Find Your Identity in Christ

Having our life priorities in order, that's important. And it's easy for really important priorities, our spiritual life, our relationships, to get sidetracked while we start to prioritize the wrong things. Corey Carlson says that's been his experience. I know the right order, it should be, if I want to live a life to the full. But in times of stress, times of frustration, times of anger, I personally can actually get them upside down. I'm the provider for our family, so I get nervous about, do we have enough money?

Do I have enough clients in the pipeline? And, you know, I can have a scarcity mindset. And that's, for me personally, that's rooted back to my childhood. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine.

You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. Sometimes the urgent things are not really the important things, and sometimes the important things don't wind up being urgent. How do we make sure we maintain the right priorities as we live our lives? We're going to talk today with Corey Carlson about that. Stay with us.

And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. We're going to get to do a little coaching. This is your chance. To coach?

Yeah. And to coach—you do this with guys. Are we going to go poster out against cover two, or are we going to—what are we talking about, coaching here? We're talking about coaching guys to keep their priorities where they need to be and figure out how you balance the priority of providing for your family. Because I'm so good at it, right, Bob? Because you've learned some things along the way. I have learned some things.

Right. And you want to introduce who is going to help us with all of this? Yeah, we've got Corey Carlson here today with a great book. I love the title, because one of the things Anne and I try to do when we speak is talk about how to win at home. Even in corporations, sometimes we go in—like, I know you do this a lot. Everybody's talking about leadership, business principles. Very few come in and say, yeah, you can win here, but how do you win there? The most important area in your life is to win first at home, which is the title of your book, and you had to learn that in your own life as well, right?

Absolutely. And Corey, you do all kinds of coaching? All kinds of coaching. Not on a football field like me, but more important coaching, right?

That's right. I'd love to do soccer if I could coach that, but no. It is with corporate execs, business owners, small business owners, and really, the interesting piece in how the title of the book came about is I would get hired to help executives or business owners with, hey, how do we improve the culture at our company? How do we define our vision and values for the organization? And even in small businesses, it's reviewing the profit and loss statement and just trying to figure out ways to help them. And it's time management. There's a variety of different reasons to get hired, but what's interesting is almost all of our coaching is one-on-one. We'll do workshops and half-day sessions, full-day sessions, but really, that information is great, but if you really want that transformation, then you've got to have the application, and that all comes through the coaching. It was so interesting because I'd be with these clients.

We'd talk about vision and values, but when we got one-on-one on the call, what was really keeping the executive up at night was none of those. It was how can I be more intentional with my spouse? How can I be more proactive with my kids? How do I lose 10 pounds?

How do I drink less? And just every single call was like that with these new, different clients, and so I found myself to say, listen, we will work on vision and values. We will work on different ideas to improve the profit and loss statement. But in order to do that, we have to win at home first. We need to start pursuing your spouse. We need to start thinking of ways to carve out time to be with your kids.

Get to the gym. Are you journaling? Are you reflecting? And once you win at home first, you then have extra margin in your life to be empathetic with your coworkers. You know, I just have to stop here and put in a plug. Here at Family Life, we have been working with business owners for decades, hundreds of business owners who have made our weekend, remember, marriage getaway, a corporate benefit. Just like you have healthcare, whatever else, they will go to their employees and say, any employee who wants to attend a weekend, remember, the company will pay for it.

And two things happen. First of all, many of these guys are Christian business owners. This is a simple way for them to take their employees and expose them to the gospel in a non-threatening setting. You know, they're all asking the question, how do I share Christ with my employees without it being weird or, you know, getting the EEOC called in on me.

This is how you do it. You make a benefit. We'll send you to a marriage conference. It's completely optional. But if you want to go, the company will pay for it. We've had some companies say, we'll pay not only for the registration, we'll pay for your hotel and make it completely free. I was talking to a business owner who said he drove into the parking lot on a Monday morning, completely oblivious to all of this, and there's an employee, meets him in the parking lot and says, I just have to say thank you.

My wife and I just this weekend went to the weekend, remember, that you paid for for us. It's changed our marriage, and it's going to change me as an employee. And that's the payoff for the company. If a guy's figuring out how to win at home, he becomes a better employee. You don't get less of him.

You get the better of him, don't you? Absolutely. And for the employee who's working for that leader who's winning at home, they start to benefit because they're seeing, right, I mean, as the leader goes, so goes the company. So if they are seeing the leader, they're honoring the family schedule and they're going to family events.

They aren't doing emails every night at 10 o'clock. Those behaviors that they're doing, the employees start to follow that, and they start to see, and therefore they start to win at home. And in the end, the company actually wins. So it feels counterintuitive, like, let's invest in the people, let's talk about home, and that's going to help the company. But it does time and time again. And I'll just say, if you're a business owner and you want to find out more about how you can do this as a benefit for your company, call Family Life today and we'll put you in touch with somebody who can give you the information.

Just call 1-800-FL today and we'll get you fixed up on that. And are people hungry for this, Corey? Is it new? They are very, very hungry for it. I actually had an opportunity to speak to a company, a huge company, and did a workshop with them, shared the information, and later, when we were having a dinner debrief about it, it says the company is always investing in ways to make us better for them. It's like time management, it's this, but to actually, some of the, you know, the idea of the five capitals, some of the content we'll talk about is this, it actually helps the individual, which in turn helps the company. And so there's a piece that people knew that they could get some of this from their churches, they knew that they could get it from Family Life, they knew they could get it from different places, but never through their employer. To actually, the employer to support and say, yes, I will hire an executive coach for you that's kind of holistic where it's both home and work, where it's the whole self, right? It's the integrated life.

Or we'll provide workshops for you. That's the piece that maybe small businesses have done well, and I mean, not all of them, but some have done it where the big corporations have not. So you mentioned the five capitals, and I know it's the first section of your book, so let's talk about them.

What are they? The five capitals is the idea that, you know, Jesus in John 10 says, I have came to give life, life to the full. All of us don't feel we live life to the full, right?

It's running from meeting to meeting, email to email, and life can feel chaotic. And so in the early 2000s, a book, Freakonomics, came out where it was talking about really the complexity of the world and how it comes down to different currencies and bartering and things that, and the folks that created the five capitals thought, all right, this is great from Freakonomics, but what would Jesus say about it? And so taking a look at a couple different parables, the parable of the talents, the parable of the shrewd manager, and then different verses to come up with the five capitals, that in order to live life to the full, then if we can get these five capitals in the right order, then we can do just that. And so the first one is spiritual, which is love God. The second one is relational, so love others. The third one is physical, right?

The idea that you can't do anything for God, for kingdom, for your family if you're dead. So how are you taking care of yourself as well as managing your schedule? The fourth one is intellectual. It's about insights and ideas. And the last one is financial, which is about stewardship and generosity. So those are the five capitals in the right order.

And it's just been an incredible framework in my life, but also with the clients we work with. And you said in the right order. The order is important.

Order is very important. So if a guy is looking at his life or a woman is looking at her life and she's assessing how am I doing, you say the place to start is to say how are you doing spiritually, then how are you doing relationally, then how are you doing... You may be thriving intellectually, but if you're not doing well relationally, it really doesn't matter how much you're thriving intellectually, right? Yeah, I mean if you look at it from upside down where if you have all the money in the world but you're dumb as a box of rocks, you can't invest it well. But if you have all the money in the world, you're super smart, but you're dead. Obviously nothing good is happening. All the money in the world, super smart, built like an Olympian athlete, but no one likes you. It's going to be lonely.

You do that again, all the money in the world, super smart, built like an Olympian athlete, people love you, but you have no idea where you're going in life. There's no greater purpose. You're just wandering. And so you start to see that up against upside down, it just doesn't make sense. But we are told... The idea is alright, that's great. Those are the five capitals.

That's the right order. Well, what's the catch? The catch is we're told to live differently all the time. Hollywood ranks it about physical capital, how good do you look. And then financial, top grossing movie, top highest paid actor, actress. And then you look at the business world. The business world has it upside down where it's all about financial, the pressures of what were your sales numbers this week, what's quarterly profits. And then next is intellectual. It's all about our patent that we have for our company or it's all about this proprietary idea we have or it's all about knowledge. I want to be the smartest guy in the room to make sure that people think that I deserve to be at this table.

And then next is physical. It's all about FaceTime at the office. I mean, I know I'm guilty of sending, especially in corporate, where I would send an early morning email or a late night email with the whole evil thought of, I want people to know I'm thinking about the company right now. And I know we've all done different things like that. And then the idea of relationally is who are you doing life with? Are you spending time with those different people? So that's the order of the five capitals, but it's so hard to go put them in the right order.

And what's interesting is a lot of it comes from some of our own brokenness. For me personally, I know the right order. It should be if I want to live a life to the full. But in times of stress, times of frustration, times of anger, I personally can actually get them upside down. I'm the provider for our family, so I get nervous about, do we have enough money?

Do I have enough clients in the pipeline? And I can have a scarcity mindset. And for me personally, that's rooted back to my childhood. When I was 15, my mom died from breast cancer, and my dad had some bouts of unemployment during that time. And so the lie that I made was, it's all on me.

My parents aren't going to be able to do it for me financially. God's not looking out for me. And so that's a lie that I've made. And so financial could be my number one go-to, what I get concerned about. So when that happens, I then go to intellectual capital, which is, if I need more money, I need more clients. Therefore, I better listen to more podcasts. I better read more books.

I better watch more YouTube videos on speakers. And then that goes to physical capital, where it's all about working. I'm working around the clock. And then the next is, well, if none of that's working, then I'll ask some buddies for some help.

And if none of that works, I'm going to ask God if he's got any ideas, so I can totally get them upside down. But what's interesting is, I think about this, and even reflect back to my whole childhood, I was talking to Sharon, some of us, with my dad, and I found out just here in recent years, that year that my dad was unemployed, the church paid for our mortgage. Wow. Didn't know that. I had no idea.

Wow. And so hearing that and reflecting back, it's like, wait, God is the provider. Yes, I have to pound the nail every day. Yes, I have to steward what I have well.

I can't just sit on the couch. But in the end, it's God's provision, so that helps me recalibrate to get them back in the right order. So how does a businessman, businesswoman like yourself put the spiritual capital as number one? How do you functionally, practically keep Jesus as your top priority in that relationship?

What's the rhythm look like? As Paul talks about, never cease praying. So a lot of times, when I work with individuals, even myself, it is, are you going to God for your identity, for intimacy with Him? Talk about earlier, different times in my life where I've gone to other places to find my identity.

Am I a man? It's based on having the corner office, different things like that. But going to God for that identity, so understanding how to find time. I love, even in Mark and other gospels, but where in Mark 1 and 2 where Jesus, He is healing people and doing amazing things, but yet He retreats. He goes to God to understand His vision again, and then when He comes around the disciples, the disciples are like, Where have you been? We've been looking for you. But He's like, This is not why I came.

We have to go on to the next town. And so it's just resetting with God of what's going on. So that can look a variety of different ways. One, it's for sure a quiet time. I've had mentors in my life talk about journaling, and so I've been journaling, that's a big piece, and so different devotion books, things like that. And so some people are good about that practice. But what I find that where people lose the idea of having spiritual capital at the top is they do their quiet time in the morning, and then it's off to the races.

It's off to the races all day long. And so this idea of where Paul says never cease praying to me and what I try to work on my own life but also clients is throughout the day. So in between, from meeting to meeting, instead of grabbing your phone, going straight to social media and seeing the Facebook feed, seeing the Instagram post, checking emails, stop. Just pray, like, Thank you, God, for that awesome meeting. Thanks for the insight you gave me. Lord, I pray for help on this next meeting. Give me clarity.

Give me wisdom for what I need to say. And it's that idea kind of throughout the day of putting that spiritual capital at the top. So you're acknowledging his presence all day long, talking to him all day long, seeking his wisdom all day long. That's a good habit.

Yeah. And then we talk about different life hacks. With some Bible apps, you can set the time for the reminder. I've set mine up for 2 p.m. because I can find that I can get drifted off into email land and doing all these different things. And if I get that email at 2, it's like, Whoa, hold up. Now, in full transparency, there's some days I was like, Oh, that's a great verse. Delete. Move on to the next one.

But there's other days it's like, Oh, perfect. I'm going to read this and I'm going to sit and think on this. And it's interesting that the second capital right away is relational.

It's who you're doing life with, who you're investing in, who's investing in you. I know three, four months ago, my son was preaching at our church and he wanted to talk about the yoke. And so he goes online and finds an actual yoke.

You know, we don't have too many of those laying around in our house. No. A wooden yoke? Yeah.

The actual, it's like from the 1800s, maybe earlier. And he found it and he had it there. And he didn't tell me until he's in the middle of the sermon. He goes, Hey, my dad's sitting right here.

I want him to come up. We're going to yoke together. And so he gets in one side of this yoke and I get in the other. We should post a picture.

It's pretty interesting. But I've never honestly seen one or ever put one on, but it was so true what he's trying to make the point. As soon as I put my side on and he's got his on, the second he moves right, I have to go. And if I move, you're yoked. Wherever I'm going, he's going. If I fall off the stage, he's falling off the stage.

It was just exactly what Jesus was saying. And who you're yoked with, who you're doing life with, is totally going to contribute. Now we know as parents, we tell our kids this, right? You hang out with bad kids, bad things happen.

But as adults, we often don't do the same thing, right? The relational capital is huge. What I find with the relational capital, especially with clients, and this is even myself, where we may not even have friends. Because in high school, college, we had a lot of friends.

It was great. And then we get married, and we start to have kids, and then we start to work, and we are just busy, busy, busy that we start to lose touch of friends. For me, this hit hard one time because when I was president of sales for a national contractor, I was traveling about every week and going around the country with basically 30 sales reps. And so I was spending time with them. I was investing in them. I was with the company. Then when I'd come home, I wanted to be super husband and super dad.

Well, when my coach had mentioned something about some of this teaching, it hit me hard. Like, wait, that's me. Like, I am doing pretty good with my relationship with God, going to him, quiet time. And I'm out and having impact, and the marketplace is going well. But man, my in my relational capital is not good at all. And so I knew I had friends I could call and go watch a game with or do something with, but no one I was doing life with, no one that could hold me accountable on different things, as you mentioned with that yoke. So I made a change. I reached out to some guys, kind of prayed through who were the guys I needed to start investing in. And that was a few years ago.

Fast forward now. I've got a fantastic men's group on Monday nights, went on a hiking trip about a month or two ago, and just doing neat things like that that I didn't have. And I find so often with business owners and corporate execs, this lacks. This lacks is they don't have friends of who they're doing life with, that they get together. And this isn't just get together.

Let's talk about stocks, weather, our golf score, and the latest trade in some sport. But it's actually talking about life. It's talking about marriage. Your struggles, yeah.

Absolutely. Stuff that matters. Well, talk about that. I mean, in the book, you go to marriage, you go to parenting. And one of the big things you mentioned that really impacted me as I read it was identity and pouring that into your children.

Talk about how you've done that. Identity became an important thing to me, where learning of that and a lot of the idea of being a beloved son or beloved daughter of God. And I'm involved in a men's ministry. We're now branching into women as well.

It's called the New Frontier. And through that, we talk a lot about the identity of, and even looking at Jesus' life as an example, where he first found his identity, right? He's baptized, and God says, you're a beloved son. And then from that flows the mission. Now he knows what to go do. And after just seeing that, that became so critical, where I would go to my mission in my 20s and 30s, and that defined who I was.

I'm a corporate businessman, and these different titles, and so many people would do that. And so seeing the shift that that made in my life, I want to make sure my kids had it. So my daughter, when she turned 13, there were all kinds of coming-of-age ceremonies you could see out there. But yours is unique, because I've read a lot of different ceremonies of our kids coming of age. But share about what you did with your daughter.

Oh, well, thank you. As I was looking for daughter ceremonies, they all involved the mom only. And then there were great father-to-son ones, but I couldn't find any father-to-daughter ones. And that obviously bothered me a lot. I mean, Holly and Kylie, that's our oldest, they've got a great relationship, and they can go do a lot of mother-daughter things.

That's great. But I wanted to be involved in the ceremony, because one is so important to me. But also in my learnings, I just consistently find that so many, even corporate leaders, their brokenness, their disturbed view of our Heavenly Father has to do with their earthly father.

So often, if their earthly father did not show a lot of love or was not around, well, therefore, they think God is that way. And I just kept seeing that. I was like, no, I want to step into this. I want to try to be an earthly father that shows love and casts vision and do all these things that God does.

So in that whole process, doing some research, I couldn't find anything that I liked. And so the pastor of the church I go to, his name is Brian Tome at Crossroads, he wrote an awesome book called Five Marks of a Man. It talks about the five different things that differentiate a man from a boy.

I love that, but I couldn't apply that to a girl. And so I had that idea, but couldn't necessarily do it exactly as I wanted to do it. So Holly and I felt called to go to Proverbs 31 and take a look at that verse. And liking the idea of five from Five Marks of a Man, we felt God laid on our heart five words that we were to affirm Kylian at that age. Now, there's more words than just these five that we could have selected, and I think when we do it for our next daughter, there'll be another word we may pull out.

Or if we do this again for Kylie when she's older, there may be a different word just due to the kind of diversity and the just uniqueness of this woman in Proverbs 31. But the five words we chose were character, committed, generous, influential, and excellence. And so of those five words, we assigned one of those words to a man, like one of my good buddies, and then he wrote a letter to her. And the letter was, hey, this is how I live out this word in my own life, but this is how I also see it in a godly woman and how you can live it out. Then Holly took those same five words and assigned one to each different person of her friends. We get these letters back, and I was blown away by the wisdom of friends and family that did that.

And then her birthday was July 1st. We had, at basically four o'clock, I had some guys come over, and they read their letters, and we talked for a little bit. And it was, I mean, for sure it started off awkward. My daughter's at the head of the table.

We've got men around this table, and it's just like we're all kind of staring. Luckily, a buddy cracked a joke. It was funny, loosened it all up. But we read these letters to her, and then she asked some great questions, and we had some good conversation, and then we prayed over her. Then we left, and Holly and I took Kylie out to eat.

We went to a nice restaurant and had some steak and just celebrated, but just affirmed her and who she is and why we were doing this and the importance of it and had a neat dinner. Came home, and Holly did the same thing, but now with women around the table. They read the letters, and I don't know all that was going on. I wasn't in there.

And so they read the letters and talked. Well, I wasn't in there because I was outside with some buddies putting together a fire. And so we put together a— Gotta have fire. Gotta have fire at all times. Love it.

Even for a girl party. No, so we were out there putting together a fire, and there was—driving to work one day, I heard on the Christian radio station Kate Bannistelli was doing this talk about Exodus 38. And I never really paid much attention to Exodus 38, especially this particular verse. And in it, it said that the women had to hand over their bronze mirrors to be melted to make the washbasins for the tabernacle. And as she unpacks it, that verse more is about the idea of, hey, women's beauty is great, but it can't come before God.

A little bit like what we talked about earlier, the five capitals. I mean, it's great to be fit. It's great to, you know— And it can't be their identity.

Can't be their identity either. And so in that, I just love that teaching that I heard. And then in other settings, I have been a part of ceremonies at different churches, that idea of burn your ships.

And I've found breakthrough when I write something down, I burn it, and then there feels some freedom. So taking all those ideas together, what we did is we went outside to our campfire, and now we've got people around the campfire and Kylie. And so we give Kylie a blank bronze mirror and a Sharpie, and we just told her to write down all of her, basically, image issues. Where does she take her identity? And I don't know what she wrote down.

I mean, it was confidential, but I'm sure it has something to do with perfect bodies, straight A's, social media likes, different things like that. She writes them down, throws it in the fire, and then we watch them melt. It was awesome.

Still awesome. So after that takes place, my wife had embroidered those five new words onto a bronze mirror, and we gave it to her. And we just affirmed in her that her identity is a beloved daughter. These are traits that we feel God wanted us to affirm in you.

You are not of these things in the fire. I just want to say to have your dad and to have other men as a young woman speak into you is an amazing gift. Because I've seen this done countless times with women, but I think of myself back as a young woman. I didn't even know my dad.

I knew that he went to work and he talked to me some, but I didn't really know him, and he had no idea who I was. And so for a dad to speak into a young woman, it's so important for a mom, but for a dad and even his friends that are saying, this is where you find value, this is who God says you are, this is what we see in you, that's life-changing. That's a marked moment that she will never forget. Well done. Well, thanks. Yeah, way to go fist bump, baby.

Well, thanks. A lot goes to my wife as well. So I totally agree on the earthly father piece, and having Holly involved as well.

To have both is remarkable and beautiful. This is an example of what winning at home first looks like, and you talk about it in the book. We've threw the book, you share your successes like this and your failures along the way, and it's going to help a lot of people. Corey, thank you for coming and doing this, talking about this, and thanks for the book. Well, thank you very much.

I've got to imagine there are a lot of people who've been listening to our conversation this week who are saying, that's what I need. I need to get my priorities in order, and I need to make sure that I'm focused on the right stuff. And so I'd encourage people to get a copy of the book Win at Home First by Corey Carlson. Go to familylifetoday.com to order a copy, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Our website, again, is familylifetoday.com. You can also order by calling 1-800-358-6329. That's 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today.

Corey's book, again, is called Win at Home First. Now, we have just got a couple of days left before the month of May is over. David Robbins, who's the president of Family Life, is here with me. And David, the month of May is a significant month for us. We're asking Family Life Today listeners to help us take advantage of a matching gift opportunity that has been made available to us this month. Every donation we're receiving here in the next few days is going to be matched dollar for dollar, up to a total of $345,000. And honestly, this is a critical time for us as a ministry. We hope to take full advantage of this matching gift. Yeah, there's maybe never been in the last decade a matching gift that's been as important for family life as this one.

Actually, two days ago, Dennis Rainey and I were connecting over Zoom and having our regular touch point. And I was asking him to reflect on times throughout his four decades of leadership at Family Life that have been similar to this. And he said, well, there's been certainly 08, and there's been one or two other seasons, but the unknowns of what comes ahead really, this is a unique one. And he just said, David, I am praying for you, and I'm praying for the whole ministry. Certainly, a founder transition is a big thing to navigate.

It's been going so well, yet throw in a pandemic into that. And this is something challenging for us to walk through. And we ask you, we want to continue the legacy of helping families with everything that we have, pointing them to the gospel and helping them experiencing the truth and life found in Scriptures for their marriage and for their family. And if you are able to give, we are a donor-supported ministry in need of your help in this season. If you're able, please give and help us meet this match. And we know for some of you, this is a very challenging time for your family, and you've had to kind of cut back to the bare minimum.

We get that. For those of you who are able, if you can be extra generous to help cover for those who can't be generous in this season, you can go to familylifetoday.com to make a donation or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. Keep in mind, your donation is going to be matched dollar for dollar. We're going to send you as a thank you gift Barbara Rainey's new book, which is called My Heart Ever His, a great book on how to pray more effectively during challenging seasons, challenging times. And then if you're able to join us as a monthly legacy partner, and we need more legacy partners, those of you who can give each month to support the ongoing work of family life today, your gift is going to be matched dollar for dollar throughout the rest of this year. So, every gift you give for the next several months will be matched, and we'll send you as a thank you gift a certificate so you or someone you know can attend an upcoming weekend to remember Marriage Getaway.

And we're going to be back hosting getaways this fall and next spring, so that certificate will be good whenever you're ready to use it. Go to familylifetoday.com to give a one-time gift or to become a legacy partner and help us take advantage of this matching gift. You can also connect with us by calling 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. Thanks in advance for your partnership with us, and we look forward to hearing from you. Now, tomorrow we want to talk about how much more our children can grab onto and comprehend and understand from the Bible than most of us realize as parents.

We've got a great opportunity to pour a lot of biblical truth into their hearts when they're young. Jennifer Lyle will be here to talk with us about that tomorrow. Hope you can be here as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.