Hello, this is Corey. Before we go into today's podcast, I want to share with you that we are going to run the confident and consistent leader challenge a again, we will launch it on November 1st. This will be the third time that we have ran it this year, because quite honestly, it's been successful. It is working and getting movement in people's lives. We ran it in the month of June, and then we ran it with a different group of leaders in the month of September and people are having impact. One individual said he was thoroughly impressed with the content and structure and wouldn't change anything. Another leader said that the challenge has been fantastic and has been a true lifeline as they were shipwrecked on an island. So I don't know where you are coming at right now, what you're doing to end this year, but this challenge will help you in the year.
Well, and start off 2022 on strong footing. The challenge is in four different parts. First part is on perspective. What is your current reality? The second part is about potential. Where do you want to go at work at home? The third week will be about priorities, helping you prioritize what you actually want to go after. And then the fourth week is about a path forward is putting things in place to help you go. The challenge consists of daily emails, as well as videos to teach the content you watch on your own time, as well as live group coaching calls each week. So this challenge is working and maybe now is your time to sign up and participate. Go to Cory M carlson.com for slash leadership to take advantage of the early bird pricing before it goes up. We launched this next challenge on November 1st, look forward to seeing you in the program. Thank you.
Welcome to the win at home first podcast. I'm your host, Cory Carlson. This podcast is where we talk about how successful business leaders win, not only at work, but also at home. On this podcast, we will go behind the scenes with great leaders to hear stories of how they win. Thank you for listening and on to today's episode.
(02:13): Hello, this is Corey today's episode with Andy is a great one. You'll learn more about him and what he has going on in his life and the company. He just launched. Get your tissues ready. It's an emotional podcast, but in a good way, he does have a difficult story, but the way he is just grown, his marriage, his family, and now even as business from it is inspiring. We talk about purpose and how purpose can change this story in his life actually did. In fact, change his purpose. I know there's been a Vince in my life that have changed who I am. And now what I do know, we've heard your pain can become your platform. Your mess become your message, all these different cliche statements, weird, but are actually true. And Andy is the same way something happened. His life is changed who he is now, what he's doing with his life. He also has a lot of great tips on marriage and how they've weathered difficult times as well as great times. He's got very helpful tools with the idea of discernment and how to care for your team lead. Well, it is jam packed with good stuff. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did on to today's episode.
(03:26): Hello, this is Corey Carlson. You're listening to winter home first podcast today. I'm joined by Andy Scoonover, who lives in Texas now, but we have some common friends in Cincinnati and I didn't know Andy, but I always would hear about him. Somehow our paths would cross and people would say, oh, do you know Andy? And I never did. I reached out one time, LinkedIn. We then had a conversation in the spring and just hit it off. Well, and I got to hear some of his story and I want to invite them onto the podcast, his share his story and everything that he's had take place in his life and how that is impacting his current career move. And so, Andy, I'm excited to hear more about your story. Andy's launching a business called crowd health here October 1st, he's married. He has three kids, a lot of which we'll be talking about today and how that has impacted him and his life. Andy, thank you very much for being on the podcast. Corey man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Andy, what is that key trait to win at work and went home?
(04:28): I mean, I think it's discipline. Think it's discipline. I think some of your other folks who have joined, you have said similar words or around that. I mean, it is so easy in our, in our culture to choose other things then, then home. Especially if you have small kids, I'm sure many of your listeners do going home to a bunch of kids running around and screaming it at at home. Oftentimes feels less appealing than staying at work and getting things done and things that, that really drive that, that dopamine. So you just have to be, be disciplined about it. I've, I've gone through phases of my career where I wasn't, and I think I'm now at a place where, as you mentioned, I'm doing a startup and which is just a ton of fun starting a company. And so you just have to be disciplined about being, being home and being engaged with those, with those kiddos. And I would say that, you know, we started our company back in April and I think there was probably two days, you know, I didn't make it home by five o'clock to be with my girls and have dinner. I mean, that is just a, a time that we, I just don't give up for anything. So it's just about, about discipline and being able to say no to some other things that will pull you in a bunch of different directions
(05:42): And discipline can also be very seasonal. As we talked about before we hit record, you were able to come home by five o'clock a lot here. And like you just said it April may, but that may not be the case come the month of September, October as you launch, just because it's going to be seasonal. And so tell us a little bit more about what the launch is looking like, but then how are you going to be disciplined to lead well at home when the work demands are going to be higher now than they have in your life for the last few years?
(06:13): Yeah, sure. I mean, I, I even told my team going through the next couple of months, which we're, we're launching in October, we're starting our signups in September. So, you know, I told my team that, you know, between five and seven o'clock I'm with my kids, I'm with my family and there's nothing that's going to get in the way of that. So I set the expectation with, with them. I set the expectation with my wife that said, Hey, I will be home from five to seven, I'll be fully engaged. So I'll put the phone down, but it's seven. When the girls go down for bed, I gotta be back on it for a couple of hours. And is that okay with you? And she gave me the thumbs up, just like, okay, I get it. This is something where for this couple of months for this season, it is okay to maybe not, you know, fulfill my love language.
(06:58): Her love language is quality time. So, you know, time is really, really important to her. And she's said, you know, I'll give you some grace during, during these couple months. And so it's just setting expectations, both at work and at home. And if you set those expectations, if you say those things out loud, you know, I have the folks at work who actually pushed me and say, Hey, you're leaving at five, right? You're you're, you're, you're leaving by five to get home to your family. And they hold me accountable to, so I've, I've been blessed with some folks at work that will hold me accountable, but will also help out if there's some things that require some attention after hours, they'll, they'll help me out on those, those things and, and support me in that. So I think, you know, to win at home, you have to win at work and vice versa.
(07:40): And a part of the winning at work is just having the right people around you, who will give you grace and sometimes where you have to leave and take care of family needs. So I think that's just an really important part of our culture at that crowd health. You know, we literally had somebody this morning who daughter has anxiety couldn't we have an all team meeting this morning had anxiety, wouldn't get to go to school. Cause she was worried about going to school. You know, when we, when we were taping this it's it's day one of school. And so it was like, okay, yeah, take care of your family. Take, get that kid off to school. That is way more important than anything we're going to talk about during our team meeting. We'll take notes, we'll get you up to speed. No big deal. If you build that culture, then you really can it gives people space to hold each other accountable. I think that's really important.
(08:27): You made a comment about just saying it out loud and there's so much power in words where if we say him to our family, that these are the expectations of my schedule, let's hear your schedule, you know, wife and kids, and then for the work team to talk about what your expectations of them as well as even yourself. And once we say that, how people can start to readjust their own schedules or have a preparedness. I know for me, when look at earlier days in my marriage, where we get tripped up is I wouldn't say the schedule, I just kind of wing it. And then maybe right there at the end of the day, I'd call and say, I'm going to be two hours later or, or whatever. I've decided to go to this happy hour or whatever. It could be never communicate. Now it's on the front end of the week where Holly and I'll get together on say Sunday night and kind of talk about the whole week. What are the, the nights we're eating in, eating out when I'm gone, she's in and it's helped tremendously. So it sounds a lot like what you're doing.
(09:25): Yeah. Expectations are everything right? Like, as he said, if, if I, if I tell my wife, I have a happy hour, you know, this week give I tell my wife that on Sunday, it's a lot easier then on Wednesday at five o'clock and when I get home. So setting those expectations is just so key and I've, we've been married for seven years. Now. I will tell you I'm way better at it in year seven that I was in in year one and into, you know, the, the, the selfishness of human beings as you go into marriage is real. And it manifests itself in a whole wide variety of ways. One of which is being on my time as opposed to being on our time. And that's just one of those things through, you know, think marriage is sanctifying in that way and that it kind of rips out some of that selfishness and really starts your mind starts thinking about us instead of, of me, which is kind of a really important transition in your marriage that some people can't really never get to, but the faster you can get there I truly believe the better marriage that she'll have.
(10:28): Absolutely. I think a big piece for Holly and I, and this is true of all couples is my wife's pretty much always going to say yes to me saying, I need to go to a happy hour. I need to go do networking just because I'm the provider for the family. And she knows, if I'm saying I need to go to happy hour networking, she's going to know I vetted it and it's worth my time, but she's so she's always going to say, yes, it's just, if I ask her, if I can go, if I kind of bring her into the conversation, then she feels included. She feels more of a partnership. Then me telling her what I'm doing and, you know, figure out logistics yourself, babe, figure out how to get the kids everywhere. I'm going to go to do my thing. And I think it's just that whole idea of, you know, basically collaboration and partnership, like you mentioned, as opposed to just, Hey, this is the agenda. Figure it out.
(11:18): Yeah. I think there's another part of that too, which is trust, right? Like she's trusting it. You're actually going out and doing something that's going to support your family and not just going out and hanging out with the dudes, you know, all the time. Right. And I think there's a very key kind of piece of life that is hanging out with the dudes is really important, but you know, you only can play that card so often before it's like, okay, you know, I got a bunch of kids here that I'm trying to take care of too. So help me out. And so it sounds like you and your wife have some trust there where it's like, if you're really going to do this, this is, this is something that is going to help us as a family in the long run. Well, I just got to
(11:53): Keep showing that the lag indicators are working. I say the lead indicators are these happy hours and all of a sudden lag. Now, now it's going to be back to trust because it's good. Andy, when we started our conversation, I mentioned the fact that you have three kids and I know that's a big part of your story. And even what brought you here to launch crowd health, to just share about your three kids.
(12:20): Yeah, sure. I'm, I'll give you a little bit of backstory just to give you a little bit of context, but you know, our, our paths did cross in Cincinnati, both went to crossroads. I got baptized at that crossroads. And so it was a big part of my, my faith journey. I was running a healthcare technology company there in Sensi, sold that company in 2014 and moved down to Austin. And it, it didn't help that it was negative 12 degrees. The day we sold the company is one of those polar vortexes, which the folks in the Midwest understand and know, well, the people in the south are like polar vortex. What the heck are you talking about? I was like, please trust me. You don't want to deal with that. So my wife and I are like, you know what, we're going to head somewhere sunny for a little bit.
(13:00): And so jumped in the car, headed down to Austin, thinking I was going to do something entrepreneurial. And we were newly married and my wife got pregnant right away staff. And we found out during our 12 week ultrasound that our, our daughter had a fatal condition. So doctor, you know, there's a normal 12 week ultrasound. Anybody who's got kids out there knows you, see it, see your baby. That actually looks like a baby for the first time with head and 10 fingers and 10 toes. And she was twirling around and you know, we, we were sitting there and the ultrasound and the ultrasound tech left and we, we didn't know any better as soon as our first doctor walked in and was kind of quiet. And I was like, okay, so, you know, why are you quiet? I just sensed something was up.
(13:46): And he, and he kind of looked at us and he's like, Hey, I'm sorry to tell you, but your daughter has a fatal condition called anencephaly. There is no cure. She will pass away. And so we suggest that you terminate and try again, you know, and for us, it was just like, you know, we saw her Sergeant saw her daughter there. You know, we saw our daughter and, and for us just given our faith background, it was like, you know, we're going to give grace who is her name. We named her grace, you know, life and whatever way that God intended that life to look to the doctors. Okay. Probably gonna die in utero, probably if she makes it, you know, to turn probably gonna die in the birth canal, if she makes it out, then, you know, she will probably take a breath and pass away.
(14:28): So we said, okay, well, we're just gonna go walk that journey. And so, as you can kind of imagine the next six months between that ultrasound and, and, and stuff, getting a Steph giving birth to grace were actually incur incredible times for us as a, as a family. You know, my, my, my wife and I had just gotten married and then we had grace. And so, you know, we, we took her to the, and we, you know, as again, parents know they, they kick and you can push on their feet and they'll cook kickback. And it was, you know, the only real time that we got to play with her. And so, you know, we fast forward six months and, and grace didn't make it to term. She was born and she lived for 10 and a half hours, 10 hours and 32 minutes before she, she passed away.
(15:14): That was back in 2015. So we're, we're, we're six years removed from that, but I still just live that day over and over and over again, as you can imagine, given, it was just such an impactful spiritual experience, one where you, me and my wife and grace were just, just incredibly connected for 10 hours and 32 minutes. And this was in the middle of the night, you know, 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. We just spent time with each other and I read her books and do it things that, you know, you do to you know, a one-year-old or a two-year-old cause it's really the only time that we were going to, you're going to have with her. So, you know, she passed away. And I think the hardest part of that was, as you can imagine, quarry, you know, handing your daughter over for the last time to a nurse who, you know, she had passed away, but, you know, you would never get to see her again.
(16:03): And so it was just a really hard, difficult time. And then you'd go home and then just the enemy starts just hammering you and your marriage. And at that point less than a year into our marriage already kind of a, you know, an interesting situation when you go from single to married, but then put, you know, losing a child on, on top of that, just a really, really tough experience. So I came out of that, spent the next couple of years, just trying to figure out how to keep my marriage together. The D word was thrown around several times. We can kind of talk about, you know, the, how males and females mourn in very different ways, you know, generally and, you know, males, we want to go and, and be by ourselves and females wanting to engage. And when you get those two things counteracting it's, it's a pretty interesting experience.
(16:50): And so, you know, we just, just focused on our marriage for, for two years after that. And then I, you know, we, we kind of came out of that. You know, it's one of those things where if you'd go into one of those experiences, you either your faith gets stronger or it dissipates. I was a new believer and I've, you know, thank God our, our faith got stronger. And we really relied upon, you know, the Lord to get us through that. And as a result, we were kind of Romans 8, 28. It's like, he works all things for good, for those who love him are called according to his purpose. And so we were like, all right, Lord, what are you gonna do with this? What are you gonna, how are you going to Romans 8 28, this one for us? And my wife started a nonprofit called caring determ, which is to help women walk through that journey.
(17:32): I mean, she's got about 3000 women hitting her website every single day, or excuse me, every single month looking for resources. And for me, it was helping my wife with that nonprofit and, you know, really growing that and do some, doing some other nonprofit stuff as well. On the side. At that point, we had two more kids. So we have Ava and Caroline and got health insurance, and it was 1200 bucks a month, $8,000 deductible. And you know, I worked until we had to actually use it. And so my, my little one who's w was one at the time was having recurring ear infections. And so the pediatrician said we needed to go get tubes in her ears. So we went to the local hospital, got tubes in her ears as a 15 minute procedure. And it was $8,000 for 15 minutes. I was like, wow, this is crazy that this health insurance thing is totally screwed up. And, you know, not to mention that, but the health insurance plan came back and said that they wouldn't pay for it. And so I decided to start a company to, to, to create an alternative to health insurance. So our kids first grace, and our nonprofit endeavors, and now Caroline, with some of her health issues have kind of led us to our professions, which has kind of an interesting, interesting thing.
(18:49): As I say, a lot, Andy, isn't handing over your story for a greater story to something that I felt kind of spoken to me one night. It sounds like yours has been just a constant handing over your story for a greater story.
(19:00): One of the things I've learned through this is I do think that God uses pain to glorify him, you know, and he does use pain to sanctify us. And I just say, look, grace passed away. She's dancing with Jesus. She got the better end of this deal. You know, we're the ones that have to sit here with the craziness going on in our world. And so I've just kind of learned to appreciate the fact that, you know, I got, I got one daughter in heaven, which, you know, praise God, you know, I hope all my daughters go to heaven. So it's, it really has been truly a blessing for us.
(19:33): So Annie, going back to that time with grace, not only the, the whole pregnancy and then the 10 hours and 32 minutes, and then even those that year or two afterwards is, you know, you and your wife are trying to patch it all together. You mentioned your new Christian. I talk with clients and friends who some are new and some of our older Christians and just, they start to question their faith. They start to get frustrated with what was going on in their own life or in the world. How did you navigate that with infancy faith at that time? Yeah.
(20:10): And I mean, it's, it's a good question. And, you know, we're just so blessed that we felt like the Lord kept tapping us on the shoulder saying I'm here. You know, we, we, we came home from the hospital and like I said, the enemy just was hammering us from all directions. And one of those was you know, we asked this question, I'm sorry, I'll get emotional about it. But we asked this question, we said, you know, to each other, we said, do we tell grace that we loved her enough? Right. So you have 10 and a half hours with your kid. And the first thing you asked yourself, when you get home, it's like, did we tell her we love loved her enough, which is a silly question, but it's just the enemy's way of like, trying to hammer us when we were down.
(20:52): And, you know, I went to bed that night and had a dream where I was grace looking up at me and staff and just flooded with this feeling of love that I'd never felt before in my life. You know? And for me, it was just like the Lord of being like, yeah, you did tell her that, you know, you did tell her, you love her. And now she's feeling a love that you'll not be able to feel until you see me face to face. Right. And so it was just the way that it was like, oh, thank you, Lord. You know? And then we had we had a pastor that nobody with crossroads, some other dumb pastor who came and said, he said, well, we're not really even sure that you know, babies who, who aren't baptized will go to heaven. And like, that's what you say to parents who just lost their baby.
(21:42): Like, I'm sorry, but you're an idiot, you know? And you know, we, we, so we go home and of course we're just totally devastated by that. And Steph had a dream where she could see grace through one of those two-way mirrors. Grace was on the reflective side and Steph was on the non-reflective side and grace was healed and beautiful. And then there's those beautiful Prairie of flowers that you'd ever imagined, you know? And it was for us, it was like, the Lord was saying, no, she's with me. And it's gorgeous, you know? And so you just tell it through those things. And you're like, man, thank you, Lord, for touching us in little ways. And people are like, oh, you know, it was just a dream. That's just your, body's like, no, no, no, read the Bible. God talks to us and dreams, you know, it's happened since, you know, Genesis.
(22:34): And so, you know, we really just kind of had those specific examples, whereas like nos, it was clear that the Lord was involved and, and hadn't left us. And so it was, yeah, those, those were the key moments in the infancy of our faith, where we were just blessed the opportunity to, to kind of feel the Lord in a, in a, in a pretty intimate way. So I think that's one of the main reasons we can kind of go back to those stories and be like, not at all, there, there is a, a greater being that loves us tremendously. And especially when we are feeling we are mourning. So that's kind of how we, we made it through early. It was very little to do with us and everything to do with him,
(23:18): Sharon, all that vulnerability and the story to, to help us all. And I agree it's that pain becomes our platform to help others and bless others. And all of us can basically, you know, take from your story and ourselves, just try to get better. I assume now with your other two, there, there's a, just an intensity in your attention to them that we all should adopt as, as parents and Lord willing. I don't have to ever experienced an you did, but I was sure loved to make sure I'm loving. Like I experienced something like that.
(24:00): Yeah. I mean, I know kind of funny my five-year-old I think I tell him, I love him 10 times a day. She's like, I know daddy, I know that you love me. I was like, I know you do, but you got to hear it. You got to hear it out of my voice. You know? And I actually, I learned something from Tim Seneff who was one of your, kind of earlier guests over the last month or two. And, and, you know, he tells his, his kids. He's like, you know, it tells him every day, he's like, I love you. And I will never leave you. You know? And I think his kids had the same reaction. I know dad, I know you do, but you need to hear it right. As we were talking about earlier, Corey comes out of your mouth. There is a, a power to saying that to your, your kids, to your wife.
(24:41): Right. And so my, my kids, I really do think they, they, they feel my love at least I, I hope so. And you know, I think it's one of the reasons why I'm, I'm just so heat in, on being there from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. It's our family time. That's the, that's the time of the day where I can love them really, really well. And sometimes I do better than others, but I think it is one of those reasons why I've just, I've just made it an absolute mandate within my life to, to be there for them during, during dinner time and bath time and say in prayers with them before they go down to bed.
(25:15): And so I know you've been around campfires or you've been at ministry events or whatever may be, and you, you're talking, you see a grown adult who is still kind of searching and looking for those words of love from their earthly father. And we also know that a lot of us would view our heavenly father as a little bit of how we saw our earthly father. So if we don't feel that our earthly father loved us enough ever said, I love you. We, we start to think our heavenly, father's not one of love. It's one of dictatorship or it's one of working for their approval in his pieces. So I, I, I completely agree the all of us making sure we're, we're hugging and telling our kids. We love them numerous times and affirming them who they are.
(26:02): No, I mean, I, I grew up with a dad where I probably heard, I love you maybe a half a dozen times in my entire childhood. So I think it's, it is something to that. You, you try to correct some of the sins of the past and maybe, maybe a little bit overboard with my, my kiddos, but I would, I would way prefer to go that direction then, then, then the other one. So yeah. Kids are a sanctifying blessing for sure.
(26:29): Yeah, sure. I mean, if it's, I love you and it's you say yes to anything, they asked to them, all right, now we probably gone too far. Now we're just entitling them and it's a coddley environment, but if it's, I love you and it comes with truth and grace and invitation and challenge, and then it's, then it's different now we're setting them up for success.
(26:48): Yeah. It's a weird tension. Right. You know, you can't be so soft that you don't discipline because that's a really important part of it too. And then the understanding that there are consequences. I think the most unloving thing that you can do as a parent is focus on making your kids, you know, doing everything to make the happy. No, sometimes they're, it's okay if they're not happy because they need to understand the consequences of their, of their actions. And, and so it's just one of those, those tensions. And I think, you know, one of the challenges of marriage is I think men and women generally take a different approach to how to, how to discipline their kids or even engaged with their kids. And so it's, it is, you know, challenging, but man, if you can take that challenge and I'm, I'm wondering, who's take challenges as kind of fun.
(27:31): It's like, okay, this is something that's kind of fun. Let's go, let's get into this, let's read some books, let's figure out, you know, let's read the, the most important book on how God disciplines us. Right. And my wife and I are challenged by a two year old who, when you say, you're going to time out, we'll celebrate and think it's the coolest thing ever that he gets to, that she gets to go to time out and a five-year-old if you go to timeout, it's the end of the world. And so I feel like the Lord gives us these kids to steward you know, partially because he knows the things that we have to work on to look a lot more like, like him, right? So it's, it's up, man. It's fun. Fatherhood is, is it, is, it is a blast, but it is, it is a challenge said, you know, is it easier to, to start a company from scratch and grow it or be a dad to a three and a five-year-old? I am like, no, no, I don't not sure which is, which is easier. So it's, it's a lot of fun.
(28:23): They both require situation, situational leadership strategy intentionality. But so often we do that at work and we forget to do all those pieces at home. We just wing it,
(28:34): No MBA for parenting. At least if there is, I haven't seen it, right. You have starting a company, you know what a P and L looks like some, a lot of it is formulaic. If you do this, then this will happen in fatherhood. You have no clue. Like a lot of times, like, I'm not sure if I'm helping this kid or hurting this kid. Cause there's just no formula. You know, you can look at two different books and they say the exact same thing. You're like, I I'm just trying to do my best. And that's, I think a part of why there is no formula. So I continue to rely upon him for guidance as opposed to us, right. Go to the self-help book of all ages, which is the, the, the Bible. And I'm not saying it's not a self-help book, but you know what I mean? Like the, the perfect manual for, for living versus, you know, something from the, the new age, coolest person who's, you know, talking about, you know, the latest parenting expert or whatever, and that reliance upon him, I think actually is what he's after and parenting, I think might be a key component in that
(29:36): To talk about your marriage. Now, you guys obviously can handle trials and tribulations with the best of them, because it, early on in the marriage, you faced a child's death. It would be obviously awful, but yet God through that and the spiritual warfare that came with it and doubt and insecurities and everything that took place, but yet you guys rallied together. And as you've kind of fast forward over a total of seven years of marriage, what does that look like and how you guys are handling conflict or how you're handling challenges in your life to help us listeners as we have challenges. I mean, are there things that you guys do, are you faster to resolve because you know, life is short, are you, you know, what are those pieces that you do to help?
(30:22): Yeah. I mean, I can't say we're, we're totally awesome at it, but I will tell you that there are some things that over the years we've really, really learned, you know, and one just, just being the believers and, and seeing, you know, the, the closest analogy to Christ loving us right. In marriage, because we will fail each other on a daily basis, just like we fail our God on a daily basis. And just to remember the grace that he gives us daily and how we're supposed to reflect that within our, our marriage and me, if you set that at the core of, of your marriage, I think that's a really good foundation from which to build a really good marriage. And I would say the other couple of things is, you know, we were really good accountants early in our marriage. You know, I did this for you, so you should do this for me.
(31:17): You know, it's, it's, you know, and it's never 50 50, and that's a really good way of just tearing down a relationship if you're always evaluating, waiting what they did versus what, what you did. Right. I mean, we were just incredible at that early on in our marriage. And I think we've gotten a lot better at that now. Right. We are selfish human beings. And so there's still that poll to say, well, I did this. And so you should do that or look at all of these things that I've done for you. Why aren't you doing all of these things for me? I mean, it was just toxic to think of it like that. And so I think we've gotten a lot better and kind of refocused on, instead of what can you do for me, it is what I can do for you. And if you take that approach of where am I going wrong on this, as opposed to continuing to focus on what you're doing wrong in this, I think you go a lot further and that's what something we've just gotten a heck of a lot better doing in our relationship is like, Hey, listen, let's not point fingers that way, you know, toward the other person was pointing fingers at ourselves, how are we helping this fight or hurting this fight?
(32:26): You know, depending on how you look at it. And let's focus on that as opposed to what the other person contributed. And that's just been, been super helpful. And I mentioned love languages, you know, early on, I, I love that book, you know, core, I'm sure you've read it or seen it. Right. Which is basically there are five love languages, and we are all kind of motivated or feel loved by one of those being expressed to us. And my wife, like I said, is, is quality time. And mine is words of affirmation. So when I don't feel like I'm being affirmed by my wife, it's easy to point to her and say, you're not affirming her, but what's much harder is, oh, well maybe I haven't spent quality time with her. If I haven't spent quality time with her, her love tank is going to be empty.
(33:13): If she has an affirm me than her, my love tank is going to be empty. And so I'm not going to want to, you know, have the lots of quality time with her, right? So it's a perfect example. We can always point at the other person, but we're like, look, we're not doing what we need to do for the other. And therefore we're probably not going to get what we want for ourselves. And so it's just been a, kind of a reorienting of how we think about those types of things in our, in our marriage. So it's been, been an interest seven years as I've kind of mentioned, but I feel like we've gotten to a really good place. I would say the other thing Corey is after those original couple of years, the D word does not come into our conversations, right? I mean, this is like, no, no, no. We, we, we made a vow between each other and a covenant with God to say, we're married. You put us together. Two becomes one. We are one flesh. And, and therefore there is no getting out of this. This is, we are, we are committed to one another through the covenant with the Lord. And, and you know, if you're at that place, it can get really bad and you can still move on and have some hope for the next day. So there's been a kind of a key component of our marriage as well.
(34:24): Hey, crossroads, Paso, you and I both know Chuck Mingo. He shared the idea that contractual relationships, they have a clause in there that say because of, so we're going to work together because of these different reasons. And, but there's always kind of a caveat to, to exit, you know, if, because of that breaks, whereas covenant relationships stay together because it's, regardless of, so regardless of what happens, if there's a death in the family or there's a, you know, whatever takes place, regardless, we're sticking through it, we're going to figure out how to make this happen. Just like whatever, whatever we do to Jesus. If we betray him, do something he's always there, always there to come back to much like how we need to be in our marriage is that it should be, regardless of it doesn't mean it gives you free rein to go do whatever you want, but it's still just a big difference between your right, that D word would have been thrown around a little earlier. And Holly's in my relationship as well. Now we don't now it's like, we're, we're figuring this out, whatever it may be, we're going to figure out work together.
(35:39): 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.
(36:46): You mentioned the love languages. Just one more example of opposite to track. God puts us with people who are our weaknesses, or you know, that we've got to lean on him to help grow and get better at, and that was a big problem with me in the standpoint of I'm words of affirmation. Well, that's not necessarily Holly strength. So early on the marriage, I w you know, wanting to hear that. And so that's unfair to me to go to her, to get all of my needs and approvals. And so it sets her up for failure. And so that's when it comes in a lot of going spending my time and quiet time and understanding I'm approved by God. And I don't need to go look for other's approval
(37:26): When you said that God puts us with, with people and it's the old remotely, so that we can grow to look a lot more like him. I think it's hilarious. And the way they say opposites attract, you know, as kind of a, kind of a cultural saying, but maybe the Lord puts opposites together so that we are sanctified, do that, and can look a little bit more like, like him as a result of that. I mean, I kind of throw out all of these different types of personality traits and things, but the Enneagram is one that I think is pretty interesting too. And, and you know, I'm an eight, which is a driver and my wife is, is a one. And she kind of is, you know, the detail oriented, you know, the and so I'm like, forget details. I'm gonna just run, run, run, run, run.
(38:06): And she wants to know all the details. She wants to know the plans. I'm gonna, like, let's figure it out when we get there. And so, you know, when you read through the Enneagram and eight and a one, it said you two are like fire and ice, and I'm like, oh, great, okay. Now I see why the Lord put us together to, you know, build grace for each other. And, and again, weed out that selfishness. And so it's just funny how that, that works. I love it. I love the Lord, his sense of humor in that, but
(38:32): We can give another Instagram example. I'm a three Cheever, go, go, go. And don't ask a lot of questions, go. Holly's a six, which is oil, which she'll, you know, she'll be loyal, but she's going to ask a lot of questions to know what she wants to do in the early on our marriage. I took those questions to think she was doubting me. Like, what do you think I didn't do any research. You think, I don't know what I'm talking about. And so that, that would cause its own battles. But when we did the Instagram three years ago, that that was breakthrough in our marriage. Yeah. Because now when she asks questions, I don't take it. She's questioning my wisdom instead that she's preparing her heart and her mind for the journey to come with me. Yup. And then at the same time, you and I both as a three and eight, we need people to ask questions. We need people to question us because we may go off a cliff, a hundred miles an hour.
(39:23): Well, and I, I think that, that also just shows, like if you start realizing that within your marriage, you can also start realizing that within relationships outside of your marriage, you know, if there are, you know, I've asked all the people in my, my office we're we have 10 folks now I know their love languages. I know their Enneagrams. You know, I know those things because the way that they respond to specific situations are very much a part of their personality, right? I mean, is it a personality is kind of a key component of that. And so instead of me flipping out that, all the ones in my office, when I asked 22 questions before we get to a decision and have a really hard time moving from step one, is that too, I can be off and irritated or I can say, okay, there ones, Andy, that's just how they operate.
(40:10): It's the way that their brain works. And you have a little bit more grace for, for that. And then on the flip, they have more grace for me because they know that Andy wants to go, go, go, go, go. Right. And if you can figure out a way that the eights and the ones who are very different types of people can work together, you actually come out with a much better outcome, right. Even in marriage, I think my one wife and my eight ni eight, we have more fulfilling, fun, planned, organized you know, stuff, you know, as, as a, as a family, as we would, if we were both eight and we were both go, go, go. So, you know, I think that some of the things you're learning at home and some of the things you learn at work do apply to, to the opposite.
(40:52): Right. And so I, you know, my, my, my people were like, you're going to ask Ashley, ask us our love languages. I was like, yeah, I do. I want to know what fills you up, right? Because I think, you know, the way your husband or your wife fills you up is not, is not that different from the way that I can fill you up. If words of affirmation is important to you. I want to make sure that if you do a good job, I affirm you. So it's just kind of an interesting, interesting kind of way to look at that, you know, love language in any gram and, you know, throw a third book in their love and respect, which has another one I really, really love. So yeah, all of those are really good ones and all, you know, some of them are not biblically based, but you can, you can see examples of this biblically and there are good, good books to help take some of these structures and kind of take it a biblical context. So yeah, those are three good things that my wife and I talk about.
(41:45): That's good. You've mentioned Instagram and company and his overall emotional intelligence at the company. A lot of, a lot of people or old school think that, that those are soft skills. You don't need to know those things. And there's been so much breakthrough when working with teams, I'll go in and speak with companies about the Enneagram, or we kind of have a whole emotional intelligence talk, but a lot of them also go on the Instagram and you just see apologies, start to fly out across the table and understanding and more empathy. It's amazing how that works. It works in the marriage as we talked about and also works at companies. So it's, it's pretty wild to see and hopefully more and more continued to, to pull in that EEQ stuff into their companies.
(42:29): I agree. I mean, I'm all, I'm all about diversity in companies and, and kind of multi, multiple facets. But I think that the diversity of personalities and the grams and things like that, and they can make a company a lot better, you know, a lot more thoughtful if you have a good diverse set of, of any Graham's or personality traits within your, within your company. So it is dumped in something that probably 10 years ago told you you're nuts, but I have learned that that's really important, important piece of growing a company. So you're launching crowd health here pretty soon. Tell us just a brief about a crowd health.
(43:04): No, thanks. I, I, you know, so I had this situation with my daughter and it was just blown away by how inefficient the healthcare system was. And, you know, some interesting stats or 300,000 people last year that had health insurance and still went bankrupt because of medical bills. The middle class has not seen real wages grow in about 35 years because of health insurance growth, right? So this is a, a huge issue within, within our society. And, and you know, I love trying to tackle big, big, big problems. And so we, we built a company called crowd health. And basically what we're doing here is, you know, doctors hate health insurance as much as we do because they spend about 30% of their time dealing with health insurance. And so what we found out is if we go in there and pay the doctor directly the day of the procedure, they will actually give us 30 to 40% discounts on what health insurance plans are paying them.
(44:03): And so, as a result of that, we can build a network of doctors across the country who, you know, will take cash, pay rates direct pay day of procedure rates that are significantly lower. And therefore we built a company that is about 50% of the costs of, of health insurance plans. So I mentioned earlier, you know, I got on healthcare.gov. It was 1200 bucks, $8,000 deductible under crowd health. My family of four will be $700 in a $500 deductible. So it is significantly less than what you'll pay and, and healthcare.gov. And we think this is a way to revolutionize the way that we pay for healthcare. Pay the doctors directly take the health insurance plan out of the middle, because all they're doing is adding inefficiencies. So some key components here, no doctor network, so you can choose whatever doctor you want.
(44:56): We just ask you to let us know before you go to the doctor. So we can negotiate that, that rate with the doctor before you get there, it'll be paid before you get there. So just a simple, easy to use alternative to health insurance is what we're we're building. So we we're launching October 1st sign up, start September 1st. So we're really excited to get started and give people access to something like this. And just so you know, that this has been done, actually, it's not brand new. It's been done for 25 years within faith-based communities. So many of your listeners have been a part of Christian healthcare ministries or Samaritan or, or Metta share, or one of those. And basically what we're doing is we're taking that that model and giving it everyone access to it. So you don't have to be a faith. You can be agnostic atheist, you can be a Christian, you can be Jewish, you can be whoever and join our community. So that's one of the main differences between us and some of the faith-based sharing organizations out there. So we're excited to get started. And, you know, if anybody viewers are interested in learning more, they can go to join proud health.com and and take a look. We hope they'll consider us.
(46:09): Yeah, we'll put all that information in the show notes as well. And you've got a big idea to go and create this organization. How do you balance oh, selfish ambition versus godly ambition and, and have patience to in fact, build this business as opposed to let's go. I want to now,
(46:29): Yeah. Especially as an Enneagram eight, right? Like I'm ready to go, let's do it now. Let's get going. And, you know, and I think love joy, peace, patience, right? Number, number, number four in the fruit of the spirit. I'm not sure if he ranked order to them or not, but it's pretty important to clearly, you know, I think it's just being dedicated to quiet time making things going on, you know, in our families, in our work kind of the, a key component of that, that quiet time. And then just waiting for the Lord to say yes. And, you know, there just were things that kind of were, were stacking up one after another. And I was like, Lord, if this is yes, then, you know, keep that door open. And if this is no, then please smash it in my face because I would prefer that than running down a path that, that you don't want me running down.
(47:15): And so I think it's, you know, I've learned as I've gotten older, that I can get, again, especially as an Enneagram eight, I can get really excited about something, but it may, that excitement might last for a day or maybe even a week. But if I've got something that I'm excited about for a month or two months or three months, that I feel like it's the Lord, the spirit putting it on my heart to go in and do it. So I think spending a lot of quiet time discussing it directly with the Lord, waiting for him to say yes, and then, you know, just knowing your yourself and how you, your, your emotions work to, to understand is this me emotionally, you know, just wanting to do it in the fleshly way, or really the spirit calling me to do it. And I would say 10 years ago, it was me in a fleshly way, just going after whatever looked like was fun and could get the dopamine levels up. And now it's a little bit more of a patient. All right, Lord, you tell me, tell me if this is something that you want me to do. So your quiet time and just being, being patient is, is kind of the key components there. I think In your quiet time, how do you discern if it's flesh led or spirit led?
(48:23): Yeah. I mean, I think there's some discernment steps that you need to take, right? I mean, one is prayer, you know, two is, you know, getting into the word three is talking to your spouse about it. Four is talking to your community about it, you know, and if you can get through those levels of, of discernment then, and come out at the end, still really excited about, you know, what, you're, what you're doing. Then again, I, my, my prayer at that point, it's like, Lord, I'm going to go hard after this. You total it biblically to work hard for, for, you know, as if we are serving you. And if you don't want this to work, then, you know, have it end, have it end sooner rather than later. And if it's later and you want me to learn as a result of that, then give me the heart to accept that.
(49:11): Right. And you know, it's a startup. And so it may, this may not work. And so if it doesn't work, you know, there'll be interesting or fun to have, have me on the podcast again and say, okay, so, you know, you told us, you went through this discernment process and, and and he thought the Lord still wanted you to do it, but it didn't work. So what do you learn from that? I was like, look, maybe the Lord could kind of be like, man, you know, I don't really care if crowd health works or not. Right. Like that's a very small piece, you know, I, one piece of sand in his kingdom. And so he's got a grander plans than, than, than crowd health. And so I began to be okay with that. You know, I don't know exactly how the dominoes fall to make his, you know, glorify him and maybe I'm starting, you know, a path of dominoes that's going totally in an unknown direction that I don't see that is doing wonderful things to glorify him.
(50:04): I may never know it until I see him face to face. And if that's the case awesome. If it's disciplining me or somebody within my team or whatever, I got to say, okay to that too. So it just surrendering all of that to the Lord and be like, I don't know how you operate, but I'll just trust that you're doing things to better me, right. To look more like you and to glorify you ultimately. So that's a thing to kind of grasp sometimes, especially for nonbelievers who hear that. And like, you're dumb, like that doesn't make any sense here, you know, but it's like click it. If you all you're trying to do is glorify him that it's like, all right. If I can bore you by failing better than if I succeed then great. You know, if we are super successful and Lord knows that money, which the love of which is the root of all evil, that having that at money as a result of success is actually gonna make me look less like him.
(50:54): I should glorify him in that failure. Right. Yeah. But I don't, I don't, I don't know what it looks like 10 years to 10 years from now. And he knows, you know, how many hairs on my head will be left? I don't have many, but he'll know how many I have left in 10 years. Right. So, you know, I just gotta, I gotta surrender it to him and be like, yeah, okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best to glorify you and all that I do. And if I fail, I'm a human being. I fail. I'm I know that you're going to work that one for good too. Right. I know. I know you're going to Romans 8 28. That one also.
(51:25): Yep. Very true. The night before my book launched, I had a good friend. Nick sent me an email and he was part of that whole four step discernment process. You mentioned the book, he sent an email there's many great words in it, but basically it came down to the point of, don't worry about how many books you sell starting tomorrow. It's not about the impact. It's about the obedience. Amen.
(51:49): And gosh, I've gone back to that so many times, not necessarily email, but just that overall thought about a lot of these nudges we get, it's more just a step in obedience and is crowd health going to do amazing? Is my book going to do amazing? We don't know, but it may be the start of something down the road that maybe someone else will do. Yeah, for sure. We don't even know.
(52:08): Well, you know, like look one of the coolest Bible stories of all time, from my perspective, and it's not that talked about, but it's, you know, you know, Moses was sitting there watching the Egyptian beat up on the, the Hebrew. He kills the Egyptian buries them comes back the next day. And the Hebrews were like, Hey, are you going to kill us now? Like he killed that guy. Right. And it was a failure for Moses. And he left for 40 years, you know, tending to sheep, you know? And, but to him, he's like, man, he was in the Faroes, you know, you know, inter inner clan, right. And now he's tending sheep that might have looked like a failure, but the Lord was doing some amazing things with him and his heart. He was doing some amazing things back in Egypt where he had to get those things done before they could, he could lead the Israelites out of, out of Egypt into the promised land. And so, you know, you kind of look at that and I was like, man, I hope I don't have to wait 40 years, you know, for the Lord to do some of these things. But, but you know, failure, he does work failure for good and over and over and over again. And we see it in every biblical story. I mean, David and, you know, Moses and all kinds of people. So incredible the way that the war Lord worked through, you know, very, very broken human beings.
(53:22): Well, I love that in, you know, in Exodus three, when God does confront Moses at the burning Bush with all that and Moses, like, who am I? Who am I no mind? I mean, knowing that he was a murder, knowing that he wasn't a great communicator is knowing all the bags and the brokenness he brought to the situation, but yet God was calling him up to use him. And I, all of us can get so much peace out of that story because we are all broken, but yet being called up and equipped and empowered to go do things, to expand the kingdom. I love the Humility in that. Well, Andy, we keep going, having fun with this, but we, we probably should in this here, what's the best way for people to get ahold of you.
(54:02): You can email me directly@andyatjoincrowdhealthdotcomgotojoincrowdhealth.com to talk more about the business and seriously, anybody who, who who listens to this feel free to reach out to me via email I'm on LinkedIn, on Facebook, all that stuff. Feel free to hit me up on any of those platforms. I'd love to have more conversations like this. So I appreciate it's time for you. Thank you Very much, Andy and Sharon here's story and vulnerability. Thanks.
(54:29): 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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