Hey, this is Corey. If you feel stuck, are you lacking confidence or maybe even lacking consistency? I'm excited to tell you about a new program that I am rolling out. It covers the four main areas of your life. You marriage, parenting, and work. The reason I developed this program is because so often in my one-on-one coaching, I find myself repeating the same stuff over and over. And so what I wanted to do is put together a group program that includes video group calls some community. So it gives more access to more people who are stuck, whether they're stuck in their personal life or their professional life. And so I'm excited to launch this out. It comes out on June 7th, you can sign up now, go do Corey M carlson.com forward slash leadership. And from there, you'll get all the details on the program. What's included what you'll get out of it, all the benefits and features. So go to Corey M carlson.com/leadership to learn more about this program called the confident and consistent leader. Now onto today's episode.
Welcome to the win at home first podcast. I'm your host, Cory 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.
(01:33): Although the Scorre today's episode, Scott Oyler is a good one because selfishly, I asked a lot of questions that I wrestle with, that I knew a realtor would wrestle with as well. Scarcity mindset, competition, ambition, all of these things that I talk to clients a lot about every day, I took them directly to Scott who has been a an entrepreneur to grow in a real estate company, but we have a great conversation as well. When I asked him about a time in his library, he had a hand over his story for a greater story. So it's a great episode. Hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Thank you. Hello, Scorre Carlson. You're listening to win a home first podcast today. I'm joined with Scott Oyler, who is a realtor here in Cincinnati, and there's a lot of realtors in the city. No doubt about it, but not many that have grown it to double digit teams.
(02:28): And so we're going to learn from him on that, but he's also done it while winning at home. He has two kids and married plus very strong in his faith and in the faith community here in Cincinnati. So a lot to learn today. I'm excited. So Scott, thank you very much for being here. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. So first question is what is that key trait to help leaders win at work and went home? I think for me, it is being super receptive to feedback, you know, especially you want to grow.
(03:00): And it's one of the things that I've learned in my business. It's hard to hear the criticism. Sometimes you have constructive criticism. Sometimes you think you have it all figured out, but in reality, when you talk to some outside folks, you realize, Hey, there's some things we need to tweak. Some things we need to work and there's always room to grow. And that goes for home as well. I mean, when I have to be receptive to feedback with my wife, you know, if we have to have a strong foundation in order for our family to have a great foundation. And so that takes getting some feedback, which isn't always easy to hear, you know, but for me, that's been a key trait. I feel like to win both at work and at home.
(03:44): I love that. So I want to dive into that a little bit, just to help all of us get feedback. How do you get feedback from your employees? Yeah, so I, I, when I actually set up my reviews with our folks, the first question I ask is, Hey, you know, what, what can I do better? What, what can I do better to support you? What are some things that you feel like I can improve on and get that feedback? And like I said, sometimes it can be painful to hear and you want to argue, argue sometimes, but then you're realizing like, okay, you gotta be receptive to it, you know, and change. And I also feel like the folks on our team, we have such a good relationship that, you know, they know that they can come to me and say, Hey, we got to switch this up. I, you know, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. Right. I, I, I, everyone I've hired, you know, I want them to challenge me. I want them to challenge. I don't want somebody to just going to say, Oh, yes. Yeah, let's do that. That's a great idea. Yes. That's a great idea. You know, you want somebody, who's going to challenge you a little bit, so you want to open up that door. So they feel like they can provide that feedback as well. Yeah, that's good.
(04:59): How are you getting feedback from them? You know, at home, my wife and I, we talked a little bit, you know, at night we kind of have our little routine. It feels like we are we have, we, we watch one, we always watch the same TV show. So I could be into one thing. She could be another one, another thing, but we try to spend, you know, the end of our evening together watching the same show. And, but normally during that time, it's not so much is like, we're locked in on the show. That's the time that we have together. We talk and talk about, you know, what we're doing, you know, at the end of the year, typically we also try to talk a little bit about, okay, what do we want for the following year? And things like that. So I can always tell when we're not having those conversations, because that's normally when the conflict conflict can arrive.
(05:50): Right. But once again, just knowing that I'm, I'm open to feedback and Kristen's great. She's great saying, Hey, you know, we should think about this or, or that, or, Hey, it bothers me when you do this or, you know, things like that. So you got to keep that, keep that dialogue open for my daughters. I know that they're, they're 10 and I probably am not the best with having those conversations with them just quite yet. But certainly I know. So I've got, I've got 10 year old twins and try to carve out that individual time with them. I'm probably a little bit better with one than the other, because one's a little more active than the other. And you know, so on Saturdays, when the weather's warm, we normally will walk down to Starbucks. You get to walk down there and, and have great one-on-one conversations with Izzy.
(06:50): I'm trying to find that connection with, I mean, I have obviously that connection with my daughter, Gabby, but we're, we're really trying to find like, okay, what's our common thing that we get into. And a lot of that's around UC, she's a diehard bear cat fan, like me brainwashed her a little bit. So she likes watching games with me. I mean, that's kind of our little connection thing, but I probably need to, you know, they're getting to the age now at 10 where we're saying, Hey, you know, getting a little more feedback, but we definitely have those great one-on-one conversations to really know. And, and, and constantly what I'm always telling them all the time is, is, Hey, you know, you can tell me anything. You know, I know you're getting 10 and I always joke around with them all the time. Yes. Izzy. What do you and your dad talk about in your walks to Starbucks? And so he'll probably tell you that he always just says, like, you know, that don't be, don't let your don't think that your dad's ever like, you know, not cool enough that I can't tell him anything. Cause I'm always, like, at some point you're gonna think I'm not cool anymore, and you're not gonna wanna talk to me about all this. I don't want this to end, you know, I want you to, like, you can tell me anything. And so we, we, we talk about that a lot. So
(08:01): My cousin in Denver, he has a, they call it the safe couch. So he's got two boys. And the idea is that anything you say on the couch, it's safe. If you want to talk about you know, his, his kids are in high school and one's actually now in college, but, you know, whatever it was along the way, bullying or drugs or girls, or just whatever the topic was, kind of stayed on the Scouts. What's set on the Scouts, Tate stays on this. And I've always thought of that. We don't have a safe cash in our house, but really just setting up that environment. You tell us some things, you know, there, there won't be consequences if you're upfront and honest and let you know, or at least the consequences will be definitely minimized versus if we find out about it later, later.
(08:46): Oh yeah, absolutely. No, that's good. So yeah, one thing with the kids, for sure. I've, I've almost done the grading scale. Hey, kids on a scale zero to 10, where am I at? And then, you know what, they, they throw out a number and then what do I need to do? Get close to a 10 and Scott, most of the time, what I need to do is be less, coachy less churchy and kind of less leadership instead of say, just talk, let's just hang it. So you may fall into the same traps as well.
(09:17): Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. That's a good tip though. To where do I fall? On a zero to 10 is easy, easy way to ask, you know? Yeah. It, it, it's, it's worked well and it's so funny. They usually say the whole don't be coachee, but sometimes like one time my daughter zoomed in, I say, don't say anything deep before noon. So it was good. You mentioned you and your wife doing some kind of annual planning. Do, is it structured? I mean, do you have a framework that you guys use for annual planning? Do you do a retreat? You go kind of a staycation. Is there, is there anything that you guys are doing that is really helping you reflect as well as launch in the new year? Well, yeah,
(10:01): So we, we actually got this tip from another family. They kind of go away do the staycations of last year was supposed to be our first year that we were going to, of course do this and that did not end up happening. Right. So spiritual warfare against you guys, that's at the Fromm. Exactly. You're to blame for COVID cause you were going to do something strong for your marriage. It's like devil camp against it.
(10:24): Exactly. So, so yeah, so it was just more of a framework of, okay, what do we, what do we want to do in this year? What do we want to accomplish? What do we want to give to, you know, like for us, we were very intentional about a big goal that we had for this year. So our one of our daughters has some special needs and she could be on a device all day long if you don't patrol it. Right. So we have one daughter who should be on an iPad for an hour and she's like, I want to go play. I want to go do something. And you know, our other daughter just, she gets locked into kind of screen time and everything. So last year we were starting to, we went to our friend's Lake house quite a bit in the summer and our daughter Gabby, who's got some special needs.
(11:13): He loved being on the water slot being outside. She just like, that was her. That was her like her thing. And, you know, you're kind of disconnected, unplugged. And so we, we, that was a goal of ours was okay. We want to, we've identified this place. Our friends have placed out there. It's, it's awesome. And we'd like to kind of replicate that to escape and, and be able to, you know, for Gabby to enjoy being out in the water unplugged. Not like forcing her, you know, like at home it's like, get off, you gotta go outside. It's like we get out there. She loves being on the water. So yeah. So that's a big, big goal that we've been been through. And we actually just recently closed on a place, so we're getting it ready to go hopefully by Memorial day.
(12:01): So that's, that's, that was a huge, huge goal of ours that we talked about. And you know, obviously you talked to our financial planner, we did all this stuff to make sure it was a smart move, but we also knew deep down, it was like something that we wanted to do for our family. And, and if I'm being honest, Corey, I mean, my first five years of building my business, I was not around a whole lot. You know, it was just really building the business the first years as a real estate. And you're just kind of on-call and it's seven days a week and all that stuff. And now we've built our, built the team out now where I can have weekends, you know, with the family, which people think you're a real estate agent. How can you have weekends? You know, but we've, we built a structure with our team in a way that now most weekends I can enjoy with the family and I can be away the Lake we're we're adds an hour away. So if I did have to run back, it's not that big of a deal. That was never a thing that we wanted to make sure that, Hey, it was close enough where we would utilize it.
(13:08): You've heard me talk about the five capitals before, but just remind even listeners. But the five Jabil's is the first one being spiritual capital, second, one relational, then third fiscal, then intellectual, and then financial. What I liked about how you talked about that whole real estate buying it, like not once, did I hear you say investment or great opportunity, but you were doing it all for kind of that purpose and family and relational piece. And really even identifying that the catalyst was your daughter with special needs and then find a way to spend time. So it's just so neat to actually leverage that lower capital financial to buy it for the higher capitals. And as opposed to maybe a time in your life where I know at time in my life, I may have been doing things just to make money.
(13:55): This is definitely not a, this is definitely not a make money because there's, there was barely any inventory down in the Lake. So all these, all these Lake houses cause of COVID have gone like crazy. The price is. So that was actually the hardest part I had had was like, Oh man, I feel like I'm being in real estate. I've got like, I don't know if this is the best real estate investment, but it was an investment in family.
(14:19): Oh man. That's so, so strong. That's yeah. Very good. Well, I was looking very for dark conversations for a variety of reasons, because some things that I battle with, I know other leaders battle with, I know you're right in the thick of it. And so you kind of hit on some of them, but, but one is that work-life balance from the standpoint of real. When I think of a realtor, I think of have to be on the clock almost all the time, whether it goes after hours, mostly when people want to go look at houses, for sure. The weekends you mentioned, maybe that was kind of a, you know, a kryptonite of growing your business earlier and far as that goes. So now you've got a team to balance it. So the first question is what would be kind of your advice or recommendation to that realtor? Who's just starting out, who's hungry. Like you were, but yet don't fall in the same trap maybe that you did have.
(15:14): Yeah. And that's, and that's the thing that we see, right? If you grow your business, if you're successful in real estate, there's a lot of different real estate agents out there under 6,000 alone in greater Cincinnati. And if you are growing your business to a point you there's two things that happen, right. You're only one person. So you either have to serve your clients and when's the time for your family. And then you get to a point where you're not even delivering good service to your clients anymore too, because you're busy running around. So for me, once I got to a certain point and I was very lucky, I had, my father actually coached a lot of real estate teams and things like that. So when I got in to the business, you know, I was just kind of hitting my stride and making some money.
(16:06): And my dad's like, you need to hire a, an operations. You need to hire an admin. And I'm like, I, I I'm I'm I want to keep this money coming in my pocket. I don't want to go on back out. You know? And he's like, I've seen too many people get burnout, marriages go, go bad. You know, and you're not gonna be able to service your clients. So the first step, you know, you hired, hired that admin and that admin now role has grown to who's. Now our director of operations and has helped us grow our business. But what ends up happening is you've got to realize that you can only be so many places at one time. And I think one of the biggest myths are like, I'm the magic person that everyone just only wants to work with me. And really it's not what people want is just really good service.
(16:55): So when you can teach your team the way that you've built your business, the way that you do things, the way that, you know, the way that business should be done in your, in your manner, then you can help. You can grow, you can grow that because you know how we're set up now. And that's what I was talking about with, with like weekends and things like that. So the way we're set up, I specialize working with our sellers, Heather, she works with she's on as a co Lister with me and runs kind of our operations. And then we have buyer specialists who only work with buyers. And if you're following today's market, there's something goes, goes on the market. It's you gotta be there. You gotta drop everything and go. So how can I give my sellers the best attention, right. Trying to sell their place and do different things.
(17:47): If all of a sudden I got to drop everything and go once a house comes up. So that's where our, our buyer's agents are very focused, trying to find our buyers homes off market. And then they've got to be ready to go and get out there. And that's also, what's great about the team approach is if one person can't make it, you know, that a house comes up, then another person, we have multiple licensed folks on our team. And so we all just kind of work together, you know, to make sure that we're servicing our clients well. But we're also having to balance. Now I'd be, I'd be also lying to you if I said spring time, just isn't crazy. It is. It's all hands on deck, you know, and it's one of the things that my family, my wife know, Hey, there's a stretch where it gets a little bit crazy, you know, but they kinda, everybody kinda knows that a little bit, but once again, you have to deliver results to clients, but you also have to, you know, you also have to be engaged at home, right?
(18:51): And so you cannot, you can't be everywhere at one time. So one of the best things that happened to me too, was my dad worked through with me. There was we were growing our business. I was making more money than I ever imagined. I would in, in the profession I was in and I was debating on hiring one more position. And this was more of a support role. That was a salary position. And it was a good chunk. And it was, it was a guy who was a great talent, but in order to get him to come over, I had to make sure he's going to be making more money than where he was before. And I went to my dad and I just said, I just don't know that, you know, I'm gonna, I just don't know that I want to write that check, be responsible for that check.
(19:34): And, and basically he said, well, what's it gonna, what's, what's this, what's this gonna bring like, well, it will help me free up my weekends a little bit. Cause it's the, the position was specifically hired for a developer client that we work with and they needed things open every weekend, all the time. So you needed to make sure you got someone really, really good. And then also he was going to fill this other position. And one of the happening is I got caught up in the dollar and cents of it. I ended up making the hire and it was a great hire because a, it helped me once again, that was like one of the things that was timey two weekends and then B what ended up happening was we were more profitable that year anyways, you know? And even if it, even if we weren't the time that I was able to get back with family.
(20:23): Cause once again, my first few years in a business, I was not probably around as much as I would have liked to, or my wife probably wanted me to. And so those were some of the things that the decisions we made in, in if, if you can delegate and train people to deliver and have your vision on the way that you want things done, then you know, you can really grow. And that's, that's, that's how we've been able to. That's how we've been able to grow. There's no one on our team. Who's more important than the other person. I always say,
(20:59): It's not, it's not my team. It's our team. We all work together. Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you are enjoying it so far before we go back to the rest of this episode, I wanted 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. So Scott
(22:14): Ambition standpoint, you've grown double digits, you know, you're signed are everywhere. How do you balance the basically ambition of, I want to be the biggest and best in the city and cause you still, even though you've got a team around you, you can go still work 24 seven. Yeah. And I, and I, I battle with that, you know, and because I'm competitive too. That's the other thing, sometimes it's not so much financial too is like the competitive side of you as well, which you know, healthy competition can be good. But it can also be bad in some ways too. And so yeah, I do, I do have to balance that a little bit. And those are once again, this conversations with, with my wife who, you know, sometimes we'll say, gosh, you know, aren't you, you're doing all this. Now that things are great.
(23:06): Do we, do we gotta do this? And do we have to, do you have to do that? Chasing there have been times where it's like so hard for me to say where I have turned down business. If someone's like, Hey, I need you to come here. I need, I need you to meet, you know, this time. And I can only do this time. And I know there were, there was a time before where I'd say, no, I've got something on, you know, there was a time before I would say, yeah, yeah. And I'd go to my wife, say, I'm sorry. I know we've got a commitment, but I got to chase this piece of business. We've got to cancel this and I'm going to go and I'm going to do it. And I've gotten a little bit better at, okay. If it's locked in, if I already have something locked in the calendar, that that time is spaced off.
(23:46): You're not just going to drop, you know, something off, drop something in order to chase that piece of business is that one extra, you know, house worth missing your kid's game for, you know, or something like that. And you know, what, if they can't understand that you can't do that, then you know, do you, do you want to work with that person? Right. That's the other thing, right? So, and most people are, are, are great. You know, you say, Hey, look, I've come a kid's game this time, blah, blah, blah. Hey, no problem. When can we, you know, we can, we can work another time. But the folks sometimes are like, Nope, this is the only time. Sorry, if you can't make it, we'll move on to someone else. I say, all right, then maybe, maybe you need to talk to somebody else. But those are hard. Those are hard, still hard for me to deal. It's like, you know,
(24:34): No, it's hard. I mean, saying you are like me, we're not only are we you know, high ambition achievement, but it's also approval of others. You know, we want to we, we don't like saying no. I've had a lot of people over the years say, man, how do you make it to all your kids' activities? Or how do you do all that? And I think one of the first steps that got helped me do that is I put it in the calendar right away. When I get the kids' schedule, it goes into the calendar. When I dance recitals, gymnastics meets, whatever those things are. I put them in right away. So that I know where, when I've helped leaders do that or say, Hey man, get that schedule in there quick. Then they can make those decisions. But a lot of times we say yes to the work stuff because that's the stuff we know at first. And then we take the time or we learn of the weekend's game on that Friday when it's like, Hey, what are we doing this weekend? Well, it sounds like you're a lot like me where it's say I put that stuff in my calendar first and then I work around it.
(25:32): Yup. Yup. And that's the thing. I mean, that's what we try to do. And the best thing we did too was so are we run on a G suite and then so my wife and I, we set up a separate Google account. And so we have our family calendar in a different color. So everyone in my office can also see my kind of family stuff there. So if anyone is scheduling appointments, they know to check, check with me first, before locking anything in because they know they'll hear from not just me, but from her too.
(26:01): Yeah, no, that's that's good. Another thing I was wanting to talk to you about is this idea of, you know, basically a scarcity mindset where you already mentioned, there are 6,000 realtors in the city and there aren't a ton of houses popping up and yeah. How do you keep your head positive? How do you lead your team positively without the scarcity mindset of, Hey, it's over, we may not get another house this year or there aren't going to be enough, but yet you continue to lead optimistically and go forward. So how do you, how do you stay positive and have that abundant mindset? Yeah.
(26:37): I've always been kind of a half glass full guy. And I'll tell you, Joe King president of our company, he, he says something all the time. He's like, you know what, if you just focus on the activities, the results will come. Right? So, and I just kind of repeat that to my folks, Hey, you know, we can only control what we can control. We can't, we can make excuses and say, well, the inventory's really low or, you know, COVID last year, you know, all these different things. We, we, we can't control some, some things, but what we can control is our mindset that we can control our attitudes. We can still control those activities that we do. So you say, Oh, well there's low inventory. I guess we just give up, well, no, right then nothing's going to happen. The thing business. And it's like most businesses, if you think about it, especially anyone in sales is you're, you're planting seeds.
(27:31): Right. And you're just, you're, you're just watering those seeds. And you don't know when they're gonna, when those are gonna blossom. Right. And you are, if you're not doing the activities, which is watering those seeds, then you know, that business will not, we'll be there eventually. And it may not be right away. It may not be next month. It may not be six months, maybe 12 months there's things and activities that we do that generate things three years down the road, two years down the road. Right. And so you have to focus on the activities. Yeah. We're, we're big on, on results. And I've recently got into, we've have a big analytics dashboard. Now that tracks a lot of the KPIs of okay. Appointments, set appointments. We can, we can see. Okay. How does that compare to 2019? How's that compared 20, 20 years before.
(28:19): So we've got an idea of like leading indicators, lagging indicators, all that stuff at the end of the day, it's, it's trying to just help people focused on the activities, the results. And I mean COVID last year was a perfect example. You know, the market just totally paused, right? No one knew what was going on. We had sellers who want to take their homes off the market, which was understandably so, right. It was like, no one knew what was going on. No one wanted anyone in their house. We had buyers who were afraid, you know, that they were getting ready to close on homes, you know, does it make sense to, you know still move forward and all that stuff. So we're having a lot of these conversations and next thing, you know, there's like nothing in the pipeline or anything. So I can just shut down.
(29:02): You know, I just said, you know, I gave this kind of put together as PowerPoint deck and Hey, here's what we're going to do. And, you know, just stay positive. Here's what you focus on. And they're like, Oh, we don't want to hear your positivity. Like, you know, things are just shutting down, but slowly, surely we were just doing the activities and then sure enough, who would ever predicted, I mean, as the market just absolutely exploded, it had, we had just said, ah, you know what, we're just going to, there's nothing we can do. We're not going to stay in front of everyone. You know, we wouldn't have had those opportunities once things kind of cranked back up again. Cause we were staying in front of people by doing a lot of different things, social media wise and having contests and, you know, delivering parents survival kits during COVID, you know, stuff like that just to stay in front of people. And you know, and so you just have to focus on his activities and when things turn around, they will. So
(29:59): That's good. I have a morning routine and basically it's, it's helped my mindset elevate my mindset. And it sounds like, you know, you can stay positive, but I know for sure you got your down days. Absolutely. And when the lead indicators aren't looking very good, what are you doing to elevate your mindset?
(30:18): It's, I've got some folks that, that, that I follow and then, you know, just ask him for, for God's help to, you know, keep, keep you positive and, and you know, to, to not focus on the negative because that's easy to do is so it's so easy to do right. To fall in that trap.
(30:38): All right. So Scott part of my story is, you know, or had to speak in prayer and God were just, Hey, you got, you need a hand over your story for a greater story. And, you know, knowing a little bit about just you start out commercial real estate, then you made the transition into, you know, residential and launch your own company. We've talked about, I went from one to now you've got a team, but during any of that, was there a moment where you felt God was saying, Hey, you got to hand over your, your small story for a greater story.
(31:09): Yeah. So, you know, I've, I've started a commercial real estate and was selling apartment communities. And the second half of Oh eight hit and the market just absolutely crashed people, thought the residential market got hit hard. The commercial market got hit even harder. Just I was selling to these apartment communities, nothing to get financed. And I went 13 months without a paycheck. So a hundred percent commission business. And I was just a junior broker at the time. I had a partner, a great mentor by the name of Dave laugher. And he was a great mentor to me and you know, 13 months with no paycheck. And you know, I, I told 'em go, Dave. I said, I don't think I can. I don't think I can survive through this. I don't know that I can weather the storm. And at the same time, my wife and I, we were trying to have have kids.
(32:03): We found out that you know, we would have to do IVF. We did that. We had seven failed IVF attempts. So we were just kind of hemorrhaging money. Wow. And you know, at decided to make a change career-wise I actually accepted an offer, an offer to do something that I wasn't excited about, but it was just, it would have been just as a salary, not straight commission and came to my wife and said, you know, I'm going to take this position. She's like, he seemed like not real excited about it. I'm like, because I'm not, I'm not passionate about it, not excited about it, but I know we need to get some money coming in the door and she's like, well, what would you want to do? I'm like, well, I love, I love real estate. And so I'm actually a third generation in residential real estate.
(33:00): And one of the things why I went to commercial, it was all ego. It was like, that's what my grandfather did. My dad did. I want to blaze my own trail and something different, but I loved real estate. Right. And she's like, well, I think you'd be great at it. And I'm like, well, that market kind of stinks too right now. You know? I mean, that was when that the housing meltdown was going on too, but decided to do it. We liquidated our investments. We had 401k and that was my startup seed money. And basically we were like, all right, you have six months to try to make this work all around in the background while this is all going on. I made this change six weeks before we found out that we were going to have kids. So we were trying to do, we had the multiple fat IVF temps.
(33:47): We said, we were going to take some time off, maybe look into adoption or something else down the road and like a year or two. But the nurse who always gave us the bad news that our IVs didn't work calls, Kristen, my wife and says, Hey, I feel called to carry for you guys. What are you talking about? So we go to dinner with her and her husband and she tells us, Hey, I just I've always wanted to do this for a family. And I just feel like you guys are the right family. And and we're like, Holy cow. And you know, meanwhile we'd been going through crossroads had a fertility support group that was going on during the whole time to kind of help us through our journey. And it was interesting because, you know, I had always grown up, I went to church growing up and went to college, stopped going to church.
(34:40): You know, we picked our, picked our church. We got married in, cause it was pretty, you know, and it was really actually when we started kind of going through our fertility journey that connected us to crossroads and how we kinda got to crossroads and our, that fertility support group, but just a great group of folks that kind of helped us get through that journey. And so when Carmen offered to carry for us, like Holy cow, we, we were like, ah, I don't know how we're going to make this work. Because even though she's volunteering to do that, there's still some compensation involved. There's a lot of legal fees. There's a lot of stuff going on. And we just tapped out in our, our parents had helped out and everything. And there was a couple in that fertility support group that the money that they tied to the church, they would, they would rehab houses and the profits, they would go and they would do that.
(35:37): But anyways, she had a meeting with my wife and handed her a check for a decent amount of money knowing our story. And we had to learn to accept, which was very, very difficult. But if we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have had our kids today. Cause that's what kind of bridged the gap in order for us to go through with the whole surrogacy thing and that, so we have our kids today and like during that whole process, right. Of starting a career, trying to have kids, I mean, I met, I met with Chuck Mingo at had crossroads going here's what's going on, man. I'm like, I can only see darkness. I don't see a light at the end of this tunnel. I don't know what is going on. You know? And he kind of walked me through everything. And man, I'll tell you what, and that's where right then and there, when I talked to him, I was like, you know what?
(36:34): It's gonna leave us in God's hands. You want to try to control everything. You want everything on your time when you want it to happen. All these different things you fast forward now. And it's like the career thing I never even really liked doing when I was doing commercial real estate. Now it's like, I love what I'm doing. Love the career. Right. Had the economy not had made that shift. I probably would have never made, made the transition or the change. You know, our twins, they're 10 now they're so Carmen who was our carrier, her daughters are like, they call, like, they call it, our daughters are fairy, God sisters. I mean our families talk all the time and it's a super close relationship and bond that wouldn't be there. Right. Without all this. And so the story isn't exactly how you put it together in your mind.
(37:28): You're right. Like if you were to say, Hey, this is you, this is going to be your journey to having kids. I would have never mapped it out that way, but now I wouldn't change it for the world, you know? And it was our fertility journey actually that drew us closer to Christ, you know, and it was that support group that helped us and really pulled us in and you know, just, just loved on us. And so I said, sometimes you're going through things. You're like, why is this happening? I don't get it. I don't understand. But it wasn't until you say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let it go. I'm gonna put it in God's hands. And, and instead of trying to control it and do it, how exactly how we think it should be in a pink book.
(38:15): Yeah. So fascinating story, Scott, thanks for sharing that. And so in light of that store, in light of you kind of hand it over, what's it look like now going forward? I mean, do you find yourself just more kind of open handed to what God has and almost less controlling? Yes, I have been, I wouldn't say I'm still,
(38:37): You know, perfectly by any means, you know, but I do, I tried to, and I feel like that's helped me in more of this positive nature. Right. Of like when we were going through like COVID last year and things like that, it's like, you know what we got, you know, we just got put in God's hands there's, there's nothing that I can do is gonna change any of this stuff. Right. You know? Right. And just trust and that's what you have to do. And and so yeah, I I've, I've still need to be better at it. I still like to control certain things. And I, I sense when I'm getting into that a little bit too, and that's, what's good. That's, what's good about, you know, we've got a Friday morning men's group guys, a crossroads of maybe we've still been able to meet, you know, whether it be virtual or when the weather starts getting nice way.
(39:24): We've got a little gas fire pit. We hang around 6:00 AM in the morning, some coffee, and they're good at just kind of talking about life and what's going on and then kind of not calling you out, but holding you accountable a little bit, like, Hey, you need to maybe release a little bit. It's sometimes it's a good gut check. You know, when you think you're doing good. And then you're like, ah, you know, I'm falling back into the control mode a little bit. So I was just talking to someone today, a client where, you know, there's a season where I was at lone Wolf and now, you know, I've got a strong community of guys as well, and we need it. You know, there's a, when I was writing my book, when I first came across this quote that I still talk about is, you know, no one ever talks about Jesus.
(40:08): His greatest miracle is the fact that he had three close friends in his early thirties, because a lot of us don't because not that I'm not early thirties anymore, but actually what's Brian in the early thirties. Right. And didn't have to close friends cause it's all about work. And then on the weekend you try to be super husband, super dad, and then it gets all lost. So you don't have a few things in common. One of which I didn't realize in 2008, you know, you lost your shirt as well from the real estate. Part of my story is, you know, I have five houses as a side kind of hustle I lost and, or my wife and I did so almost at a file bankruptcy, but thanks to God, Richard is able to navigate out of it. But man, I still have some wounds from that I've had to overcome. Absolutely. What was the best way Scott, for people to get ahold of you, whether it's to sell a house or just to learn from some of the great things you shared today, whether it's on family or on business. Sure. You can always shoot me an email. Scott@Oilergroupdotcomoylergroup.Com or you can always reach out (513) 979-1925. Great Scott, thank you. You very much for talking today then went home.
(41:24): Awesome. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on onboard. I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. When at home first I am so grateful to hear from listeners like you, that this content has been helpful. So now I would love for you to pay it forward. I want to get this message in the hands of more listeners. We need leaders to be winning both at home and at work, especially during this time. So please take a minute to share this episode with somebody you think would find value in it, as well as rate and subscribe as a thank you, please visit my website@coriumcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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