Hello, this is Corey. Hey, before we get into today's episode, I want to share something with you. I've been very fortunate and blessed to see an uptick in my coaching business over these last few months, and it's because leaders need help. So if you're one of those leaders that has found yourself, kind of in a rut, the working from home is difficult, your priorities have been changed and even questioning your purpose and kind of what are you going after. You are not alone. I put together a webinar called the power of priorities and purpose. You can find it at my website, Corey M carlson.com. And there, there will be a tab on the left. Is this for you? Click on that, watch the webinar. It's about 20 minutes long. You'll learn the five capitals framework, which will help you with prioritization. You'll also learn a process to put together and think through a vision for your life. And so I wanted you to check that out as a kind of a blessing and a go forward to see if it helps get you moving. And if you want further information, then we can talk about a coaching program, but you will find absolute value in this webinar. So I encourage you to go check it out. Thank you very much and onto today's episode.
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.
(01:32): Hello, this is Corey. I can't wait for you to hear this episode of Jordan Jorner Rainer. He is one of my favorite authors. And during this episode I ask him, how does he get it all done? He cranks out a lot of content. He has a fantastic devotional. He has books, he writes. And so one of the ways is by blocking out his time, he's very good about schedule management and how that can help you, whether it's corporate America, you're in, or you're an entrepreneur yourself, but how you can learn from there. His last book master of one talks about bringing glory to God. So we spent some time talking about how do we bring glory to God in all that we do, and also balancing ambition and our own drive and how we need to be checking our heart. There's so much wisdom. I've got so many notes on my paper from the talk and I can't wait for you to hear.
(02:19): So here you go. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Thank you. Hello, this is Corey Carlson. You're listening to the winter home first podcast. I am very excited about today's guest Jordan Rayner. Jordan is actually one of my favorite authors. He's written two books master of one, and called to create an a year ago after reading his books. I, I sent him my book to just say, to see if he'd retort to endorse it, basically kind of swinging for the fences. And he actually didn't fact read the book and endorse it. And then from there we kind of developed a relationship and he cranks out so much content devotions that are on the YouVersion app. He's got boats coming. And so, meanwhile, he's also winning at home with a strong marriage, three daughters, and so want to have you on, so Jordan, thank you very much.
(03:10): It's a, it's a joy to be with you, Corey. I love the book and yeah, I'm excited to dive deeper into this topic.
(03:17): Yeah. Awesome. So what is that key trait that you see leaders need to have in order to win at work and at home? Yeah.
(03:25): Yeah. I think the big one is just drawing really bright lines on your calendar and you're willing to give each of those roles. Right. So yeah, I know. It's I spent my career in business. I've started in sold a couple of companies. Most recently I exited a CEO of a very well-financed tech startup became chairman of the board and, you know, listen, I'll be there. There were times in my life where I did not do this well where it was very early in my marriage first year, my marriage man, I was working 80, 85 hours a week. Something like that. And just along the way, I don't know. I don't know where I learned this. Just, just to treat my time. Like I had a finite budget. It's not a novel concept. Right. I fixed budget and I was only willing to give X number of hours per week to the job, to my work.
(04:18): And you know, my work today is all about convincing people that their work is one of the most important things that they do. But I'm also careful that it's not the only thing that we're called to be excellent at. We're called to be excellent fathers and husbands and professionals. And so for me, what that looks like practically is just having a, this is, this is really basic. There's having a really clear start and end of the day. So every day my work day starts at seven 30 and I'm done at 5:00 PM Eastern every day. So right now we're recording this at four o'clock in the afternoon. If you asked me to stay on past 5:05 PM, I'm going to tell you though, and I'm going to go downstairs. I'm going to open up a beer and hang out with my kids right. Every night. So just having those bright lines is, is super helpful. That's not the only thing I do, you know travel's a big one for me. Right. So really trying to limit my trauma. I measure how many nights I'm away from home. I have a spreadsheet that tracks this. My sister helps me track this. We have certain goals there. So there's a number of things, but those are probably the biggest things that helped me win at home.
(05:22): Yeah. So after the five, five 30 time, are you looking at your phone again at all? Maybe check in again at 9:00 PM or, I mean, how do you do that?
(05:32): So glad you asked that. So here's my routine. So 5:00 PM walking down the stairs I go into, I leave my laptop upstairs. I'll leave it closed. I don't look at email again. I'm only checking email once a day right now from let's call it 2:30 PM to about 3:30 PM. And then I don't look at it for an hour 24 hours. Right. So I closed my laptop. I go downstairs, I take my phone and I put it away in our master bathroom. And I don't touch my phone most days from 5:00 PM until when my kids go to bed at 7:00 PM, I'll pick up my phone at seven just to make sure I don't have any urgent messages. And then I put my phone to bed. I try to parent my phone. I put my phone to bed about seven 15, seven 30, and then it is, it stays asleep from 7:30 PM until basically 7:30 AM the next morning.
(06:30): Right? So I've, I got a whole hour, hour and 15 minutes with my wife until I'm headed to bed at eight 45. I could have it super early to make sure I get eight hours sleep. Every night I wake up at 5:00 AM. I'm reading my Bible. And then my I'm in the word from five to 6:00 AM. I'm with my kids from six to 7:30 AM and 7:30 AM or a little bit before that seven 15 is when I go pick up my phone and they get ready for my work day, which starts at seven 30. So yeah, no email, no phone. When, when I'm with the kids, I try to be fully engaged and fully present. I'll tell you what Corey, that hasn't always been the case for me. I think I started doing that. I don't know, maybe a year into my two and a half year tenure as CEO of threshold three 60.
(07:14): It was just a really crazy period of time. And I don't know, I just got so convicted because I was so focused at work. Right. I was so present at work. My phone is always on, do not disturb. You know, I was just laser focused out of it and then I would get home and I would, you know, be texting colleagues for work. I wouldn't be checking email, but I'd still be taking calls or responding to stuff. And I'm like, this is crazy. This is, I got to win a whole first. And if I'm not being fully present at home, nothing else is going to work. And so by the grace of God, I don't know. I just adopted that habit. And I haven't looked back since that the game changing habits.
(07:50): Yeah. A lot of those pieces I'm very similar to, as far as, you know, putting the phone away, the one thing I'm not similar to you at all. And I know a lot of listeners are, is the block of email time. I can look at email throughout the whole day and I understand the inefficiencies of that. I've worked on blocks. I know you have an assistant. The is looking at the emails throughout the day, right? Yeah. Unfair advantage. Did you do a block before you had an assistant or?
(08:20): Yeah, so I did it more frequently, but even when I was at threshold and this is a venture that we were growing revenue, some quarters, 50% quarter over quarter, we were growing fast and I was a very sales focused CEO. Right. So I was, I was doing a lot of deals. I was doing a lot of pitches and I usually hear the email objection from salespeople. It's like, Oh, I gotta respond to emails instantly, whatever. No, you don't like, I don't, I know a lot of other sales leaders that didn't, so it threshold I had at one point I had three email blocks in my day, but most of my tenure there, I only had two email blocks. That was it. I would check it after my first 90 minute block in the morning, my first 90 minute block of deep work. And then I would check it again towards the end of the day.
(09:04): And that was it. Now of course my VIP customers, my investors, my team knew how to contact me outside of those hours favorites on my phone. And if they called, I would answer right away, especially my sales team. Right. But no, I was able to pretty effectively confine email to those two or three blocks, even with that message. Yeah. I think it, I think a lot of people are afraid of this idea and I tell anyone who's afraid of it. I'm like, just try it experiment with it for one week because everyone's fear is there's going to be something that's so urgent that I'm not, that is something's going to explode. And that's almost never ever the case. Especially if you set expectations on the floor with the VIP's in your life, with your, you know, with your team, with your boss, whoever it might be say, Hey, trying something new only going to check email at this time, this time. And this time, if you need me urgently, call me here. And if you do that, I can almost guarantee you're not going to have any, you know, seriously urgent emails that you wish, you know, you had, you had seen sooner.
(10:12): Right? And I'll talk with clients about that as well. From the standpoint before planes had wifi. Now some planes don't have wifi. And, but the idea of eight, when you would get on a plane, you have no wifi. Let's just call for two, three hours. And all of a sudden you land, what's amazing about the, all the email interaction is actually some of your team responded to the questions. And then you just take a look and get a seat, the whole series of 10 emails and see the answers have been provided. Maybe you provide something, maybe you don't
(10:39): That's exactly right. That's exactly the same thing as a text message, right? Like I think one of the things, most cancers, the productivity, or like group text messages of friends. Oh my gosh. Like I used to have my phone buzzing all the time, like text messages for family. And so I just decided, Nope, no notifications on texts. And that's a game changer.
(11:01): It is a mindset to realize God's in control. Absolutely. When we're looking at our email every single minute, we think we control our business, that we are the ones doing it. Yes. We control the input, but God's control on the impact of what's going to happen. And so there's a part of surrendering here that we all, and even myself, I've got to work on this. So this is my challenge is as a weirdo in this podcast is I've got to get better about myself, but it's a mindset of handing over control to God and stewarding the, my counter in a different
(11:34): It's very well said. I, you know, years ago I would humble brag slash complain about email all the time. Pig people be like, Oh, how's work like, ah, it's good. But man, you know, my teams always email me whenever and I realized it was a form of pride, right? Like part of me loved being pained with emails all the time because he made me feel important and made me feel like I was the savior of my team and that I was the one providing for them and they needed me to get stuff done. And this just not true. I'll tell you what, one of the most humbling moments in my career and I, at this point, I'd still, I'd gotten by the grace of God. I had gotten better on this topic, but I was stepping down and CEO of threshold was my last day.
(12:15): It was March 1st, 2019. And you know, I spent a year recruiting and training my replacement. I was confident we had the right guy, but still in the back of my mind, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to leave. And Monday everyone's going to call me back. Oh, we need you for X, Y, or Z. Or we, we, Oh, we need your peanuts. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. The business just went on without a peat from Jordan and honestly perform better with, with new leadership and a new CEO. And that was humble. I mean, in one sense, that was gratifying. But in the other sense, it was really humbling to recognize that like, yeah, people just don't need me specifically. They need leadership generally, but I'm not that special. I'm not that special in my team is competent enough to do their jobs without me constantly responding to every single thing that's in my way.
(13:06): Yeah. Yeah. There's two parts of that. Right. It's be that great leader that you are equipping, empowering your team. So when you do leave, they are stronger than they were when they got there. And then the second is the can't take our identity to work because when it goes away, then we, if we thought we were the man or the woman and that's gone, it's like, who am I? I mean, we lose sight of that piece.
(13:29): That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
(13:31): I like both of your books for sure. Master of one was a big eye-opener to me, from the standpoint of I'm an achiever. I want to get things done. Whether, you know, if you're an Instagram fan and you're going to three, so it's go, go, go. I say yes to everything. And even though pieces of that book, I kind of heard of, or thought of, or whatever the format, the way you put it, the book is everything we do, we have to do to the glory of God. And let's just say, we're doing 10 things. We can't do all 10 things to the glory of God. You know, maybe we could do five of them, but we can't do all 10. So find the five and get rid of them and then go with five. And I, that was eye opening to me. And then really for those in my life, clients, friends, where it's, it gave me another reason to prune other than just to have margin in your life, but to prune. So you could actually bring glory to God.
(14:26): Yeah. Yeah. You know, we talk a lot in the church about the glory of God. And we talk about so much that I think that the meaning of that term is lost on a lot of people. And listen, you know, scripture is clear. There are many ways that we bring glory to God. We, we, we glorify him when we obey his commands, but we also glorify him as John Piper says by revealing his character part of glorifying, God is just showing other people what he is like, look around creation. How did God work? How did God create God created with excellence, right? And when we are scattering ourselves across 10 different things at a time professionally, listen, I don't have to, I don't have to convince anybody of this. The data, the science is so clear. You can't do that many things with excellence at one time in one stage of your career.
(15:19): And so, you know, master one is really odd pompousness of a strategy towards what I believe is a biblical mandate, which is the pursuit of excellence in our work for God's glory. You know, Paul said in first Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do it all for the glory of God. So whether we're leading our families, whether we're leading a business, whether we're leading a team at work we're to do that, to the very, very best of our abilities because the character of God is at stake. And I think a lot of people tragically look at Christians and, you know, th it's it's, it's the proverbial guys that, you know, the Christian business owner and slapping a fish on all these people don't trust that guy because Christians aren't marked by excellence. And that's a tragedy because our father is perfect.
(16:07): Our father is the author of perfection. And we, as his children are just really, really bad imitators of his character sometimes. Right? That's what got me fired up to write that book is to call the church to a pursuit of exceptionalism. I'm going to be clear. I don't see a biblical mandate that we achieve excellence that we, because that you can get in a workspace righteousness right here, right? That God, God demands that we be perfect. That the whole story of scripture is that we're not. And that Jesus Christ had to die on a cross to save us from our lack of perfection. But I do believe the proper response to that, the proper response to the gospel is the pursuit, the humble pursuit of perfection, of excellence, of mastery, of whatever you want to call it for his name, sick.
(16:56): She had the five book deal. So you're writing books, YouVersion, Bible apps, which I love. And you crank those out. And and then there's more things you're doing both that I am unaware of. And I just haven't seen them yet. Or they're they're in the works to be seen how with all of that, do you balance bringing glory to God that it's not just a pursuit of achievement, like you just mentioned, and then just that ambition of let's go more and more and more before we hit record, we were just talking about the growth of both of our businesses and what we're doing. How do you manage bring glory to God, master of one with your growing business?
(17:35): Yeah, that's a great question. I think I see counterfeit gods by Tim Keller on your bookshelf behind you.
(17:42): That's right. I'll tell you why.
(17:44): I think that book's an indispensable resource there, right? It's one of the best books ever read. It's a book about idolatry and identity. Listen, I think this is a heart issue, right? I think it is really hard to keep your motives pure unless, and I don't, I don't think anyone's motives are ever entirely pure, but for me, I got to make sure I have people in my life who really know me and really know my work and are able to call me out when they think my motives are out of whack and where there's a misalignment, but when they are pure or relativity relatively pure, I believe that as Christians, we should be wildly ambitious for the work that we're doing in the world, because our work is a means of glorifying God. Our work is a means is this Jesus said loving our neighbor as ourselves.
(18:36): Our work scripture teaches. Paul teaches us all throughout the new Testament, sorry to get to theological, but all throughout the new Testament, Paul says that our work is a part of building for the eternal kingdom of God. If those things are true, it boggles my mind that as Christ followers, we wouldn't be crazy ambitious for the work that we're doing the well, I can't comprehend a life in which I woke up every morning and was just humdrum about going to work like, and to be clearly, God is naturally wired me to be ambitious in a previous stage of my career, then ambition was not God glorifying. It was Jordan glorify, right? But through that book, by Keller, through some other people in my life, I've recognized that ambition is neither inherently good or bad. It is a tool for accomplishing things of the world. And I think when we're primarily motivated to serve others and glorify God in the process and fishing is a great thing.
(19:31): You mentioned the previous Jordan or the previous time. And I guess what that would look like would be 80 hours a week. As you said, that you'd worked not having those bright lines in your calendar, maybe winning at work probably had not winning another areas probably did not have community around you, correct. The status of your marriage may not have been as it. Wasn't great. There you go. Fast forward to now were ambitious about a lot of things at work, but we're going to do our best to confide in between that seven 30 and five some nights. I'm sure you got to work late. Some weekends, you've got to get the manuscript fine tuned. And you got to work on the, on the weekend. There are exceptions. Yep. That's right. But having boundaries for those of us that are listening to think, all right, I understand. So I want to be wildly ambitious. I'm excited. How do I be wildly ambitious for the glory of God, but yet not turn the selfishly. Yeah,
(20:29): Man. It's so hard. But I do think, you know, I'll give a, I'll give a really simple practical answer and then I'll give them more complex theological answer for, I hope it's encouraging whether people listening are believers or not the really practical answer. It's just what you said, boundary. Right? Elicit Henry. Cloud's been talking about boundaries for 20 years, right? This isn't, this isn't new, but boundaries with our calendar boundaries of our time are critical. Like there's just no other way in the pre that practical insight I think is related to the theological one, which I want to see more people talking about like, it's this, right? Like we, I think a lot of times we're vicious. We're really ambitious for our work. And I think Christians could get hung up on man. I'm doing this to serve the Lord. And I've really got to finish this task.
(21:16): I've really got to finish this mission. Here's the deal. God doesn't need you to finish your, to do list. He doesn't need it. I died a more, I'm writing a book right now. If I die tomorrow and God wants that book to be published, he'll find a way to get it done. He doesn't need Jordan Rainer specifically, right? Just like you didn't need Moses specifically to lead his people into the promised land. He said, I'm going to choose Joshua to do that. Thanks for playing. He didn't need David to build the temple. So he chose Solomon to build the temple. None of us are that special. And if, if the work that we're doing today is on God's to do list and it really is truly in line with what he wants to accomplish in the world. He's going to get it done because he's the holder of eternity.
(21:59): He's the holder of the ultimate long time perspective as those Harvard researchers discuss in the 1970s. Right? So I don't know to me, that enables me to take a step back and say, okay, you know what, if that's true, then I'm more, I'm free to set boundaries with my time because it doesn't matter if I'm working 50 hours a week, or if I'm working 80 hours a week in the end, the Lord's going to accomplish his will in the will. This proverb says his purposes will prevail, right? Period, full stop. At some point, he's going to get the job done. And he just doesn't do me. I am one of a billions of actors in a mass grand narrative that God is putting on and controlling in the world. That's it, I'm one of many billions of actors. And for the time that I have in this life, in this world, I'm going to do my part. And I'm going to lose myself in that greater drama instead of what I used to do, which is making my career, the story of me, right? The story of Jordan. Yeah,
(23:00): No, that's good. And it's a, it's a, it's a both. And instead of an either or where it is, the both and of God doesn't need us, but until he he's told us, he doesn't need us until David learned that you're not building, it's going to be Solomon, all those components. We have to work toward the glory of God. And so is that yeah.
(23:24): So how does it need us? But he graciously invites us to participate in his massive kingdom building project, right? Like that, that's what, it's an invitation. If I say no, that's okay. You still going to get the job done with, without me, but I want to be a part of that. I want the blessing of being a part of that on this side of eternity. And on the other side of the attorney, scripture's real clear, real clear that our work has no merit in terms of our salvation, but it's equally clear that our work has eternal rewards beyond salvation. So our status as adopted children of God is secure regardless of how productive we are in this life. Right. But there are also rewards for how productive we are in this life. It's a, it's a beautiful dichotomy, right? The gospel is the ultimate source of both arrests and ambition.
(24:26): Yeah. Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you are joining it so far before we go back to the rest of this episode. I want to share with you my book when at home first, some of you have read it. So thank you very much for others of you. You have not. And I encourage, if you're looking for a resource to help you with these times of your work is now in your home and your home is now in your work. And what this looks like. This book is being helpful to many leaders like you whores magazine said it was one of seven books. Everyone on your team should read in the book is broken up into four different sections to help you versus about you. Understand who you are. The second is marriage in ideas and tips to help with your marriage. Third is parenting and the last is work. So these four different sections to help you recalibrate during this time and to help move forward. So if you are needing additional resource, I encourage you to check out my book went home first. It is available on Amazon, as well as audible and so on to the rest of the episode. Thank you very much.
(25:37): You've talked about it a little bit, that the Jordan story in part of my story was when, you know, God said, you have to hand over your story for a greater story. It sounds like you had that, but some point of a transition, I'm sure there's a few, but even just from the threshold CEO role to now, what you're doing is you're building basically a, you know, a company helping bring content to the, to the world. Was there a moment in there? Where is that wake up call. Yeah.
(26:05): So gosh, how many years ago is this now? I can't remember. It's 2013, seven years ago. I was running a company called citizen Vester. We at the time had, we were trying to basically build like Kickstarter for government projects. It sounds crazy, but like, it kind of worked right? Like we got citizens to pay money for public projects that they wanted to earmark their dollars towards, above me all, what they were paying in taxes. Crazy idea. And we're doing really well for a while. We were crushing it. We were in wired magazine. We were a fast company. I was speaking in Paris. I was speaking in New York. I was speaking everywhere. And at that stage of my life, my work was a hundred percent. A hundred percent of my self worth was tied up in my work. It didn't matter to me that I was a quote adopted son of God, who cares.
(26:53): It didn't matter what might be said about me. Like, all I cared about was what fast company said about me. Right? And we hit a really dark period of time in that business. The business ended up having a somewhat happy ending, but it got really dark. We're running out of money. We couldn't raise more. I had to go find something else to do. And I was devastated. I was the only time in my life that I could say I was genuinely depressed. I was lying to people about it. Right. I, I, at the time I would've called lion. I would have called it, spinning the story. Right. But like, I'm going to go move on out of things, but it was just blind. And it was about that time. I wrote counterfeit gods. The book I saw on your bookshelf by said, Keller, not a coincidence. That's sitting right over your shoulder.
(27:39): I can see it,
(27:42): That book. I read some other stuff by Keller for the first time. And it's why I'm so grateful to Tim Keller today. I talk a lot about this in my podcast. He changed my life. He helped me see the gospel through a fresh lens and helped me understand that my it's okay. It's okay for work to be a part of our eye sanity. I'm careful to say that, because work is so much of who we are, but it can't be a part of our self worth. And what we, what we think about how valuable we are to the world, that to God. And so that just rocked me as that was a big, big, big turning point in my life. And I'm just so grateful for Tim Keller's words and other people around that time who kind of pointed me in the right direction, more life-giving direction. That's good.
(28:26): Are you able to share what your first book is going to be about out of this five book deal? I would love to.
(28:32): Yeah. So I'm spending four hours a day where I need help right now. And I'm absolutely exhausted. So the book's going to be called redeeming your time, seven biblical principles for being purposeful, present and wildly productive. So it's basically, I think by the grace of God, I've learned a ton about time management over the last decade. It's basically everything I've ever wanted to say on the topic, but I'm only including things that I can clearly see modeled in the life of Jesus Christ. Right? So I believe that the key to redeeming our time is found in the life of our Redeemer. I think a lot of times we read the gospels, Matthew Mark, Luke, John, exclusively for theology and for ethics, but we don't pay attention to the fact that like there's stuff in there. If you look hard enough about how Jesus lived his life, right?
(29:28): He reaffirmed a good gift of Sabbath, right? He frequently spent time alone. He S he prioritized time of the word with time with his father, right. Above everything else. Right? So there's of time management principles that we can take them a life of crisis. So what I've done is I've taken those seven principles and then I've mapped them to very modern day practices. Right? So for example, Jesus was really good at ignoring distractions. Not all the time. Sometimes he would intentionally accept distractions, but other times he was like fully engaged. He was fully focused right in the, the, the modern day parallel to that is deep work by calorie and the genius. So I'm taking all these principles on mapping on a modern day practices and what will be a theologically rich, but Uber practical book, I'm actually a little concerned of tell my I that, that this, this, this morning, I'm actually a little concerned about how practical it is because readers of my first two books are gonna read this back. Whoa, like this is like, it's just a different speed. It's a different it's a slightly different feel. There's still great stories. There's still great theology, but then you basically get like textbook. It's like, all right, let's like roll up our sleeves. Let's pull
(30:49): Up our calendars.
(30:52): So I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
(30:54): Are you writing four hours a day? I mean, that's what you've got. You've got a block of time that,
(31:00): Yeah. So I write seven 30 and nine 30, then from nine 30 to 10 15, I go for one for 20 minutes. I come back, I shower back at my desk at 10 15. I do another two hour block from 10, 15 to 1215. And the rest of my day is more shallow work. Right? So Cal Newport talks about this in deep work. Four hours is pretty much the max that you can do with truly deep focus, work with your distractions. I try to stretch it a little bit. I try to stretch it to five, five and a half a day. But when I do that, I'm exhausted. So the rest of my day is email calls with my team podcasts interviews like this one. Yeah. But I I'm getting those four hours of deep writing time done before lunch.
(31:47): And for everyone that's, you know independent, I mean, based on you and your energy level is you found your mornings the best. They may need to do morning meetings or whatever. So, yeah,
(31:59): New thing I learned in researching for this book. So I read about 40 books, right? Or mostly re-read about 40 books for this particular one. And I finally got around to reading Matthew Walker's terrific book on sleep called why we sleep really dense. I've condensed it down to, you know, a few pages of my book for you. I always thought that like that everybody was a morning person and people who aren't, we're just lazy science has actually proven that wrong, right? Like about 40% of people are biologically wired to be morning people. I know they're 30% are biological wired to be night owls. And the restful summer in between. That was news to me. And so, because on my podcasts, when I'm talking to people about what kind of wake up pretty much like a hundred percent of people are like, Oh, I'm a morning person. And so I talk about this in the book, giving people empathy. It's like, Hey, you might be biologically wired to be a night owl. So you need to retool your day around that. So if you are, and your boss requires you to be in the office early in the morning, you should front load your day with email, with meetings, with all this other stuff and back load it with Deb. I think there's a lot of, you know, scientifically proven wisdom in that.
(33:16): Yeah. And they, you know, they say opposites attract. I'm very grateful that opposites attract and are, you know, bedtime habits in my house. Cause we both will go to bed early because we both wake up early. Yeah. That's tough with a spouse. Yeah. It is. I've got some clients where, you know, I'm talking time manager talking these components and it's like, wife wants to stay up and finish a movie. It's like, Oh, come on. You gotta feed. It's really tough. Yeah. No, I'm excited. When's that book coming out?
(33:47): Good question. So we're still new and done a release date. It's looking like October, basically a year from now. October 12th, October 19th. If you're interested in it the best way to make sure you find out about it. It's just a good, a Jordan rainer.com sign up for my weekly devotionals. That's kind of the front of my email list and we'll make sure you hear about
(34:08): Absolutely for the listeners, if they're great devotions, get them weekly. They're good stuff. Thanks. So what are you hearing from God right now?
(34:16): Whew, that's a good question. One of the big things I'm hearing, and maybe I was just thinking a lot about this week is this message of how bad hurry is for our soul. John Mark Comber wrote a phenomenal book on this topic called the ruthless elimination of hurry. Just pointing out that. And I write about this and reading in your time about how Jesus was incredibly busy, but he was remarkably unhurried. And the difference is you're busy as an outward condition, right? It's, it's rolling up our sleeves, get an exact, her is, is an internal condition of our soul. And I think we all know hurry when we feel it. It's, it's this feeling of constant anx of ambient anxiety that is totally inexplicable because we have no margin in our day, in this past week. I'm usually pretty good about having margin, having white space, having plenty of time to reflect and just think this week I haven't. And what God's reminding me is like, Hey, you need this. You need to be still and know that I am God, you need to be still and reflect on the fact that you're not holding up the world. I am. And so that that's, that's been a big challenging message for me to hear this way.
(35:24): Yeah. Let's say, and it's good to know too where you're writing the book on redeeming your time. Yeah. And it's you, you wrestle with it as well and you keep busy versus hurry and all this and struggle. I don't think,
(35:38): I don't think any. I know, I know because of sin nobody's ever going to have this problem fully solved, by the way. Apologies. If you can hear Taylor Swift in the background of evidently my kids just started playing Alexa everywhere in my house.
(35:52): I can't hear it, but just did a road trip with my daughter from Cincinnati to South Carolina and she got to go with me. So it was a coaching leadership mix with faith. It was awesome. She got to be a part of it. She's 16. And we did a lot of Taylor Swift singing and yeah,
(36:10): That's amazing. Listen, I I'm so thankful. My kids are fans because I can blame my love of Taylor Swift. Oh my God. My kid.
(36:22): Yup. Yup. No. So I can relate in the standpoint of writing the book went home first, it's kind of like, well, the home must be in perfect order. No, it's not. Which is why I actually was able to kind of write about some pieces because I've got to see it. So for you understand the challenge you've had with time now, you're, you're doing your best. You haven't conquered yet, but doing your best to move that forward. That's exciting.
(36:44): Yeah. It's a, it's a fun way to write a book where you're self-aware and I'm calling myself out in this book bank, Hey, here's how, here's how we should be doing this. But in reality guys, like, you know, it's not, it's, it doesn't always look like that for Jordan writers. So I think that's a, that's a good way to just treat life and leadership and anything you're doing in the world.
(37:03): Oh, that's great. What are you most excited about in the next 30 days?
(37:06): Ooh. something I can't talk about.
(37:10): Oh, that's good. That's good.
(37:14): I'll give my second answer. I, part of my five book deal is two children's books and one of them's already written and I wrote, I wrote it on a four hour plane ride to Sonoma, send it to my agent and he's like, Hey, no offense. This is the best thing you've ever written. And so I'm really excited about it. Helping kids see their current and future work as something that is God ordained. And it is, is a means of showing the world what God is like, right? This creative working God, right? Yoda, Genesis Genesis one and two, it literally says, got ceased from his work and called it work. We don't think of God as a working God, but it's right there in Genesis. Right? He worked, he expended energy. He was productive and that gives great dignity and meaning enjoy to all of our work, to know that the God of the universe worked and he's called us to do the same thing.
(38:14): Isn't that wild that you can crank out a book now, grant, I know it's for kids, but still you can't get a book in four hours. And then you just gave the timeline for redeeming your time book. And we're talking when you said October, I'm like, Hey, we're in October. Great. When's it coming out? And you're like in 2021.
(38:29): Oh my goodness. I'll spend, I forgot. I track every minute of my time. I can't remember. I think it's 400 hours I spend on an adult book. Yeah. Writing, researching, bringing it to market. It's crazy. It's crazy on the, I, you know, it's but that's what it takes to, I think published like truly exceptional standout content. I tell, I tell people all the time, I don't think of books as $20 products. I think of them as $2,000 products, because what you want is for people not to buy it, you want them to read it, spend eight, 10 hours reading it. And then even more hours really sitting down and trying to do the work. It's a huge time commitment that you're asking readers of a book to make. And you just, for, if anyone's listening, curious about, you know, writing a great book, you got to think about it as $2,000. That's what you're saying.
(39:30): Well, people always ask me about writing a book and I'm like, well, it's an expensive business card for sure. So you read it a year ago. So it's been a while, but selfishly, anything stand out still a year later in your life from reading went home first.
(39:46): Yeah. So I think a couple of things, number one, what stands out is just your transparency and willingness to be vulnerable as a means of serving others. Well, as a means of showing others, Hey, avoid the mistakes I made. I just have a ton of respect for that. That's a very hard thing to do to air your dark, dirty laundry like that. Secondly, and I think this is a simple thing, right? But just the very simple argument you made that you have to win at home before you could win at work in a sustainable way. I think it's a really powerful argument and one that I don't think a lot of people have really taken the time to internalize and really think about and really believe. And I think it's a pretty hard argument to refute. So I'm just so glad you made the case so compelling in the book and I was honored to lend my name to it.
(40:43): Yeah. Well thank you for saying that and it's yeah, it's neat to hear that for sure. And as we talked about this whole episode of just how work has its ups and downs and if work is our identity, if work is our soul part of worth yes. Happiness, joy, man. How that can have such, just a negative effect. So, man, well, I know we're up against already. I can't really, it's almost five. O'clock my goodness time flew. And you're about to probably shut the computer on me here. So let's just wrap up in a kind way. Thank you so much for being on the show. Jordan, thank you for your work. Thank you for what you do. Yeah. The impact you've had on my life with your work. So thank you,
(41:25): Vice versa. I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing in the world, Corey and I'll always be rooting you on from the sidelines. My friend sweet. What's the best way
(41:34): For listeners to get ahold of you. Yeah, very easy. Jordan, reiner.com, K O R D a N R a Y N O r.com. You can contact me there. You can find the podcast. He could find the books. You can find a bunch of free resources right there or yeah. Everything he needs right there. Awesome. Well, thank you very, very much. 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.
This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
