Hey, this is Corey. Before we start today's podcast, I want to ask you a quick question. Is your life as fulfilling as you thought it would be? I don't know what area of your life that you feel you're falling short. I know I have different areas of my life at different times. Maybe you want to reignite the passion with your spouse. Maybe you want to be able to walk into a room with confidence. Maybe you're trying to achieve some different health goals or trying to be more patient with your kids. I don't know what it is, but what I do know is from coaching one-on-one executives for the last few years, I find myself repeating the same thing over and over. And the reason being is because we are not alone, we're all battling some of these same situations. So my encouragement to you is join this challenge that I'm launching here in a few weeks where I'm taking a lot of this content that I use with leaders and put it in videos as well as group calls that we can grow through this together.
The challenge is called the confident, consistent leader. It will be a challenge over a 30 day period to help you grow head over to my website@coreymcarlson.com forward slash leadership to learn more on to today's yeah. Episode. Thank you.
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.
(01:36): Hello, this is Corey today's episode. Trent Williams is non-stop with just note taking nuggets and thoughts that he has. It's incredible. He talks about the story of him being a Mormon and then converting into Christianity after just seeing some great business leaders, learning more about them through their vulnerability. And through that process, finding Jesus. He talks about servant leadership at home and at work, he talks about purpose. He talks about elevate. His mindset is nonstop with good stuff. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did on to today's episode. Hello, this is Corey Carlson. You're listening to win a home first podcast today. I'm joined by Brett Williams. He has a podcast on LinkedIn called leading to sales, and he invited me to be a part of it. And as I was kind of doing a little fact checking to see if I want to participate in his podcast, I saw that he had a guy by the name of Jeffrey Gitomer on the bot guest, who was one of my big sales gurus that I followed for.
(02:46): I mean, I went to a seminar, I think 25 years ago in Kansas city seeing him. So I was like, who is this guy? If he can talk to, you know, Jeffrey Gitomer like that. So anyways, long story short, we had a phone call to do my pre-interview his podcast and just had a great connection learned of his business. That leading linked that he started a few years ago, married has two kids strong in his faith. And I was like, all right, I want to have you on my podcast to share some of your story. And some of which a story I just heard just before I hit recording. So I'm even excited about this podcast even more than I was so long intro didn't mean for it to get that long and excited, but there you go, Brett, welcome to the show.
(03:27): Thank you. I appreciate you for having me. It's an honor to be here for sure. What is that key trait that you believe leaders need to have in order to win both at work and at home?
(03:37): You know, not to, I guess, jump into the spiritual deep end right out of the gate, but you know, Jesus tells us that to be first, we must become last and he is who he is. The servant of the most is, is the leader. And that's, you know, the Brent Williams paraphrased version, but, you know, that's, I think the true, honest, sincere servant attitude is the key for genuine leadership across the board. You know, John, I think of it, the, the quote that I use more often than anything is from John Maxwell. And he says, you can't add value to people until you first value people. And so that's, that's how I approached my leadership philosophy. I do good on Sundays and not so good on them. Yeah.
(04:23): Like, yeah. Diving into that, some, just to see how your, you know, how you do that to help. Some of us is you started your own business. You are a, a business owner. It's a growing business. You have employees. I mean, things are definitely on the you know, up into the right fast rocket launch, which is a challenge. And obviously, you know, a celebration all at the same time. Meanwhile, you have two little kids, a four year old and a two year old, so it's not like you're an empty nester. So how, how are you leading with servant leadership when sometimes you probably feel like your hair's on fire?
(04:57): I, I do often feel like my hair's on fire. It's, it's become more than I would like it's become more of a norm than, than I would prefer. But, you know, I think the biggest thing for me is keeping the main thing, the main thing, and realizing that that can change minute to minute or hour to hour and something I often challenge myself to do. And it sounds kind of hokey, but it's, it's being present more than anything. If my purpose at the moment is to be doing business development or to be having conversations or to be hosting a podcast or whatever the case may be, then I need to have my focus present in that in order to serve at the highest level. And then as soon as I walk out of my office and walk down to my stairs and have a four year old and two year old running at me, yelling for daddy, then my focus and my presence should be there.
(05:50): And that's what I really work to try to maintain that presence. And it's, you know, I wish, and I'm just going to be transparent. I wish I was better at it. I think all of us do, right. But it's a challenge sometimes because you know, when you're thinking about a business and running a business and building a business and then you stop and all you do is walk down the stairs. That's your transition time. You have to take the time or, you know, have a ritual or whatever you do just to stop yourself enough to realize, okay, now it's time that I'm going to fully engage and be present with my family. And it's a challenge. I
(06:26): Want to press into this some, and here's the reason why is I post every day on LinkedIn, as you probably know, and you see it in your feed. But every day today I posted one, a story, true story of Kayla, my eight year old and myself, and this story happened a little bit ago, but he's telling me about something that happened at school. I would have my phone in my hand, not in my head and basically said, what, what should I do? And I said I, I have no idea what was the story? Please tell me. And then he called me out. You shouldn't have been on your phone. So it was an awesome deal. You know, obviously I felt like, like crap, but it was a great exchange, but I posted it today on social media. And the reason I'm bringing all this up is I have been overwhelmed in a good way with private messages or even just likes comments, but a lot of private messages like that hit home. And I, like I said, I post every day and it doesn't happen all the time. Some sometimes it goes dark. So a lot of people need to hear this. Right. And so how are you doing? I know you don't have every day's perfect, but how do you be intentional, especially when you know, a lot of your office stuff is in your own house.
(07:35): Yeah. And I, I think for me, there's a couple of pieces, is that as difficult as it was, I opened the door to my wife a long time ago to call me out too. And you know, we do it in love and we do it with respect, but it happens a lot more often than I would like that. She's like, Hey, where are you at right now? And just having that check enough to realize, and frankly, sometimes it takes me off. Like, I'm just going to get this one thing done, but I open that up. And then, you know, the other piece is that as much as I can, I really work to eliminate the electronics from five to seven. My kids are young enough that they're going to bed between seven and seven 30. And so when I stop, I have a firm stop time that I'm at least going to break.
(08:23): And then if I need to stay up from, you know, nine to midnight working on something I can, but I really work to try to just cut off those electronics and set them to the side and, and realize that if I don't, I just think about the implications if I don't. And I just think about the importance and the responsibility of the relationship I have to my kids and that if I'm not present and I'm just in the room then I am truly forsaking a very big responsibility and it's going to have an impact. And it's, I, like I said, I, I wish it's probably more often than not that I'm not as intentional as I'd like to be about it, but my wife has no problem calling me out
(09:03): Open door is a very good thing. Do you have an open door towards her as well? I do. I do. And well, she's, she's agreed to it sh the, she is better, better at it than I am.Yeah, no, that's good. What does servant leadership look like towards your spouse? What are some examples that you've seen play out in your guys' relationship? I think
(09:24): The biggest thing for me when it comes to Anna and I is regardless of where I'm at in, in my state of mind, regardless of how bad my day has been or how challenging things have been is remembering that it's my job to lift her up and to meet her needs. And, and the, you know, it's a two-way street, but you know, go into Ephesians. Paul tells us, you know, that we are to submit one to another, and then you don't often hear that used in different terminology, but he also says, submit one to another. And just realizing that it's, that others focus. And for me, it's, it's Christ focused. Plus others focused, you know, when Christ was asked, what are the two great, or what is the greatest commandment? He says, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and strength and love others as yourself.
(10:15): And so if that's the case, I am not called to get my needs met. I'm called to give. And then in Luke, he tells us whatsoever, a man gives that he shall also receive in good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. And so when I have that other focus, that's when I have the fulfillment and frankly, we have a lot more harmony. And because she is doing the same thing for me, but when we both go into these, we call them toxic cycles. Cause we do it just like anybody. God, God knows. We're far from even probably competent at this.
(10:49): Perfect. We're talking even just competent. No,But we go, when we go into these toxic cycles where I'm focused on what I need and she's focused on just what she needs, the thing that has helped us the most is realizing that when one of us sees that we're in that cycle is that we have a responsibility to break it, to be the one to break it. And that it's not well that other person needs to fix this. No, we were told to take the log out of our own eye first. And so I think that's where we focus is, Hey, and we'll, we'll talk about it. Hey, I noticed, I feel like we're in this cycle and I feel like we're doing this and I'm going to work on this and I'm not going to put responsibilities on her. I'm not going to tell her that she needs to fix something. It's gotta be about what I'm going to fix.
(11:36): It sounds like you and your wife have a safe word, you know, called toxic cycles for us. A mentor shared something with us years ago and, and that idea of a safe word. And we chose roommates. And that is one of those that when we are same thing, we're going our different directions or we're, we're just, we're distant. Like we just say roommates, and it's a safe word that says a ton of things. You know? It, it, it has, it has some, sorry we've done it. And it's got, you know, I forgive you, we've done it and let's get this figured out. We've done it now. Granted, we have to say all those words independently, but just kind of saying, we bring in roommates. Oh, it's awesome. Cause it kind of gets the ball rolling in the right direction. So it sounds like you guys have something similar with toxic.
(12:19): Yeah. And that's, you know, one, there's a guy that I listened to quite often. It's the same as Joe McGee. Who's, he's a pastor who focuses on home, men, leadership and family. I guess he's an evangelist because he's an itinerant. And one of the things that he talks about that we came to an understanding of is that you don't find a great marriage. You build a great marriage. So when we came to that agreement and had had that understanding that love is a choice and love is a choice to give consistently that it's not about, you know, he calls it a Twitter painted feeling. I love that's the Southern in him, but it's not a Twitter painted feeling. It's a choice to give. And that's, we saw that demonstrate. We see that demonstrated by God giving to us. And that's what we're supposed to continue to do
(13:08): If we are to die daily to our spouse. And so absolutely man, and then switching gears just a little bit towards your company, what does servant leadership look like in your company? Because a lot of listeners are business owners or business leaders and they've got direct reports. And so what's servant leadership looking like for your, I
(13:32): Think there's two pieces to me. The first one is to realize that I don't run a company that I lead a group of people and that in leading a group of people, my purpose with each and every one of those people is to treat them as individuals. And to realize that the way that I grow my business is by helping them grow into the gifts that they've been given. And it's spending time with people and identifying those and equipping other people to spend time with people and identify them. And so it's, you know, part of it is understanding that part of my job is to raise up leaders within my own company so that they can then go forward. Even if they're not ma in management or structurally going to be a leader, the more leaders that I help raise up. And that's what that servant mindset.
(14:16): So from a tactical perspective, I have regular interaction with all of my employees. Well, not with all of my, the majority, the majority of my employees. And I deal with them on a human level. It's not about, Hey, what, what numbers have you met? What have you looked at? You know, what, what are you producing? It's having an actual relationship with them. And, you know, it's basically almost discipling and being willing to, to proverbially, get my hands dirty with them and not being afraid of, you know, if they needed somebody to talk about and other boundaries obviously. But, but if they need somebody just to talk to I'm here and they know that, and they know it's an open door without judgment, but going in, I mean, there are times that I've gone in and done what some people would call the most menial of tasks that I should not be using my time for because I knew what was going on in somebody's life and they needed backup and I just saw it. And so I bounced in there and I did it. And so I think that's a big piece is it's not about, you know, Hey, you've got to be in every piece of your business and with every employee, but it's about having those relationships where you know, where somebody is at and you're also building up other leaders to build those relationships as your company grows.
(15:31): It sounds like you lead a lot with, we talk about the five capitals, but you know, purpose and people over profits. And so in doing that, the purpose piece is definitely vision and values. And with your company, I assume you've got a clear, defined vision as well as identified in our values.
(15:51): Yeah. So we were actually in the process of reworking this cause we've made some recent shifts as an agency as to who we're helping because frankly for a long time, I was very profit driven. And it's not that I don't mind. I mean, I'm not against profit for a long time. I had my focus primarily on profit. And so we were very big on helping people in the corporate space, helping large corporate companies. And what I started to realize was that I was becoming profit focused when it came to interacting with our customers, I was still very big on the relationships with our, with our people, but I was becoming profit focused. And so what I, well, we made a decision to do is make a shift to helping what you can call them. Influencers, experts, speakers, authors, consultants, whatever you want to say. So we now help speakers, authors and consultants more succinctly develop programs and launch and market those programs. And so our vision is to get the right messages out to the leaders across the world at the right time. And we do that by helping speakers, authors and consultants develop world-class programs with their expertise and reach the right audience as well.
(17:05): So profit first and in a healthy sense, I know there's books out there talking about profit, but you and I both are talking about eight. You found yourself kind of what I just talked about, where profit became more important than purpose of people. A lot of people can struggle with that. Tell me more about that. What did it look like? Whoa, what was the aha like? Oh my goodness. All I care about is money in this. All I care about is profit. What was some of the shrapnel that was happening, where you could see the purpose and the people falling off to the side. I
(17:34): Am very fortunate and blessed that I have a business partner who also has an open door into my life. And I had been driving very hard towards some very specific goals that we had in dealing with the corporate arena. I'm dealing with larger B2B and it was all around because they were bigger deals quite frankly. And that's probably being more transparent than he would even want me to be. But these were bigger deals. They paid better. And that was where my mindset was. And one day he said to me, wow, I can't even remember what the context of him bringing this up. But he looked at me and he said, why are we doing this? What's what, what impact are we really making, helping these companies? And it just caused me to pause long enough to say, will the impact, I guess, that I'm thinking about as our, as our profit, it's our, it's our bottom line.
(18:25): That's the impact that we're making. And he said, is that really what we want our legacy to be? And I thought, my God, where has my brain been? And so I stopped long enough and I it's just to me, it's God working the right people at the right times at the right places. And Jeffrey Gitomer, like I said, like you've mentioned is a mentor of mine. And he introduced me to another gentleman who, by the name of Joe Soto. He and Jeffrey are both mentors of mine and Joe and I got on a call and I just, I kind of just poured it out to him. This is what we've been doing. I feel like I'm getting a lot of resistance in this. You know, we're being profitable, we're getting, you know, we're helping people, but we're helping, if you will, marketing managers or VPs of sales and marketing, keep their jobs.
(19:09): Like that's, that's the purpose that we're fulfilling right now. And I'm just starting to feel like I'm getting a lot of internal resistance about this. And he started having a conversation with me and he kind of pulled it out of me. And he was like, well, where would it be somewhere that you would actually be excited to help people? And I've always been a big reader and a big personal development person. That's how I came across Jeffrey and so many other people including yourself. And so whenever I was talking to him about how I see the power in that he said, then why aren't you trying to help those people get the right messages out? He said, cause that's really what your company does. That's what marketing is. You're helping people get their message out to the right people to impact them. And he said, how about rather than helping specific types of companies that are, that are large B to B companies signed million dollar contract.
(19:56): So they can transport raspberries from central America to Georgia. How about, rather than doing that? How about you help people that are, that are helping other people develop? And because I have been sewed into so much, he said that, and I almost got emotional on the phone with him because the idea of being able to do that, it struck the cord because it's made such a difference in my life. And so we just decide, I got off the phone with him and I called my business partner and I said, I just talked with Joe. And this is what we talked about. And we both just felt a peace about it. We're like, okay, well then this is, this is where we're going,
(20:34): Brett. I love the vulnerability. Openness of, Hey, you went towards profit and then a little bit of the shifting, leading more kind of into your passions and what you want to do and going after it that way, you know, that question of why we doing this, that needs to be a part of your vision values kind of on the wall for you, not only you as a reminder, but to your team, because I mean, all of us, I mean, it's, it's the why, why, why do we get up every day?
(21:00): Yeah. You're spot on there. Have you done a vision and values for your family and for your, in your personal life? We have, and we, some recent events have made us actually, it's funny. Cause I feel like I'm just reevaluating vision and values everywhere because some recent events have made us stop and go back and reevaluate. Some things there've been some various calls that God has put into my lap that have made us stop and say, okay, well what are we doing now before we didn't really have a good vision and values? You know, it was kind of like a feely type thing would well we feel like this is where we're going or we think this may be where we're going, but what we weren't really clear on it. And in the past couple of weeks, my wife and I, the cause of these calls, God has dropped into my lap. I've been like, okay, we need to get clear on some things and clearer than we have been.
(21:48): Oh, that's great. I talk a lot about vision values with clients. I talk a lot about vision values. You're just this morning I was at a client company who brought me in to do a big vision value session for their entire leadership team. And so it's definitely top of mine, but one of the things that I constantly talk about with a vision, same why it's so important. All of that companies have, but individuals that have is because it helps you lean choices up against it. Yes. Otherwise we say yes to everything, especially me. I mean, if I'm not in a healthy place, I could be approval driven. I could be ambition driven and it's yes, yes, yes. To everything. But by having a vision statement for my company, also a vision statement for my personal life in our family, our family has one as well. It allows us to lean things up against her and say yes or no. And so it sounds like already, you guys are starting to wrestle with that with some of these recent events in your life and using it to make a, as a great filter.
(22:48): Yeah. No, and that's, that's one of the biggest things that we've come up against is realizing that we had fallen into that yes. To a whole lot of stuff. And you know, not quite, you know, having like a meltdown moment, but having that moment of, I can't do all this. And once we had that moment, it was like, okay, well why, why are we prioritizing these things? And how should we prioritize them? And that's what led to the conversation. Okay. We, we need to get clear about the direction we're going and so that we can measure those and look through that lens.
(23:23): Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you are joining 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.
(24:07): 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, Brett, how are you really doing self care? How are you taking care of yourself for that emotional rollercoaster? Whether it's a scarcity mindset of, oh my goodness, it's over. It's never going to happen to the standpoint of, you know, just the ebb and flows that happen in all business, man, especially when you're, you're really hanging your hat on, on, on the social media world as I do too. So, Brett, what are you doing from that self-care standpoint to make sure you are, have that elevated mindset that you're in the game that you're able to lead? Well, your family and your home.
(25:02): So the first thing goes to Romans 12 two, be not conformed by the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And the only way that that happens is I force myself every day to spend time in the word. And that's, it is a non-negotiable for me, one standard when it comes of it. If I do, I know I have no zero days. Now, if there's a day that I'm like, there's, this is nuts. I've overslept, I've got 10 minutes till my meeting. It might be a proverb and that's it. But to me, that is where I get a lot of my source of strength from. And if I happen to have an AA that I'd get that is later in the day before I get that in, I can feel, it can feel myself getting short. I can feel myself getting exhausted.
(25:48): So that's the first place is spending time with God in his word. On a regular basis, I have a specific reading plan that I use and I just, I use it because it takes me through the new Testament multiple times in a year and the entire Bible once in a year. And I go through and just, I work that plan, but I also give myself grace with it because stuff happens. That's the day you just read the proverb. Yes, exactly. It's like, Hey, I got in it. And God, if you've got something to say, it's going to have to be prophetic because I don't have time for anything else.
(26:20): But the other piece of it is that I realize that what I put in is what I'm going to get out. And so I find windows of time to invest. You know, if I'm working on something that is going to require a lot of my attention, I may just have a message or a motivational talk or something like that, running in the background. I'm a very big reader, even outside of the word. So I'm consistently reading some book, that's going to build me up spiritually. And sometimes they coincide, but a book that's going to build me up personally that like professionally, I guess, would be a better way to say that. And so it, to me, it's all about input output. And if I am expecting myself to perform as a servant leader, the only way I'm able to do that is to fill myself back up. Otherwise you run empty and you stop performing worth anything. And so it's, it's a lot of the word. And it's, you know, remembering who my sources and that, if that, if, if I'm going to say that God is my source, that I can't let the well-run dry, my own personal well-run dry. What do the,
(27:29): The longer days look like? I mean, are you big into journaling? Are you, how do you ask self-reflective questions? Like what are you doing to help pull out more to help you? So the first thing is I do have a reading plan that I use. It's called tear up your Bible. I think if you go to tear up your bible.com, you can get it. It's a free plan. So there's a couple of, kind of, I guess you could say hacks that I use, the first thing is I'm into premium Bibles and I know people are going all electronic and things like that. But for me, I have created the Bible reading experience as a tactile pleasant experience. Cause I want to hack everything in my brain that I can to make it a pleasant experience that I naturally desire. So I literally, I mean, I've paid a couple hundred bucks for Bibles that are more pleasant for me to get into easier for me to read those kinds of things. But I typically in those mornings that I've got the time I start with a very simple prayer and it's just holy spirit, teach me from your word today.
(28:27): I don't know what, what what you've got for me, but I know there's something. And so I'll, and then I dive in and I typically read four or five chapters a day reading through a book and then one chapter is a Psalm. Unless it's Psalm one 19 and then I tend to split it up. But the, so that's kind of the reading portion. And then after that, I do, I guess you could call it free form journaling. I don't know exactly how, but I mean, it's just, I write down my thoughts and sometimes those thoughts are related to what I've read. Sometimes they're just thoughts that have no spirituality to them whatsoever. And it's just about kind of unloading myself before the day. Now I'm really big the night before on planning my next day so that I don't have to go to bed thinking about, well, what the next day is. I've got everything written down, I've got all the stuff that I'm kind of like, it's almost like a brain dump,
(29:21): Like at 9:00 PM kind of thing before bed. Yeah. Yeah. It's a light, it's a light night after the kids are asleep and all that kind of thing. So in the mornings, it's just kind of whatever thoughts I've got. And most of the time it's a physical journal just because I prefer the writing experience, but I, you know, if I'm traveling sometimes it's electronic or I'm dictating it, I've gotten, you know, sometimes that's a Jeffrey Gitomer tip for me, that is that he, he dictates most of his books and has them transcribed and I'll sometimes have my journaling. That's just dictation because it's what it's just, I'm in a flow a fault.
(29:54): Yeah. He may never do anything with the dictation, but that's at least what you're doing. Right. Yeah and so that's, that's kinda, that's it. And then prayer. I mean, it's, you know, I, I believe very strongly that one of the biggest challenges that I early on in my Christian walk had was that I often treated prayer like a drive-thru. I pulled up to the speaker and I said, Hey God, this is I'm thankful for this. And this is what I need, and this is what I'm looking for. And I'll pull around to the next window and hope you have a good day. Yeah. I'll take a milkshake with it. Exactly. And now, and yes, I want a biggie size.
(30:29): But you know, now It's what I've started to really focus in on is incorporating just that you may call it meditation. You may call it any number of things, but that time of just stopping and allowing it to be a two-way conversation anyways, for you, as there been a moment where it was a Brett handover, your small story for this greater story. And what did that look like?
(30:53): There've been more than one moment. There've been multiple moments of that. I'll go back. If you will, a bit, I was actually raised Mormon and spent 17 years of my life from birth until 17 years old as a Mormon. I'm a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. And at 17, I found myself challenged with some things of, if you will, just scripture, you know, as a Mormon, I carried a king James Bible and would tell people that I believe that it was God's message to us, but then somebody said, well, what about this verse, this verse, this verse, and this verse. And I thought that does not line up with my Mormon faith. And so that doesn't make sense. And so I went on a journey of leaving the Mormon church and I was a fourth generation Mormon. So at 17, I was effectively asked to leave my house because I had five younger brothers and sisters and was told that if my influence was going to be leaving the church, that that was not an influence that was welcome in that house. And so I went through a process and that it was a multiple year journey. I mean, I was 25 when I really had a true salvation experience with God. And that journey from 17 to 25, went through atheism, attending various Protestant churches, getting baptized into the Catholic Church of all things.
(32:12): And then, like I said, ultimately atheism. And then through a group of Christian business owners who I saw on a daily basis, that ended up in a mentorship role for me, I saw them living their faith. And I was very secretive about the fact that I was atheist around them. I didn't want them to know that I was an atheist, but I saw them living their faith in a daily, real, tangible way on a daily basis. And it made me question a lot of things. And then they, there was a conference and at the end of that conference on a Sunday morning, they had an optional nondenominational worship service. And I was going to save face. It was actually my wife and I, we were both atheists at that point. And I was going to say face, I did not want them to know that I was an atheist.
(32:54): So I went to say face and someone at that worship service shared their testimony. And it connected with me in a really weird way. And we had a lot of similarities. They were just about 20 years ahead of me. And through that conference, that's where I gave my life to cry. So my wife and I both and it was a very overwhelming experience. I can get into a lot of details, but I'm not going to, because it was a very, there was no question that God's hand was moving. And since then it has been, it's been an amazing wall, but one of the moments that you're talking about right now, other than my salvation has happened in the past few months is one of the things that I have been, that I have wrestled with since that time is really devoting myself to God and giving over to him, trust me, I had a very interesting childhood.
(33:44): And one of the things that happened, I'll just kind of go from a high level is a few months ago. I believe it was, Tom's kind of starting to run together because of the quarantine. But a few months ago, I really felt in my morning, quiet time that I was getting a word from God that he wanted more from me. And I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it looked like. And I wrestled with it for a couple of months by myself. I didn't mention it to my wife because I didn't know what it meant. And I knew there would be a lot of questions and more from me usually means more from us.
(34:17): Exactly. And so we shared with her at one point once I finally got clear, okay, God, what does this look like? What are you, what are you wanting? Like, I don't understand what you're wanting with this. And it became very clear to me that outside of my business, that God was calling me to some sort of call a full-time ministry. And I know this is brought to you. You hadn't even mentioned it before, but God was placing a call of some sort of full-time ministry on my life. And that scared the crap out of me to be free.
(34:47): And I released to that and I was like, okay, God, I don't know what this is going to look like, but okay, I'm going to let this evolve and I'm going to let you show me what it looks like. And I really wrestled with it for a long time. I, I shared it with my wife and I said, I don't know what this means. I don't know what it is. All I know is that there's something going on and I'm going to let God take us down whatever path it is. And we were sitting in bed one night. I don't think I've ever shared this at any bar anywhere outside of my bedroom, which is a little bit interesting. We were sitting in bed one night, just me and you talking nobody's. And I J I said, this is really frustrating me that God's not giving me clarity on this.
(35:28): And my wife is amazing. And she said, and an amazing woman of God. And she said, well, why do you feel like he's not giving you clarity? And I said, I don't know. I said, you know, there's parts of me are afraid of this. And there's parts of me that are wrestling with this. I said, but I think I'm just really afraid of the unknown. And I can't the fact that God's not given me clarity on this is making me more afraid. And she said, well, do you think that fear is coming from God? And of course I know, no, it's not. And so it made me stop for just a minute. And it was one of those moments where very clearly much like you're talking about not audibly, but just a very firm check in my spirit. If it was any louder, it would have had to have been a lot of bull of God saying, Brett, your entire Christian walk, you've not fully trusted me because of things that's happened to you in the past. And I need you to let go and just trust that I've got a good plan for you and I'm going to work it out. And so that, and that's just been months ago. I mean, I was literally weeping. I mean, it's like one o'clock in
(36:29): The morning, we're laying in bed and I'm just weeping. And it was at that moment. The only picture that I've put together for it is that the feeling that God gave me was it was almost a feeling of as if he reached into my heart and he pulled a weed out and you and I had that picture of that strong compacted dirt on the top. And then all of the sudden it's just soft, beautiful, fresh earth because that weed has been pulled out and it was just a release. It was a physical release. I felt the release of tension. I felt peace and an in a way that I, you know, peace that surpasses all understanding. And it's been transformative and I'm still on that journey. And I still don't know what it looks like, but I'm trusting that God's got to step on it. The step at a time, You still have that call a full-time ministry, meaning something in ministry, or is that business will be your ministry.
(37:23): I think it's going to be both, but I definitely feel that there is something within the body of Christ within the church and potentially a local body of believers that he has a specific call. And so we are building more systems into our businesses. And what's amazing is my business partner. When I shared this with him, he felt that it was confirmed in his spirit immediately. And he said, then, then we just want to make sure that our structure is built in a way that our business is honoring God and honoring whatever call it is that he has on your life. That's
(37:53): Neat. And also what all businesses should do as well is build systems that aren't dependent on the leader, you know, and great leaders, you know, build businesses that aren't dependent on them so that they can go to other things and, you know, equipment and power that the team. Well, thanks for sharing that story and this incredible story. There's so many pieces I'd love to go back and talk about, I got to ask, are you connected with your family?
(38:19): Oh yes. Yes. It took about a year, year and a half at my mom. And I did not speak for about a year, year and a half. And then after things kind of, I guess you could say settled down, we started, you know, reforming a relationship and now we're, we have a very amiable relationship. We spend time together and all that from the outside, it would look very normal and there's not really a big riff there. Yeah. And
(38:41): As of now, you and your wife and your family on Christians, and then they are still Mormon. Two of my five younger siblings have actually come to faith in the Lord. Yeah. But outside of that, the rest of the family is still Mormon. Yeah.
(38:54): Well, it's just neat. Well done way to be bold at 17. Unbelievable. Then I love, I love the journey that you took from 17 to 25 and, you know, a atheist getting baptized, all of those pieces. You talked about one thing you said that jumped out at me, just a couple of things, but one I want to hit on now is these leaders, those business leaders, or spend time where we're living out their faith, that caused you to question what you thought was theology. Yeah. I got to ask, what were they doing that felt, I guess, more Christ-like than what you thought they should've been doing.
(39:30): So up until that point outside of the Mormon church, the majority of the interaction that I had had in the Christian faith was very much a Sunday morning faith. You know, you saw the people that they were come in and they were religious on Sunday morning. And then Monday through Saturday, they did whatever they want. And I, I'm not talking about like they were going to raves and doing drugs Monday through Saturday. It's just that I didn't see any real impact that their faith had on their daily walk. And it could have been my perspective. I'm sure there were a lot of those peoples people that did. But when I started to interact with this, this group of business leaders that, you know, it was just, there was no question. It was God that put me in there in their sphere of influence. I just, I saw that their faith permeated everything that they did and not in a weird way, that they were authentic about their relationship with Christ and that there was, they didn't separate anything about it.
(40:28): And I saw them anytime. I had questions around things that were, that I have, I guess you could say principles in their life. It all went back to their faith. It all went back to biblical principles and understanding, and they were willing, they were willing to be vulnerable and open. And that was huge to me because you didn't see that there was no facade. I didn't get an impression of, well, okay, hold on. Let me put my Christian hat on while I'm talking to you. It just, they, they spent so much time and this is it's a word picture. And I don't think it's the best one, but they spent so much time putting Jesus in that there was no option for them other than for Jesus to come out in everything that they did
(41:12): At vulnerable and authentic, all those things you saw that that was the same part of my story. As I mentioned in Denver, I just had some cool guys that were strong believers and they put down the veneer and when all this tough guy stuff. And so that really, it just is neat. How I, last night I was around a campfire with a bunch guys in my kind of neighborhood. And we ended up talking, go and go and pretty deep talking about this stuff. But this idea that we were reading acts and talk about how acts, how it's neat, how throughout acts, there's different individuals that were kind of called upon at different times because they could communicate a certain way to certain groups she had saw being converted. Paul. So he, he, he was obviously handling a bunch of people. Then you had Steven having a bunch of people then for some reason, was Peter talking to, you know, Cornelius, a Centurion to have him involved.
(42:07): So everyone has a different vessel. That's going to talk to them just like we can't be that influence to somebody else. I mean, someone may not like our style or our voice, what we say, but there are people are out there that do it. So it's that reminder that each of us have to be bold because there's someone who needs to hear from our mouth. There's someone that needs to hear the way we deliver it. And so I think that was so cool here. And you, you say it cause you know, it was that one group that really opened your eyes. And then the other piece that I love is you made the comment at that ending of the conference. It was their testimony that pretty much soldier, if you will testimony soldier over all the theology knew. And I think we forget that sometimes it's just, I mean, we, we know what a business story sells, but in the exact same way, when we're sharing our faith, we're sharing how to lead families. Well, how do these companies, well, stories sell, like, instead of just saying what to do, it's just go live it and embody it. That's awesome.
(43:10): We saw it in how Jesus taught, but you know, I think the other piece is there was so much preparation of my heart that led up to that conversion moment. Greg, Cocal talked about this in his book tactics. And he talks about understanding that our responsibility as Christians is not always to facilitate the salvation moment. Our responsibility as Christians is sometimes to put that rock in somebody's shoe based on a conversation. And he talks about in his book exactly how to do that. But he that's, the thing is, is understanding that not every interaction at an I hop is going to be a ugly crying, give my heart to Jesus moment of somebody who was not a believer. And just realizing that we need to be sensitive to the spirit of God in every interaction that we're in and realize that sometimes, you know, and I think it was CS Lewis who said for some unbelievers, your, your life is the only Bible they'll ever read. And I don't think it should be the only Bible that anybody ever reads. But I do believe that sometimes it is our responsibility to just be an example, and God will use that. And Jesus talks about some people plant and some people harvest and sometimes we're the planters and sometimes we're the harvesters.
(44:32): Yep. Oh man. So good man. You were a wealth of wisdom. Thank you so much for sharing it with the winter home first audience, what is the best way Brett, for people to get able to view Linkedin? It is an amazing way. That's the hands down, probably the best way to get ahold of me. And then you can always just check out our show. It's on all the various podcast platforms. But yeah, LinkedIn is hands down probably the best way. Just look me up. I think, I think it's Brett, not Williams. One is the way my profile plays.
(44:57): Right? We'll put that in the show notes. Fred, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for, I really appreciate it. 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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