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 today's episode Taylor Welch. You'll learn more about him in a minute, but he is a cofounder of numerous businesses that are greater than millions of dollars each as well as he wants wanting to be a worship pastor. So he's a man of high character. And so our talk is one that's blending, both his competency as well. Character. Some of the highlights that we talked about is the importance of compassion with those that you lead. We talked about, if you look at the priorities of your day of your week of your mind, it'll just give you a better sense of actually what you really care about in your own life.
(01:01): We talk about the importance of enthusiasm, and then when you start to lose that, maybe it's time that you hand over the reigns to somebody else. It's a fantastic episode, and I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Thank you very much. Hello, score Carlson and listened to the win at home first podcast. I'm excited about today's episode. At the beginning of the year, I asked a successful female coach that I spent some time with, you know, kind of what do you need to be successful? And she's like, well, you need to reach out to Taylor Welch with traffic and funnels. And I made the investment. I did just that. I hired them to help me grow my business, help scale it, but in the process, I've just learned more about Taylor and his high values as well as high competency. And I thought it would be a perfect guest for the winter home for his podcast with Taylor. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with.
(01:55): It's amazing to be here. Thanks for having me. That's awesome.
(01:59): Well, to dive in, what is the key leadership trait that you see is needed to win both at work and at home compassion? What do you mean by that?
(02:10): So when this is actually interesting because I do not, you know, some peoples have these stories that they tell on every single podcast over and over. And I don't tell this story all the time actually, but when my daughter was born, so I have one daughter, beautiful wife, and my daughter's name is Kate and she is 18 months old and she is amazing. And she gets in trouble all the time. And I love that. But when she was born, I realized my whole life. I have thought that if you are right, then it does not matter much about the delivery and what you see pre 2019 is a little bit of collateral damage. And I know, I don't know how long you've been following me in my work, but there was some collateral damage pre 2019 people actually joke about it today. They call it old Taylor.
(02:58): Sometimes they'll be like, bring Taylor back. But yeah, yeah. It's they want the, they want the animal back out of his cage. But when Kate was born, I remember being like, it doesn't matter if someone is right when they communicate with her about something that she needs to change. If they are rude or if they lack compassion or they lack empathy, or the ability to affirm while correcting, then they are in the wrong. And it changed. It changed the trajectory of my communication. My ability to influence people, went up my ability to correct people. It became a little bit softer. And it's funny cause Chris Evans was talking about it this morning. We were on an executive meeting for the real estate team. And we were talking about the differences between an adversary and an advocate. And so a lot of people who are in leadership positions who don't understand this principle is they build adversarial cultures rather than cultures of advocacy.
(03:54): And you can, you can correct someone. You can call someone out and you can be intense, but at the same time, be an advocate. And that requires that that requires compassion. It requires the ability to see past the mistake into, you know, the intent behind that person and what that person needs. So it's kind of a long way to kind of put skin on the bones here. But compassion, I think is probably the number one thing that has been the key for me to be able to lead people effectively, which doesn't necessarily mean that I'm easy on them, but it does mean that no matter what I value their humanity while pushing against maybe their behavior, you can have both ends at the same time.
(04:36): Yeah. It's that balance of truth and grace, that balance of kind of environmental relationship. But yet you got to challenge them and responsibility. Just, you know, you brought up your daughter, Kate, it's just, you can't have everything again. I have the, you know, all the snacks watching that, you know, I don't know if they're doing iPads at 18 months yet. I'm sure they are, but you can't always do it. You got to pull back some. And so it's that balance. And so one thing I've learned from you in this whole process is you have multiple businesses, not only the tracking funnels, the one that I'm invested in and learning from you on, but also real estate. And I'm sure there's many more, how are you with the demands on your schedule, able to remain compassionate and cause sometimes compassions of function, it seems like a margin. And, but yet if you're running all the time, it's like, forget this. I get straight to the point. Maybe it's that old Taylor that you referenced. And so how are you keeping compassion to forefront?
(05:36): I mean, you can still be direct. I don't think that it necessarily means that it's not necessarily the compassion to me is, is sometimes about how you say things. In fact, the more compassionate you are in someone's long term, sometimes the more direct you'll become with them because the most compassionate thing you can do for someone is to tell them where they're failing. But the way that you communicate is, you know, is protective of the trust that they've placed in you as a leader. Also say that despite the businesses, the demand for me in house, I'm always trying to become less in demands. I think insecure leaders sometimes believe that for them to be useful, they must be needed. But the truth is the better leader you are, the less needed. Eventually you should become a, I'll never forget when I was a kid, my dad took me to all of these John Maxwell seminars and he would take me out of school actually, when I was, I think, 11 or 12.
(06:44): And I don't remember anything about the Chick-fil-A really, but there's stuff that got into you subconsciously when you're around the training that my dad kind of took me around. And I just remember one time, I think it was Patrick Lencioni. Who's a, he wrote the five dysfunctions of a team and whatnot. And he sent the barometer of a great leader is actually what happens when they leave. And I have no idea what this meant at the time, because I was a kid, but having now multiple teams, you know, we have close to a hundred employees. I can say that it's true because when a leader transitions into something new and the team still flourishes, that's a great leader, an insecure leader sometimes feel like for them to be a good leader, requires them to be in demand. And they're the, they're the man, they're the ones running the show.
(07:33): And we try to train that out of our teams. Like you want to always be replacing yourself because without bandwidth and cap space, you can't take on new opportunity. And so it's actually not as bad as you would think. Having the companies that we have and the staff that we have, I feel like as we grow, the less of my time is needed because my leaders are growing it to their full capacity and now I'm training them how to reduce their dependency. So I want them to replace himself. And when you do that, an organization grows exponentially.
(08:04): Yup. Now, so that's good. Your comment about traveling your dad's very timely because I just got back yesterday from taking my 16 year old daughter to Pawleys Island, South Carolina, where we had a, an executive coaching leadership summit for our, for our team. And so got to go with her and it was a blast. I mean, she sat in some sessions. So likewise to use, I know she did hear some things because we talked about on the way home, but we also got to hang out and be intentional with her and seeing Taylor Swift songs in the car and so good. It's all about dude all day. It really is. I mean, that is one upside of this virtual learning in quarantine. It's one of only a few, but a, that virtual learning has been fun in that regard. That's good. So as you continued to grow your business and launch companies, and not only just your own companies, that you've got equity in, but the ones that you don't, the ones that have bought in your program that you've seen them grow to six digits a month or whatever it may be. What have you been seen in them of how they have the ones that are survived with both work and home and those that weren't able to do it, if you were kind of watching, was it was a burnout that you saw, did you see it become their identity? You know, what was the piece when you look at them and you see some graduates or your programs, those that thrive both at work and home,
(09:31): Everything comes back down to identity. Eventually it's like water, you're gonna die without it. And everything probably touches it at some point, but I think the, the biggest thing is probably just making it a priority, which almost sounds so dumb. Cause it's so simple, but it's kind of like, what do you see in people who are healthy and they exercise well, it's just, they just go to the gym, they make it a priority. It's amazing to me how we'll say that we want things because we feel like we're supposed to, but when you look at the behavior or a calendar or some where their actual, where the meat of a person's commitment is, there's no recollection of what they say they want in their choices. So I have any great secrets. It's just, but I see a lot of people who make it a priority. And I see a lot of people who don't and ironically, both groups tend to say that it's important, but they don't make the same choices, you know?
(10:33): Yeah, no, that's good. I will get business owners that are clients and yeah. You know, marriage is not going well, man, I'm sorry to hear that. When was the last time you were on a date man? Six months ago.
(10:48): Yup. Yup.
(10:50): Or our, our, our work team is toxic. You know, their trust is lacking. Well, what is the last time you had a one on one meeting? Oh, it's been a long time. So yeah.
(10:59): You're exactly right. Or when's the last time you read a book on this topic? When's the last time you've invested any time? I remember one time before Kate was born, cause me and Lindsey, we had Lindsey is my wife, by the way. And then we went through some incredible lessons early on, which is to translate that literally it means we went through a lot of pain and there was a lot of problems. And I remember one time we were about a year in maybe a little bit less and she wanted to know why she was reading books on marriage, but I wasn't reading books on marriage. And it was, it was enlightening to say the least, because things that I'm interested in, things that I want to grow, I'm a learner. So I will typically invest time into reading about them and listening to podcasts about them. And it struck me that I was spending a lot of time reading about business and Javier I'm not spending any time invested into learning how to be a good spouse. And that was a great wake up call. This is the one simple question from the spouse.
(12:06): That's awesome. Yeah. Once again, back to the simplicity of priorities. 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 boat at home and at work and living the life to the full. So thank you very much for listening and back to today's episode. Thank you. Part of my story. Dialer not going into all of it, but this idea of
(12:52): There was a moment in my life where God kind of say, you need to hand over your small story for a greater story. And so that began a whole new trajectory of my life. And knowing a little bit about your story, love to just have you share those kind of moment in your life, where it's a handover, your story tale. You're trying to build for a, for a greater one. And what did that look like? I mean, I grew up my whole life wanting to be a pastor from his early, as I can remember, wanted to work in the church, work in the ministry. I eventually got what I wanted in Memphis, Tennessee. This is probably 2010, 2011. And I got a job at my home church that I had grown up in. And I don't know how familiar you are with like the music scene in the worship scene in ministry very or not so much.
(13:46): I mean, yes, I listened to it. I, I don't know how it feels, you know, like I'll just go all the way in, but like, you know, Hillsong grew up listening to Hillsong music and had always wanted to be that and started leading worship and then became full time leading worship and writing songs and doing what I wanted to do. And I think ultimately that vision of myself at a certain point, it became almost toxic to me because I, I started to develop like they never know when you, like, you want something too much. Right. And we talked a little bit about that identity piece, right? It becomes the striving. It's like, you're not happy unless you have something that you do not have. It's like you want, you're still committed to a certain outcome that you can no longer enjoy the process. And sometimes this is something where it's like, you just need to upgrade who you are, you know, you need to upgrade, but sometimes it's like, you need to let something go so that something new can come in.
(14:49): And you know, like I think that people have a couple, maybe three, four, five in their lifetimes where it's like all of a sudden you're like, who I am now is not who I was three months ago. It was like work speed transition. And that was, that was kind of a moment for me, I would say in 2000 late 2011, 2012, where I kind of thing I wanted my whole life. I let it go. And I just decided that if it was something that needed to be in my life, it would, it would come back. But it was difficult, you know, because I struggled with all of the same things that your audience has struggled with when you've put so much time into something and so much effort into something. And then it's like, you almost feel like you're wasting all of that time and all of that effort by moving onto something different.
(15:31): And later I learned out that there there's a term for this people call it sunk, cost bias. It's like a psychological defect. It's like, well, I need to keep I'm almost there. And I'm just going to keep putting in the time until it works. But I let that go. I moved away from that full time role and started pursuing other things. I didn't, to be honest with you, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had no idea. I got a job at a real estate company just because I needed a job, but I knew that it was, I knew I needed to move. I needed to get somewhere else. And that was a game changer for me, as you know, because it kind of pigeonholed into everything else that has happened in the last
(16:11): Eight years. Is there something that going on right now that you almost feel another nudge of handing over your story for, even in something greater again, when you said it kind of happens every three to, you know, three to four times in our lives, you feel a nudge and things you're pursuing now, or you're thinking, Hey, God may be speaking to me right now about something.
(16:31): Yeah. I don't, I don't think right now I'm in that transitionary point. I think I've probably got another 10 years ish in the current spot. I'm 31 years old. And
(16:44): Yeah, when I first heard that on one of your daily mind medicine, which is a, which is your podcast, obviously, you know that, but for the listeners, it's a podcast that Taylor puts out every morning and it's anywhere from four to six minutes and inspiring thoughts. But in that I heard your age once I was like, Oh my goodness, that's pretty impressive.
(17:05): Maybe a baby by normal standards. But I kind of see the next three to five years being a crystallization of just like making things we have to in the, in the business type of world, what we have to do right now is we have to kind of calcify the things that are happening randomly right now into things that are now happening by design. And then I think that the three to five years after that are going to be years of great abundance for us as we continue to scale. But when things get systematized, you're able to scale a lot faster without sacrificing health. This is what I tell clients all the time inside of TF is, and they always, you know, this cause you came through the process, but everybody wants to come in and it's like, you know, I wanna, I want to 11 X my income in three months.
(17:54): Like, no, you don't, you do not want to do that. You know, you may feel like you want to do that and that can happen. But the price of speed oftentimes is it just, you incur a mess. Things are really messy. And if you don't pay attention and clean up that mess, then the price of speed becomes your health. And you ended up trading health for speed and the way to kind of offset that is to really build depth inside of your team and your systems. And so right now we're capped, you know, we have, we have, Chris has like a dozen businesses he wants to acquire right now and we just can't do it because we don't have the depth yet. If you come into Nashville and you see our offices and how we're expanding, it's, it's pretty cool. And it's people are like, Oh, this is amazing.
(18:38): You guys are growing so fast, but it's probably a fraction of what we'll be able to grow. Once we have the depth, you know, 20, 24, 20, 25, those years are going to be incredible. You know, we'll probably, you know, we have a legitimate shot of crossing over five, six, $700 million a year in income between everything combined. But we have to build, we have to focus on health first. I don't see any major transitions happening. I'm in giving you a long answer. So if you need me to speed up at any point, you just let me know.
(19:08): No, I will tell you that if I need to, or heck we get in a week and edit these things out, the episode gets way too long. But as a whole, no, I appreciate you sharing those pieces. And you know, I know for many listeners, it is that speed for health, that attention, I'm glad you shared that. And even here in, you have to be slow to hit the brakes, even though you have access to greater capital. And even though you've got more resources at your disposal, it's reassuring to hear you talk about health and speed, because there's often it for myself, who's starting my business. I've been doing it for a few years, but not at that level to do those things. So I love hearing that from you on the sunk cost bias. I know a lot of individuals where it is all right in my pounding the nail to keep doing this, or is it time to move on? Is there something that you do in your life to help you say now is the time to move on? Like I'm banging my head against a wall. It's not just, you know, this is not just perseverance anymore. This has actually crossed over the line. Is there something that you do to help yourself decide it's time to stay or time to go?
(20:19): Yeah, I sort of have more. I think everybody has a little bit of a different approach to this question, but for me, my signal, if you will, is really kind of is my enthusiasm and my excitement. There have been crossroads in the past where I'm grinding it out and something is very exhausting. And you know, if we think about what would it look like if this were, if this were to work, I'm no longer even enthusiastic about that. Like, I don't even, my excitement has depleted to the point where I'm not even excited about the outcome. And to me, that's kind of a bad sign. That's, that's something that I want to guard myself from versus the flip side where there've been seasons in life when it's like, I am exhausted, I am working crazy hours and I'm pushing and it's taking a lot of investment and a lot of emotional investment, but I'm so excited about the outcome that it's just a, it's just a short term penalty. It's just a process cost, you know? And so when my enthusiasm tends to dip, not enthusiasm and what I'm having to do now, but my enthusiasm in regards to what am I trying to achieve when that goes away? Typically it's time to reconsider and reinvest that emotional capital into something else.
(21:41): That's great. Thanks. Quarantine has brought a both good and bad, just not only to the world, the economy, but just to us personally, what are some good things that you have done in your life because of quarantine that you want to keep? So as the world opens back up and we don't have to wear a mask anymore and we can go back to places, what do you want to keep in your life that this quarantine has caused you to either reevaluate? Whether it's a habit, it's a perspective mindset, whatever it may be.
(22:13): COVID-19 this sounds crass, but it was one of the best things that ever happened for me. And I told a banker that a couple of weeks ago, and he was like, man, I wouldn't say that to many other people because, and I'm not discounting the pain that certain people have gone through because of it. And I know that there's been job loss and there have been lost lives and there have been all of these things. But when you are shaken, the level of clarity you can get, if you pay attention, you know, a lot of people in the world will get shaken, but they're not paying attention. So it just creates chaos. But when you are plugged in and you're paying attention, there's nothing quite as refining as a little bit of danger, a little bit of trauma, a little bit of pain. Like there's nothing quite like it.
(23:03): And there's been so many things that we have upgraded personally, professionally I've gotten in shape during the season. My wife and I, we have, we were joking about it just the other day, because every Friday we make homemade pizza and we have date night at home. And we went about two weeks that we weren't able to do it because we were busy because the world is opening back up. And we were like, Whoa, I miss our date night pizza at home on Friday nights, you know, Friday nights, the night that everybody goes out and, you know, Nashville when Nashville's open is like almost 24 seven, you know, the nightlife people. And, but while everyone else is doing that, me and Lindsey are at home eating by ourselves. And just the best thing ever. It's like the capstone to the week from a business standpoint, me and Chris are much less involved in the day to day.
(23:55): And I think we needed it. Like, I, I really think that we needed a little bit of time, me and Chris to be necessarily disconnected so that when things started to pick back up, you know, we didn't have the fear of what happens if I'm not there making the decision because we were forced to not make the decision for a period of time. I think I could go on and on. And I think that it is indicative not of the circumstance because circumstantially, it was difficult, but it's indicative of my philosophy in how I view personal troubles.
(24:33): Oh, absolutely. Makes sense. I too have been a fan of the good side of coven. So you're speaking to the choir on that one and I love your use of the word shaken because early on in the quarantine process, the Hebrews verse of God allows the shaking to take place. So the unshakeable remain. And so I was going to that verse a lot, just looking at all the temporary things that I was putting value on, whether it was the busy-ness of my calendar and because I'm so busy, I must be successful or going to my calendar for approval or whatever it may be. And so for you to use this same word as is cool to know that that impacted you as well. Is there anything that you're not going to do going forward that maybe some old habits that you had, some things you were chasing mentally or business-wise that you're like, you know what, I'm putting a stop to that that was fruitless endeavors. And thankfully the, that shape shook up in ya.
(25:29): If so, I cannot think of anything off the top of my head. I don't think so. I mean, it might be another insight into the philosophy going on here because I'm sure there are those things, but I can remember what I replaced them with a lot better than I can remember what those things were. I actually can't remember exactly like something I used to do that I don't want, I mean, going out on Friday nights, maybe eating whatever I wanted to eat, but I feel like I don't have many vices. I'm, I'm pretty dialed in on like, what do I feel like is healthy in regards to where do I want to get to? You know? So I don't know that there's anything that's like, well, this was really bad that I was doing that I'm no longer gonna do. Yeah.
(26:14): But even that piece on the philosophy side about just paying attention to the good on, you know, on we're looking at what you're grateful for, where the wins in your life and not focusing on the bad habits. Definitely. He'll always talk about this with clients is if you're going skiing, he keeps saying, I'm not going to hit the tree. I'm not going to hit the tree. I'm not gonna hit the tree, the tree. And so, but if you stay focused on, on what's ahead on the slope, then that's much greater. So I just think that in itself is good insight. You're sharing in regard to that piece. Anything in particular that you're, that you're learning from God right now, you're hearing in your own life
(26:54): In regards to business, family, kids, fatherhood,
(26:58): We can hit all those categories if you want. No, but just whatever's top of mind, the most that you're really pressing into,
(27:06): I feel like I worked really hard early on from a position. You know, I actually I've talked about this before, but most of what motivated me in the early years of business was actually fear and insecurity. I didn't know it at the time because you never do. You always justify that what you're building is you're building for your family and you're building for this, but it's like, actually you're building because you want to get so far ahead that no matter what happens, you can never lose it all in this. It's a very peculiar thing that our mind does. And the ability even nowadays to live in a state of peace is something that has to be sought after recently, like I was talking with Chris yesterday, it was yesterday. Cause we were talking about tithing and giving money and charitable giving and whatnot. I was like, it's interesting to think about this because every time right now I write a title check.
(28:05): It's a lot of money. It's a, it's twice as much money per month that I used to make in a year for the ties. And I get to the place where I'm about to submit it. And there's a little bit of me. That's like, Holy crap, this is, this is a house. This is like, man, you know, and I do it anyways. And then I fill this like awesome weight off of my shoulders. And I was telling him, I was like, I haven't really, I feel like giving is actually like a warring spirit where it's like, when people get so hung up and addicted to money and they get addicted to surplus. What I've learned is that when you can go and give whether it's the church or to, and we have, you would have 20 salespeople here and they're always like, Taylor, what do you do?
(28:50): Like how do you make sure your energy is good and clean? And I was like, you need to go find a homeless person and buy them lunch. You need to go give to anti-human trap. It doesn't have to be church. You have to be saved. We have people here who give to churches and they don't even believe in God. That's the principle in action on this topic of giving and the same exists for time. We just had a conference two weeks ago and actually it took off and I was there all week. And about halfway through, I started getting grumpy cause I'm used to like having a lone time and I'm used to working and I'm, I'm used to like, you know, if I show up and I donate an hour of my time, you know, $30,000 comes out the other side somewhere. And here, what I was doing is I was showing up for free and I was showing up in what I felt was being unproductive.
(29:35): But the same concept of giving applies to time where you can actually give of your time to things that never pay you back. I just think it's a principle that I'm kind of just getting deeper into is generosity. These adverse in the Bible that the world of the generous gets larger and larger. It doesn't always like generosity applies to finances, but it also applies to fulfillment. It applies to peace and apply some of the people who are that they lack peace the most. If they would go to soup, kitchen and feed people, all of a sudden they would get this overwhelming surplus of peace because they're getting outside of themselves. I don't necessarily think that it's like, well, get around people who are less fortunate than you. I think it's actually a generosity thing about what generosity does to your spirit and your mind, and it cleans you out and it makes you a bigger person, like actually a bigger person, the world doesn't just get bigger monetarily, but you become a bigger person through what that act of, of giving does for you. Yeah. That makes sense.
(30:37): It absolutely does. And yeah, time town treasuries, as you talked about, do you, this is, I'm asking more selfishly just from my own tidying experiences. Do you write the check verse, do direct withdrawal just so you can kind of participate in the moment and that, and the prayer of giving as opposed to
(30:55): Yeah. Just doing the direct withdrawal. Well, mine comes up and down. So I do monthly, but I like it at the same time. If you can go to the gym, but there's no pain, I doubt that you are actually getting the benefits and if I'm going to do it, I kind of liked that Russel, you know? Yeah. This is my new weird Miami. Just something I do. Cause I'm, I don't know, but
(31:22): No, Holly and I are with you, you know, there's a time where my income was steady. Cause it was a corporate salary. Here you go. And so we did it that way. Then when it shifted into this business, it did become a check. But I liked that process of seeing the number and just being with, so that's why I ask if that is something that you do as well for that reason. Yeah. So, and I know your time is valuable, so thank you very much for being on here as well. I could, I could keep going. I enjoy talking to you and listening to you, but also, you know, wanting to be respectful of your time
(31:57): And you know,
(31:59): Listeners out there. Taylor has the daily, my medicine podcast that comes out, he's also involved in a handful of other businesses. One of which is traffic and funnels of how I met him. Any other thing that you'd like to mention Taylor in closing and how people get along?
(32:15): Oh, no. Social media Taylor Welch on everything. Instagram, Facebook, all of the above
(32:21): Instagram story a is always fun following you on too.
(32:25): It's definitely, it's definitely becoming infamous to say the least.
(32:29): Yeah. After the election, who knows what you'll do. Right.
(32:33): I don't have anything to do.
(32:37): That's awesome. Well, thank you very much for your time, Taylor. Absolutely. Thanks for Applebee's. 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 at corymcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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