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.
Hello, this is Corey Carlson. You're listening to winter home first podcast today. I am joined by Andrew plumber. He is director of town for bam, which has business as mission and drew in briefly met a couple of years ago at a bam conference in California, and then our paths were actually reconnected due to a mutual friend. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, and quite honestly, at, towards the end of the conversation, I said, you need to be on his podcast. He had all kinds of wisdom. You're sharing about marriage, parenting work, entrepreneurship, his own faith journey. It was a ton of fun. And looking forward to this conversation again, married 17 years, three kids. So drew, thanks for having another conversation with me. Pleasure. It was a pleasure chatting a couple of weeks ago, and I'm really looking forward to sharing again, drew, what is the key trait that leaders need to have in order to win at work? And when a home it's funny, 20 plus years of working, I've had lots of managers, but I've worked for very few leaders.
(01:34): And over the past couple of years of owning my own business and talking with people, it comes down to one thing for me, and that is managers equal do, as I say, leaders equal do as I do. And for me, leadership is about somebody who will give you an example. We'll lead by example. We'll, we'll show you how to do things, how to be that's my, that one thing really, that is really important to me. How do you model do as I do at home? So I should shut off that. I posted something on LinkedIn quite recently, and it was a picture of my son and I we'd been out surfing. And I, I mentioned about this thing about taking responsibility and from a very early age, I remember being very intentional about apologizing to my children when I'm wrong, taking responsibility when I have failed them.
(02:38): And that might be when I've raised my voice, when I have contradicted something that my wife has agreed to. But yeah, I believe that, you know, it's really important that children have the example, us, adults, parents, you know, we, we don't get it right all the time and our children need to learn. It's okay to get things wrong, apologize early and often is something we do do at our house and, and often, and I'm quick to do it. Cause I, I noticed that the relationship can get back to normal quicker. Absolutely. And the quicker week recalibrate, then we can get moving in the right direction. Otherwise I know in my marriage, if I'm too prideful and don't say, sorry, because I'm trying to prove my point or whatever it can go on for days. But if I just swallow my pride, say, I'm sorry, man, we can, we can move right along.
(03:36): My son had a buddy over one of his best buddies the other day. And they got a little fight playing, playing catch and knowing both of them. Well, the friend and my son, I had an idea what it was about. And I made them both say, they're parts of the story. And they were pretty much right. As far as what I thought they'd be. But in of it, it was like, you both stand up with each other. And I say, you're sorry to each other and say you forgive each other. And then they both did it, gave her a bro hug. And then I said, now now go play. But it took both of them just saying, sorry, and forgiveness. But I could do that from a position of leadership. Like, as you just talked about, because I do it to my son. I tell my son, I'm sorry.
(04:21): And I asked my son for forgiveness and vice versa in your relationships with you, your spouses, your wives, husbands, or in the church in business. Again, I think it's something that leaders businesses, they, again, my experience and I'm not obviously tarring everybody with the same brush, but I think there is a, almost this while your management and your leaders are, or I'm management, I'm a leader, therefore it's okay for me to get things wrong and I don't have to take responsibility. I don't have to apologize. And I think again, with a shift in attitude, from business leaders, from management, to understand the power of apologies that you know, what that communicates in terms of the value of relationships with their employees or their team, I think yeah, it's, it's a big thing. [inaudible] Your leadership of modeling the watches I do. How do you model serving your spouse that your kids can see? Is
(05:27): That why, what I think is serving [inaudible] well, that's exactly, that's exactly where
(05:36): I was going to go. It's the small things from our porch is, is often littered with shoes everywhere. And there were places for shoes to go, but you know, you know, that whole thing, you coming here, you flip your shoes off and they never really go where they're supposed to. And it's a small thing as I, you know, whether it's saying to the children right before moms comes back, let's all get in there, let's get that porch because when she comes in, it's one thing that she will notice and she will appreciate. So whether it's that, or, you know, being really intentional about cleaning up the kitchen before she gets home from work, you know, cleaning down the wetsuits after we've had a day on the beach, how do you model faith for your kids? What does that look like in your house? My wife and I are involved in, in worship leadership of the church worship is, is a big thing for us.
(06:33): And it's funny at the beginning of lockdown, 1.0 last year, we started doing a daily song of worship that we would record and post on, on Facebook just to encourage people, to share our faith, to pray for people. So we've really encouraged. Yeah. We've always encouraged our children to, to worship, to understand the power of worship in their lives, in the challenges that they faced. And you know, I'm being a worship leader. I'm very interested in the words of songs, you know, we can very easily, you know, sing along the course, but really actually think about the words, really think about what, what we mean when we sing to Jesus. I surrender for example. And so we, we, we do, we worship and we talk about the power of the words where they come from and in different situations, you know whether it'd be praise, worship, prayer, cause then how your parents modeled faith in the walk with Jesus or not.
(07:47): Interestingly my, so my father was a Baptist minister and that's not really, I wouldn't say that's how he encouraged it. My dad was not hands-on. It's interesting. I was thinking about this earlier about whether my, my father and my parents were, would come up in conversation and yeah, my dad was a Baptist minister who was never really around and both my mom and my dad's musicians. So yes, house was always full of worship. And my dad would pray with us when he was around in the evening before we go to bed. But no, I don't recall. Many times my dad encouraging my faith. It was very much more my understanding as I was going well, you know, the Christianity was a religion. It was about doing, it was about rules. It was banter about being a BDM. And I never really don't hold my, my, my dad responsibility responsible for this at all, but I never really got that whole thing about what, what Christianity and faith is really about, which is about relationship.
(08:59): So yeah, I would, I would say that my father has a very big hand in about who I am as a father. And now the whole thing you were talking earlier about taking responsibility and apologizing, you know, I never really remember my father apologizing or admitting that he was wrong in any situation at any point until I was, I think I must've been about 20. And I remember this vividly, I was walking with him and my brothers and him being quite, you know, close to tears, apologizing for being a lousy father, as we were growing up, what was he defining lousy father as it wasn't around. Yeah. You know, he didn't really engage with my passion for sport playing, playing football. He doesn't mind me saying this as a, as a, you know, a Baptist minister and minister of a church. The church came before the family.
(10:01): Certainly that was my experience. And you know, we've talked, you know, I'm one of five boys and certainly I think the majority of us would, would agree that that was the case. Your father is no different than many listeners are on this podcast from this. And I've been in my own life and I've got to kind of wake myself up at different times as well. One, I had it on a call today, the client we were talking about, who are you influencing? Who you impacting your life? And the individual literally just kind of passed over his kids. He just kind of passed over to them. But yeah, my spouse and my kids there, you know, I got them, but I need to go out here. What I told them is so often, you know, the great commission is to go and make disciples. We so often overlook our own house.
(10:47): Absolutely. When we announced at the church that we were expecting our, our first child Josiah again, I will never forget the moment I had led worship that Sunday and a chap came up to me and he said, and it was profound. It was, you know, your first and most important ministry in your life is to your wife and to your children. And he said anything that gets in the way of that. You need to question whether it's from God and, you know, over the years, obviously, as our children are grown up and we, we you know, society and, and you know, we talk about our, what, what, what's your children? You know, what's your child going to go on to do, what does he want to do as a career? How far is he going to get in school, all this stuff. And we had, we rarely talk about what, well, we rarely talk about, you know, where he's going to be in terms of his faith.
(11:56): And at the end of the day, you know, I, as long as he loves Jesus, you know, and has a relationship with God knows that he can turn to God in, in all situations, then, you know, something I, whether he drives around in a Porsche or drives in and around in a little Skoda fear, you know, whether he lives in a mansion or, you know, a one bedroom that I really don't care, that's not, what's important to me. What's important to me is that he knows farther than what I've seen, his heavenly father, that he knows what it is to walk in relationship with him. They day-to-day use the you're trying to do more of that. Maybe your dad did not do is he had all the head knowledge and you are trying to live out your faith and you use the words, encourage your faith.
(12:44): How do you encourage your kids? Faith in prayer? You know, when my daughter Beatrice, she's 12, she's experiencing all of the joys that meaning a 12 year old girl has hormones, you know, school relationships and, and anxiety suffers quite a bit with anxiety. We had a period of time where she was having some serious stomach problems and ended up having to be in hospital for four or five days. And we couldn't get to the bottom of it, but it was causing problems at school. And, you know, there's very little that I can do to reassure my daughter because at the end that they're only words and when you're anxious and you're a 12 year old girl, and you're having to deal with the things that you have to deal with, words are often not enough. And so is, you know, B I can pray with you.
(13:48): That's probably when you're in these situations, walking to school where your friends are being horrible about another friend, pray, if you don't want to walk to school with the girls, expand your time, listening to worship music and spending time with God before school. So there's that, you know, I I'm often encouraging my son. He's loves music. I'm often, you know, sending him new music and he'll send me new music that comes out from some of our favorite. You're giving your life to Christ. Therefore God, by the power of the holy spirit lives in you. So the things that you face, the struggles, you, when you go into exams and your, you know, justice, how the interview exams, and again, just reminding him if you're struggling, you know, turn to God, encouraging them to be independently dependent on God, and then encouraging them to live into who God uniquely, wonderfully made them to be. If it's, if it's spreadsheets, if it's
(14:55): Introvert or extrovert or whatever it is, but whatever
(14:58): Your gifting is, how can you do it to bring glory to God?
(15:03): Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you are joined 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.
(16:11): He said that to Joss about football. You know, he, he loves her and he's very talented and I just wonder for the American listener. So I, yes, some words like football, I love rubbish. I love holiday. There's a few words that I would love. Well, okay. So just play soccer. And he's played soccer from the age of eight and I used to coach him and and his football team and I will do it reminds him your ability is a gift, you know, and you may train, but your ability to take what you train and put it into practice on a football field. That's a gift that's from God. And it's really important that you remember that. And so every time you step onto the pitch, you are using a gift from God and for him. And and it's the same for Frankie who loves to sing and be, he loves to sing.
(17:13): It's, it's a gift from God to be used for him. So, absolutely yes. Trying to encourage them that whether it's the exams or, you know, the, the, the fun stuff in life, it's about doing it, that knowledge that God is always with you, not just in the times where you need it, but in the times of celebration and the times of praise, I think it's, it's very, it's very sort of frenzy. It's very easy when life is going well for easy to forget why things are going well. And you know, I think again, we might be talking about this, the whole thing about the piece of Lego, you know, when, when we children, when, when my son was a child, he would come to me with a couple of pieces of Lego and he'd asked me to part, not ever thinking that that was too big, a thing for me to do for him.
(18:12): He never thought, well, my dad's too important to help me with this. And the same way when my son would create these east of these Lego shapes, not without a design, he'd just box around the blocks and he'd come to me and share, you know, his achievement with me, you know, because he loved that relationship. He loved sharing that. And again, it's that reminder of God loves us to share with him our successes. So when just, you know has a great game, it's being grateful to book for, you know, the ability to do that when we, yeah. When we have a wonderful time as a family, down at the beach, or with, with our friends, from church, it's giving God glory and thanking him for the blessings that he's given us in terms of a church family and, and those people around us. It's funny, having children really challenges, really challenges me in my walk with God reminds me of the things that he says about us to come to him like a child, but also kind of have the pink, not pinch myself, but you know my son recently, he we have this phone app, it monitors kind of time on his phone and there are some restrictions around what time his phone goes off, what time it comes on, how much time he can have.
(19:43): So anyway, he found out the password and disabled it. And I was, you know, I was having a conversation with him about like, dude, why would you do that? You know that I put this stuff in place. I put these restrictions, therefore, you, because I love you because actually I want you to not have to learn the hard way. You know, why would you do something which you know, is going to upset me, is going to, you know, and, and I've got the holy spirit going like this, are you listening to yourself?
(20:24): Are you, are you hearing yourself? Like, okay, I get it. You know how God sees us and sees me when, you know, when I, I step outside of his will and God's going why, why are you doing that? So yeah. I love being a father. And I, I love how God reveals himself through parenting reminds us of his love for us. Yeah. It's a, it's a great job. And I do agree with, with the parenting bees where it's so often I'm reminded of how God treats me based on some of the ways I sometimes don't treat Kayla. My son, I mean happens with all my kids, but just last week, it was a father son week, incredible week. And, but there's one moment in there where we played ping pong one night and I said, you've got to see professional ping pong, how fast it is, you will be blown away.
(21:23): So the next day we look at being bombed by this time, he's also tired because we had been going hard the last few days without mom and the two sisters around. So it's a lot of play. He looks at professional ping pong on YouTube, blown away. He's a competitor. He wants to get back out there and play ping pong and learn how to get faster. So he goes, when can we play ping pong? And I said, I don't know, bud. We just did it yesterday. And we were busy the next few days. I don't know. And he, he kind of lose it. He goes, man, we're never going to play it. I was like, whoa, we just played it yesterday. And we may play it again. And what was interesting is he, his mood went south. He got upset. I got upset. I mean, I was, I was frustrated.
(22:06): I've been skipping out on a work and trying to be the, you know, a very present father and hanging out with them. We kind of went our separate ways in the house, both frustrated. I walked away and not getting drew. I just felt this. I give you new mercies every day, you know, laminations 3 22, like it just hit me like a ton of bricks as I give you numerous every day. Why are you going to hold a grudge against your eight year old? And it, yeah, it kind of rocked my world. So I didn't come down right away and talk to Kayla about it. I still was a broken human for a little while longer, but eventually I got my act together and I shared with gala diverse Lamentations, 3 22, pulled it out, showed it to him and said what it means. And I said, I have to give you numerous.
(22:55): These to God gives you an, I knew new mercies and we need to do the same to each other. So it was pretty cool, but no, so similar to what you're talking about. So thank you, drew part of my story is when I heard God, tell me, Hey, I need to handle where my small story for a greater story. When I say that phrase, is there a story that you have that you had a handover Drew's small story for what God was going into in mind, late teens into my early twenties, I worked in an industry which was working at 150%. We worked 12 hour days. I'd not really knowing what it was to have a relationship with God and had battled with my dad on various things and got to a point where I did announce my faith because whatever Christianity looked like that I've experienced really wasn't for me.
(23:55): And I was a, you know, it was a stage where I was going out and meeting new people. And I think, yeah, it got to the point where, well, I want to live my life. And I don't, I don't believe that there is a God out there. And I, I, one thing I, I probably should mention that when I was 19, I had a motorbike accident and I ended up in a coma for two weeks. I broke my femur into six pieces broke both my wrists, my thumbs fractured my pelvis. And so yeah, I ended up in a coma for two weeks and I should have died. Doctors talked to my parents about turning off my life, four machines after a couple of days. And I came out, the other side doctor said, I wouldn't hold property again. They said it takes six months for me to be out of bed 18 months to be off crutches.
(24:55): And I was angry. I'll be angry with God at that time. I love football and I love my motorbike. There were two things that I was really passionate about and God took them away. And that led to suffering PTSD, which coincided with me starting to use drugs. I almost felt like, you know, well, I've, I've cheated death once, you know, I'm going to try again. And I got kind of heavily into that scene and smoking a lot of drugs and doing class a drugs, working in the city. And yes, it didn't work out very well for me.
(25:48): I did, I got to a breaking point where I, I ran away, you know, I, I, I quit my job. I ran away to call mall, you know, Southwest of the point of England. And the plan was just to come down and just get away and have six, six weeks away over the summer. And I stayed and, you know, I'd say completely denounced my faith at that point. And yeah, God where he followed me down there. And it's funny, it's always a recalled the story or, you know, the, the, the, the one, you know, God leaving the 99 for the one, you know, and being down here and the beauty of his creation and God really prompting me and kind of prodding me going. You really believe that you're here by chance. Do you really believe in the odds that you are on this bus going to work here and now just by chance that something happened billions of years ago, but the odds of billions, of billions, of billions, of billions and billions and billions of billions of billions, the world, that, that thing then has equaled to you being here, doing what you're doing now, talking to Corey on this podcast, you know, do I really, really believe in those odds, or do you believe that you are created for a purpose that God had a plan for you and and life changed?
(27:36): And it, it you know, I'm very grateful to my pastor who he spent Tommy every week and he was a Baptist minister, quite funny. And we, we talked about, you know, actually we talked about God, I didn't know, which is really funny saying that because obviously I grew up in a Christian household, but yeah, we, we talked about the God that I, I really didn't know. And I was, I was challenged to read the Bible and to really pray and spend time talking to God. And yeah, that's, that happened probably about 19 years ago. And things have never been the same. And you know, that doesn't mean that life hasn't been tough because there have been plenty of time with times where life has been tough, both, you know, being single and being married. There's been time, you know, tough times as a parent, tough times as a, as a business, as an entrepreneur tough times at work.
(28:45): But the major difference is that I know who I am, and I know that wherever I go, that he's with me and I know that whatever I face that he can use and a lot of, I think a lot of what I experience certainly, you know, I go back to that attitude of, okay, Lord, what is it you want to learn through this? How can I be more like you? How can I, how can I be refined through this process? Yeah. So yeah, that, yeah, that is definitely a, I tried in my way. So what made you decide to, you said a pastor walked you through it. How did you even get to that pastor? How did you even get to that church? It was the launch largest church, I guess in the local area and just rocked up one Sunday morning.
(29:44): Probably if I'm remember correctly, I wasn't in the best states, you know, I was still at a point of that kind of, not on the fence, but living that old life, but trying to find a way through. So yeah, it would have been obviously a Sunday morning and the Saturday night I would have been out with friends and drinking and doing other stuff. So that for Sunday morning. Yeah. But I do again, I remember it very, very, very well that Sunday morning and meeting two people who had I not met on that Sunday. I'm not sure whether I would have continued going once again, God's at work. That, that moment to those two people showed up to you at the right time, invite you to whatever was next, a coffee or some meeting to get together. And then it sounds like they started to pour in and invest in you.
(30:43): Absolutely. That's it. That's exactly. That's exactly. Well, thanks for sharing this story. It's it's powerful story. I think it just a reminder to all of us and I've got my stories of brokenness, but God wants us where we're at, whether it is in a battle with drugs, a battle with workaholism of battle, with a bad marriage or whatever it may be, and God wants us where we're at, but he doesn't want to skip, you know, keep us there. He wants us to keep going forward. Absolutely. And I think that's again, I go back to my children that no matter what my children do, no matter where they're at no matter, you know, what they've done, their failures, their, their sin, whatever it is. Okay. I'm there for them because that's what you do as a parent. And again, I'm reminded that, you know, there was no situation, there was no set.
(31:36): There was no failure that God kind of turns away. I remember being at a Wyman base and over dinner conversation came up, you know, where do you stand on the once saved, always saved. Right. So thinking, you know, and I was, I must've been like 16 at the time, so I was really young, but I had given my life to God. Didn't really, obviously I didn't really know what that was about. And I was definitely not in terms of relationship with God, but I had given my life to God. And I remember saying, I remember saying, I believe that once saved, always saved. I believe it because who am I to think that God, the creator of heaven and earth would let go of me once I give him my lifetime, why would I believe that he would just like, and you know, that that's really my testimony of, you know, I gave my life to God.
(32:43): I didn't really know what I'd given my life to, but I had given my life to God and I ran away and I had done things. I had lived outside of the will of God. I had denounced, I faith in him. And yet he left the hundreds, this only the 99 to come find me. He chased me down. And and I, and I still, you know, but that's back then or we, my day-to-day, you know, I, a church yesterday morning leading worship and I'm there and I'm just bowled over by his grace and his mercy because no matter what's going on the week before, I'm a sinner, you know? And I, I get to that place. I'm like, Lord, I'm just, yeah, no matter where, where you are at, no matter what you've done, no matter how low or weak you feel or have a bigger failure, you feel you are, there is nothing that can come or stand in the way of God. He continues to pursue us all the time. True. This was a very good conversation. Very,
(33:55): And we didn't even talk about some of the [inaudible].
(34:01): I had tons of questions.
(34:03): I wanted to ask about business
(34:05): And a few other things. So we're going to have to we'll have to chat again. But what we talked about, obviously God wants to talk about, because it was, people need to hear whether they're feeling broken or whether they are feeling like they're the one that a, it God's coming after. And, and so thank you for your vulnerability and sharing that and greatly appreciate drew. What is the way for people to get ahold of you? They want to connect to your more story. We even talk about bam business's mission. Oh, I how I I'm on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is gray or, you know, jot me an email, andrew@bamtraining.org, more than happy for people to reach out to me directly. I think the that's one of the most important things for me is God brings people together for a purpose, right? Right. You know, the, the, the chap who connected us, you know, there's purpose in me, connecting with him, it's resulted in me having a conversation with you, you know? And there are, you know, subsequent consequences to us, chatting people, seeing that. And I believe all of that is about giving a glory, giving God an opportunity to say, this is how I want you to, to encourage each other, build each other up, lead each other challenge. Each other completely agree. I mean, saying yes to new conversations is open all kinds of new doors in which has been
(35:32): Lots of fun. Drew, thank you very much for your time. Thanks for sharing
(35:36): Your story, your and glad to have you on the podcast.
(35:44): 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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