Hello, this is Corey. Before we get started, I want to share with you a new thing I'm doing for the Cincinnati business leaders. In January of this year, I launched a prioritized leader academy and brought together eight different business leaders and owners. And we meet once a month as well as have coaching in between our different sessions. So basically it's a mastermind, but we've added strong content incorporated faith into the piece. And so it has gone so well that in October, we are launching our second cohort. So if you are a business leader or a business owner, and you are looking for community, you were looking for coaching, you were looking for additional content to help push you forward. Then reach out. Love to give you more information on what this looks like. You can email me@coreyatcoreymcarlson.com. Or go ahead and give me a call 7 2 0 3 0 1 8 3 7 7. And this is for any Cincinnati business owner or leader who is looking to grow over this next 12 month period.
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.
(01:30): Hello, this is Corey today's episode is Cheryl Ann is filled with wisdom. She is an executive coach for females, and I've had a couple conversations with her over the years to learn from her as well as to just to share some knowledge. And today on the podcast was great. As we do a deep dive into listening and how she asks some additional questions, did he, the clients or to her kids to buy time, to help her think through what a possible response could be. We talk about the importance of some schedule planning with family, and she should share some of the tips that they use. She talks about how she makes decisions and this idea of return of efforts and how that's been impactful over her career. Both that B and G, but especially now is she's the business of coaching individuals. Let's talk about really the power of fear it can have on our lives and how to push through it.
(02:28): It's a great episode packed with lots of good information. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did on to today's episode. Hello, this is Corey Carlston. You're listening to win a home first podcast today. I'm joined by Charlene Skol, Nikki, who is a executive coach here in the Cincinnati area. And I'm actually grateful for her because I met with her a little over a year and a half ago. And she was just so generous with her time and her knowledge to, to help me get my coaching business going because she has been doing it for a while and has lots of just great content and just activity that she's doing. So she's leading a business. She's married. She has three kids and is, is winning at home and work. So that would be a perfect guest to have. So I could ask questions to see how to get better for the listeners and myself. Thank you for being on the show today. Sherlyn, Thank you for having me. So what is that key trait for leaders to win at work and at home?
(03:25): So the first word that comes to mind is listening and ability to be a good listener. And I am not sure I would claim to be the best listener on the planet if I'm being perfectly honest, but when I'm at my best, I think I'm pulling context out of situations by being a good listener. It sometimes it's so easy to get reactive to the first statement, the, you know, the facial expression, the action that's taken, the email that gets sent. And when I'm pausing enough to get context through listening, kind of get the rest of the story. I think that's what elevates my leadership.
(04:05): All right. So I got to dive deeper on that one already because like you, I have three kids and we tend to move fast. Sometimes getting context takes time. So how do you slow down and take the context out, whether you're talking to your husband, your kids,
(04:21): Well, let's state for the record that if you ask my children, if I am a good leader, they would probably all say no. So, you know, I don't know. They're their best people to ask. Let's see the, the practice that I have had to train myself in is noticing I'll call it my physiological response. If I'm having a physiological response to what you just said, I once heard someone say, if it's hysterical, it's historical, right? If you're having, if I'm triggered in some way, by what you've just said, I've learned to sort of tap the brakes before I opened my mouth. Am I perfect at this? No. Okay. But when I'm at my best, I feel that physiological response, it could be, my heart rate goes up a little bit of heat rises. You know, I'm getting hot, like agitated, by what you've said, I want to come right back with a quick response because if you and I are going to go to verbal war, Corey, I'm going to win.
(05:14): Like it is my favorite game to play very practiced in. It asked my husband. So I've had to really train myself to say, listen, I, you don't want to get into verbal sparring on this. Right. Cause then I get competitive and I want to come back at you. And then there's hurtful things that, that I can't take back. So at home, especially, wow. What did you mean by that? Hey, tell me what's going on there. Give me the rest of the story. You know, phrases where I can sort of use that time to get my own physiological response back in my body. I learned this year, this is new knowledge for me, that in emotion lasts 90 seconds. Like the true physiological response to an emotion lasts about 90 seconds. If you can ride out that 90 seconds, you have a prayer of having a measured, thoughtful response instead of one that's driven by your biology.
(06:08): So by asking some of those questions, you're literally buying time. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what you mean by that. You know, and it's all in the tone and the, so you go, well, what exactly do you mean that's not going to get us anywhere. Right. But when something gets said or asserted, and I can say pause, you know, tell me what you mean by that. Or, Hey, what's going on there? It doesn't sound like you, right. Or why are you asking or do you need a little space? And it depends on which child I'm talking to or if it's my spouse, sort of exactly how I would use that.
(06:42): I liked that I with within it's interesting because we obviously we're both coaches, but when I'm with clients, man, it's crazy on my posture is so good to listen because I'm there. I pen in hand, I'm ready. And I'm asking a lot of those questions, but man at home, it's I want to provide the solution so fast. And how have you, it's a very selfish question, but I do everyone. Listening are also leaders. They may not be coaches, but they're leaders is I like to provide solutions or really help be a coach. But sometimes I need to be put on my father hat or my husband hat. So when you're at home, how do you put on the wife or the mother hat and kind of take that coach one off who has all the answers?
(07:29): It's so hard. So my oldest child is 16. She'll be 17 in a couple of months as we record this. And then I have a 14 year old son in the middle and then an 11 year old daughter. So just for context for the listener, the question I am using with them, that allows me to stay out of the coach realm and get into a parent realm is how would you like to handle that? So think about the scenario. I think what I'm hearing you say, Corey is like, if they come to me and they have a problem, like Bob, I'm so stressed about this or this thing is happening and I'm frustrated about it or I'm mad about it, or I don't know what to do. Anytime they say, I don't know what to do my antenna go up. I'm like, Ooh, I do, let me give you an answer.
(08:09): But I've learned to say, how do you want to handle that? Because what it does is it puts them back in agency of problem solving, right. They sort of move from the emotional to the logical because you can't solve a problem out of emotion. So your question like snaps that into gear. So sometimes they'll say I have no idea, right? And sometimes they'll say, well, I think this is what I want to do. Okay, great. Sounds like a plan. You know, when you have them sort of back in their logic minded self, and it's healthy because you also hear how they're choosing to solve the problem. And then if you need to steer or provide an alternative or say, maybe this is another thing to think about, at least they're on a ground where they've started thinking about how they want to handle it. So with kids, those ages, I'm really in that journey of, I want them to be great problem solvers. And so I have to give them space to at least ideate solutions instead of fixing every single thing for them when they bring it up. Yeah.
(09:07): That question there's been times I even said, well, what role do you want me to play? What hat do you want me to have? Is it the coach at, or is that the dad hat? And it's amazing. They so often say the dad hat,
(09:20): I have to do that with schoolwork. So, you know, if they say, Hey, will you read this? I wrote this essay, or I wrote this piece for the newspaper or whatever I've learned to stop and say, do you want input or praise? Like, because 90% of the time, what do they want? They want you to tell them it's fantastic. Right. So if they're not looking for input there, they're really just looking for like, yes, look at that. You did it great. I do. You have to tell me, cause I am a continuous improver and I will give you feedback just to get it that last 1%, you know, if you don't caution me not to do it.
(09:51): So in your house, you guys are busy, three teenagers or the third, one's almost a teenager, but what does it look like in your guys's house for, for date night and that rhythm that you and John had to make sure that he's got a full-time job. It's very demanding for him, your jobs demanding. So what are you guys doing from a marriage standpoint to, to find your guys as time? Yeah,
(10:12): It's very challenging. Right? I thought this, this chapter was going to be easy street around like look at all this time we're going to have, and then we got hit with COVID right? When our w ostensibly our life should have been opening up with the oldest, able to stay with the youngest and we couldn't leave the house. And then as we got back from that, it's like, does she have a driver's license? No big delay on that. Right. So we're, we're, I think we're just feeling like we're climbing out. The thing that works for us in terms of time alone is truly sometimes right in our own house. We have a great outdoor space. I love to be on it. It's very private backyard. And being able to just go out and have one drink or one conversation or one cup of coffee on a Saturday morning is very effective for us.
(10:55): So I would be lying if I was like, we're great at going out and having all kinds of date nights. I really feel like our world is just reopening. We went to the Billy Joel concert a couple of weeks ago in Cincinnati. It's kind of a big deal in Cincinnati. We had those tickets for two years before we finally got to go because the show was rescheduled with COVID. And we were looking at each other saying it's really the first like big thing we've done in quite some time. So it felt great to be back out doing something really, you know, like sort of a memory being made. But a lot of the time in the last year and a half has been closer to home trying to really stay focused on conversation. My husband is much better at having fun than I am like 10 X better. He is much funnier. He is much more aware of pop culture and things happening around us than I am. I'm like, so nerdy it's sad. And so he really drives that. He makes sure that things stay light and that we're able to get some time away from like the running of the household, the raising of the family and being in our group.
(12:00): Like I mentioned, not just date nights, but at any time throughout the week that we can just get that one-on-one time, whether it's coffee. I think that is some of a miss. And I'm obviously, I'm a big proponent of date night. I talk about it a lot, but I think some people get so confused. It's gotta be this big deal. It's gotta be as big for our thing. It's going to cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Cause we gotta go eat here. And w instead, and this even happens with spending time with kids. We, we want to make something so big that we keep delaying it. Oh, well, we'll, we'll do that next month. We'll do that next. But sometimes it's just coffee. It's just hopping in the car together and going and getting ice cream or it's going in and doing something. And so I like how that simplicity has became a, a standard practice in your guys's house.
(12:44): You know, I think of what if I, if I put a positive frame around it, sometimes I'm hard on myself about this tendency, but if I put a positive frame around it, it's what enables frequency, right? So that fabric of our lives, where it's, I call it eye to eye time. Like I am looking at you having a face-to-face conversation so much of the time we spend as a couple, it can be sort of side-by-side right, where we're swirling around the kitchen, doing things or words next to each other in the front seat of the car, driving people somewhere. But you're not actually like looking each other in the eye having a conversation. And there's depth to that experience that I think is what people get out of date night, right? You want to be sitting across the table at dinner or wherever you are. So that can be replicated to your point in simpler, more frequent ways. And if I look underneath, like what makes it meaningful? That's what it is. It's, it's having your undivided attention.
(13:38): Yeah. I I've loved the eye to eye side to side. And you'd heard back to back is another one where we're just, we're just fighting. It's just a war. And but in the eye, and then Luke talking to my kids with the eye to eye side to side, man, there's some power in that side to side with kids because you're driving and they don't have that heavy parent pressure of your eyes on them. They can kind of say what you want. So I think some of the most great conversations we've had with our kids or I've had with my kids is driving into practices. So for us, it's making sure I'm not on the phone for work. I'm not listening to a work podcast. I don't allow them to have air pods in their ears when we're driving, because I want that time, that time to talk. And I'm sure you're pretty darn intentional with your time with your kids as well.
(14:26): I am. I think it's, I think the side-by-side time is totally the opposite with kids. So it's actually more powerful because you take that vulnerability element away where there's the authority figure, sort of looking them in the eye. And it's hard to say some things in that, the sort of intensity of that experience. So I think it's an interesting point that it's different with your spouse than with your kids. Thank you very much for listening
(14:51): 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,
(15:57): Shifting a little bit into work, as you think about, I mean, as you lead your company, loneliness is a popular term right now, right? Leadership is lonely. It's lonely at the top. We hear all these different phrases. You run your company, you've got a great team. They all like you and things go well, but same time. You're the boss. You can fire people. You can hold people accountable for not doing a particular task the way you want it done. And then you go home and you're, you're the mom. You're obviously the wife. And so how do you navigate kind of this loneliness with finding your time to find whether it's your tribe, whether it's engaged with your employees, what does that look like?
(16:40): Yeah, it's something I've thought about a lot as I left sort of the, the comfort of a corporate nest, you know, I spent 15 years working in corporate America marketing jobs. I always had a peer group. I always had somebody above me and below me, like, you're sort of nested in pretty securely with built in peers, to collaborate and commiserate with candidly, right? Then you get into entrepreneurship. And my experience has been, I tried to recreate that. I mean, I have a strong desire to have that with the women on my team. But to your point, it's not the same. Like, they're very clear that there's something a little bit different about yours. They can have that with each other, but they can't have it in exactly the same way with me. And it is very easy to internalize that as isolated, I would argue, I have a great experience with our clients.
(17:35): You know, I coach exclusively women by choice, and we've amazing clients who are in group programs and one-on-one programs in our elite program. I love them, but I am also their coach, not their friends. It is wait, feels great. And I love knowing their stories. And then it's a little more one-sided. So I have to be extra conscious of where I'm building a true peer group. I've done it in different ways at different times, but I really do have a pretty tight like inner circle, a core group of women that I trust a couple of men who I really trust, who have earned that relationship by doing life with me for a long time. Right. And there are people that I know I can be fully myself with people who I can talk to when I'm on top, as well as when I'm on the bottom, right.
(18:26): When there's a struggle happening and I need support, like I know I can talk to those people, but it's a small group. And I think sometimes we think it needs to be really large. You know, like it's like a leftover from high school or something. You got to roll deep with this big pack. And like, I don't think that's how it works. I think a little bit, the older you get like the tight circle who really knows you with great depth is very reassuring to me that they're there. And I don't need like a giant group of people to have that relationship with.
(18:54): I love that carry over from high school. I, this quote I, or I found when I was writing the book was the fact that no one ever talks about Jesus' greatest miracle. And it's the fact that he had three close friends in his thirties. And it's so true because we think we need to have a big pack, but it's not about quantity. It's about the quality and the depth that we get to go have of friends. And there's different orbits right there. Like in the Jesus example, there's three that he had an orbit with, that he was very close with. Then there's another orbit of 12, which we all know the disciples. Yup. And then there's an orbit of 72, that's documented where he's sends out the 72. And then obviously now we get bigger orbits. So I think it's a lot in our life. Are those numbers exact? No, we don't have those exact, but have some orbits like that where we've got some people super close to us where we can talk to them when we are in the peaks or in the valleys. Yes.
(19:47): Yes. And I think that your, your point Jesus' greatest miracle, which I love that is three is a lot, you know, if you have three people that you've been able to run the test of time with and they've held up and you've held up for them, and there's still that ability to sort of pick it right back up and jump into whatever the current situation is like that's precious and really important. Now I also think inherit in your question about the loneliness sort of from a business standpoint is they don't all understand the business that I run or what I do. So I don't know that I think I am comfortable at this point with different people playing different roles, not everyone in that really core group for me, would I say fully understand some of the challenges or decisions that I'm making as an entrepreneur. And I think it's taken a little bit to find that, to find just a one or two people who I can sort of call on when I need counsel about the business specific
(20:43): And I guess, including friends as well. Do you have a cadence where you are spending time with friends where it's girls trip or girl's night out or go meet with mentors or, I mean, do you have some cadence that you're doing in that orbit where it's just not, Hey here, I'm working eight to five, roughly, and then I'm going home and I'm spouse and mom. Yeah.
(21:04): I'm going to be really honest about this. Cause I think your listeners deserve that this is the area of my life that I have chosen to deprioritize so that I had the space I wanted for my work and for my family. So I, and do I have a little bit of regret about that? Like there's a little bit of, I think I could have done that better and I'm constantly like tweaking and adjusting those dials. But if I look back at, especially the era that started, let's say 12 years ago when I left my corporate life, started my business and I was having my third child, you know, my parents had moved close to us so that they could, my mom was our primary nanny. And you know, my dad was in like our daily life. Like they're still in our daily life. I have a great husband and then I have these three kids and between that and doing my business life, the way I wanted that gets most of my time and energy.
(21:59): And I would, I would add to that for me taking care of myself, like my physical health and wellbeing, my spiritual health, my emotional health, like those things have been very important to me. And so they get some time and I do some of that alone. Like that's time alone is I always say like, I'm an outgoing introvert. I'm like, oh, I need a lot of time alone to sort of process things and to think, so the thing that didn't fit as well as it does for some of my friends and some of the women in circles I run around with is that girls night out or girls trips or time with those people. So I tend to take it where I can get it versus being really intentional about the mechanism. My walk with some friends, I spend time on the phone with them. We do Voxer messages back and forth, sort of like a voice texting app, you know, but it's not as regular as I think it is for some people. And honestly, I'm probably paying a little bit of a price for it at this point in my life because it does take time. It takes. So I'm hopeful that as the demands of parenting ease a little bit, but that's a place I can pour more energy and
(23:06): Yeah. Well, thanks for the honest answer. I know for me, I mean, that's actually part of my story. I was trying to be super employee when I was president of sales traveling every week and then come home and be super husband, super dad. And there was a moment where I just was like, I don't have any friends because I've let that go. I actually had to recalibrate because I was finding that I was getting that loneliness. My cup was be coming empty. So that's when I became intentional found some guys did the small group and now it's, we've got a few annual things that we do, but I, cause I needed it cause I let it go too far. It didn't recalibrate enough. So now it's good that you're aware of, Hey, these dials may need a little tweaking. Here,
(23:52): It was important to me to be honest. I mean, look, I run a company called brilliant balance. So people can sometimes put my life on a pedestal and think like she has every single thing figured out, you know, look, I'm sure she has hours allocated to everything perfectly and that's just not the full truth. So I think I've always, you know, within our community, try to be really honest about no one is doing every single thing. Like we're all trying to kind of optimize various areas and I lean pretty hard into family. So it, it, at the expense of some other things, that's just the truth.
(24:25): Right. Well, and brilliant balanced doesn't mean everything's balanced perfectly, like you said, I know I will get with the book title went home first where it's a, we must be perfect. No, it's not right. We have our arguments and, and Holly and I can get in our disagreement. So but it's just knowing to recalibrate and maybe what happened yesterday. Doesn't define today. I mean, it's just completely move forward. Another piece I want to talk to you about is, is really an ambition. I mean, you, you mentioned early on, if it's, if there's a competition, you want to win it. And so with ambition, how do you just kind of control the amount of what you're going after? It's, you know, you've done live events, you have a podcast and you know, you got some great coaching programs, let's go have more coaching programs. How do you balance with growing at a healthy, steady versus let's just go crazy and, and coach every single woman out there.
(25:21): Well, I would probably love to coach every single woman out there. I think this one gets taken care of for me. And it really comes down to what are sort of like what I was just saying about how I think about where my time goes and how friendships sort of took a back seat. I had to make a conscious decision about how much time I was willing to give my work. So this is counter cultural, right? For typically I think left to our own devices. The culture in America is like, you put your work at the center of your life. It gets as much space as it wants. And you squeeze all the rest of your life into like the edges, right? So work is this big, giant thing at the center. You're like squeezing your family. And maybe I can have dinner every now and then, and I'll work out, you know, once every two weeks or whatever around the edges, around the time that I left my corporate life, I intentionally decided to flip that on its head and say, okay, what are the elements of my life outside of work that are non-negotiable and really important to me.
(26:23): And then I am going to back into how much time is left for work. And then I'm going to get real hardcore about what is essential in that work. So I'm, I'm looking at return on effort, right? What, what are the activities inside of my work that deliver the highest return and how do I let everything else go to other people or not get done at all? Okay. So for example, I made a decision because of that, because of that framework to build a team, why do I have a team? I could be more profitable if I didn't have a team, probably we could keep our money for myself. Well, because I don't want to do all of that work. Like there's a desire to say this work needs to be done to run a business of this size. But if I engage other people to do that work, then I can keep my work in the size box.
(27:13): I'm comfortable having it take up. Right? So that's one mechanism to get the result. I can just choose not to. I would love to have a book. I don't have a book yet because it keeps not making the cut. It keeps being. And you know, my team is in a different place on this. They would love for me to write the book, but I keep pushing it down on the list saying it doesn't have the highest return on effort yet haven't hit that place. There are things that back to friendships like they didn't fit, right? So the, so the work choices get made inside of a size vessel that remains after all the other pieces of my life are attended to things like sleep. You know, eight hours of sleep is non-negotiable for me. And I was not always that way, Cory, like that's a relatively new development game changer for me.
(27:58): Like I am a boss on eight hours of sleep and you do not want to meet me on five. Like it's, I am an entirely different human exercise. It's non-negotiable like seven days a week. I'm gonna move my body in some way. And that's my time, time alone. Non-Negotiable family dinner. You know, I want to, I love to cook. I want to make dinner for these kids time emotionally supporting my children where if they want to have a conversation with me, they get to do that. You know, I want those evenings for them and not to be, oh, we I'll take a bunch of evening meetings and you know, travel a bunch like, so I really shaped the work to fit inside a vessel that's comfortable for me. And it comes with trade-offs. So I think it bridles my ambition because I'm at peace with those trade-offs
(28:45): What would you say, knowing what you know now to that listener who maybe is in that old place, you were like PNG. Yeah. And how, how would you, what would you tell yourself now? Kind of knowing, Hey, cause I mean there's a little bit of this. They have to work certain amount of hours. It's a lot of FaceTime still in, you know, kind of corporate America, their schedules are controlled for them. I mean, I know you and I both can provide tips and ways not to have other people control your schedule, but big picture. What would you say to that listener? Who feels they don't have as much freedom in their schedule? Like maybe you and I do, even though that's debatable at times.
(29:25): Yeah. I mean, I, I have a lot to say about this. Like I could go on about this for awhile honestly, and maybe some other day would do. But what I wish I had known was how motivated my behavior was by fear. Like I, I had sort of gotten a hold of myself to understand that what was driving my, you know, behavior around. Yes. I'll say yes to every meeting that lands on my calendar and yes, to every project and yes, to every deadline and was fear that if I didn't do it, I wasn't going to get the rating I wanted or I wasn't going to get the promotion as fast as I wanted or someone else was going to get ahead of me. Right. I was living in a very competitive culture and P and G is not the only company like that. Virtually every company is like that, but there was a definite governance by fear of, and no one else was inflicting it upon me.
(30:17): It was, I was creating it for myself. So I wish I had understood like with courage, what boundaries could I have reset? And let me tell you how that started to change. When I went back to work after my first child, well, first thing I did was I took a year-long maternity leave, which was available, but relatively unprecedented. So the company had it as a policy. It wasn't like they had to invent it for me. I actually knew one other person who had done it, which was very important because honestly, had I not known her, I don't think I would have had the courage to do it. So I took that year off. And when I went back, I asked if I could work less than full-time and the caveat was, I really wanted a delivery job, meaning I wanted P and L responsibility in my role.
(31:02): And that was pretty much like not going to happen like that. That was the line. If you wanted a less than full-time job, you could take a functional role, but not really a piano role. And I got one. So I came back at 80% in this functional, what was the first time I felt like I'd sort of asserted that courage to draw a boundary. And then I proceeded to screw it up royally because while it was so easy for them to say, yes, you can work 80%. They didn't have to figure out at all. What was I going to say? Yes and no to, to make that viable. Right. So they could look like a total vape. The guy who hired me could look like a total hero. Yes. I heard this woman at 80%, but who had to figure out which meetings to say yes and no to, and how I was going to get these projects, you know?
(31:46): Cause like the work really didn't down. So then I did it, then I did it again. Then I got a billion dollar brand and worked less than full time. And by then I had learned a thing or two about how I was actually going to navigate this. And what was I saying? Yes and no to. And how did I put up some tighter boundaries? But that, that's kind of where I started building that courage muscle was right inside my corporate life. Like these policies existed, the rules were given. I had the opportunity to teach, but I wasn't, it was my own fear around how do I exert some control? Okay. And then it just translates out. Once I was an entrepreneur, it's like, same thing. I don't take clients. I don't take evening calls. I don't take weekend calls. I sat and many, many coaches are like, well, if you're going to coach these very busy working professionals, I mean they work all day.
(32:36): Don't even have to take the calls in the evening. I'm like, Nope, this is how we do it. You create time during your Workday to have our call or I can't be your coach. It's just the rules. Right. And so like that, that word courage keeps coming up. Right? Because so much of this is about push the fear aside, take the courageous action. Cause guess what? Corey, if we let the fear govern, anyone listening, if you let the fear govern, you're going to end up with a life you don't want out of fear. Like what, why do we keep chasing those things? It's just, if, if our courageous action is met with resistance, it means we're not in the right place. And that's how I think God nudges my life is you just pay attention to that. You go, oh, I'm going to keep moving in a place that feels like it's has flow. And it fits. And this is where I belong. And that's like how I get my clues about what's the,
(33:26): It was a great answer. Fear. A lot can be that if you don't work hard enough, you'll lose your job or you won't get the promotion, all those pieces. And there's a, a heaviness when you and your spouse both work. Right. And so how does that look like in your guys's life with you and John have, you know, he's got demand job, you've got a Manny job, you know, who, who has to go pick the kids up and when, and, and how do you prioritize each other's work? What does that look like in your marriage? Cause I know there's a lot of listeners. They both work.
(34:01): Yeah. Well, I mean, John and I have been married for, it will be 21 years in November. So we have a long marriage, lot of time to figure some of this stuff out. But one thing I think actually started right at the beginning, I use a phrase a lot in coaching begin as you mean to go on. Okay. It is very hard to change things midstream. So if someone's starting a new job for me, the context might be okay, don't go in there and work 80 hours a week and think you're going to pull the needle out later, like begin as you mean to go on because it's so much harder to change midstream. Okay. So in our marriage, we knew who we were married. You know, he, it was not a surprise. We met in business school. I was already sort of dutifully climbing that corporate ladder.
(34:50): We moved to Cincinnati for my job. He followed, found a new job. Like we were both going to work. And that was pretty clear from day one that work mattered to me and my career was going to be pretty important. So because of that, we started making choices early on about how do you navigate, like who does what? And then as we started a family, same situation, like I think if you're going to have two working parents and you're going to raise children in 2021, there are some really important conversations about how are we as a couple going to navigate that. And I've learned through coaching other women, like not everybody does this in the same way because every, the two humans are different. Right. And all the pictures. So in our household, I run the master plan and I know every week sort of, where does everyone need to be?
(35:37): What are all of the activities that we're managing together? What are the projects that need to get done? And we have a meeting about it and it's not like a formal meeting, but it's one of these patio conversations where we sit down and look at what can you handle based on your schedule? What can I handle? Based on mine, we're blessed that my parents are close by and they can help with some of those things as well. And we both try to end our Workday at a reasonable hour so that we have those evenings with our kids. It's abdomen float over the years. As you know, if I was traveling a lot or he was traveling a lot, there was a period of time. He was working in another city, but living here and you know, was gone four days a week. So it's, Abdin flowed over these years. But the season we're in right now is very equal around driving kids to things and, you know, being a part of those activities or science fair projects or whatever. But I do think every household has somebody with the master plan and in my household that's me. And it works for us that he's super happy to execute, but doesn't want to keep track of all of it. Absolutely. What is your cadence on having this schedule meeting where you talk weekly?
(36:46): I do a weekly plan. Something I teach our clients to do. Cause I think I, I, I have no idea how I would live without it. I do a plan once a week around all of the afterschool activities and transportation needs. And then we essentially build a master schedule with everyone who's going to be in ball. And then we don't have to talk about it again. The only time we have to talk about it is if there's a change, you know, like a practice moves or a game moves or something. Other than that, everybody's got their marching orders. Don't talk to me about it again, because I'm into my work by then I call it the taxi schedule. Like that piece of the plan I call the taxi schedule because they all need to be transported. Right. That's a thing that's really intense. And then in that same meeting, we can also talk about, Hey, did this come up with you with this kid? Cause it came up with me and I feel like they need some extra support around this thing. Right. Or did she talk to you about that? Cause she's talking to me about this and I wonder if you could ask her, see what she says to you? Like it's, it's a touch base.
(37:44): Yeah, absolutely. We have been married 22 years. We have also done something similar because we didn't do it right for many, many years. And so ours is very similar, but I'll just share for the listeners, just a couple of nuances that we've added. We meet on Sunday to talk and it usually, you know, kind of hang out, date, wine talk we do the whole week. But we have found is we revisit the weekend on usually at Friday, maybe Thursday or Friday, because what used to happen is the weekend would come, things kind of change. And then I don't get to go to the gym or something. I'm seeing that she gets to do what she wants. So I get frustrated and, or vice versa. So now we usually talk Thursday, Friday and try to figure out, Hey, when do you want to work out? When is this going to happen? That's helped us a ton.
(38:32): Yes. That you know, and again, everybody I'm working with in brilliant balance, we talk about the weekly plan. So again, you need a captain for that plan. I look at a 10 day horizon. So it gets two weekends in play. The first time through on that weekend is like preview of coming attractions and much to your point, by the time you get to the next week, you're already, now it's upon you. And you can make those revisions because kids make plans throughout the week. Right. Or we make plans like invitations come. And so you do need to revisit that by the time it gets in close, which, you know, you learn through trial and error, just like
(39:05): You mentioned earlier, you like to have the alone time. And so in that, what does that look like from kind of a mindset perspective, your spiritual spending time in the word, do you have a something that you're doing every morning to basically kind of equip you for the day to so you can lead all these women so you can help lead the family. What are you doing from a quiet time perspective?
(39:28): I think of my early morning as my time to get grounded, like land back on planet earth, put my feet on the ground and, and sort of tap in to the divine. Right? What is that? And then what that looks like maybe a little bit different from day to day. I, I contend to be ritualistic. So later in life, I'm trying to give myself a little more freedom to shift and change it, but I do get up before anybody else, ideally, that's my, that's my goal every now and then somebody wakes up early and wrecks my vibe. But that's my goal. I want to be up first. I want to exercise during that time before anyone is up and I want some time with the devotional short I've learned, I cannot do long things in the morning because my brain is racing. So I want something short that brings me focused. Like for example, Jesus calling. I love that one. It's so short. It never ceases to amaze me how there's some layer of insight in it, but that would be the, the, like I want something short like that
(40:26): And applicable to that day too. Unbelievable. I don't know how she does it. It's like clearly defined in your house and my house the same day and different years. It just keeps working. I know, kind of like the Bible. The other thing that I love to do, although I've learned, I can't do it. First thing in the morning is writing. So I am never without notebooks. I mean, it's, it's a joke in my household that I sort of wander around the house, carrying a stack of notebooks and a pencil and my phone like everywhere because I process through writing. So at some point during the day, I need to sit down and just process out things that are connections that are being made or thoughts that are forming insights. And so that's a huge piece of my process is quiet and being able to write and I'm really working on contemplate of practices. So I tend to be super high energy. I know want to be moving all the time, but this realm of contemplated practices, I'm really, I would say I'm in an exploring phase of, is it meditation? That's going to work best for me or journaling or prayer, or, you know, walking with a purpose like mindfulness work, very intrigued by this, but still kind of finding my way to what is delivering the results that I think are the best. Great.
(41:44): Well Cheryl-Ann thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it and appreciate the help you've given me over the last couple years, we've known each other. What is the best way for listeners to get ahold of you? Brilliant-Balance.Com. That's the website. It's kind of the jumping off point to all the places you can find. Great. Well, thank you very much for the conversation today. Thanks for having, 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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