Have a podcast in 30 days

Without headaches or hassles

In this episode, you’ll discover… 

  • How looking at your life from God’s perspective keeps your life, family, and business on track (and the simple 10-minute strategy to keep God’s perspective) (4:35) 
  • Why something as simple as keeping your promises can result in a $73,000 first day launch (8:36) 
  • The “CEO at Home” trick that keeps your family together (even if you’re working 18 hour days growing a new business) (14:54) 
  • How living in the present and praying can erase 44 years of depression in an afternoon (17:49) 
  • The weird way smiling makes it impossible to be miserable (even if your business is dying and your wife wants to leave you) (20:13) 
  • How thinking about your future or past steals all of your joy (24:02) 
  • The “File on your Family” secret that helps your family feel seen and heard (even if you’ve been cheating on your family with your business for years) (27:37) 

If you’d like to pre-order Rick’s new book, In Plane Sight, you can order a copy at https://www.ricklstephens.com/

If you’re feeling stuck, are lacking confidence, or you’re inconsistent, I want to help you. I’m launching another round of The Confident & Consistent Leader Program on September 6th to help you grow in the four main areas of your life: You, marriage, parenting, and business. To check out this program before it launches, head over to https://www.corymcarlson.com/leadership/.  

Are you crushing it at work but struggling at home? If you want to learn how to win at home, then go to https://CoryMCarlson.com and download your free copy of “10 Ways To Win At Home.”

If you're looking for a resource to help you with these times when your work is now in your home, check out my book Win At Home First on Amazon. Forbes Magazine rated it one of 7 books everyone on your team should read

Read Full Transcript

Before we get started today's podcast. I'm excited to share with you that the confident and consistent leader challenge is back. We launched our next group on September six in June, we had 11 leaders go through it and the feedback was fantastic. Brad who's a wealth manager said the challenge was extremely helpful and relevant to not only his business, but as a father and a husband, Steven who's a COO said his wife was sad. That challenge was over because she felt the difference it made in his life. Yes, I know it is only 30 days, but with daily emails and videos sprinkled throughout the 30 days, it is high intentionality. We have accountability through the different live group. Coaching calls. Change is possible, whether you want to grow personally, and that may be getting back to the gym, growing spiritually, growing in your marriage, or it's professionally. You want to identify the vision and values for your company. You want to improve culture, whatever it may be. We will identify those at the beginning of the challenge, and then through a bunch of different exercises and activity, you will in fact see growth on the other side, visit Corey M carlson.com forward slash leadership to learn more as well as register. And we will get started on September 6th. And I'm so excited to see this next group of leaders grow. Thank you very much and on to today's podcast.

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.

(02:02): Hello, this is Corey today's episode with Rick. You will enjoy a lot. It is full of wisdom. He took a business from zero to 350 million and he is very vulnerable on this podcast. He talks about how he, in fact did not win at home. In the beginning, there became this tipping point where he decided to in fact, get intentional. He shares tips and how he became more intentional home, which are helpful for all of us. He also shares he battles with depression and actually hit a low point. And then how he climbed out of that, which also will be helpful for many listeners. We then talk about vision and values for the company, the actual vision and values that they created and what they lived out every day and helpful to anyone who's looking to build out vision buys for their company full of wisdom and on to today's episode. Lowe's Corey Carlson you're to win home first podcast

(03:01): Today I'm joined with Rick Stevens who I actually know his daughter and son-in-law and every time I met Rick, he was the nicest most humble man I really had ever met. And I had heard he'd had some business success, but really didn't know much about it. He is just authored a book to come out this fall. I got an early pre-release read and read it, loved the book. It is called in plain sight. And in that I learned more of his story, which is incredible. He's as humble as he is. He started business in his basement. It turned into over $350 million business, but what's so neat about reading the book is his dependency on God, along the way, the fact that he is still married to his wife, he's got three kids and they're all married and they all still like him. So I was excited to have Rick on the podcast to learn from him, to see how in fact he one at home, one at work and through it all brought glory to God. So Rick, thank you for being on the window and first podcast today.

(04:08): Well, thank you, Corey. It's great to be here. And yeah, I feel very fortunate that my girls still like me. Yeah, absolutely. They do. So Rick, what is that key trait that a leader needs to have to win at both work? And at home you told me you were going to start off with a hard one. That's your islands to the deep end. That

(04:32): Is a, that is a hard one. Actually, you know, I could come up with a lot of different traits, but I think in my experience, it in my life, probably the, the most important trait was keeping the right perspective because if I didn't have a right perspective, that kind of included everything in and around me not only my physical life, but also my spiritual life, then I would, I would have been totally lost. You know, I, I just am not that smart myself. I'm not that that kind of sound in my personality and everything else to the point that that I could figure these things out. And by looking at things from God's perspective at the same time that I I'm looking at them from my perspective makes all the difference in the world.

(05:38): Well, how did you keep having the right perspective? I actually, it's, it's one of those things that you is not a one and done. You don't actually just get it and keep it. It's a journey. And the nice thing about journeys is that you don't always know exactly what's to happen, but whether things go well or things go badly, you continue on that journey and head towards your goal. And I think that's, that's what I tried to do. You know, you, you just kind of keep moving toward that goal and you know, sometimes you are able to keep the right perspective. Sometimes you'll lose it, but even when you lose it, you realize that you're not done. You know, it's just a stumble along the road and you, you learn from it and you move on to the next step.

(06:35): Yeah. And that idea of recalibrating to get to the right perspective, because at times it would probably go astray, as I know it can in, in my own life, but as you're growing the business, there were, as you talk about in the book, there's partnerships that were going well and then did not go well. Yeah. And at those different moments, what did you find to be the best way to recalibrate so that you got that right perspective?

(06:58): Well, clearly the more I did on my own without, you know, I would get very, very busy and I would, you know, stop spending as much time with God. I would stop maybe having a quiet time because I just really didn't have time for it. And that's usually when I got off course the most and to keep the right perspective, it was very important for me to, to keep, you know, keep a consistent, quiet time and continue to kind of develop that relationship with God so that I could see that there is a bigger picture.

(07:37): You mentioned at the intro, you started horizons in your basement, you had all three of your kids were, were young. So how did you remain intentional with your wife, Janine with your three children? How did you do it?

(07:53): Well, as I say in the book, I didn't really do a very good job of it for a long time, and I'm not sure I ever really accomplished that as well as, as I would have wanted to have done it. But, you know, in the beginning, you know, the, the three girls were young, they were like five, eight and 10 when I started rising. And, you know, they were really in the Barbie dolls. And so, you know, we, we cleared out all the Barbie houses downstairs and cars and stuff, and put in four desks. And I hired three people to start the company with me. And, and, you know, we had a, you know, one thing that I think is really, really important in business is to always keep your promises. And it's something that I'd always tried to do. And in the companies that I had worked in before, and I knew that it was really critical as I was starting this company for us to keep our promises from the start to build trust and to to build a customer loyalty.

(09:05): So what I said from the outset was that, you know, we were going to start August 1st in my basement. And in two months time, October, the first we were going to be shipping product. I was in the hobby business, radio airplanes, boats, cars, model, railroad equipment stuff. And the Christmas season is really important. And I didn't have any money to start the company. I borrowed everything and everything was on the line. So I really had to turn revenue quickly. So that took a lot of work. Those two months, you know, we were working 18 hour days all the time. There were some times that I didn't make it home at all during the night, because there was just so much to do. You know, we had to, had to get a computer to operate on. We had to find some software and, and customize it for our purposes.

(10:04): We had to lease a warehouse. We had to get shelving units and set those up. We had to buy merchandise. We had to talk to some customers to see if they would buy from us October 1st, two months later, there was a lot going on. And so for those first two months, I didn't see much in my family. As a matter of fact, you know, I'm kinda not all proud of this, but there were times that my wife, you know, the only way that I would see the kids all day is if my wife would bring them, I would take a little break for dinner. We would go to this little picnic table in this small town where we had the warehouse and Janine would bring a picnic, bring the girls out, I'd spend 45 minutes or so with them, we'd play a little bit eat, and then I'd go back to work and she'd go back home.

(10:58): So for a long time, it was pretty difficult to spend a lot of time with the kids then, you know, after we did keep our promise, that was the key. We did keep our promise. And so we were shipping October 1st and as God would have it, there was a boom in the hobby industry, right at that time with RC cars. And so we got some pre-orders and that first day we sold $73,000. And we never really looked back after that. Not that it was exactly rosy. And it took, again, a lot of my time, those first two years were really difficult years in the sense that, you know, winning at home was, was not my priority. During those two years, I'm afraid, loved my family, spent as much time with them as I could. I just didn't have much time and we continue to grow. We had cash flow issues, all the normal stuff that you have, but, you know, we were growing so fast. We got to, to in five years we went from zero to $50 million in revenues, but it was very difficult. And it wasn't probably until the late eighties, I started the company in 85, probably wasn't until the late eighties that I, I kind of caught my breath and I, I really started focusing more on winning at home as well as winning in the business

(12:32): During those first five years ramping up. Did you end Janine? Was it just all through communication? The fact that she didn't obviously want to throw in the plug or she's like, oh, this is his first love is, is, is horizon is not me. Or were you doing a good job of communication? Like, Hey babe, the light is at the end of the tunnel. We will get there because I know a lot of us are trying to grow businesses and we're busy. And is your recommendation to us? It's all about in the communication?

(13:02): I would say the, the biggest factor is marrying well, that makes sense. Absolutely. And there's probably someone listening now. Fortunately, maybe thinking, oh, maybe I didn't marry well, so maybe let's go a layer deeper on this one. Just to see in case someone is questioning.

(13:21): Yeah. Someone might, that was really a big factor though, because Janine was behind this as much as I was, she did. She never really worked in the company, but you know, I suffer from depression. I had, you know, every time things would go wrong, I'd come home and I'd just spill the beans to her and tell her how bad everything is because they couldn't tell people at work. You know, they needed to kind of have a little bit of encouragement and think that we were actually going to make it. I would come home to Janine and tell her that we weren't going to make it. So, you know, there were a lot of times like that, that I just plain wanted to quit. I was just working my tail off and, and bad things would happen. Somebody would stiff us for a couple of hundred thousand dollars or something.

(14:13): And I just say, this is awful. You know, we're just going down the tubes. But she, from the very beginning was a, a huge support. I had been the president of two different companies before this. I just hadn't owned them. And in both cases I got fired because I had my own vision and the owners maybe had a different vision than me. And so Janine, I think kind of realized after that second firing that maybe I did need my own company might be the only way I could ever hold a job. So so she was behind it from the start she supported me. And frankly, the way that I looked at it was that I was the CEO at horizon and I was making, I was building that company. I was making that organization work and that environment, and she was the CEO at home.

(15:15): I mean, that's the way I kind of, you know, put it in quotes and, and looked at it. And she was a great CEO at home. She graduated from the university of Illinois and child development. She was a a teacher. She knew what she was doing. And, and, you know, on top of that, she just has a lot of wisdom and intelligence and everything else. So, and a lot of common sense. She did that job willingly. I can't say that during those five years there weren't times that she said, why aren't we important enough? Why are you at work all the time? You said you were going to be home at six o'clock for dinner. I mean, you know, she really worked hard to try to have our family get together for dinner. And I would get home at sometimes six 30, sometimes 6 45, sometimes eight 30 and, you know, I would call or something, but of course that didn't really make her feel a whole lot better.

(16:19): So there was always that issue of Rick is married to this business and, you know, the kids and I really don't don't fit into that picture very high up on the list. And, you know, my view at that time was, there's a lot of people, depending on me, I really need to make this work. And, you know, she knew that she understood that. And then in 1992, it kinda fell apart or it fell apart. I knew you were gonna just kind of follow up with that. And so things really got tough and 90, 91 92 to the point that the profits all went away and we were losing money, the banks were starting to kind of get a little bit nervous. And as I say said before, you know, I suffer from depression. Well, I kind of hit an all time low. And in 92 I had just, actually I was sitting at my desk at, at home alone because Janine and the girls had gone to Colorado, like we always did.

(17:38): And the in the month of August to just kinda, you know, I still worked from there, but, but we took a family time. We just always have enjoyed going to Snowmass, Colorado, and the girls loved it. And, and so we had gone out there every summer, but this summer I didn't go, I just couldn't go. I had to somehow figure out how to turn this, this company around so that we could stay in business. And so I was home alone and I was sitting at my desk and it was my birthday and in August and I sat there and I was praying and, and all of a sudden something came to me. It just, I just said, you know what? I am not going to figure this out. I'm just not going to figure it out. I don't know how to turn this around.

(18:34): And one thing I'm sure of though, is that I've suffered from depression for 44 years. I was 44 years old on that birthday. I've suffered from depression for 44 years. I'll probably live until I'm about 88. So I do not want to live the next 44 years of my life the same way. I don't want to be always worrying about the future or ruminating about how good it was in the past and never living in the present. And so I just made a decision that day, while I was praying, I was going to live the next 44 years of my life differently. And so, you know, that was, that was a decision that I made. It was a commitment that I made, but of course, you know, the, the lightning didn't strike the shades, didn't go up and down. You know, there was, there was nothing really different other than that prayer that I've made.

(19:39): But anyway, I had confidence that I was gonna do something different. I still didn't know what it was, but I was going to do something different. So then, you know, not long after that Janine and the girls drove home from Colorado. And when she walked in the door, she, I learned later was going to talk to me about our future because she had put up with this for seven years, you know, the startup, the company. Okay. But this was just not changing. What she was going to do is talk to me about how we might maybe separate how we might part ways, how we might, you know, she wasn't going to live any longer under that cloud of depression, that, that I spewed over the entire house, but she didn't get to that point. Because as soon as she walked in the door, I kind of ran up and said, hello to the girls and stuff.

(20:43): And I said, Jeanine, I've been thinking, I've been praying. Here's what I've found out. You know, I've lived 44 years of my life depressed. I'm not going to do that. The next 44, I'm going to change. It's like alcoholism. She wasn't convinced. I'll just say it that way. And rightfully so, because she had no, no evidence that that was going to happen. It was a slow process from there. But I went to counselors, you know, I, I did some research and, and figured out some tricks that would help me when I felt depressed. When I really felt down little things like smiling, you know, because you can't smile and also feel really horrible. You know, you just can't do it, you know, reaching out to other people. You know, when I was depressed, when I am depressed, even today, I tend to say, you know, I think I just want to stay home tonight.

(21:47): I don't want to go out to dinner with those friends, or I just need to kind of get some time to myself. Well, when you're a depressive Holick and you're spending time with yourself, you're not in good company. So I decided that that reaching out to others and not continue, you know, those are just little tricks. I had like four or five tricks like that, that, that actually would help eventually getting some medication for it. You know, I, I can't say that I was just, you know, chronically depressed or anything like that. A lot of people had depression, a much greater level, a much worse level than I had it, but I was able to eventually kind of work through it to the point that I, I was able to do some things differently. And when I started kind of getting that better perspective about life and the fact that life was going to go on, even though we were losing money in the company and stuff, and I, one year I wasn't able to take a salary because we didn't have enough money to do it, you know, but that's not the end of the world.

(23:01): I still had Janine. I still had the girls. And so, you know, that's the different perspective the, that you use to help you kind of start winning at home. And gradually I, I started understanding better how I could do better at home with my children and with my wife who are more important to me than anyone else in the world. And those baby steps started kind of clicking and, and making a difference. And maybe that's why the girls still liked me a little bit today,

(23:42): But how long till you start to see a change of significant to the point, even Janine is like, all right, amen. See what's going on Oh eight or nine months before I really realized what I was doing. And a counselor really helped me understand that. And, and that was, you know, when you worry all the time about the future or you ruminate about the past, you're never living in the present. And that's what the counselor helped me to understand after months of counseling was that life is lived only in the present. And yet I was spending all my time thinking about the future. I was thinking about the past and I was never living in the present, really, even when I was on a vacation or doing something fun, I was always thinking about, okay, this crap is going to hit the fan. As soon as I get back, I know it's going to. And so and you know, I'm worrying about the future and stuff. So, so it was eight or nine months before I kind of got that understanding.

(24:58): And I would say that, you know, really it's just been a gradual process. There was never a great Tiffany. Other than that one, there was never a great a pithany that, that put me in the position. I was able to say, okay, that's over now. I can move on. Because even today I still deal with it, but I've dealt with it long enough. I'm 72 now. So 44 from 72 is about 28 years or something like that. My math is correct. So over 28 years, I've gotten better at it. But 28 years is a long time. Corey. Hi,

(25:41): 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. Third is parenting, and then 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.

(26:48): I was talking to my kids this morning, my daughter 13, you know her, but she's struggling doing great kids. Thank you. Thank you. She's struggling with the back hand spring on the beam right now, she used to be able to do it, but now she's got a mental block and we were talking this morning about how you've probably heard this before, but you know, we're fear and faith are both about the future ear as a negative view on the future faith as a positive view on the future. And I just, I love that simplicity of thinking about and sharing with the kids. So as you're talking so often myself and my business, I, if I'm not careful, I'll go down the fear path of being the provider for the family of what clients are speaking engagements, the faith piece of, Hey, God got me this far. He's not going to leave me and for safety. Yeah.

(27:37): And you know, Corey, one thing I might mention just in case it might help people, but one of the things, as far as, you know, getting my act together at home a little bit, one of the things that I did well, I think Janine gave me the idea to actually follow up on it. But she said, you know, Rick, you know, you've got file cabinets full of, you know, correspondence that you've had with vendors and with customers, you've got financial statements, you've got zillions of files about your company, and you can go to those files and find out what's going on, be reminded and stuff. And they're very valuable, you know, I bet you can't even tell me what our kids' schedule is this next week. And do you have a file on our family? Well, the fact of the matter was, of course I had no file on the family.

(28:39): I had no Manila folder with the name Jill on it, or Jeanine or Marnie or Carrie, you know, I said, you know, you got a point and, you know, we had just heard this in a workshop and stuff. And so I sat down with all the kids, the three girls first, and I said, okay, I got my yellow pad out. I said, okay, what are you? What's your schedule this week? You know, what are you going to do on Monday? You know, practice school classes. I asked a whole bunch of questions about what they were going to do this week. And I took notes. What do you do on Tuesday? What are you going to do on Wednesday? And so forth? Did that with all three girls. Then I did that with Janine, my yellow sheets of paper. There went into a Manila folder. That little exercise really did wonders.

(29:35): First of all, it did wonders for the girls because they said, Hey, you know, dad really is kind of interested in what I'm doing, but in addition to that, it really helped me to visualize during the week what the rest of the family was doing. It, no sat on the side, out of it's out of mind. And so when I didn't know what they were doing, I just said, well, you know, they go to school, right. And I'll see them in the evening. And so I don't think any more about it, but when I had that folder and I had all the details of what they were doing, the classes that they were taking at two o'clock in the afternoon or three o'clock in the afternoon, I had more information to digest. And with that information, I thought about the girls. And I thought about Jeanine more than I did without those folders.

(30:31): There's so many people we talked to in our lives, right? Especially our kids and our spouses. They want to be seen and be heard. And by taking the time, doing the folder, taking the notes, they know that, that you see them and that you hear what they're saying and their cares and their concerns. You mentioned that in your book and it, that jumped out at me and one, not only is that great idea, but almost say that's me. I'm always talking with a pen in the hand with the clients or on podcasts and just learning and loving it. And I've I to have a file Manila folders of all my clients. Yeah, yeah, no, I, and so nothing for my kids or my wife, I got to figure out how I'm going to do it because I think they probably already think I coach too much. And I'm going to turn everything in interview. Going back to your chair moment in 1992 that you mentioned, was there a shift in your faith as well? Was it kind of a before 1992? God was in my head. I knew, I knew of him. I knew the right kind of things to pray and all this, and then did it shift and go to your heart. And then you became dependent on him. Was that what took place or was there not even a faith movement here?

(31:45): Well, faith was certainly a big part of it, but it's kind of a long story. We don't have time to go into it, but I actually developed a personal relationship with God when I was a freshman in college, when I was a freshman in college, a series of events that happened that had gotten me into a position of thinking more than most 18 year olds about what's really important in life. And then a couple of guys from campus crusade shared the four spiritual laws with man. They said, you know, God loves you. God wants to have relationship with you. And I mean, they laid it down in such a way that I was able to then make a decision. And I made a decision to follow Christ at that point, or at least to learn about them. I made a commitment to accept Christ as you know, the one who paid the price for all the stuff that I did wrong.

(32:49): So that was the beginning of a very long journey, you know, from 18 to today. And that journey has continued. There's been all kinds of mountain, top experiences and deep, deep valleys in my faith, but I kept on that track. So in 92, when I was, you know, sitting in that chair, I had that faith and I was continuing on the journey. This was just an important point on that journey. It wasn't really more than that because, you know, I had been a discussion leader and Bible study fellowship for a long time. I was studying the Bible. I was learning about God. I was having quiet times. And so throughout all of this stuff and the depression and everything else, my faith was still there. I, I never doubted that. So the chairman that was not really a change in faith, it was a, a significant event in my journey of faith.

(34:04): Little bit like a James talks about, I mean, it's faith and works. Yeah. So having the faith and now it's like, all right, I've got it. I've got a, I've got to work on this. I've got to do the smiling. I've got to do the community. Yeah. I've got it. It's faith and works if I'm going to get through this.

(34:19): Yeah. And when I think about depression too, I, you know, I talk about it with people pretty often because it is true. I mean, a lot of people experienced it at one level or another, but I always think about, I think it's second Corinthians 12, like eight and nine or something where Paul is dealing with his thorn in the side. And he says, three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore Paul says, therefore I will rejoice all the more gladly in my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest upon me. You know, that's, that's, that's going the extra mile. You know, you're not only telling yourself that God's grace is enough for this weakness of mine, but I'm actually going to rejoice in the weakness because that means that I have to depend on God more, his power's going to work through me more.

(35:29): And that really is kind of my situation. And the way that I try to look at that now, because you, for years up until the chair moment, I was always kind of praying, you know, God take this away. This is just not right. I know I'm a Christian for heaven's sakes. I'm supposed to live a joyful life. I'm not supposed to be dealing with this worry and, and depression all the time. You know, there's just something wrong with me. Just heal me, take it away. And you know, that I finally realized, I think, and the James scripture is, is correct. You know, I just realized it's not going to happen. So I need to work at, you know, it, I know God can take it away if he wants to, but you know, maybe that's not the best thing for me. And so therefore I just needed to kind of get to work and do whatever I can to move in the direction that God wants to pay to move.

(36:31): I would love to talk tons about just horizons and just even your business leadership there, but maybe we'll have to do that at a later time. But one thing that stood out as I read the book, you just talk about the emphasis of vision and values. It's something I'm always talking to my clients with and just the importance of it. And your sentence even in here is we always started by revisiting our vision and our values. And yeah. Can you speak to just the importance that you saw of it's all about the purpose, a vision and values verse the IP, the profitability's what some people are focusing on. Yeah.

(37:17): My vision was the horizon vision was to see the world impacted by God, through the influence of horizon and its people. This is the, the greater good, the purpose. So yeah, we are running a business. We need to be excellent at running a business. We need to do all the right things. We need to take care of our customers and all these things, but you don't have the best way to do that is to allow the, the love of God to flow through us. And that is consistent and not siloed or separate, or if it is consistent because the, the values that go with that vision are biblical in nature. So that was our vision to see the world impacted by God, through the influence of presidents, people, the mission, what that was flying. We were doing what we were doing. The mission is what we were doing.

(38:23): We were, our mission was to help people have fun with hobbies. That was the end user who was flying the airplane. It was the, the the store owner who we were selling to. It was the vendors that we worked with. We wanted to help people have fun with hobbies, and you can have fun in business, as well as the, and user having fun with the products. And then the three values that are very biblical nature, but they just plain work business is the golden rule. You know, you treat other people as you'd like to be treated well. That's of course our customers, but it's also the people reporting to us. It's the people on the front line, the people in the warehouse, the people in sales, who are talking to customers, it's our vendors. It's everyone that we come into contact with, treat others.

(39:25): We'd like to be treated, works pretty well in business. The second value was customer as a boss. They're the ones that write our, our paycheck. They sign our paycheck. If the customer wants something we're going to within reason, try to accommodate that. And you know, most of the time, you know, our cousins didn't take advantage of sometimes they did. They did that too many times would stop. But normally, you know, if they said, Hey, you know, this came in crumpled, or we need a replacement would replace it. The third value, the customer's boss is a second third value, the most important one. And that is the servant leadership model. Again, biblical Colin nature. Our organizational chart was turned upside down. So the point of the triangle was at the bottom. And we had a line above the bottom. The CEO was on the bottom of that chart.

(40:30): Then we had a line and some hands under that line holding the next line of people up. The next line of people were the director jurors in the vice-presidents that reported to the CEO. Then the, there was another line, nine more hands holding up, supporting the next line of people who were maybe managers, supervisors. They were holding up the most important people of all the frontline people, the people who in the warehouse who were packing the box and putting the label on everything else. They had the last contact with our customer. We could do everything else, right. But if that thing, if that box did not have the right packing, if it wasn't packed well and stuff, and the product gets there and poor condition, it doesn't matter what we did. Right. The customer's not happy. So the same with the salespeople, they're the ones on the phone with our customers. And so, so, you know, the, the supervisors and managers held them up and they're on the top of the line was the customer. And so the, our frontline people were holding the customer up and that servant leadership model works pretty well. Again, biblical in nature.

(41:50): As I mentioned the beginning, I really enjoyed this book, underline, quite a few things throughout the book. When does the book come out for everyone else to buy it? Well the book is available now kind of pre-publication because I have copies that I can sell. You can also buy the Kindle on Amazon right now. You can pre-order the book on Amazon, or you can go to my website. The website is just simply Rick L stevens.com. That's R I C K L S T E P H E N s.com.

(42:30): Title of the book is in plain sight and the plane is P L a N E because it was RC planes. It was RC planes. And, and in addition to that, it's the fact that, you know, as you look back on my life, God was a part of it every step of the way. And even though he's invisible, he also is in plain sight. If we look for great, Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and even the vulnerability Of, of the tough stuff as well. Sure. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks, Corey.

(43:07): 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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