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. I am excited to share this next episode with you with Tim Messner. Tim is a very good starter. He's created a couple of different companies, but he's also very good at instilling a good culture and retaining employees and helping with growth. So we'll talk about what it was like leaving one company to the next and that understanding a two-part Coleen and great discussion along those lines. Understand that in order to hear God's voice, we got to spend more time with them and that idea of having our antenna higher to hear him. It's an awesome episode. I look forward to you listening to it on to today's episode. Thank you. Hello is Corey Carlson. You're listening to the win at home. First podcast today is Tim Messner and he is a friend of mine here in Cincinnati, but he is also just a wealth of knowledge with a huge entrepreneurial spirit.
(03:52): He is launched a handful of companies I'm aware of, and I'm sure even more that he has his fingers in, but about eight years ago, launched a company differential, which was a risk at the time, but then grew it to be successful ocean, which is an accelerator that I've been involved in where it's a faith based accelerator, help launch companies. Tim's one of the co-founders. And then just two years ago launched a, another company that is off to a, a very fast pace called a coterie and all while doing that he's as a successful marriage, very engaged with his kids. Always fun to see your pictures, Tim, that you have on Instagram of you, you and the kids being adventurous. So really winning at work and home. So thank you so much for being on the show today.
(04:37): And it's a pleasure, Cory. I love certainly loved talking about entrepreneurship, but it's a lot less often. I get to talk about one thing at home family and kids and marriage. And that is, as we both know none of the other stuff matters if you get that wrong, so happy to be here. Yeah. Well, thank you. What have you seen as your career has evolved? What is that key trait that a leader needs to have in order to win at home and at work?
(05:04): It's a hard one and probably I would've answered differently at different times right now. I would say it's just focus and intentionality, right. So, you know, I am wired to go hard. I love my work and you know, it's left to my own devices. Like I would work all the time. Right. Like I just, I really enjoy the work I'm doing and I feel called to it. Right. And, and when we are in spots like that, it's really easy to over swing, but having the, having the insight to, or just the discipline to be focused, you know, when I'm especially hard now, right. Like where I'm working at home and you know, obviously home is home. So, but being able to like shut it off and say like, this is now family time. It means like put the phone away, get it away from me.
(05:47): Don't be checking emails. Like when I'm working go hard, when I'm with my family go hard. Right. And the ability to focus on those both separately, I think has really important for me. It, it seems obvious and it's, I'm sure it's very common advice on the, on the podcast, but it's one of those things that's really easy to wrap your head around really hard to actually do. Like, cause there's always like that email or that thing or the, but what if so-and-so gets back to me or, you know, you hear the phone buzzing in the, in the corner and you just want to go look at it, but just getting disciplined about really focusing on like, all right, my family should know when I'm with them, I'm with them. And I, and I'm not going to be kind of half with them in half scrolling.
(06:27): So getting tactical, how do you do it? Because it is hard, especially when you are the co-owner and running the company. You're always thinking I've got employees. I've got to make sure they're happy. Oh, wait, I can't have a dissatisfied customer over here. How are you putting boundaries? I mean, you put the phone away for two, three hours a night. You're not touching it. What are the things that you're doing, Tim that allow you to, you know, be intentional?
(06:53): Yeah. I mean, a couple of just quick hitters, like first removing, like turning notifications off. I did that a long time ago and you know, even things like not having social media apps on my phone and you know, I think I only have Instagram and Twitter and neither of those have notifications. So the temptation is not even there for those things. Cause I don't have them. I don't get the pain thing, but certainly from a work standpoint, it's the first of all, it's the same. Like I don't have notifications for email or for Slack or any of those things. Like my phone doesn't ping every time I get one of those, which is helpful, but then tactically. Yeah. You know, I put it on the counter when I go downstairs, when I walk in the door and, you know, turn it upside down and put it there and leave it there.
(07:36): And like, there's a, for me, it's like, you know, we have four kids. My oldest is eight. My youngest is three. So it's, it's always frenetic pace. Right? Like there's even just eating supper, eating a meal is, is chaos. Right. And so like being like fully immersing myself in that chaos and saying like, all right, there's a point in time between when I walk in the door or walk downstairs and bedtime where it's like, it's just going to be go, go, go. Whether that's playing, getting through a meal, running the practices, all that stuff. But it's easy for me to like kind of compartmentalize and say until the kids are in bed, like, unless there's a mission critical, like, you know, thing that I know is, is pending. There's just no reason. Like, it'll be there. I can check. I allow myself to check after kids get in bed.
(08:18): And so it's pretty easy to say like, all right, for several hours, shut it down. And then on the weekends kind of similarly, like I give myself Saturday morning and I'm like, if I'm going to want to work on the weekend, I need to wake up early Saturday and work. And I'll allow myself to do that until kids are up or maybe a little bit longer, depending on what we have going on. But beyond that, unless there's a really big thing, I have to get out the door, you know, I'm going to shut it down the rest of the weekend. And I'm going to actually do like a Sabbath on Sunday and not work at all and having some of those rhythms. And and then, so that's part of it. The other part of it is like having a discussion with my wife so knows what the intended rhythms are. And so she can call me on it if I'm not doing it. Right. So it's like, Hey, why do you have your phone on you or thought you were not going to work this weekend? Stuff like that. So I think having, having that openness to call each other on that stuff, as well as just some really basic, like here's how I'm going to handle it. Yeah.
(09:13): Yeah. No, that's great. I love the idea of intentional communication with your wife, just for you on the Saturday morning working, if you feel it's going to be working till 11:00 AM kind of thing, just because you got a big deliverable. If you tell her that on Friday, then she's not going to be up, you know, pacing, wondering where you're at Saturday morning, he should be up here by now, you know, what's going on. And, but by telling her in advance and you guys talking about it, then she's prepared. So I think that's fantastic. You do that.
(09:43): Yeah, that's exactly right. And I mean, in general, we try and do that. Maybe this is getting into some of your other questions, but like I think the communication piece is probably one of the most important parts of it, where again, like Christie knows that I want to be a good husband and father, and that's a huge, important thing to me. And to do that, like, I'm going to need people who point out when I'm not doing that right. Or where I might be starting to swing too far to the other extreme. And Christie's the most obvious candidate for seeing that first. And so she has permission and not that I will never get defensive. We all naturally get defensive sometimes. But like, I know that her heart's in the right place and what's cool about our relationship. And our openness is like, she has told me on both extremes, like she has called me out on, it seems like you've, you're overextending yourself and you're not spending as much time.
(10:35): And when you're with us, your mind's not with us. And I can see these things and like, you know, she'll call me on that. Right? Like you're working too much. She has also in the past at different times called me on, like, it doesn't seem like you're going very hard right now. Like, aren't you supposed to be going hard? And like, as the wife of an entrepreneur, like I get it. Like she wants to know that I'm putting, you know, given my all into these things that are supposed to be like, we're banking our future on. Right. So the fact that she will call me on both extremes is actually really good. Cause it's not just like, Oh, the wife is nagging me. Cause I'm working too much. Like she wants me to help find the balance too, of like, I know you want to go hard and God is calling you to go hard. Also like don't miss being a father and a husband. So I think having both of those kind of conversations over the years has told me that when I hear from her, I can really trust that it's coming from a place of like, I want the best for you and for our family
(11:24): On the intentionality with the family. I love hearing you talk about that, Tim, as I'm working with clients, as I'm talking to owners, some of the part that trickles into there is okay. I love that idea of intentionality. I get it. But it's overcoming fear of failure. It's overcoming fear of letting a customer or an employee down, or the thought that you actually control everything. How have you, or what's the, I know it's not every do you, you haven't figured out, but how do you help with the mindset to understand the fear and the control piece in your own life?
(12:01): Yeah, it's a good question, Courtney. I think it's the, the, the answer, no one loves to hear. It was like, it takes reps. Like you just gotta put in the time and commit to like trusting, like, all right, I'm gonna create a new rock on my calendar. That's a Wednesday night. I'm not going to work after kids go to bed. Like this is going to be Christy and I's time or whatever. Like you have to commit to that and then look back on and reflect. It's like, is this bearing fruit? Like, is this working like, have I have I actually missed out on work opportunities because I decided one night a week, I don't get my laptop out after kids going. But like it's having those like reflections or retrospectives and looking back and saying like, is this working? How's this going? I think the other side of it for me, Corey is like, I've had way too many examples of God showing up in ways that I know were not on my power.
(12:50): In fact, I have a tattoo on my arm. It says not in my power, not to my glory. And it just reminds me all the time of like so many of the things that have like so much of the fruit that I see in my life. There's no way I can point back on it and say like, I did that and that, and that, and that, that led to, you know, these great things happen. The only answer in so many of these cases is like God showed up and has been incredible for me. So having so many examples of him showing up through my life, through my career, through my family, it's that constant reminder of like, Oh yeah, he's present. He's good. He's got this. And nothing I do is, you know, I, you know, I had this shift in mindset. I don't know exactly when it happened, but like grew up in a family that was taught hard work and discipline.
(13:35): And like, you gotta, you know, if it is to be it's up to me, like, I sort of had that mentality of like, if I'm going to have a successful life career, whatever, like it's on me. Like I've got to pull myself up by my bootstraps and like get out there and work my face off. And I still believe that I still believe like God calls us to go hard. Right. Whatever we do, we want to work as if working for the Lord. So firmly believe that. But I had that shift at some point of like, not in my power, not to my glory. Like, yes, I'm going to work hard, but it doesn't matter what I do. I'm going to need God to show up and I'm going to have to give him glory because it's not about what I'm doing. And I think that shift in mentality, both at work and home has been really helpful because on the work side that allows me to go, like, I'm going to take a day off on the weekend where I'm not going to work tonight and expect God to show up.
(14:23): I love that I did not do a tattoo, but this spring, I actually had a sign made kind of accustomed sign from my office that says your mind, not mine based off the parable of tin mynas. And as you mentioned that now my power and I'm a glory. I've had some scarcity mindset around money and, and striving, you know, really I'd say my whole life, but there's been moments where I've overcame it and it's been good. But when COVID hit quarantine, all those components, someone pointed me to that, that bearable. And so for myself, I'm like, like I said, I think the tattoo, but I got a sign on my wall that says your mind, not mine, because it's a reminder to all of us that God is in control. And you know, I love Psalm one 27 where it talks about those who labor do it in Bain where, you know, basically God's got the night shift. So I think that is, it's so neat to hear you talk about it because you have been a starter for many companies, but yet, even though you do the hard work each day, you're, you're releasing control as if God's got it. If this thing's going to launch then than here we go.
(15:37): I do think, you know, I think I said this already, but a key to actually getting to the point where you can trust him to show up as reflecting on where he has shown up. Right? Like if you're not actually taking time to look in the rear view mirror and say like, Oh man, I can see all these examples of even sometimes small examples of like what the work that he's doing in my life. Once you get to that point, it does get a lot easier to trust that you can put your phone down at the end of the day and, and, you know, really trust that God's going to show up, even if it's not in the exact way or you expect or need, or want him to. Right now, like over the course of a month, a year of, you know, a career like there are going to be way more examples of, of goodness than not.
(16:20): You mentioned the word reflect and just thinking about overall quiet time, what are your daily rhythms, Tim? Like, what are you doing to get in that mindset of being a good father husband as well as, as co-owner? Yeah, I think morning, quiet time for me has been key just especially, I don't know, maybe the last decade, but probably a little more than that, where I've gotten good at. I've always been a morning guy. Like I can get up and get moving pretty well, but it used to be get up and get, you know, start making the donuts, right? Like it's like right to work. Like let's go kind of thing. And now, you know, I'm pretty good at it and it's not every day certainly, but you know, more days than not like I start the day, you know, in a chair or on a walk spending time with God. So it's for me, it's prayer. Certainly it's reading the word it's reflection, you know, it's some, I call it meditation, but just being quiet and listening and like slowing my mind down.
(17:18): And honestly I used to be fairly like legalistic, isn't the right word, but like regimented about like, I need to do these four or five things in my, you know, 60 to 90 minutes. Like I want to check all these boxes and I'd have a list of like, you know, fitness reading journal, like all these things. Like I must do all these. I've kind of gotten to that point. I'm like, you know, this is my time. Like do what I want with it. Like, be like, let's see where God takes me this morning. Like maybe I ended up just reading the whole time one day and maybe I ended up on a long walk or a good workout. I just feel like that's what my mind or body wants and needs. And so I've gotten a lot better at like still keeping that time, but not being as like, regimented about like in order for your day to be great, you have to do these five things. Like I still over time, like to do a lot of those things. I find value in like journaling and you know, some of these things, but I'm not like, Oh, I didn't check that box today. It's not going to be a great day. It's more about like carve that time and space for God to show up in various ways. And just for me to reflect and slow down and like have some peace and quiet in an otherwise sort of chaotic zoom filled, you know, loud kids sorta day. And I feel like
(18:26): If you didn't do the journaling or he didn't do the giving yourself, grace, 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 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.
(19:40): I have a lot of clients that will come to me in part of our working together is they're stuck. And that doesn't mean in a bad way. It's just, they have this idea and they don't know what they want to do with it. Do they, do they pursue it? Is it just a wild idea? And they need to stay in the, in say the corporate setting that they are in, or maybe it's to launch a new product within the corporate setting. So just a variety of things, but they're stuck. So how have you gone from having an idea and decide, all right, we're going forward and what does that look like on your journey? So, I mean, first for me, I always say like, I'm actually not an ideas guy. Like everyone thinks you're, Oh, you're a serial entrepreneur. You do all these crazy things.
(20:20): Like you probably wake up in the middle of the night with ideas for new businesses all the time. Like actually don't, I'm not the person. And in fact, my journey to differential was one of frustration where it was like I was in a startup. I was early employee at a company called spark people. And I spent, I don't know about a decade there, all in including college. It was like, I started co-oping there. But by the end of the time there, I, you know, last couple of years I was sort of convinced that it was time for me to step out. And I kept waiting for lightning to strike. Like I was saying prayers, like, God put me in coach, like I'm here. Tell me what you want me to do. Like, I'm ready. Like put, let me, let me go. And I had some ideas over the time, but nothing that was like, clearly the like go run hard.
(21:00): This is the, you know, this is going to be a game changer, world changing idea. Instead what I finally heard really clearly and what I stepped into, you know, now on two separate occasions, it was like being called away from, and like I have, you know, come to, to believe like oftentimes calling is a two-step process. Like first you have to be called away from whatever you're doing today before you can be called to it. And sometimes honoring God is, is actually realizing you're not being called away from a thing yet. Right. And sometimes that's true. Like he wants us on the spot doing the work we're doing right now. And maybe that's so you can side hustle and work on a concept or idea on the side, maybe at sea, still just preparing you for whatever's next. But for me, and both cases actually felt pretty clearly called away from without knowing what I was called to.
(21:50): So I quit my job at the spark. People had some thoughts and ideas about like consulting work I could do and maybe businesses I might start, but there was not a clear like, Hey, this is the thing I'm going to go do. And so that was that was a, that was definitely a leap of faith, both for me and for Christie. And we had the discussion. I remember very clearly of like, I support you as Christy, you know, I support you. I love you. I trust you. Can we just agree though? Like if in six months you don't know, like there's no clarity about what's going on here. Like, you'll go get a big boy job.
(22:25): Yeah. But what I love about that is that you guys had a deadline, you guys had a set deadline of what it was, which you both had a piece about and you, you, and you would know if you had not made it, then you would have said, Hey, I gave him my go and you would have more likely had a piece going back into whatever the next thing was. But you know,
(22:49): It never came up again. Christie never once brought that up in the entire time. And it wasn't because things were perfectly clear and going amazing. And, but it was clear enough that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I think to her that, you know, what I felt from her throughout that entire journey was just support. Like even when I didn't necessarily believe in myself or that believe that I was doing the right things, like she never wavered in her support of me and never said again, like, remember that six month conversation we're coming up on the deadline here. Like it never came back and, you know, would it have, if it was clear that things weren't going the right direction probably. But I feel like she never felt like she had to have that chat with me again. And, but it was clarifying for both of us and sort of just having that Mark and saying like, okay, when you're stepping into unknown, let's at least put some rails around, like, what does unknown look like?
(23:43): What's the downside risk here. And it's like, you know, we'll not make very much only for six months and then you go get a job and we'll be fine. And Christy, I was working at that time also, so we could be on her benefits and, you know, there was a lot of sort of protections in place. So that worked out well, but it was, you know, again, it was same at coterie. So I was, you know, so fast forward things had gone well at differential and, you know, we'd gone through this winding journey, but we had a great company, great culture, you know, we're growing revenues and profits and clients and team and, and and I just felt pretty clearly and sort of knew this was coming, like scaling a service company while we were building a great business. It just never felt like the thing I was supposed to be doing.
(24:26): It felt like the right thing for differential, but not really what wasn't going to be a long-term thing for me, my partners kind of knew that, but I had this, you know, kind of point in time where it was like, all right, God's calling me away, calling me to do something like take a big swing. And I had a conversation with the team at differential just to pump the brakes a bit and say like, is this within the walls of differential? Like, should we, do we want to try and build something and like use our profits and resources internally and try and build a company or a product within differential. And pretty clearly, you know, the answer was no. For my other partners, it was like, Hey, we got a good thing going we haven't certainly haven't made it, but things are going in the right direction.
(25:06): And we don't think it makes sense to rock the boat. And I agreed with that. Honestly, I was like, if I was an outside advisor to this business, that's exactly what I would say. Like stay the course. You're just starting to figure things out, like focus. Right. And so that was it was the right conversation and it was also pretty clear, like, okay, I think it's time for me to step away then. But again, it's kind of hard if you think about it, it's like you basically, you know, I fired myself from my own company and said like no, I had this risky conversation and put her out there. And like, when it became clear, we weren't going to do that. I'm like, so I think I got to go. Right. And I didn't know what that meant. Like, you know, I didn't have, again, I wasn't like sitting on an idea, like I can't wait to go build this company.
(25:47): It was like, all right, I think I need time and space to go explore. What's going to be next. And I feel like God's calling me to take a bigger swing. That was sort of the thing I was feeling was like, I kept thinking about impact. And it's like, if you're going to step away from the company you started and it's going really well, the bar is pretty high on what you do next. Also nobody had no pressure, but I felt like, you know, this idea of like multi-generational impact was like on my heart. Like I want to do something that if it goes well, could go really well for our community, for my family, for J like creating great jobs. One of the things I loved about differentials, like we created an amazing culture and people loved coming to work. And I just, I just fell in love with the idea of great jobs for people like where they can come alive, not just in their careers, but when you come alive at work, like it has trickle over effect into other areas of her life.
(26:39): And I'm like, man, how cool would it be? If we could start a company that created thousands of jobs that did that, not just 30. And so having a chance to do something that if it goes well, could go really well. That was sort of what I was called to, but that was scary because I didn't know what that meant. You know, it wasn't exactly. I had some, some ideas about like categories and insurance was one of those and, you know, it was, God would have it. He introduced me to someone who was building the insurance company, but, you know, that was after I had already committed to leaving differential out, knowing what was next.
(27:09): It's pretty neat that in your story of calling it's a two-step process, the calling away the calling to going back to this calling away, just to understand more of your perspective on it. Because to be honest, I'm not very good at it. In the standpoint of, I was president of sales for a company I wanted to go do coaching. I wanted to build the business that I've, you know, and building right now. But quite honestly, I didn't have the guts to do it because I didn't want to leave this out. Right. I didn't want to leave the title. It took me getting fired to be the, you know, the, the kick in the butt to get going. And then you talk about having that deadline. I had a F you know, a severance package and my wife and I agreed give coaching to go at the end of the severance package.
(27:54): Go find, go find that corporate job, you know, like you said, a big boy job. And so I gave I hustle because I had a deadline. I believe this is what I wanted to do, but for me, the calling away didn't really happen. It took more, I had to get fired and have that happen. What about for you on your Conway's? What does that look like for that listener? Who is like, am I being called away or am I just, is it the pizza I ate last night? You know, how, how, how have you been able to help either yourself, but also just others think through, right. I think you're getting called away.
(28:27): That's a great question to me, for me personally, it was always over a period of time. It was never like overnight I wake up in the morning, I'm like up time to go to the next thing. It was like a sort of consistent pattern of like, feeling like I was hearing from God in different ways that, you know, maybe not super overtly or explicitly pointed me, but like, as I look back on patterns, I'm like, yeah, I feel like consistently what I'm being pushed towards is like, here's this next theme? So at, you know, when I left to start differential, the theme was like, if you don't start a company now, you never will because I had Christy and I had our first kid and, you know, the thought of having more kids, it was like, well, you're gonna get locked up in a salary.
(29:07): And like, it's gonna be really hard to leave. Right. Because that exactly like the startup I was at, like, I was just starting to actually get paid a normal ish salary and could see a path to where like that could become fairly secure and stable. And like, I think that scared me a little bit. And it's like, well, if I, if I get too comfortable, like, and I feel like I'm supposed to start a business. And so, you know, the consistent theme was like, yeah, you're a, you're a builder. I want you to build. I'm not going to tell you what the build until you, until you step out of this thing. But like, you know, follow the, take that next step. So, but again happened over a couple of years where it was like, am I, you know, and I'm processing on my own and processing with like people around me kind of sharing thoughts and feelings.
(29:49): And so I think it's like being patient with it, like, you know, cause it easy. It is easy to, in a moment, like wake up one day and be like, Ooh, I don't think I'm supposed to go do a thing or you have an idea or, you know, a light bulb comes on, but it's a lot harder to be patient in that and go like, okay, let me make sure that I'm actually hearing what I think I'm hearing. And are there ways to explore, like start to go down different rabbit trails without maybe fully ripping off the band-aid? So that's, that's where it was for me. It was like, I want to pull on that thread and see if, what I think I'm hearing is correct. And, you know, over conversations and in prayer and, you know, kind of consistent month over month, they over day time, like, it becomes pretty obvious.
(30:31): It did to me anyways. But I had to keep exploring that and, and, you know, we talked, I talked about reflecting, like part of it is literally like looking back at over old journals and like ear, like I would earmark certain ones where I'm like, I think God's telling me something on this day, like fold that page over. I want to come back to that one and doing that like multiple times over several months. And sometimes years of like, all right, is that playing out the way? It seemed like it was going to play out. Am I, did I actually hear that correctly? And so for me, that's been part of the process of always
(31:03): Awesome. Going from differential to coterie. What was that timeline? You think you said as a process, are we talking a couple months, a couple years that you just felt, all right, God's at work, something's moving. I don't know exactly what it is. How long was that process for you?
(31:20): There's definitely at least a year of like, Oh, I feel like I'm getting prepared to step out again or to do something else. It was at least a year of that. And again, I remember like a couple of journals that I would go back to regularly of like, Ooh, I feel like in a moment, God was speaking to me out a timing. That's frustrating though, because when you feel like you hear something like you just want to go, I do like,
(31:42): That's why I keep asking these questions. Sometimes the beautiful thing about this podcast at times is selfishly. I just ask questions to help myself, even though I know the listeners, but for you, it's like, I want to know, cause I'll get these ideas and I'm like, all right, let's go, let's do this. We're going to go launch this tomorrow. Here we go.
(31:58): Yep. Totally. And actually I think sometimes that happens, right? Like God speaks to us in different ways and at different times. But for me, I feel like maybe part of what has happened is like I talked about my intent. Like I think my intent is a little bit higher than it used to be. Meaning like I hear God, I hear signals maybe earlier than I would have in my life. So I've sort of come to this realization of like, if I hear a nugget of a thing, it might be that God's not ready for me to make a move, but he is speaking to me about it. And he just starting to, you know, sort of trickle ideas my way. And I'm like, well, you know, the higher, my antenna is the better. My relationship is with God. The more likely I am to hear earlier and to have a little bit of like some preparation and time.
(32:38): And, but there is someone else pointed that out to me and it was so helpful. Cause I was frustrated about like, Oh, I feel like God's called me in a direction. He's calling me away. But like he hasn't told me what to do yet. And someone was like, well maybe you just hear him earlier than you used to. And like, he's just starting to prepare you. Like, he's not ready for you to go. He's just giving you a little bit of a heads up. I'm like, ah, man, for me that was really fresh and helpful to be like, I need to be patient in this. And then it's still hard. But like, you know, it's one of those things where you sort of know when, you know,
(33:11):
Why is your antenna higher now than used to be the morning routine? And just my consistent like discipline of reading, the word, being in small groups, praying with my wife, like, you know, just these things that like my, my rhythms are better than they used to be. And therefore I feel like there's, I have more opportunities. It's like, you have more at bats. Right. I've given myself more chances to hear from God by some of these different disciplines in, in rhythms. And so yeah, I feel like if you do that, like turns out God is actually speaking all the time. Right. But you know, whether or not we hear him as sort of up to us.
(33:48): Yeah. So yeah. I love the idea that, you know, we will talk about this. I have been involved in a men's ministry in Montana and we'll talk about, we know our spouse's voice. We know our kids, his voice because we spend time with them. So in order to know, God's voice that we're going to need to spend time with God's voice. We don't understand, or we can't hear pick out the words of voices we don't understand or listen to or in close community with. So that's good. That's neat to hear that.
(34:22): Yeah. You know, that's a really good point because one of the, I think one of the things that's helped me as well as understanding my why, like my personal, why, why would it God put me on this earth to do, and I know people spend entire lifetimes kind of struggling with that question. Right. And I feel really fortunate to have sort of, and maybe it'll change, but for at least the last decade or so, it's been clear to me, like God wants to use me to grow the kingdom through entrepreneurship period. And so like once I realized that like that's a lens that I get to say like, okay, that thing I'm hearing or feeling or thinking like, does that align with what you believe God has told you you're here to do. If it doesn't, it's pretty easy for me to go like write it down. Sure. But that's probably not something you're supposed to spend time on. You know, is important as it might be. And as you know, you might want to just run after it. Like, remember God has told you pretty clearly over the course of your life, like this is what he's put you here to do. And like having that, it's kind of similar to like under like knowing what his voice sounds like for me, that's part of understanding his role.
(35:27): Yup. Well, that's good. Also even just social media, one thing I like about, you know, you and I are friends or whatever on social media is you and Chris, you're very good about date nights like Holly and I. So I just well done in way to go. There's times I'll talk to leaders where I actually just talked to a client yesterday. It's like, when is the last time I had a date? Oh, I think beginning of summer, you know, kind of, you know, many, many months. So I just think it's neat that you two have made that a priority, even with young kids that you spend the money on the babysitter and you go out and about so, yup. And I, listen, I am a huge fan of that. Also. I give my wife all the credit for that, because as much as I love it, like I'm not great at planning and making it happen, but she is. And I'm so grateful for that because it is this such a healthy part.
(36:20): Like I love that question always is like, are you dating your wife? Are you dating your spouse? Cause most people like, if they're honest, they're not like, well, there's some magic in that dating phase. Like don't, don't miss it. Right. Absolutely. Tim, what are you most excited about in the next month? Well, on Saturday Christie and I are sending the kids to my parents and we got a hotel room downtown and we're celebrating our 30th anniversary. So we're doing an overnight date, night dinner out and hotel and just staying here in Cincinnati. But, but we're, you know, getting out of the house and getting the kids away and we both just super look forward to that time. That's the most pressing one I'm excited about this weekend. That's awesome. Holly and I celebrate 21 years. This summer, we stayed at the Lytle hotel downtown Cincinnati.
(37:08): That was great. It was awesome. There were moments where we, we may edit this part out because it's pure advertisement, but they're not sponsoring this podcast, but there are moments where we felt we were not in Cincinnati. You hear, you know, kind of look over here. You know, there, we, like we said a couple different times, this feels like we're in Europe. So we had a blast. So enjoy happy anniversary. Thank you. How can leaders get ahold of you if they want to learn more? You're obviously you're big on entrepreneurship. You're big on your faith. You're very strong culture guy. So how can people get ahold of you? Yeah, Twitter. I'm pretty active on Twitter, which is at T Metzner. On Twitter is an easy one. Email is always fine. Tim dot metzner@gmail.com is easiest way to reach me there. So those are, you know, hit me up on any of those ways. And especially if you mentioned, you want to talk about building a great culture or entrepreneurship plus faith plus family, or any combination of those things. Like, you know, I talked about that lens. I use like, I don't say no to a meeting. Someone wants to talk about those things. So yeah.
(38:22): Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Tim, for being on the podcast today. Thanks for having me, Corey. It's a pleasure. I want to thank you for listening to my podcasts when home first, I am so grateful to hear from listeners like you, that this content has been helpful. So now I would love for you to pay it forward. I want to get this message in the hands of more listeners. We need leaders to be winning both at home and at work, especially during this time. So please take a minute to share this episode with somebody you think would find value in it, as well as rate and subscribe as a thank you, please visit my website@coriumcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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