knew where it went, had you not been focused on you would have went and splurged that money and maybe driving a super fancy car. Right, right. Exactly. This is awesome. I can keep going. I've always enjoyed talking with you. How can listeners get ahold of you to write a book to get started on maybe if their dream is to do a book? Yeah. So if you just Google Chad Allen writing, you'll find my blog. It's Chad R allen.com and there are a bunch of different ways to connect there. So I'd love to, I'd love to do that. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for your help with my book and thank you for being on the podcast today. My pleasure, Corey. Thanks again.
(39:56): 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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