Hello, this is Corey. Before we go to today's episode, I have some exciting news. I want to share with you. Think about it on a scale from 1 to 10, how important is it for you to get this next year Right? For many leaders, the answer is they can't afford to miss the Mark in 2021 because of the impact 2020 had on their business, their personal life or their home life. They can't afford to miss that Mark in 2021. So in light of all the tools that we already have at our fingertips, what else can we do to ensure success? We have found that one of the biggest blind spots of helping leaders and organizations reach their full potential is misaligned or mismanaged priorities. For example, when that CEO says, it's all about the people and culture, but yet all they're ever talking about is profit.
Or when that business leader talks about working at a healthy pace, but yet their expectations, you work 24/7. When you have misaligned priorities, your best leaders leave. This is why we are excited to announce the prioritize leader Academy. We recently launched this Academy in Cincinnati and due to the early success. We want to take this virtually to impact leaders outside of Cincinnati. This mastermind will bring together a few key components. The first one is content. This 12 month program will be centered around the prioritized leader framework. This is a proven framework that we've used for years with leaders and organizations. Second is community. We all know we don't want to be the smartest person in the room. And so this mastermind will surround you with other leaders that you can learn from. The third component is coaching, in between our mastermind sessions. There will be one-on-one coaching to help you implement the learnings into your personal professional life.
And the last component is this will be faith centric. We will be bringing faith and scripture into our meetings, into our content and conversations to make sure that we are all Christ-centered leaders going forward. So if you were looking for accountability outside perspective, and this sounds like it'll help you reach your personal professional goals, then the prioritized leader academy is for you. We launch in April, we've got limited capacity. So visit coreycarlson.com/prioritize leader Academy to learn more as well as some upcoming free webinars that we will be having to do any Q and A to help answer any questions that you may have for this. So thank you for listening. On to 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.
(03:00): Hello, this is Corey. You'll hear from Aaron here in just a minute, man. I am excited about you to hear this episode because we hit on some things that I know I'm personally actually going through as we did the interview, because we talk about the difference between being productive, as well as being fruitful, great discussion. There, we talk about really phones and how they can control us, or are we controlling them. We also talk about just self-awareness and having the humility to see how we are in interacting with other people on how they are experiencing us. It's a fantastic episode. Hope you enjoyed as much as I do. Thank you.
(03:36): Escort Carlson, you know, listened to win at home first podcast. And today I am with Aaron Mason. I met Aaron a year ago at a conference bam business as mission, and just enjoyed our conversation that time stayed in touch since then, but he's also an executive who's on a rocket launch with a company where they have pretty much almost tripled in size in a year, going from 25 locations to 61 locations with nextdoor photos is his company. He was also a father of four boys married. And so he's winning at work, winning at home, and he's a perfect guest to have it here. So Aaron, welcome to the one on first podcast. Appreciate it. Corey kind words, man. So what is that key trait that a leader needs to win at work and winning?
(04:26): Oh man. Well obviously we could throw a bunch and a hat and pull one out, but I think one that I've probably found well in my own life, but also the, the leaders that I've admired and walked under and, and walked with is his humility. I think quite honestly the ability to say I screwed up and then change direction. That's massive. Also when I get before COVID, I guess hit, I used to be able to go around and speak at colleges and universities, kind of this next generation of business students. And they would ask me kind of what's that one thing. And I would most often recommend this, get to know how others experience you. That's a part of humility, but how do you affect a room? And I, you know, I think that's a, I think that's a huge ability or important ability of a leader as they walk in a room to know how other people are experiencing them as they're leading a meeting or a brainstorming session, you know, are they overpowering or are they empowering? And so those are the types of things. I think it takes humility to figure those things out and some curiousness quite honestly, to say, well I might be screwing up in some of these situations. Can I be humble enough to then change direction once I kind of do the digging to learn about that.
(05:43): I love that phrase, get to know how others experience you. So how do you find that out? Are you always asking questions? How do you not also come across as needy of hate? When I was, I, I was I in that meeting? Was that good? Totally, totally. Well, I would say yes. I don't think anyone wants to sound needy, especially like, like I don't want to sound needy, but what I, what I've done and kind of how I've cultivated that. And listen, I'm a strong personality. I I've learned that about myself, the Enneagram and strengths finders and all these different things. Those are big parts of kind of that learning journey that I've been on. But one of the key things is because I know I'm a strong personality. I have to surround myself within business, within life, within church, within community with other strong people that will speak life and speak truth. And so I've really gone after that, even, you know, when I got saved at a young age or in my early twenties, I went directly after guys that would speak into my life and, and tell me the hard stuff.
(06:44): And there was, there was some hard things that I learned in that, but humility, I think was key, but yeah, for me, it was surrounding myself with, and it doesn't have to be a ton of people. It could be like two people, you know, that you give the ability to speak that truth into your life. And I tell them like, I want to hear it. I want to hear it. It needs to be kind of harsh for me a little bit to wake me up. And so, but that's part of kind of learning and developing and knowing yourself is surrounding yourself with people. That'll, that'll give you the hard truth, not just yes, men that tell you how great you are, but you need people that are going to say, Hey, I saw this or I experienced you this way. And I think that was, that was the good language for me. It was, Hey, I felt this and that interaction, but how did you experience it? And that question too, you know, my coworkers or the people on my leadership team, that's, what's really opened the door for me to be able to step back and go, Ooh, okay. I'm way too strong right there. I need to step back a little bit.
(07:45): Yup. That's good. So first part is surround yourself people and giving them that open invitation to speak into you. If there's a dry spell or they're not doing that enough, how have you brought that question up to them to get that feedback?
(08:00): Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. I think in my current season of life, the last five, six years of being on a leadership team in a startup where you're constantly in situations where there's rubbish, there's, there's battling it out. There's, there's fight now this strategy, this idea et cetera, that's nice because it's kind of naturally given my day and week and maybe month and quarterly. There's these natural times for that, but there have been dry seasons. And so for me, a lot of times it has been the one-on-one discipleship. So quite honestly, that's a practice in my life where I want to be. One-On-One discipled by a mentor type or I'm a man that's further along in the faith than me. And so I'll always have that one thing that's consistent at least, or that one relationship that's consistent. And in certain seasons of life, you know, my wife and I just went through we four sons and four years. And so it's been babies for about six, seven years now in our twins who are our third and fourth, children are three years old now. So we're like just coming out of that, that dark season of, of babies. So
(09:09): There's some yes, exactly. So there's, there's certain seasons like that where man, like keeping up with a rhythm of discipleship and different things can be really, really difficult. But for me, I think I've always just said, I'm going to go get it because my wife, my family will be better off if I'm continuing to develop and if I'm continuing to be challenged. And so, you know, a mentor of mine many years ago said, you should never look the same at 12 months from now. Like you should, you should never be the same person 12 months from now. If you, if you're the same in this area, this area, this area you're not growing, then you're dying. And so I think that's just been kind of drilled into me from early on just to continually seek out
(09:55): Feedback. Yep. That's good. How does that look in your home, getting feedback for out your caring cause being a, a powerful leader coming in the house. I mean, you change the temperature in the room, right? It's that idea thermometer versus thermostat. You're changing the dial on the wall of the energy in the room when you come in. So how do you get the posture of humility with your wife?
(10:18): Absolutely. I think that is, I think working from home is even, it makes it even more difficult. I don't have that decompress time in between work and family that I used to, you know, when I was commuting or, or traveling for sales jobs and things like that, I had all this time to kind of get out of a crappy meeting or get beat up by a client. And then I got 45 minute drive home. I'm good. Put on some worship music or a podcast or something like that. But here's, here's something that my wife and I have always kind of fought for is we're both high communicators. So she loves to communicate. I love to communicate. We communicate a little bit differently, but we both love to communicate. So I am always trying to create moments and create time where we're communicating and not just, not just the, what's the schedule for the kids.
(11:10): What do you need, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's how's your heart. How you doing, how you feeling using those words, that language, that more opens people up to give more honest, like here's how I am. And then obviously I can spin that really quick. And she does the same thing of how, how do you think I'm doing right? Like how are you perceiving I'm doing right now? And so I would say for us, it's it, we really fight hard to be highly communicative and open using language. And this was newer for me as a, as a man of saying, how are you feeling? What are you sensing? Like those are, those are words that, that help draw out. You know, what's happening, not just in my wife, but for me. Yeah. They worked for us as well. They do. Yeah,
(11:56): Absolutely. That's good. And what's the frequency that you find yourself doing that? Is this a conversation you guys are on once a week? Is it once a day? Once a month. So we have a really good rhythm of
(12:09): I'm a morning person. So I wake up quite early. I get out of bed, do the coffee, start reading news and Bible and devotions, that type of stuff. I'm usually about 30, 40 minutes for my wife gets out of bed. Then my wife gets up, sits right next to me. And we usually have hopefully fingers crossed about 30 or 40 minutes before the boys starts stomping down the stairs. In that time every morning bar, none is our time to connect and we connect on a few different things. We connect on, Hey, ho a what's called speaking. What's the scripture you're reading. And then she has a lot of dreams. And so we go through dreams together and just, Hey, what's God trying to say to us in those dreams. And then we might get into, alright, what's the day, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, we set a rhythm that every morning we're going to sit next to each other and we're going to spend time with Jesus, but then we're going to turn to each other and start talking about, Hey, what's happening with Jesus. And then what's happening in our heart and what's happening in our dreams. And so that's pretty well daily. And then in the evenings, we're not too exhausted. We try to have a good combo before we head to bed.
(13:16): Oh man. That's awesome. What are you hearing right now hearing from God? Oh man. It's it's been a wild season. So I think, I think hearing, hearing from God looks a little bit different during COVID, but I would say one of the key things is, especially in this season is to give myself grace that's I continually hear that from God is just like, would you lighten up Aaron? Like give yourself some grace. And I don't have to do everything. And in, I think, in fact, I've heard this a couple of times from the Lord. It's less about the do and it's more about the, who it is less about the do it is more about the who. And I guess what that means for me is it is it's about people. It's about relationships and if that's God's focus, then that should be my first priority as well. And I can get so ready to jump into what I need to do.
(14:14): Here's my list. Here's the people I need to call. Here's the thing, here's the things I got to do today, but it's so much more about the who it's about the person. And so that maybe leads into something I've been pondering for the last, I'd say year, last 12 months. And it was a, it was actually a business partner of mine. He brought it up in one of our meetings. We were talking about productivity, productivity, productivity, and some of your listeners are probably in the world. That's just, what's the productivity, et cetera, KPIs, all this stuff. And he just stood up and he's this amazing, you know, young, amazing leader. And he just said, he said, well, are we called, be productive or we called to be fruitful. And then we, and then we just kind of sat with that. And then we're like, well, what does it mean to be fruitful? Right. versus productive. And it's just been a really good thing to be, to be wrestling with because I've really what I've found is it's a lot more freeing for me as a leader when I'm trying to partner with God to be fruitful, instead of just productive, right. Is I can get a lot of stuff done, but I might not be that fruitful. So anyways, that's, that's a couple of the things God's had me.
(15:27): That's good. Glad I asked the question. How are you defining the difference between productive and fruitful? I think we've, we've landed on a few different definitions. And it, I think a lot of it depends on identity quite honestly. And so, you know, when you're partnering with the spirit in your true identity in the Lord, and as a son or as a daughter of the King, you tend to operate more in a fruitful way or more leaning towards fruitfulness. When you you've probably heard like are you, if your identity is orphan or et cetera, right? Or from their son, right? Or daughter or daughter, if there's, if there's, if there's brokenness in this relationship or whatever, you start to strive, you start to try to, in, in business, we just, we, we start to build structures and strategies and, and all these different things to control the production and dial it up or dial it down and what's needed.
(16:30): And, and what I've found is that for me, if I, if I look at, am I being fruitful or am I being productive right now? Or, or what's the spirit that I'm working in, it really comes back to what is my identity that I'm working from. And that usually tells me what camp I'm I'm landing in. And what's interesting is I think over the last year and the times that I've taken a stop and evaluated that very thing, what spirit am I working out of right now? Is it fruitful? Or is it production? What am I aiming towards? I have found that when I stopped to do that, it recalibrates me towards the fruitful aspect in wouldn't, you know, I've become more fruitful in my work, in my relationships and all of those things they kind of,
(17:15): And I love this, and this is really striking home, really with me to see some of my questions I'm asking are just, they're also just selfish. That's the cool part about having a podcast is I can just ask questions so I can grow. And hopefully the listeners I want to learn as well. Yeah. I can fall in this productive camp pretty quick. The way I'm wired on Instagram, I'm the doer. He's been the sales guy. KPI's his number. Yeah. And I understand the idea of aligning my heart to be fruitful and try to think more of a son. But where I get tripped up is, is I still need these KPIs. I still need to know I'm doing the right amount of reps per day of whatever the task is. I'm thinking. Sure. How have you continued to have the KPIs continue to make sure you're doing X amount of posts or X amount of sales calls per day, and you don't fall in that trap productive and remain fruitful. What's working for you as you've been really pressing into this.
(18:14): Yeah, I think for me, it might go back to even what I said about the who and not the do is that so often when my production, when I get production minded or just, I just need to bear down and hit this number. Right. Cause I've got numbers, I've got a team under me. We're recruiting. We're doing these different things. When I get into productive mode, I forget about the human being on the other side of that phone call, or I forget about what is the need of the local owner or the person I'm working with? What is the, you know, and so for me, all of a sudden it comes back to the human side or, or the Tomago day, right? Like it is, it is the kingdom to be invested in the person in front of me, not just that I need to make 40 calls today to hit my number, et cetera, et cetera. But it's like, man, I need to make quality calls with human beings and honor the vision of, of Jesus in them as I'm doing it. That's really hard to do in a fast paced business environment. But I have just found that, man, if I make 35 calls instead of 40, but I've had real connections with people. And then typically my outcome is much, much better than pounding through and hitting the number. I thought I was
(19:32): That's good. I've got on my Nicaragua. T-Shirt obviously listeners can't see cause not on zoom, but in Nicaragua we went there on a mission trip, went there a year ago with my daughter and they are so big about people over progress. And I even kind of fell into a trap. They're like, Hey, we've got to build a bathroom. We got to go, go, go. Let's, you know, I'm here for a purpose. And it's like, no, if the people want to, you know, hang out and play soccer or talk, do it. And so people were progress was helpful there, but this is just a great conversation. It's good. Well, Aaron, you have, we talked about productivity. You've obviously you guys have been finding success. I mean, you've almost tripled in the year since you and I first met. So, so you, so you're hitting your numbers, but yet also being able to be mindful of the person on the other line so well done there. That's pretty cool.
(20:27): Absolutely. Yeah. It's been, it's been a fun, a fun year of growth. Really. It's been a fun four years of growth, literally four years ago, you know, nextdoor photos was a kind of a whiteboard idea. We had one or two locations and really proving it out. But man, it's high growth. It's, it's really been exciting, but it's been strenuous and difficult. And, and I told I told my partners and my friends I'm like, I don't know that I'll ever do a startup from the ground up again. This is crazy. But yeah, I certainly won't do it while having twins and doing all the rest, but it has been a big year and we've hit a ton of, you know, huge milestones and, and but you know, we've got, you know, big, hairy, audacious goals that are, that are 10 times where we're at. And so we're, we're always, we're always measuring success based on, alright, did we hit what we needed to hit in this quarter? You know, cause 90 day sprints are essentially where we're at, when you're scaling at the, at the speed that we're at. And if you stack up enough of those 90 day sprints, you know, you'll get to your Beehag and that's kind of the,
(21:26): Oh, that's great. Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you're enjoying 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 you. 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. 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.
(22:36): Well, you work from home. You are for a company that's on a rocket ship, as we mentioned, and you're also the director of expansion. So some of that heaviness is on you. How are you guarding your time so that you can in fact win at home and you're winning at work. What are you doing from just a time management standpoint for a lot of listeners who haven't really figured out this, working from home, haven't figured out even their leadership role. I mean, you've been working home before it was cool and trendy before it was cool or necessarily our dad's actually better. Is that better?
(23:10): Yeah. You know, it's funny. I would say a lot of it has to do with rhythms. And so those rhythms were really disrupted this year for everyone in myself included, but kind of one of the big rhythms for me is I want to be reading. That's a big thing for me is, is I want to, I want to be developing myself now. I don't read a ton of business books to be fair. I just don't. I live business. I do that all day and I'm constantly listening to podcasts and other things, but I don't read business. I wanna, I w I, I set up rhythms to, to grow myself spiritually in my faith. You know, maybe it's communication skills, those types of things. But most of my reading is around that is around my soul, quite honestly, and my relationships. And so that's a big part of my rhythms.
(24:00): The other one is getting up early, so I kind of have to go to bed early as well. So I'm typically in bed by 10:00 PM. That might not be that early, but my kids go down at eight. So it's like, I need a couple hours with my wife just to decompress, you know, whatever. And that's about the only time you get. So yeah, waking up early, getting time with Jesus every single morning, that's important. That's huge community is a big part of our lives. And making sure that we're, we're spending time volunteering at church and, and being a part of, you know, we've been a part of numerous church plants and different things like that. And I think being on mission with your spouse is a really big part of it. So while my wife is not working at next door photos with me, we need something where, other than just the home life with kids, where we are on mission together, doing something, and that was drilled into us early on in our marriage.
(24:52): And so it's, Hey, we're going to help build and get behind the vision of this church or this ministry or this whatever college group or whatever it might be. And we're going to jump in and do that together. That's one of the rhythms that we've tried to have to our, our, our 12 years of marriage now is we're always going to be on mission together doing something other than just, you know, raising kids. Cause you're always on mission in that. But so those are a few of the things that we kind of try to, to make sure are a part of our lives to help set healthy rhythms.
(25:24): That's good to have. I mean, you got young kids, I've got a few clients and even friends, but as they step into empty nesters Oh yeah. As kids move out and if you don't have mission of something you're working in building on together, boy, there should be, there's a loss. There could be a void if it's all been around the family, the kids and that's it. And if you lose sight of each other, yup, absolutely. We've talked about quarantine changes a lot of things for different people. And we've kind of alluded to change is going on with you. You picked up the move during, during COVID during quarantine. So you got a whole nother layer of change in your life compared to some of us
(26:06): That's right. Yeah. We didn't think that it was distracting enough. So we decided to pick up our family and move a thousand miles to the Southeast. We're in Charleston, South Carolina now. Yeah. So now you got communities with some family and, and, and you yourself got to go find some new friends, new rhythms of guys you're going to do life with. So that's a new season you're in.
(26:27): Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's it's fun. I, I was a college athlete, so I, I used to be able to just go out and, and jump on a soccer league and, and find a bunch of dudes to run with. It gets harder past 35 to find leads where I'm not going to get injured. And so, yes, we, we are currently just, I mean, unpacking boxes right now, and I'm excited for what God's doing and excited to be a part of what God's doing in Charleston. And I've already got some invites out for coffee or a beer or whiskey or whatever, you know, to, to find some dudes to really run with. But you know, the, the thing, my wife and I have moved a lot in our 12 years already. And the thing that God's done or the thing I've realized is every, every place we've moved is that God's already, they're moving. So you just get the plug in to the river that he's already created. And man, if you're open with your life and you're looking for it, he's got incredible people, no matter where you land, right.
(27:24): Show how much little control we have on things where w you know, we think it's all about us. Yeah. Like you said, you're stepping into a river, God's already got a few people in mind. We'll, we'll connect the dots and it just it's we've got to be obedient. We've got to put in some of the work. Absolutely. Yeah. That's cool. So what are you most excited about here in the next 30 days? Ah, next 30 days exploring, I think part of, part of this, this move for our family was we wanted to go on an adventure with God. And so I'm excited. I'm excited to explore, take my boys out and, you know, learn new things. You know, in, in, in Michigan, we don't have very much that could kill you. But in South Carolina, apparently the, you know, you got Gators and sharks and copperhead rattlesnakes and all these different things. So now I got to teach my boys, please don't touch that. That could kill you. And that was brand new, but I do think adventuring and adventuring and giving my kids new experiences, you know, we've never lived outside of the, the Northern Midwest kind of great lakes region. And so, yeah, I think the adventure and being on an adventure with God and being on an adventure as a family is a pretty cool, pretty cool and exciting thing at least for the next 30 days, if not the next year. Yeah.
(28:41): And even for all of us, I mean, just having that posture of always making an adventure, you've got a neat reset to talk with family and be the spiritual leader of your home to say, Hey, let's make this an adventure, but for all of us who aren't backing a movement, it's that reminder of, Hey, how can we make this season about adventure? And almost even that open handed, Hey, what's got after me kind of like, you have to go in there, literally open handed up, Hey, who is going to be on the other end of these emails or phone calls or whatever to get, to get that bourbon or whatever it is. And it's all a venture. And I think for a lot of us who are relocating right now, I was just thinking through, Hey, how can we just be more open-handed to what God has to say?
(29:22): Yeah. And that's, that's the way it started. Corey. That was, that was the way it started was, you know, mid, mid well, it would have been spring, I guess we just started saying everything's back on the table. God. And we were not planning on moving from West Michigan where we had landed and Ben for six years and, and we loved had good friends there. We weren't planning on that. We just were saying, God, how do we re envision our year? How do we, re envision our lives? How do we, how do we come and put everything back on the alter for you? And he happened to ask us to move to Charleston and that's a great thing, but you're right. It started with that prayer. And I think you can do that without picking up and moving your family and doing all that. And we've done that numerous times, but yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's a fun thing. It's scary. A lot of times to, to say to God, Hey, everything's back on the alter, you know, like, like what do you, what do you want from me and for me? And I think that's, I think that's always a healthy thing to do if you haven't done it in awhile. I highly recommend it. Yeah.
(30:27): Good. So how did this process have in Charleston? Was it a kind of you at first or did your wife go first? Was it one of her dreams? You know, I think it was, I think it was deep down a dream for my wife. Her sister has been down here for a long time and, and we've come down numerous times for Thanksgivings and different things like that. But I think largely I said early in our marriage, I'll never move to Charleston. And most Christians, no, don't say that because God has a really cool way of honoring that in a different way than what we think. And so anyways, I said, I'll never move there. It's too hot. I run hot. I don't want to sweat. This is, this is not my I'm a, I'm a, I'm a Northern Midwest guy. And so I literally said that and I think for her, she just let that dream go. And so when I woke up and kind of heard from the Lord, Hey, it'd be, it'd be okay if you considered this.
(31:21): I took a few days to hold that because I didn't want to give false hope or anything like that. I'm like, ah, maybe I had a bad burrito last night. I don't know. So I pay, so I prayed through it and yeah, when I, when I submitted it to my wife, she just said, Whoa, that's, that's wild. That's that's I don't know what to think about that. And so it took a little while, but we submitted it to, you know, wise counsel to our friends, to groups, to, to people that lived here and just said, Hey, I know it sounds crazy, but we just want to submit this. What do you think? And I think that's, that's something that we've always done in our marriage is when we're coming up to a big life decision, we take the people that we trust that are around us and we submit it to them.
(32:01): We don't say, this is what we're doing. We say, Hey, can we just submit this? This is what we're feeling or sensing. Here's some pros, here's some cons you speak into it. So we're not saying God told me this. Boom. Cause then how does, how does somebody speak into that? Once you say the, you know, the, the Trump card is, well, God told me this. And then you're like, wow. All right, well, I'm not going to argue with God. So I think, you know, taking that to wise counsel and just submitting it and saying, what's your feedback? What do you think? And we largely had a lot of thumbs up some good questions, some good things to walk through, but, and then ultimately it was okay, all signs point to this. Let's let's make the move.
(32:40): That's great. You made a comment. It took a little while that was spring and you are now unpacked, almost unpacked already in Charleston and we're whatever we are. Six, seven months later. My goodness, you guys operate a fast timeline and it's good. We do, I guess you're right. We do. That's awesome. What do you read? And you said you read a lot of good stuff for the, for the soul, for the heart, for the mind, any particular thing right now that you're reading.
(33:06): I love, I love this. My reading schedule has slowed down significantly during, during this year, I used to pound out three or four books a month, or at least try to anyways. The two that I think have probably been the most impactful for me this year. One is called unwanted by Jay stringer. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's a deep dive on sexual brokenness. And if there's anything that I encounter, Hey, that, that kind of is a part of my testimony of my story as well. But now having freedom in a lot of that and what I encounter in discipling, other young guys and, and just running into leaders and, and, and men, especially cause that's who I work with for the most part is the broken, the sexual brokenness and how it wreaks havoc on their marriages, their relationships, their leadership, you know, all these places.
(33:56): And so man, Jay Stringer's book is just phenomenal and it, it just talks a lot about the unwanted sexual brokenness and the cycle of it and how to, how to deal with that and go into that trauma. And it's it's a deep dive. I always tell people it's, it's a deep dive. It's, it's a good work, but you probably want to read it with a friend. So you can really dialogue that well, but I think that's a huge one. And then the other one I read this year is the ruthless elimination of hurry by John Homer fascinating book. I literally couldn't read more than three or four pages at a time because it was so convicting. I think for myself, what really stood out for me was the whole section on the addiction to phones and smartphones and just instant gratification and, and all those.
(34:49): The, and so, I mean, I literally, I could, I could read three, three or four pages at a time and I had some of the guys on my team, read it as well. And they just were like, Holy smokes, man. We're all addicted to smartphones. Aren't we? And we are. And so that one shifted something in me deeply. I'm still, I would say I'm still struggling with that. That's one area where my wife is just like put the phone down and that's an area of struggle in our marriage. If I'm being being real and raw with you, Corey is the ability to turn off my brain from being connected all the time, right? Email, email coming in, you know, text messages coming in about work at 9:00 PM and all this stuff. And it's like sometimes I, I grabbed the phone and calmer about this in the book that the phone or social media has become our way to just zone out.
(35:43): But the problem is it's still requires our attention. And if being present to my wife and to my kids is important than putting down my phone has to be a massive part of that. And so a commerce book, I recommend to everybody especially young leaders that just, we grew up, right. I'm 36. So I grew up in the internet age to a certain extent. And I think it's just become this, this third appendage. That's just in our hand all the time. And so anyways, fascinating book Homer, I really, really enjoy his stuff.
(36:17): Yeah, no, I mean, that's, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing both those things. You're also sharing the, the personal piece on the unwanted. Thank you. But yeah, I mean on technology, I think a big piece too, is, I mean, I'm working with this on my, on myself is really just that piece of control. Like we think we matter more than we do. Like, Hey, I gotta check all my emails because I've got to answer some email in there because they need to hear from me. And I've, I've had my ups and downs through dependency on the phone and I'm going to season a breakthrough. Well, in the fact that I actually went, I was in a mastermind group event, I don't know, a month ago or so. And in that there was some big talk about time and how basically to be a next level of leader, a don't be so tied to your phone. And in that man, I'm not looking at my phone and check my emails all, you know, I still get my text notifications, but I don't go to my email and that I always used to do that. And so, and then I don't do it in the morning until till 10:00 AM. And so it's just allowed for my cause. My quiet time is used to get distracted. Like, Hey, let me check my email real quick and then I'll read. And then before I knew it, I'm lost in emails. So let me read, let me
(37:32): Read the Bible on my phone. No, no, don't do paper Bible. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you and I could keep going. This is awesome, but I want to honor your time and be done. Aaron, how could folks get ahold of you to you learn from you or next door photos to if they want to take a location to their city? Hey,
(37:55): Absolutely. That'd be a blast. We are looking to grow as an extra photos in kind of every major and medium-sized market in the U S and Canada. You can go to nextdoor photos.com. We've got an ownership page you can poke around on there, or you can find me on LinkedIn. That's probably the best place, honestly. Unless you want to see a bunch of pictures of my kids, don't go to my Instagram. Yeah. Otherwise go to LinkedIn. Literally anybody listening feel free to hit me up with a private message there. I'm literally my job is to connect with people all over the country and world and, and figure out what what God's doing and how we can connect and run together. So honestly, look me up on LinkedIn, love connect. That's awesome.
(38:36): Well, Erin, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks Corey. I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. When at home first, I am so grateful to hear from listeners like you, that this content has been helpful. So now I would love for you to pay it forward. I want to get this message in the hands of more listeners. We need leaders to be winning both at home and at work, especially during this time. So please take a minute to share this episode with somebody you think would find value in it, as well as rate and subscribe as a thank you, please visit my website@ corymcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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