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.
(00:19): Hello, this is Corey today's episode. Patrick is a very helpful one because he is vulnerable as well as provide tactical steps. We talked about how he is winning at home. He's very limitedly, like all of us, not crushing it every single day, but he has some tips and guidance for all of us. That's helped their company has God in their values. And so talks about what that looks like from the employee standpoint, as well as when they go out to market. Talk about having healthy conflict in the office. I really enjoy the part where we start when I asked them the question of what does he do now that he wished he would have done earlier in his life. And that was a great discussion, very helpful, and even eyeopening for myself is I think about a few different things. This episode is very helpful. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did on to today's episode.
(01:23): Hello, this is Corey Carlson. You're listening to the win at home first podcast today, I'm joined by Patrick Wathen, who is president of equity, a commercial real estate company, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. They are in eight different offices, have grown to 200 people. And what is interesting about the company is within their values. They talk about honoring God. And so there's strong faith. He's also married, has three kids. So he is winning at work, winning at home, wanting to have him on the podcast to talk about how he's doing that and how to help all of us do the same. So Patrick, thank you for being on the podcast.
(02:02): Thank you for inviting me. And yeah, that introduction makes it sound like I've got to figure it out, which is pretty dangerous. I'd say I'm attempting to win at home and work at the same time, but that's what we're here to talk about. Patrick Ward is a key trait to win at work and went home.
(02:18): I think for me, it's kind of two things that go hand in hand as an answer to that and it's humility and respect. And the reason why I say hand in hand is that in both situations, there's going to be somebody hopefully in the room that's smarter than you acknowledging that I think is really key too. And goes hand in hand with respecting those opinions of others. One of the things that I struggle with both in the office, and then I can talk about the transition to home and trying to adapt to that is I like to say the things that I think, and I like to think I'm pretty smart and that sometimes it gets in the way where I could jump on somebody else's idea. I've got a deliberately holding myself back from finishing somebody else's sentence. When I think I know where they're going.
(03:05): So, but respecting those teammates that you've, you, you know, everyone puts a really significant effort into trying to build that team. One of our kind of core philosophies that equity that kind of inherited from my dad is always trying to hire people that are smarter than you. So if we actually are trying to do that, then you've got to respect those people. Be humble, let them do what you brought them in to do, and then empower them. And then kind of taking those, those traits to this success at home is sometimes I spend my day, you know, I don't want to say telling people what to do, right? But in, in large part, I can make decisions. We can go, right. We can have a conversation, we get input. And as a team, we're like, all right, we're going this direction made decision.
(03:49): And we go transitioning to the home front where in large part, extremely blessed that my wife really leads our family at home. And sometimes I've got a little bit of an abrupt gear shift where I'm used to dictating some things and I've got to just step back, you know, respect that process. And I'd say, you know, at home, you've got a little bit of a different set of stakeholders than you do in the office, but it's really just all about that mindset. And, and again, kind of bringing that humility and that respect to those constituents. You're engaging with an either situation
(04:27): A few years ago. I don't know if it was brought to my attention or just, I started to pay attention on my own about finishing other sentences. And I remember doing it with Holly thinking, Hey, I'm going to finish a sentence to show that I've been listening. I've been listening to kind of all week or I've heard the different pieces of the story. So I'm going to show respect and that backfired where now I'm working on not finishing the sentences and try and be patient as heck to hear it. And have you noticed that to be true as well for you?
(05:01): Oh, absolutely. And I'll probably share the link with her, but if my wife listens, I want to make sure she knows that this is still a work in progress. This is not something that's been figured out, but where in large part for her too, because we're, we're fortunate that she's watching our three kids during the day that sometimes it's just a, she just wants to tell the story to an adult and you know, to her partner in life. And that if I try to cut it off, because I think I know where it's going, that's really shown a great amount of disrespect for engaging with her in that moment, in that story and whatever the situation is. So I think we've had similar experiences. The good news at work is that I've got actual kind of peer reviewed feedback. That's indicated that's a problem for me at home. I've had to learn a little bit of the harder way.
(05:48): Do you guys do peer review feedback sent? I mean, since you are president of sales, most of your reviews are probably you you're in reviews for your direct reports, but do you have something where you get a 360 review?
(06:01): We just recently did a 360 review process where we had the, our, our direct reports review us and then our kind of others in the organization and some people outside the organization and, and in large part, it told me some things I already know, but it also helped to reinforce some of those things in the importance of them, even if I know what a weakness is cause I've been into, you know, kind of Myers-Briggs and personality testing, all these, you know, there's a thousand different assessments you can do to get that feedback. Even if you already know it's a weakness just reinforces that it's something that you need to work on or be cognizant of. And then we always do, you know, kind of through, I think it's through our best places to work application process, right? We get feedback generally as a company, but the 360 thing is the first time we've kind of gotten direct personal feedback on each of our, our leaders of our divisions. And that that's been a really interesting growth process for us. What have you seen to be the greatest growth out of
(06:55): It? I think really that awareness and then conversations collectively where we, you know, kind of bare our souls to a certain extent to the other members of the exec team or a management team and say, Hey, here's, you know, here, here's my three biggest flaws, according to all of you and others in the organization. And then here's some action steps maybe that I can take to try to address them. Honestly, if I could have a checkup like that, you know, probably once a year to say, Hey, here's, here's how things are doing. Almost like a health checkup. It's I think that'd be a really valuable thing.
(07:28): I completely agree. Do you and your wife kind of do a health checkup if you will. I mean talk about, you know, family visions or talk about things that are working well, not working or, I mean, have you done anything that's going to more strategic in that process
(07:43): Early in our marriage? Probably like a lot of people, we did the love languages kind of thing, which, you know, that was, that was pretty helpful. I think most of our engagements around those things are more organic. I think, you know, necessary for that environment. My wife wouldn't like if I scheduled a meeting at seven o'clock to sit down and review an agenda of stuff. So, but we, we do talk pretty openly about those things. My wife's also not shy about you know, I don't want to say tell me where I mess up, but that I figured that out pretty quickly,
(08:17): Shifting gears a little bit, talk about the values of your company. You've got a variety of different values, but the one I want to zoom in on is honor God. We seek to honor God with everything that we do and putting God in the valley vision or values to some as a risk. I mean, there's many people who have strong faith that they just never made the vision and values for fear of losing business or impacting employees, but you guys have done it and it very bold about it. It's on the website, it's something you and I talked about in our very first. So it's it's top of mind is
(08:58): Well. Yeah, and we haven't had you up to our office in Columbus yet, but you'll walk in and you'll see it on the wall. You know, taking up a big chunk of, of real estate on our wall with our other values, kind of a brand wall that we have in our lobby. And those things you articulated are very real, right? The way you view that as a risk, the way you view it as kind of a vulnerability to a certain extent. And I would say, and you'll hear this a lot in this conversation. I would credit my father with putting that on the wall. When he founded the company, he was bold enough, you know, at the time he was the only, he was the only person that was at the company, but to put that into our values and into the DNA of the organization.
(09:42): And the interesting thing is that for us, it's really a source of the other values that we have. Like why would absolute integrity matter? I mean, everyone has integrity as part of their value statement, right? If you're a company in America, you gotta be trusted and you know, have to have integrity, but why? And so when, when we think about our why as a family, and we're fortunate as a family business, not a publicly traded company or some larger corporate entity, it is a risk, but it's also who we are personally. And it's also our why. And so that's how I articulate it to people is, you know, if someone asks a question and this has come up in interviews before and things like that, where someone's trying to figure out, you know, is this a call? Does this, you know, they have forced Bible studies or, you know, we're going to be fed some kind of Kool-Aid here.
(10:30): And, and it's, it's none of that. It's just us being authentically who we are and saying to people that this faith matters to us, to us, that's a source of these other values of why would we want to do more? Why would we want to do good? Why, why would we boil down? We often boil down our values into saying that we'll always do the right thing, no matter the circumstance. Why does that matter to us? And it's because we're holding ourselves to a higher standard and a standard that we'll never reach, but one that we're striving for. And, you know, we, we haven't had, I don't think we've had, you know, to the risk piece of that. I don't know that I could say we've lost any business because of it. I can tell you that the more we lean into that, it seems like the more doors that are opened to us, not to say there's not still challenges or, or traps or speed bumps.
(11:20): There's a lot of that that's I guess, part, part of life. But I think our, our confidence in it, our desire to be bold with it has been growing even to the extent. And I'd, I'd credit my brother largely with being kind of a spiritual leader or a catalyst for our family, but where he's challenged us on it. And we're even hearing my dad, who's had that on our wall for 34 years hearing the way he articulated it has gotten a little bolder, which has been really cool as a family unit. I know I've probably rambled and you've got three more questions you might want to ask at this point. But one other thing I'd tell you as a family business is that it creates total alignment for us. So for, for myself, and I guess for clarity for people that, you know, I'm talking a lot about family in this, my father founded the company in 1987. I've been in the business full-time since 2007, my brother has been in the business full-time since maybe 2012 or something like that. But when I see other family businesses, oftentimes there's challenges or there strive for these other things. And we don't have any of that because of that alignment around honor God. And what that means to us at a much deeper level,
(12:30): Just a little pushback on that. And in a good way, just to understand maybe how you guys operate a little better is, you know, total alignment on honoring God. I, I get, but I also know many people honor God and are Republican. Others are Democrats. Others are all about the vaccine. Others are no vaccine, all mass, no mask, I mean, on and on, but everyone's still honoring God, but just hear differently. Yeah. So how have you guys honor God, but yet navigate differences, you have eight offices. Maybe someone wanted to take the eight, a different location, and then someone else said, we want to go this direction. I mean, there are things that you guys are doing that you're going to have some differences. So how have you honored God still yet have healthy conflict and still come to decisions when there are differences in the room?
(13:20): Yep. That's an awesome, awesome question. And part of it, I guess I would say is relates to how, how I view Jesus and how he interacted with people. Right. And that is that he did not go to everybody that had it all figured out and just say, Hey guys, we're all good here. And you're in my club and, and you know, we're good. He went to all of the people, right? And he was there for anyone of any, any class or any strife or any situation. And I largely would, would say that we try to have that same kind of open arm inclusivity, because everybody is different. Even, even when we look the same, where we're different, right? And you reference what's, what's in your heart, what's in your mind, your view about things. And we welcome people of any, any background. We've got people of no faith, people of different faiths in our organization.
(14:13): I hope we continue to grow that because if we ever get to the point where, where we're saying, we want only more of us, right? We lose diversity of thought, we'll lose those other better opinions. We'll lose the ability to strengthen each other through that challenge. And we have what we would call healthy tension, and we have that pretty regularly in our organization. And if we lose that, we'll stop improving. I think so we try to foster a very candorous environment as well, where someone, you know, they shouldn't have to guess what I'm thinking. Cause I sh I should feel comfortable telling them what I'm thinking. Right. And it doesn't mean you don't deliver stuff with love and respect cause that's how people want to be dealt with. So, and how they deserve to be dealt with, for my kind of my first comment around respecting others and maintaining some humility. But if we ever get to the point where we've closed ourselves off and we're like going to be an organization where we only have Christians, I go to church every Sunday and blah, blah, blah. And our organization, we will have totally missed the boat from, from my perspective,
(15:12): Great response. And part of respect is in fact, giving truth and grace respecting them of if they are an employee not doing great. And it's time to kind of step up the game and, and challenge them in that way. It's that tension of truth and grace with each of your employees and how you kind of navigate those different tensions.
(15:34): Well, and, and for them with us, right, which is, it's a much harder ask. It takes a lot of boldness for somebody to come tell someone that's an owner of the company that they're doing it wrong, but we desperately need that. And if we can't have that again, we'll, you know, we'll end up going off a cliff because Patrick thinks all Patrick's ideas are great and that's never going to be the case. Some of them are good, you know, got some good ideas, but but no, we need that. If we're going to be successful, all the things we're trying to do,
(16:00): Patrick, part of my story is this, I idea where I heard you need a hand over your story for a greater story. And so for you, as I say that phrase, is there a time in your life where doing it, Patrick's way wasn't working and it was time to hand it over to God and start living out his story and you being a character in his story.
(16:22): Yeah. I would say we don't have enough time on the podcast for all the things where I've gone off track. I had a similar epiphany that I would articulate almost in exactly the same way a couple of years ago. I'm a prolific journaler and it's not just meetings. Although if you've had a meeting with me, you won't see me writing probably a lot. That's one of the ways I process things when I'm dealing with a challenge whether that's work personal becomes kind of a prayer journal tube, what, you know, what am I asking for? What am I seeking? Which almost every single time is just wisdom, discernment. I mean, the amount of decisions that we have to make every day that affect the people in our organization or customers is, is a lot. But that kind of a Tiffany, as I was journaling was realizing that I was always asking for help with my plan and pretty consistently, I mean, even since I was a kid and I think maybe some of it was, you know, asking you shall receive.
(17:19): And I'm like, all right, well, I'm asking for stuff, but it was, you know, help me with this test, help me with this meeting, helped me with this, you know, whatever it is and not, not really seeking what is, what is God's plan for me, for my life, for this company, for the people we're serving. And so just starting to ask that question, I still may have, I'd say, you know, kind of a topic does your kind of some issue we're dealing with it. I am going to ask for help with, but seeking first that plan to try to be on the right path first and foremost, and then dealing, you know, so I'd say almost that that's kind of the strategic piece and the tactical is still the day to day concerns and challenges, but trying to realign that thinking, I still struggle with that just because it's easy to get bogged down in whatever your personal challenges are or, you know, a meeting goes sideways and, you know, whatever the case may be, but again, kind of a very similar, similar, but different way to articulate what you said, which was, you know, trying to follow God's plan, not your own plan or figure out where that is.
(18:23): So seeking first, his plan, when I try to do that at different times, I want to seek your plan guy, what is the plan? And then I don't hear anything or it feels quiet. It feels literally quiet in my quiet time. So I'm like, well fine, we'll go with my plan. And so Lord help me with these things on my plan. I know you're probably are somewhat guilty of that as well, but you may be even more intentional about listening in for God's plan for you. What does, so what does that look like on your quiet time?
(18:54): One I'm, I'm really bad at listening in that way. So a lot of times it's the people around me that are put in my path. I would say that's one of the by far greatest blessings in my life is people within the organization and outside of the organization that offer up that wisdom when it's needed or where I already had a lunch meeting scheduled with a certain person two months in advance, but they happen to have the words that I needed for that problem. I was dealing with that day. I also largely think that the success or failure of certain things that we're pursuing oftentimes are corrections to try to get us in the direction we're supposed to be going. You know, if you, if you start doing something and it's, and it's bearing fruit, I think that's reinforcement that you're on the right path versus when we become stubborn.
(19:42): And I'm really, really stubborn. You know, when you bang your head against the wall and then, you know what you do, you try it again. Cause this is a really good idea I have, and this really should work. And you know, I figured it out and you start to use I a lot or I start to use me a lot or my, and that's usually not it, but again, that kind of stubborn and some of it's I referenced, I think it was maybe before we got on the call, but because I'm, left-handed someone told me last week, I'm in my right mind. And oftentimes I think that like, ah, well, I've got this figured out, you know, I'm analytical. We looked at the data, we made this decision, it should work. So I try, I try to be mindful of that. That's again, something that within the context of our family, we have, we have an open conversation of, Hey, Hey guys, we set out to do this, but this is really hard. Or this isn't going the way we thought it was is that if, should we be paying attention to that? Or are we still on the right track? Do we need to adjust and have that kind of willingness to admit that whatever idea we had or whatever path we were on might not be the right one. And we're supposed to go in different direction.
(20:45): The Ivers, your statement was a great reminder. A Bible verse over the last year has been super impactful to me is the parable, the 10 minors. And the parable that 10 minus is very similar to the parable of the talents. But for, I'd say a decade, I've looked at a lot the parable of the towns, because it's a lot about what the five capitals is based off, which we briefly talked about four words, you know, spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual, and financial. But what's interesting on that parable, those three servants, when the master comes back, talk to him, they all say, look what I did, but then on the parable of the 10 minors, when the master came back and said, look what your minor did on both of those, you know, the third servant still buried his, like in the other story, but was just interesting in the master, rewarded them much more handsomely, much in the parable that's in minus. And then they have the parable that meant so much. I'm actually looking up, I've got a plaque in my, a nice wood custom sign that I made from my office that says you are mine, not mine because I need that reminder to always think about your not I, and I'm sure even today's prayers is a little too much. I, so I'm still in work in progress big time.
(22:09): Totally. And, and when you see success, so I, you know, I was just talking about as you, you see challenges or failure, and maybe that helps redirect, but even more so when you have success, recognizing the source of that success and not letting that feed your own ego or hubris, or, you know, taking credit and minimally when we approach things from a servant leadership perspective, right? We want credit first and foremost, you go to the people that are achieving that thing and avoid the temptation to say I achieved something. It never is. I, if it's dependent on, I we're, we're done already. We're not going to achieve anything. I mean, we, we need dozens, if not hundreds of people all pulling together to achieve the vision that we have. And so it can't, it can't be about I, or we, or me rather it should be we, and that's not just, you know, cheesy, motivational poster stuff of no I and team either. I mean, that's, that's the reality, especially when you start to get to a point where there's just no bandwidth left either. So if there's, if there's supposed to be two or three more things achieved this week, unless we collaborate as a teammate, they're just not going to happen. If it's dependent on me, you know, again, we're, we're done,
(23:16): [Inaudible] you're president of sales or president of the company with 200 employees. I had a similar role where I was president of sales and there's different days where you've got to be the one to motivate and inspire and encourage. And you just may not feel it as much. How do you remind yourself God's in control? How do you of remind yourself to, you know, continue to get up and lead when the quarter's tough or the month you're having a bad month or commercial real estate, everyone thought I was going to fall out during COVID. And that story is still yet to be told. I mean, the, the end of the story,
(23:55): Largely for me, there's, there's two things to answer that question. And there's plenty of times where I'm also naturally introverted. So investing time in leading and motivating people takes a lot of emotional energy and engagement for me. But one is, is kind of laying my burden down. I mean, that's one of those things where when I'm overburdened, it's because I've forgotten to pray about it. And that, you know, almost palpable feeling of the weight off your shoulders is, is recognizing we're not doing it alone. And then the other piece of that is I I'll reference other people a lot in this I'll reference my brother a lot is that I had a situation last week where I was basically done. I was like, it was, you know, well for forget this, I can't engage further. And to have someone kind of riding shotgun with you to say, Hey, just take a step back, breathe, pray.
(24:49): You know where again, I can say, we're not alone. I can say, Hey, you know, Jesus helped me with this burden, but I can also have someone around me. That's right there. That's saying the same thing. That's helping shoulder it. And for that matter, our entire exact team is like that here. I mean, from a kind of culture standpoint or, you know, people I could trust with anything where I could say, Hey, I need help with this. And I know I've got somebody that's going to step right in there with me. So even if I don't have to make that ask, knowing that I could, and that there's somebody there waiting to help is always a huge reassurance and a motivator, you know, and frankly, being around those people encourages me to try to step up, even when I don't want to use
(25:32): Your point. Number one, you know, Matthew 11 talking about my yoke is easy. My burden is light. I think that is fantastic reminder. But even the second one, what I like about that is that step back, I think, as leaders so often where we make mistakes is we think we've got to make a decision. Now, now let's go, go, go, go. I read a book years ago called lead yourself first. And what was so neat about it was, there were so many stories where people actually thought, Hey, I'm going to sleep on this. I'm going to make this decision tomorrow. And examples in the story were military examples like out war in a general would say, I'm going to sleep on it. One of the stories at the very end is Martin Luther king. Before I have a dream talks about how he sat around the kitchen table, had conversations and almost, you know, and then made some thoughts and then slept on it for that night of what he's going to do. And I think just having that wisdom and the patience to take a step back, breathe, talk to some others as opposed to go, go, go. There are some decisions that we need to go, go, I get it. We can't hit pause and sleep on every decision need to take forever. Yeah. We'd have a lot of naps. That's right.
(26:51): Yeah. Oftentimes I think it's almost any time where you're, if you're getting certain to feel that frustration or that agitation or unsettling, where that's assigned that you've got to, you've got to take a step back or, or sometimes, and we've got a beautiful campus here and I go for a walk like takes, take 10 minutes, go walk around outside, get some fresh air and then reattach whatever the problem is or shift gears and come back to it. And that goes hand in hand with, you know, kind of simple business rules. Like don't email angry, right? Where you're what you want to do in that moment. Probably isn't going to be the best decision for you, the customer, you know, your people, et cetera, but it's hard. You're right. Right. You referenced that at the beginning of that comment, that your, your burden of leadership, you feel like you're supposed to make a spot judgment right now. And it's supposed to be exactly the right one with the best outcome. And that's not always from a timing standpoint, not always when you can do that.
(27:44): I had a mentor say when you're angry type the email in, in word, so you never hit send and the email. And then the next day, take a look at an email. And you're like, Ooh, that lawful, I'm glad I didn't send it. Absolutely.
(27:58): Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you're joining it 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,
(29:06): Patrick, what are you doing now as a leader, whether it's at work or at home, just your overall personal life that you wish you would have started sooner? One of the things I really love is meeting someone who's expecting their first kid. So I meet someone in the business community in particular, I get the chance to bump into a lot of young people that are starting families. And I get so excited because I can tell them how I failed. And I've, I've really worked on being open in that way, partially because it's a very common challenge. You talk about work-life balance or work-life integration or any of those things where you're young in your career. And you're really trying to prove yourself. You can easily justify not being the father, the husband, the partner that you want to be, and you can give lip service to it. One of the things my wife references with things is giving churchy answers to things which is you know, a lot of Bible studies law.
(30:00): There's other situations like I know the right answer and that's, I prioritize my faith and my family and then comes work. Well, you could look at the first five years of my fatherhood, which was the first six years of my marriage. We got started right away. We knew we wanted to have multiple kids. And I definitely, it was only lip service in terms of my prioritization work was my prioritization work was my worship work was everything in the catch. 22 of that is I could say, well, maybe I wouldn't have gotten to the position that I've gotten to now, but what I would advise people or what I would say that I did wrong is you can still be a little patient. You can still know that if you're doing the right things, you'll get there and you can still free up that time for your family.
(30:43): It's taken me in my mind, years of deliberate effort to repair the relationship with my oldest kid, who's now nine. And not because I did bad things when I was with her that I, you know, it weren't situations like that, but because I wasn't there, I traveled a lot. I had my peak year of traveling. I had 34 trips, average of two day trips in one year. And that's just a lot of time gone. I was charging extremely hard because I had these quantitative goals I was trying to get at the time I was a commissioned sales person, fully commissioned. So I was a real estate agent and the only scoreboard was dollars of production. So I'm highly competitive. I went after it. I did well from a material standpoint, but that wasn't worth it in hindsight, right? If it would have taken six more months or 12 more months, or even five more years to get to this point in my career with the wisdom I have now, I would have made that decision to delay that worldly material success.
(31:41): I would have delayed that. And that's hard because I recognize, I see a lot of myself in this. Like I said, these young people, primarily men that I end up interacting with and having this conversation to say, Hey, when that kid gets there, just take the time, just slow it down. You know, I think I took like 48 hours of paternity leave or maybe 36. I don't know how long it was, but I was like right back to the office. What I do now is take the time whenever it's needed. So it's, you know, staying home in the morning to watch the kids or take them to school. I don't leave for the office now until the kids are all awake. So I get to hug them and kiss them and say goodbye and tell them to be good to their mom and tell them to do good in school.
(32:21): That means I don't get to the office. I used to be at the office. You know, I don't know if I ever beat my dad to work, but used to be at the office for mostly other people. And that was kind of sacred time to me because I could get my day rolling and get organized, be super productive before anybody else started the clock. But now that time is sacred to me for different reasons. And I keep that, keep that carved out. I rarely get to the office before probably seven 30 and I used to be six 30 or 6 45, which is leaving before anybody else was even up. So, you know, it's making those kinds of adjustments and realizing that you can still be successful. And that's what the fear is that if I carve that time out, if I do leave early for that kid's sporting event, if I, you know, I'm going to be there in time to pick them up from gymnastics or whatever that I'm going to somehow lose at work. And that's not how it works.
(33:11): What about the listener? Who's thinking that sounds great, Patrick, but now you are a leader and not a producer on the day to day. What would you tell that listener? Who is the commission real estate agent right now who is commissioned and they've, they gotta produce their income. They got to hit their goals. They gotta hit the leaderboard so they can get the promotion. I don't disagree what you're saying. I actually want to press in a more so we can help people because I too was the one slugging it and doing the Hampton ends many nights a week.
(33:43): I love that. You're asking that question because this is so one of my frequent topics of conversation, when you get the latest advice article about so-and-so's habits, right. When you're like, oh, Jeff Bezos never takes more than three meetings a day. And it's like, okay, he's the richest man on earth. So what does that have to do with anything? Tell me about when his business was in his garage, what was he freaking doing then? Right? Like how hard was he grinding, man? Did he never start his day before nine? No, he, he started his day. At least I assume. I don't know. I haven't read that article yet, but I would love for someone to dig in and compare and contrast these like habits of already at the pinnacle versus getting started. And I realized that it is easy for me to say now, versus if you are that person, that's starting out asking that question.
(34:28): And I would tell you that you have to examine your priorities. You have to examine yourself and your heart. And I would suggest write it down and think about it, process through it. If you actually believe in the prioritization that you would verbalize, which I referenced that I gave lip service to that stuff, then put your money where your mouth is and carve out the time and be willing to be a little bit more patient. What I'd tell you is that you will still get to that spot. Another thing that's interesting, and this was advice I got from one of my mentors here at equity is that if you carve out time for God, he'll give it back to you many fold. And this was in response to, I had lost a habit that I'd had of, of reading a little bit of scripture in the morning or doing some devotional.
(35:10): And I was just, I was complaining to this individual and saying, Hey, I just, I don't have time for that. I got too much stuff on my plate. And he just came back to me and said, no, you've got time. Just, that's actually important. You do it. And you know what? I didn't see any loss in productivity. And what's interesting is you can talk to some people about all these productivity hacks too, but like blocking out your time. Or if you think about, you know, what's the most productive time you ever have in your life. And you'd be like, well, the last couple hours before I leave on vacation, right? Cause you're going to get a thousand things done in that amount of time. So go ahead and block out on your calendar that you're going to leave for practice. Or, you know, I guess we're talking about people starting out.
(35:49): So you're going to go to that. Doctor's appoint, you're going to go to the checkup appointment where you're not maybe going to learn anything new, but you're going to be there with your wife. You're gonna be there with your kid. Then you're going to be invested in whatever stage of life that that is. That's worth that investment. And, you know, does that mean maybe you, you lose out at work? I don't actually think you do, but what I'm suggesting is that if you do, that's a very worthwhile investment. So you've got to think about time is the only resource you've got. If you can invest in closing one more deal or invested in that family, that relationship with the hindsight I've gotten. Now, I, I would, again, I would have made a different decision, but totally understand that even if I was telling my 23 year old self this stuff, I'd probably be like, yeah. Right. So love that question though. That's a really good question.
(36:38): I be guilty. I mean, I, not probably, I would be guilty of the same things. If people telling me this type of stuff at a younger age or different point in my career, cause they probably were, and I probably was ignoring it and just go, go, go. But I love the tip. You have a write it down. And I've said this many times before that people listening have heard it, but you know, we control the input. God controls the impact. And I think as you said, if we write the things down the lead indicators, we want to focus on, I need to get these amount of real estate deals done. I need to go on dates with my wife. I need to spend time with my daughter. I need to get to the gym, you know, have these work means. If we write down with intention, I, where we want to spend our time fast forward to say where we're at now, you're not having to do some of this relationship repairing that you, you know, vulnerably shared with us, you know, with your nine year old daughter.
(37:29): So thank you for sharing or there's marriages that people are now having to repair because they were never around or, or whatever it could be. So it's, it's at some point, the sacrifices that you're making are going to catch up to you. There's going to be some collateral damage. And so whatever that is, even now there's listeners who are in, you know, forties and fifties, that probably need to do a little level set of where they're spending their time now and make sure it's in the right order. So that, that question you ask is, are we carving out enough time for God? And family is a great one. What are you hearing from God right now?
(38:06): That's that's that's a good question. I think, I think mostly stay the course. I think we are getting, and I referenced some of those positive indicators of where you see things start to bear fruit and it's indicating that you might be on the right track. We're seeing some of that in other areas, we're seeing some resistance, which means kind of gut checking, you know, what's the source of that resistance. And is that cause we're on the wrong path or is it because we've got to push through? So there's always that kind of question, but we we've had, I would tell you over the last couple of years, a large pile of, I would say in quotes, coincidences that are not coincidentally in my view that are related to things that we're trying to do to magnify our impact or our kingdom impact our community impact both internally and externally.
(38:55): And when those dots connect seemingly independent of each other, I think from a secular viewpoint, you can say, oh, well that's a happy coincidence. And we would say, yeah, we think that's divine intervention. And that, that, that person was put in our path with that skill set or that information or that advice or their relationship to connect us to the next one. That there's some stuff that we're working on that I can't talk about publicly right now, but there's been a lot of really, really cool coincidences with a kind of side project we're working on as a family that I think, I think shows we're on the right path. So again, I think stay the course, at least I hope that's advice because we're staying on the course for right now with some of that stuff. But honestly, that's one of those things where to give you a better answer, I'd have to crack open that journal and read back through the last few weeks and see what see what's coming up.
(39:45): One thing you said Patrick is I want to hear your answer of when we get resistance, we want to know the source. Do you have a checklist to figure out the source? I ha how do you figure out the source to know, Hey, we've got to push through this or God is closing his door. We've we better turn and go. How do you know which it is to push through or to go a different direction? I think
(40:09): Maybe the first part of that for us is what is the desired outcome or the goal that we're pursuing. And, you know, does that seem how altruistic to that seem or how aligned with, you know, our mission or we think, you know, what God's plan would be. And when I say source, it's really, you know, we believe that you can be a target of the enemy when you are trying to have a positive king of kingdom impact in this world. And so largely that's the basis for that kind of questioning of what is the sources? Do we think this is just some speed bumps because we're trying to be, you know, someone would like us to be derailed or is this not the right direction? And it's asking those questions, especially when things get particularly tough on something that you think would have a very positive impact is stepping back, looking at that and having that conversation around, are we, is this something where we do need to change course, or is this something where we need to push through? And, and it's hard that discernment, like I said, if you were to look at what I write down as a prayer request, most frequently it'd be wisdom. And discernment is just knowing when to make the right decision and wanting to make the right decision in each circumstance, which is impossible. But but seeking that very good, Patrick, what is the best way for listeners to get ahold of you
(41:23): Email? It's my first initial P and my last name waffen@equity.net. You're welcome to check out equity.net or our construction company is ECS builds.com, which stands for equity, construction solutions. So those are kind of our two flags as a company, but yeah, anything, I mean, anything that touches the life cycle of a commercial real estate asset or tenant is something that we've got vertically integrated and we've done projects in 45 states. So there's probably not a circumstance you'd would come across where we wouldn't be able to offer you at least some kind of advice.
(41:56): Great. Well thank you for being on the podcast, sharing your wisdom, your stories, and I've enjoyed this conversation. Even the previous ones we've had. So thank you very much. Yeah, this was awesome for, I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for having,
(42:13): I want to thank you for listening to my podcasts. 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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