Kelli Stuart (Author of A Silver Willow by the Shore)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the Gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everyone, welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every single week I'm hosting a conversation with somebody who is following Jesus Christ, apprenticing themselves to Jesus Christ, and who's also pursuing world class mastery of their vocation of their jobs. We talk about each guest's path to mastering their thing, we talk about their daily habits and routines, and we talk about how their faith influences the work that they do. Today I'm going to share a conversation I recently had with one of my closest friends, Kelly Stewart, and also one of the most masterful writers I know. Now, Kelly writes fiction, so you shouldn't take my opinion on who's a masterful fiction writer or not, since I don't read much of it. But that claim of being a masterful fiction writer comes from Kelly and I's mutual friend Doug Gresham, C.S. lewis's stepson and the producer of the most recent Narnia movies with Disney. And Doug's now working on this Narnia series with Netflix. Doug read Kelly's book and devoured it, has loved everything that she's written, and if that's not a great endorsement for fiction, I don't know what is. I can think of few people more qualified to judge great fiction than the heir to the Lewis estate. So Kelly and I had a very fun conversation that you're about to hear. We talked about the epic dinner I had with Doug Gresham in London and a couple of buddies of mine that led to him loving Kelly's work and her book. We talked about Kelly's process for writing great fiction, and we talked about what John Grisham had to say to Kelly's class at Baylor about why he doesn't write, quote, unquote, Christian fiction. I thought this was a really interesting part of the conversation. So without further ado, here's my conversation with my good friend, a masterful writer, Kelly Stewart. Kelly Stewart, how are you?

I'm good, thanks.

So I want to start here because I mentioned this in the introduction. We were hanging out at your house last week two Weeks ago with a bunch of people from church. And you mentioned the endorsement, the unsolicited endorsement that you just received from our mutual friend Doug Gresham, CS Lewis, stepson, producer of the Narnia movies with Disney, and he's executive producing the Netflix series. Right?

That's what I hear.

Yeah. That's wherever that project is in development.

Right.

So how'd that endorsement come about for this most recent book? Like, you send him the book and he's like, hey, here's. Here's some kind words about the book, basically.

So he had read my first novel and he and I had just kind of had some back and forth emails about writing and the writer life, and he was just very encouraging to me. So just as a thank you, I had sent him the second novel, which is A Silver Willow by the Shore, which is released, just released October 23rd. And so I had sent it to him just to say thank you and, you know, I'd love for you to read it and give me your thoughts, some feedback on it if there's anything I need to fix. Cause I still had some time. And he just sent me this email with this wonderful endorsement and I was just. I was floored.

And you didn't ask?

I didn't. I was not expecting it. And what did he say? You know, he just said, kelly's a very talented writer. I really enjoyed her first book. You know, one always wonders if someone writes a good first book, if they'll be able to follow it up. And she did. She kept me glued to the page. It's wonderful. I mean, just things that kind of make you feel warm and fuzzy. Because anytime you write a book, especially a novel, and you put it out there, there's always this thing of, does it suck or people just being nice to me? And so to have the unsolicited feedback from someone whose opinion I do really admire was wonderful because he's very well read and he's very honest about books.

He's extremely well read and he's CS Lewis's stepson. I mean, he's. He's, you know, spent his life steeped in the best fiction ever written in global history. Right. So, I mean, you know, there's that. But he's also like, Doug's like the most generous person. Yes. In the world.

He's very kind, very warm hearted, very, very encouraging.

Yeah.

So I value his opinion very much because I know he's not blowing smoke. He's not just trying to be nice. 1. I didn't even ask him to and 2, because I. If he didn't like it, he wouldn't have said anything.

No, he's pretty critical. Like, when he doesn't like something, he's pretty critical. So can I take at least partial credit for. For the Doug Kelly friendship?

I feel like you probably should, because it basically is because of you that we know each other well.

It's really because of your husband.

My husband.

So. And the dinner at the Goring. Yes, the dinner.

The dinner that my husband says goes down in history as one of the greatest nights of his life.

It is. I was just telling my producer, Chris that it is, like, top five greatest nights of my life. So I guess we can bring everybody up to speed.

Yes.

So for those of you listening, if you were following my content back in 2000 2017, when I released Called to Create, you know, we gave away a trip to Europe for two people to do a bunch of things, and then the trip culminated with dinner with Doug Gresham, C.S. lewis's stepson, and myself at the Goring Hotel in London. So we gave away the trip to this actually, like, super talented entrepreneur in South Carolina named Erica, who I. I'm actually hoping will come on the podcast. But I kind of took, like, author privileges and decided that I would bring two of my best friends along with me to dinner. Like, I didn't want to go to London by myself.

I don't know if they gave you a choice either.

Well, that's true.

Pretty sure that my husband invited himself and said, I'll be there.

So I was taking. I was going to take my best friend Clay. And then one day, Kelly. Kelly's husband Lee gives me a call. He's like, hey, I booked a ticket to London. I'm coming to dinner. Lee's a massive CS Lewis fan. So I was like, okay, I guess we're going to Europe together. And so this night's amazing. So we get to London. We got to London a little bit early, and we're like, all right, let's just show up early. And maybe Doug's, like, hanging out. We can have some time with him alone before the winners of the sweepstakes get there. So we show up, and sure enough, Doug is hanging out on the stoop of this hotel. This hotel is incredible. It's called the Goring Hotel. It's right behind Buckingham Palace. It's where the queen brings her staff for dinner every Christmas. So sure enough, Doug's there. He's like, hey, Jordan. He's like, are the winners? Are these the winners? I was like, oh, no, these are, you know, my buddies tag along. Yeah, these are like that. This is my plus two. And so he's like, cool. Do you guys, you guys want to hang out? Like, sure. So go to this back room. We have this like amazing 45 minute long conversation. About halfway through it, Clay, my buddy, asked Doug, he just like went straight for the C.S. lewis questions. He asked Doug why Susan didn't make it to Narnia and why what happened to Susan and literally started crying. So I was sitting there with my two grown men friends. Clay's not 13, and he's bawling, talking about Susan not making it to the afterlife with Doug Gresham.

This was for them. This was like their One Direction NSync. This was their boy band moment.

It was incredible.

Doug Grisham.

So we go to dinner. Dinner's amazing. One of the best meals I've had in my life. It was really long, too. I mean, I think we were at dinner for like two hours, two and a half hours or whatever. And as we're leaving, the winners of the sweepstakes left. They had something else to get to. But me and Clay and Lee hung back and we were talking to Doug and your husband Lee. We pulls out your book. He pulls out your first book, like a river from its course. And he's like, hey, I'm sure you get asked this all time, but, like, would you mind giving this a read? And like, letting you know it was. It was really just a gift. It was like, hey, this is my wife's book. And what happened after that?

Well, what Doug told him was, I'll read it on the airplane. And if, while I'm reading, if I don't like it, I'll leave it on the airplane. That's what I do with books that I don't like. And so Lee came home and he said, okay, either he's going to read the whole thing and like it, or your book's on an airplane somewhere over the Mediterranean. So I fully anticipated that my book was somewhere on an airplane over the Mediterranean. And then I guess Doug reached out to you and said, you know, please forward this to the author of the novel. And it was just this wonderful email that again, made me very emotional. And he very much enjoyed the book. He. He loved it. He had wonderful things to say about it. So I just wrote back and it just kind of started this friendship where we were writing back. And before I knew it, he was sending me short stories that he had written for my opinion. And I was sending him some of my writing for his opinion. And we were talking about writing and what it was like to work as a writer. And next thing I knew, we were pals.

That's awesome. So two more minutes on the Gorian story, because it does get better. This is what makes it. This is what makes it, like, one of the greatest nights of my life. So Lee gives him the book. We take pictures, right? We all. We're like schoolgirls, you know, hanging out with this. It was like, he's our Justin Bieber. Doug is our Justin Bieber. And so we're about to leave, and he's like, where are you guys going? And we're like, we're leaving. We just had dinner with you for three and a half hours. And he's like, no, no, no, Come with me. And so we go back into the hotel and he just, like, doesn't ask permission. Walks behind the bar of the hotel. He knows all the staff. He's like. He basically owns the hotel. And he just opens up a drawer and gets this bo cigars out. And turns around, he's like, you guys smoke cigars? And we're like, we do tonight? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm not a big cigar smoker. Clay's a big one. But I'm like, whatever. And so we hung out for like another hour, like, on the stoop of this hotel, talking about growing up with Jack, as he calls C.S. lewis, talking about kangaroo fighting. I remember that was a pretty hot topic of conversation because Doug grew up in Australia. Yes. And smoking cigars. And I just showed Chris before you got here. There's this epic picture of me and Doug smoking cigars on the stoop of the hotel with your book in his hand. You can see it right there. Like a river from its course.

Kelly's tucked under his arm. Yeah, it's very. It's very cool.

So you guys will have to wait and see what the giveaway is for the next book. Master of One. We'll be talking about that in December. All right, let's talk about you. You're a master of your craft. We've established that with seven minutes of rambling about Doug Gresham's endorsements of your. But you're also an award winning author. I mean, you won awards for like a River from its course. And this is like a dream for a lot of people, right? I think most people. Yeah, I'll say most. I'm not going to say many. I think most people want to write a book. A lot of them fiction. And you had this dream years before it was a reality. Can you talk about your story and the path that kind of led you to the work that you're able to do today as a writer?

I was always a writer. I mean, even just as a kid, that was just sort of what I did. But I never thought of it as a career until probably my junior year of college when I was professor, just submitted a paper without even asking me to a contest and it won. And he was like, hey, we have this major called professional writing, you might want to consider it. And I think at that point I was on my fifth major anyway. I was like, sure, why not? I want to know everything. So I majored in professional writing. And so I set out to become a writer from college. I wasn't an accidental writer. It wasn't one of those where I was, you know, I was blogging for a little while and someone reached out to me. It was, this was what I wanted to do. And I had studied, I also minored in Russian, I'd studied in Ukraine and I'd met this woman who survived Nazi slave labor camp in World War II. And one of my classes my senior year at Baylor was to write a novel. Like that was the only assignment for the entire year to write a novel. So I decided to fictionalize her book. And at the end of the year my professor told me, you know, I really think you're onto something with this, but you need more information, you didn't do more research. And so that just sort of set me on this path. So I graduated in 2000. In 2003, I had a publisher that was interested in the idea I was pregnant with my first child and I thought, if I'm ever going to write this book, I have to go to Ukraine now and get the information. So five months pregnant, hopped on a plane.

I didn't know this.

Yes, it was not maybe the smartest thing I've ever done. My mom did go with me because that was like the contingent. Yes, you made gallivant off to Ukraine for a month while you're pregnant, but you will have a chaperone. So here I am, just 24 year old pregnant girl with her mom going around Ukraine talking to veterans. And I just happened to be able to meet with several veterans groups around different parts of Ukraine. And I got all these firsthand accounts of the war and I happened to land the exact same day that we bombed Afghanistan and also the exact same day that the news of the SARS virus broke out. So I land and I call my husband and I'm like, hey, it's really crazy here. People don't really like us Americans right now. And also I have this cough and I'm running a fever. And, you know, my husband, my dad are freaking out. But it just ended up being an amazing month. I got these amazing stories and I came back with all these stories and then, you know, life happens, babies come along, things get slowed down. You're just trying to figure out how to best tell the story. And so it was 2013, I think, before I finally finished the book, and I just, I couldn't give it up. I kept thinking, maybe this is ridiculous. In the meantime, I'd started this blog and blogging was sort of taking off for me and I was getting to travel all around the world for blogging assignments. But I didn't want to be a blogger. I wanted to be an author and I wanted to write fiction. And so I just couldn't let go of this one idea. So finally I finished it in 2013, started pitching it around, and got, I believe I counted up my rejections. At one point, I think it was 63. Wow, 63 rejections.

It's a big number.

Right before I finally met someone face to face. And I have found that meeting agents face to face is better than sending the cold query letter. So I met this agent face to face and she was like, well, we'll see. Fiction's a tough sell. Which is what everyone would tell me. Drove me nuts. But I gave her the manuscript. She loved it, she took off with it. So the book was published in 2016, and then in 2017, it went on to win the Carroll Award for Best Historical Fiction, was nominated for two Christie Awards. So it was a long process, but it was worth it. It was. It was the story I needed to tell.

A ten year story in the making. Yes, it's incredible. And so that book, Like a River From Its Course, that was the one. I mean, we weren't super close friends back then when it was released. I mean, we knew each other. I was at your launch party here in Tampa. But I had so many friends come to me and be like, this is one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever read. And I took their opinions pretty seriously because they're serious fiction people. I am not. I read no fiction, almost no fiction. But I did add your book to my reading list, and I am going to read it all the way through, I promise. So speaking of my inability to understand fiction, I want to talk about. I want to talk about the writing process and I Just have no idea how you write fiction at all. Right. So can you talk through the process? And let's. How about a book that didn't take, you know, 10 years? Let's go, let's go with. Because by the way, Kelly's written more. How many books have you written the last two years? Two, Three?

I have finished two. I'm halfway through a third.

She writes at a frenetic pace that we'll talk about in a minute. She's. I'll see you on Sunday morning. She'll tell me how many words she wrote.

Alexander Hamilton.

Like Alexander.

Right. Like I'm running out of time.

That's exactly right. So talk us through the process. So let's use this new book that's coming out. Let's just. It just came out, A Silver Willow by the Shore as an example. How do you go from the genesis of that idea to a completed manuscript?

You know, when I finished Like a River from Its Course, I almost had this panic. Like, I'm going to be a one hit wonder. You know, it's the movie from the 90s. I don't want to be an O neater. Don't be an O neater. I didn't want to be just a one hit wonder.

That's amazing. One of my all time favorites. That thing you do. That thing you do, ladies and gentlemen, the O Neaters. That's the Wonders did not want to.

Be an O Neater, but I didn't have any more ideas and so I started to sort of panic a little and I was having conversations with my editor and, or with my agent and, and she was saying things like, well, you know, people need to know what to expect from you so you should stick with the same genre. And I was thinking, what does that mean I have to stick with historical fiction? Does it have to be Soviet historical fiction? I don't know. And so I just started reading a lot and I came across this book called the Whisperers. And it was all about. Because I am interested in Soviet history, there's a lot of stories to tell. And it was about an entire generation of people who survived under Stalin's purges in the 1930s. And you know, people would just disappear in the middle of the night and be sent to Siberia and the Gulags and, and it could be for something as inane as telling a joke that their neighbor didn't like and they'd be reported and they'd disappear. And so this whole generation of people became known as the Whisperers because they were terrified to say anything because they didn't know what could send them away. And there was terrible persecution and racism. And so I just got this idea of what would it be like to be raised by someone who had survived that and who was so terrified to say where she came from, who she was, that she never told you. She changed her name, she changed her identity, because that happened because they wanted to protect themselves. Kids would betray their families, change their names, and never tell future generations where they came from. And I wanted to explore how would that affect future generations if they were raised by someone who was terrified to tell you who they really were. And so it was just this genesis of an idea that turned into this sort of generational tale of three women. The matriarch, her daughter, her granddaughter. And most of it is set in modern day America. The granddaughter is a 17 year old girl who at the beginning of the novel finds out she's pregnant. And you know, a teen pregnancy is bound to throw some turmoil into a home. And here you have this home full of secrets, full of people that don't tell one another what's going on in their lives. And so how would this one moment of finding out this pregnancy and what this almost feel like a devastation, how would then that bring these three women together? And so it was just sort of this genesis of an idea that started from reading a book called the Whisperers. And it turned into a silver willow by the shore.

So you left out a lot there. How does it turn into a silver willow by the shore? So, like, you get this idea. All right, so when I write nonfiction, so when I wrote Master of Wonder called the Great, I built out, you know, chapter summaries, right? So I know generally where the book is going. And then when I actually sit down to write the chapter, I build a very, very detailed outline. Basically, it's so detailed to where once I start writing in paragraph form, I know it's time to write.

It's kind of my rule.

Do you outline the book? Like, how does. Or do you just sit down and write sequentially until you feel like it's done?

That's sort of kind of what I do. And there's different rules of thought for fiction writers. Some people really feel strongly about outlining. I typically have. When I start a book, I typically know who my characters are. I know the beginning of the story really well. And I almost always know the end of the story. I almost always know where they're going to end up. The middle gets muddy for me. So if I try and think about it too Long I get paralyzed and I don't start. So for me, the best thing to do is just start. Start writing and see what happens and be surprised by the story. And so there was actually, there was one moment in writing and I'm not going to tell what it is because then it'll spoil the surprise for the reader. But there was one moment in A Silver Willow by the Shore when the grandmother was telling her story. And I was sort of messing with format a little bit with Silver Willow where the grandmother is telling her story in first person, but the rest of the book is written in typical third person format. Interesting, because I wanted the reader to be able to get into the grandmother's head because the reader is going to know all the secrets that the daughter and the granddaughter don't know. So I wanted them to be inside the grandmother's head. And there was one moment when I was just writing and then the grandmother's name is Elizabeth and she said something and I was just like, whoa. I didn't know that's where this was going. And then it just opened up this whole new rabbit trail. And so for me, the heaviest editing that has to be done in my book is usually the middle section, because you can tell it's where I was getting. I was having to force the story out a little bit. So I was trying to get to the part that I knew. So maybe outlining would help with that. But for the most part, that just doesn't seem to work for me. It's just better for me to start and then see where the story leads me.

Knowing where you're going. Knowing. Having the end in mind.

Having the end in mind. I mean, this other book that I finished that I'm sort of sitting on for a little while. I hope we'll do something with it at some point, but. But I actually sort of wrote myself in a hole at one point with one of the characters. I was like, oh, shoot, I don't know what I'm doing here. And so that one I had to unweave a little bit. So sometimes it gets me in trouble. I actually just started a new book that I'm super, super excited about. And for the first time I feel like I know I have a pretty good handle of the whole story.

That's awesome.

So this is fun because I've never really written that way before.

Yeah, I know we can't talk about that next book yet, but I'm super excited about that book. Yeah. More than any of the others. So when I was writing Master of One, I don't know if you remember this, but I was writing this chapter on, you know, okay, once you found the one vocational thing that you're going to commit to once you're focused on it, right? And you've said, this is the thing I'm going to master, how do people become world class masters of their craft? Right. And I read tons and tons and tons of business literature. I did lots of interviews. Right. One of the things that kept coming up over and over again, one of the keys to mastery that I outlined in Master of One are apprenticeships. Right. And that's a pretty. Sounds like an ancient term, right? But this idea of, yeah, once you know what you want to get great at, humbly submitting yourself to the authorities of people who have come before you and have already mastered that craft. And that can be done directly, right. In a traditional mentor protege type relationship or it can be done indirectly. And I think a lot of authors, I don't know what that mentorship relationship looks like if you're outside of a university setting. Like, that's really hard. So I think a lot of authors have these like indirect apprenticeships. People that they look up to and they just study their writings and they analyze everything that they do. Maybe they email them and ask them for advice. Like, have you had indirect sort of mentors that you've looked to to really study how they write and structure story?

Yes. I mean, I've had very extremely indirect mentors in that I would even. And he doesn' know it. He's my best friend and he's my mentor, Stephen King, but I pretty much will read anything he writes, even if it scares the pants off me. His is, it's not my favorite genre that he writes, but he is so brilliant at his craft. Every single one of his novels is basically a case study in character development and dialogue. And then his book on writing, that's the title of the book on writing, is basically for me, I believe it is the Bible for writers. I feel like every writer should read it. I reread it about every 18 months just because it's so motivating and it's just so practical. So just from a very practical standpoint, I do consider him a mentor because he's taught me the art of writing well. And then there are some more that are maybe a little bit more direct. Like people that I've met at conferences that are maybe a step ahead of me in the, you know, they've, they've written, they've published five or six or seven or More books. And they have an understanding because it's. The fiction world is different from the nonfiction world. It's much harder to navigate. As far as marketing and launching a book, it's very different. You know, there's less of a need for platform, but there's still a need for a platform. And how do you build a platform? And, you know, how do you build a platform and still write? And so there are. I do have some people that I reach out to for that. And even Doug Gresham became one of those for me, you know, when I. When I shared with him just some of my frustration of I want to. People say I'm a good writer, but I don't have a platform, so they aren't offering me the good deals. And, you know, and he was very good about, you don't need a platform. You do what you're good at doing and go with it.

So let's talk about this. So in the vernacular of master of one, your one thing is super clear. You're an exceptional writer. But in order to be successful at that craft, I think a lot of people, like, struggle with this, right? Like, I know what I'm great at, but in order for that greatness to be seen by many, many people, I also have to figure out how to do these other things. Well, does that make sense at all? Right. Like, I know we've talked a little bit about that. So that's gotta be frustrating, right? Like that you want to be doing. You'd be happiest if you were just writing and not worrying about marketing. How have you pushed through that frustration in order to continue down this path of writing books? Or have you largely ignored it? Have you basically just said, you know what? I'm just going to write and the right publisher will market the right book? Or, I mean, are you trying to get great at the marketing side of things?

I've let go of it just a little bit because it did become so frustrating to me because I am not good at the marketing. I know that I'm not good at it. And at this phase in my life, I don't have time to become good at marketing. I have five children. The only time that I have to do anything is basically between the hours of 5 and 6:30am and, you know, maybe the occasional weekend away that I'm lucky to grab. So there's no time for me to figure out how to market in that time. If I want to write good books, I can write good books. And then someday, you know, maybe I'll do better at marketing. But right now, the best I can do is just give the best offering that I have, and the best offering that I have is to write good stories.

Yeah, that's well said.

So I recognize the importance of playing the game to a degree, and I believe that it's important to. I mean, I worked hard on these books. I want people to read them, so I have to do some things, but I can't do all the things. And that's largely why I don't write nonfiction, too, because it is much more important to have that platform relationship with nonfiction. And I have a nonfiction story idea that I'm sitting on right now that I just can't do anything with because I'm just not willing to worry about the platform piece.

Yeah. But I think there's a lot of wisdom in, like, recognizing that. Right, right. And also recognizing, one, you can always find partners to help on those things, be it a publisher or somebody else. But two, you know, the end of the day, you're not responsible for the results of your work. Right. The Lord is the one who blesses and multiplies and produces results. And so I just respect you for, like, remaining focused on getting great at the craft that you're great at and, like, doubling down on that.

And I don't always do it with a good attitude. I mean, there are times where I, you know, I just feel like, ah, when's it going to be my turn? When I'm going to get the big break? But I mean, what you said is spot on. Really. Truly, if I believe that this gift that I have is from the Lord and I want to offer it back to. Back to him 100%, then I really shouldn't be so focused on the results as I am on just him getting the glory for what I'm doing.

Yeah. So how much time are you spending writing? I mean, an hour and a half a day, basically 90 minutes.

Basically, it boils down to that.

And what is that? This is news to me, by the way. 5 to 6:30am I love it. So what do that 90 minutes look like? Do you know? The day prior, like, before you sit down, do you know what you're going do to. Right. And where you got to pick back up in the story?

Like, some days I do. I mean, some mornings I will wake up and I'm ready to go. In an hour and a half, I can punch out, you know, 2500 words easily. And then some mornings I wake up and I stare at a blank screen for 30 minutes. And then I decide there's other things I should probably be doing with my time. That's why I say not every single morning ends up being a writing morning. But. And again, it's when I reached those hard points in the story where I wasn't really sure where I was going. Those are the ones that I slog through. And so those are the days where in an hour and a half, I might get 500 words written. And I'm just. And you can tell when you read that first draft, like, whoa, you were not feeling it today, were you? And then you can tell when there was one weekend with Silver Willow. Actually, I got away for the weekend, and I hadn't had time to write in maybe three weeks. I had. So I'd just been thinking about the story, and that's when. When I'm simmering on the story but don't have time to write. I told my husband one night, I was like, I need. I need to get a hotel room and get away, because I'm gonna explode. And I got a hotel room, and in 24 hours, I wrote 23,000 words. I mean, I basically wrote a quarter of the book in 24 hours because I'd been thinking about it so much, and my fingers almost couldn't keep up with my brain.

So I think this is true with nonfiction writing, too. Like, I think that time of not sitting in front of the laptop and just letting an idea simmer, I think that is writing. Like. I think that's where writing happens, is when you have the white space, mentally, to make creative connections between ideas. Right. I mean, is that true for you? So, like, how do you. Are you intentional about that? Like, do you have intentional time where you're like, okay, I'm going for a run so that I can think out the story? Or does it kind of happen accidentally?

It usually happens accidentally. But when I find that I've had several days in a row of it being very difficult to write, that's when I know I need a break. And so I'll either maybe sleep in or, you know, I mean. And sometimes, like, right now, our youngest child is having very difficult time sleeping, and so we have not had a lot of good sleeping nights, which means I've had fewer writing more because I just can't get out of bed that early, so I can feel the story sort of. And those are the, like, the bubbling times where it's, like. It's almost frustrating that I can't write. But it's good, too, because I know when I. When I have that time that I'm going to be able to get something done. So sometimes it's accidental and sometimes I know I need it and I take it. I take that white space time.

Yeah, I've started. I'm not a big exerciser, right, like for the sake of exercise itself, but I've started running almost every day for 30, 45 minutes right before the last like 90 minute block of my day. And I found that like that time is magic for making creative connections between ideas. When, when I was working downtown, I would frequently go on walks around downtown and I would just like walk aimlessly. Like I would end up at, you know, a mile away from my office just trying to like unpack ideas. So I think there's a lot of wisdom there.

Well, and a fun little running slash writing story for you. So last year I was sort of in between projects again and it was same thing. I went for a run and I wasn't even really going for a run to think about writing. I was just more, you know, I just need to get out of the house. And I was running and as I was running, this squirrel ran in front of me on the sidewalk and stopped and stared at me. And I stopped and we both kind of stared at each other for a second. And like, I thought the squirrel was gonna start singing and dancing. He was looking at me so intently. And then he turned and ran off. And I mean, immediately I had this idea. And so I finished the run. And by the time I got home from the run, I had a character. I had the idea of a YA book that this is the one I'm halfway through that I'm sort of sitting on right now. But it was just this delightful character who sees the world in a different way. And there is an incident in the book where she and a squirrel have a moment. And so it was like sometimes. And this is, you know, my husband always shakes his head at me because he thinks I'm a weirdo. Because this is part of the problem of having an overactive imagination is like squirrels sing and dance. But it's fine because sometimes it's fun. And maybe that book will end up just being a creative writing exercise. I don't know. But it was just a fun little moment that happened.

Yeah, I'm such a fan of this like, idea of like solitude and like mental white space and like trying to be proactive in creating it. I think it's really important. Where is your favorite place you've like, physical space you've ever written?

Ooh, that's A good question. My friend Wendy Speake, she's also a writer. Yes, she's an amazing writer, and she's getting ready to publish a great book called the Sugar Fast. But she and I used to do. For five years, she and I did creative retreats where we would invite different creatives together. And there were a couple of photographers, There was a teacher who would teach Shakespeare and do big Shakespeare in a week thing every year. And then a couple of us were writers, and we would go to her lake house in Northern California every year for a week. And that's where a good portion of, like a river from its course was written. And that was probably one of my favorite places. It was beautiful. The scenery was beautiful. It was very quiet during the day. We just sort of all went to our corners of the house to do our work, and then we'd come together at the end and share what we'd worked on. And so that may be one of my favorite places that I've written. I just this summer, went on a little writer's expedition journey to London for a week, and I spent a day in the little town where Jane Austen lived. And I now have a very big dream to go back there and write, because you can stay in these little guest quarters where her brother used to own a house. And so that's like, my new dream is a few years down the road to maybe apply to stay there and work on a book.

That's super, super cool. I've always wanted to write a book at the kilns.

Oh, man.

Lewis is brilliant, which is incredible.

Yes.

And his little study and his desk is.

That was my second favorite place that I visited on this trip.

Yes. When you're writing, do you. I think this is interesting to ask people of all professions whether or not they're writers. I'm just, like, super interested in this. Like, do you talk out ideas or are you pretty reclusive? Like, you work them out in your head, or do you have to, like, collaborate with other people and talking stuff out?

I have a couple of people that I do talk stuff out with. It's not that I don't trust other people, but I know sometimes that what I'm saying sounds weird. You know, just the idea of talking about these characters, like they're real. And so I do have a couple of friends who. They get the process. They're not fiction writers themselves, but they're appreciators of the written word. And one of them has actually, like, she is my dearest friend, my editor. I don't put anything into the world if she hasn't read it first. And she's really good at listening to me bat around ideas and not making me feel silly about them, you know, because some people, when you're talking, I know it sounds funny what I'm saying, you know, so I don't like to talk about. And I'm not very good at expounding on ideas or books until I'm. I'm sure about them, unless it's with one of these people that can let me talk in circles a little bit.

All right, so we talked about your writing habits, your routines as you put together fiction. What are some of your spiritual habits and disciplines?

Well, that's tricky because, you know, I try to set aside those morning times for writing. Sometimes if the writing's not coming, that's when I pick up my Bible. I try. You know, sometimes it's just a matter of fitting that in where there's space. And I hate to say that because it's like, oh, you're fitting God into the leftover.

Sure. Right.

It sounds so. It doesn't sound like a good Christian, but I do believe it's the way that the Lord created me. And I also feel like he gets honor when I work on my writing. And so I do feel like I'm. I'm having a spiritual moment when I'm working on a book as much as I do when I'm. When I'm reading the Word and when I'm praying. And so, you know, I wouldn't say that I have your quote unquote, daily devotional.

Sure.

But, you know, finding time to make sure that I'm spending time with the Lord. And again, I've got five children. I pray a lot, and I've got one child that doesn't sleep, so I pray a lot at 2:00am so, you know, the Lord and I are always talking. But as far as just spiritual disciplines, I would say I'm always working to be more disciplined. But part of my discipline is honoring him with the gifts that he's given me. And right now, in the time that I have, that's the way that I feel like I'm able to do that.

So you and Lee love you guys both very dearly. You guys are two of the most devoted followers of Christ I know. And yet you are not overtly evangelical at all about your faith in your writing. Right. I think of you anytime I hear that C.S. lewis quote of. We're talking a lot about Lewis today. I mean, I know. I know we both Love Lewis. We don't need more Christian books. We need more Christians writing great books. Right. The gist of the quote, I think about you a lot with that. Like, you focus first and foremost on just creating great works of art and great books. Was that like, a conscious choice to take that approach, or has it become conscious as you've kind of gotten in this career of writing?

I would say it was a conscious choice. You know, my senior year at Baylor, I was about to graduate. I was this professional writing major. I knew I wanted to write books. And John Grisham came to Baylor to speak, and he packed out our big, you know, whatever you call it. The theater.

Auditorium. Yes.

I'm a writer. Of all the words. Anyways, he packed it out. And so, you know, Baylor is in the 90s. It was very, you know, it's good Christian school. And there was a lot of the good Christian kids that went there. So one girl marched up to the microphone at the end when he was doing a Q and A, and she said, you know, Mr. Grisham, you say that you're a Christian, but you don't write Christian books. So what do you have to say for yourself? And you could hear the whole auditorium.

Auditorium.

That's the word I was looking for. You could hear the whole auditorium go. And I loved his response, and it's always stuck with me. He sort of leaned into the microphone, he looked her right in the eye, and he said, I am a Christian who writes books. I am not a Christian writer. Next question. And I just remember thinking, that's what I want to be. I want to be a Christian who writes books. I never set out to be a inspirational fiction writer. Christian fiction writer. Now, that is the category that, like a River from its course ended up in, partly because that's just where I got my foot in the door.

That was the publisher.

Right. I met an agent who worked in the cba.

What? Cba for those.

Christian Book Association. And so it wasn't general market, but after 63 rejections, you go with. With who is excited and passionate about your project. And she was excited and passionate about it, and the publisher was. And so it was not my intention to become a Christian fiction author. That's just where I ended up. And so there's always been a little bit.

You're not. I mean, that. That book, again, I haven't read it from COVID to cover yet, but, like, there are redemptive themes to it.

There are themes. And that's. And I will say that the Christian fiction world is heading that direction.

So anyway, just so. Okay, just so I understand the difference. Right. So Christian fiction, as we would typically define it, is the character wakes up, does her quiet time every day or. And her lost friend prays the prayer in chapter 12.

Like, if I said Christian fiction, I would venture to guess that most people immediately would think Amish.

Right.

I mean, that's basically what it's been.

For, which is, like, oddly dominated the.

Christian fiction for a long.

We could talk about that on another day. So it's changing. That's changing.

The market's changing. Now you have to. We're working to change the perception of Christian fiction. They don't even call it Christian fiction anymore. It's called inspirational fiction. But even that, you know, there's. There are still readers, though, that long for that sort of. And that's okay. Everybody has their own preference. They long for that innocent. But that's not who I set out to be. And so there's always been sort of this tension of how do I continue to write in a way that honors what I want to make the Lord's name known. I want him to get the glory, but I don't want my characters to have to pray in order to do that. And so just working to include, like you said, themes of redemption, themes of grace. In Silver Willow, there is one character who. She is a woman of faith. None of the other characters really come to share her faith. But there's one character that, by the end, maybe it's. It's like, Susan, you question what happened, right? But there is. There's forgiveness and there's love and there's, you know, brokenness and healing and being made whole, because that's all real life. So that's what I want to bring to fiction novels is I want it to be real, and I want people to feel like they can identify on any level whether they are a person of faith or not.

Yeah, I love the Grisham quote. Oh, I'm going to come back to that. I mean, that is. That's gold. Very similar to Lewis quote. We get to have John Grisham on the show. Grisham still writing, right? Yeah.

I think he's got a new book out pretty frenetically.

Yeah. He produces at an unbelievable speed. So let me ask you this. How, as an author of fiction, you've got this, like, you have this tremendous power, right, and influence, and you create these worlds, these characters, these plots, this tension. And as you're building that world, how does your faith inform that process? I mean, you just touched on that. But, like, how do you think about, okay, my characters aren't going to go to church necessarily. They're not going to pray necessarily. But, like, how does your faith influence the building of those worlds?

Well, I think all of us who've lived any amount of time, we have experienced heartache and joy, Right. And we've experienced high highs and low lows. And so pain and suffering is universal. And how do we come out of that? And one thing that I will say that I is has become typical in a lot of popular general market fiction. You know, the stuff that makes, like, the Oprah's list and all that stuff is it's very dark. And I'll use this book as an example. The Girl on the Train.

I was just gonna say that I.

Read that book a couple years ago now. It was a greatly written book. I was about to say it was a great book. I didn't think it was a great book. I thought it was a super well written book. I read it in, like, a couple days. I couldn't put it down. But I remember at the beginning thinking, man, this is really sad and dark. And then at the end thinking, that was really sad and dark. There was no redemption. And that is a problem in a lot of general market fiction is there's the problem of pain that we all can identify with, but there's not the redemption. And so I don't want all my books to be tied up with a perfectly neat little bow because that's not real life either. But there needs to be some redemption to where when the reader puts the book down, they feel hope. And so I want to tell stories of hope that still reveal the brokenness that we can all identify with.

I love that. Yeah. And, yeah, I think that's a lesson for all of us, regardless of what our vocations are. Right. We may not preach the gospel explicitly at work, but all of us have opportunities to tell stories of hope in the products that we create in the way that we serve our customers. And that hope for us Christians is fueled by the work of Jesus Christ. Right. That's the ultimate secure hope. All right, three questions I like to ask every guest. I'm really interested to hear what you say about this first one. Which book or book books do you.

Gift the most well to writers? Stephen King's on Writing.

I've never read it.

Oh, Jordan.

I know, but isn't it, like, all. It's all fiction focused? Right.

Well, the first half of the book is basically his memoir, which is so fascinating. Okay.

That's interesting.

And the second half of the book is on writing, and it's a lot of fiction focus. But you would like it.

All right, I'll read it.

Okay. I'm gonna give it to you.

You're going to gift it?

Yes, I am. I'm going to gift it.

Okay.

The three that I gift the most. You know what's funny is I think I mostly gift nonfiction books, even though I'm a fiction writer, because I gift. Well, I did write a nonfiction. I co authored a nonfiction book with Wendy Spee called Life Creative.

It's a great book.

So I do gift that one quite a bit to other moms who feel like they're drowning that feel like they have these creative gifts, but they're drowning in motherhood. And so this one is one that I like to give just as an encouragement. And my favorite novel, I wouldn't say I gift it a lot, but it's my most recommended whenever there's two. Whenever people ask me, you know, what book should I read? My two favorite are Barbara Kingsolver's the Poisonwood Bible and Anna Karenina.

And what?

Anna Karenina.

Huh. Interesting.

It's another one. I read it, like, every two years. It's my favorite book of all time.

Really interesting. Tolstoy. Okay. I like it. All right. What one person would you most like to hear talk about this intersection of their faith and their work on this podcast?

On this podcast. Well, John Grisham.

That'd be awesome.

Would be amazing.

Let's get Grisham. Seriously, that'd be great.

It would. I. Because. And if you get him, I. I want to come ask him some questions.

Did he go to Baylor?

No, I don't think so.

I don't know. I don't think he did.

He just came as a speaker.

Interesting.

I think Doug Gresham would be fascinating to talk with.

Doug's already said he's gonna be on the show. We're working to schedule it.

There you go.

That'd be great. Okay.

Yeah, no, I think those would be the two that would.

What about of our friends? Like, we know so many of the same people. People like who? In our group of friends, you're like, yeah, that person loves Jesus and they are exceptional at what they do.

Well, you know, my husband would actually be really good.

I know. So your husband and I are going to be on another trip together here really soon, next week.

So.

Yeah. So I told him if we have some extra time, we'll think about it. So Kelly's husband, Lee, is a Truly exceptional sales executive. And yeah, that could be.

You know who else would be really excellent to talk to is Sean Gross.

Yeah, yeah, Lee mentioned that. We'll have to talk to Sean. All right, last question. One piece of advice that you would give to somebody who's pursuing mastery of the art of writing. Maybe they're just getting started, but they really envision being a writer. What would you say to that person?

I would just say you have to believe in your ability to craft something well. And in order to believe in your ability to craft something well, you need to study the craft. And so you need to learn to write well. You need to, you know, you need to know just, even the basics. Like don't write in the passive voice and. No. Basics of grammar and that sort of thing. I mean, you don't have to know all. Listen, I am the queen of overusing the comma. I use it. My editor, it drives her nuts. I use commas way too much. I know I do. I'm sorry, I can't figure out when you're supposed to use it when you're not, but. So you don't need to like be perfect at grammar, but just the basics of, of grammar. You know, when to use a semicolon and when to use the past tense and the present perfect and all that. And then just once you feel like I, I can do this, then believe it and do it. Yeah, I think for a long time I didn't consider myself a writer because I wasn't published. And so I, you know, people would ask me what I do and I'd be like, I'm a stay at home mom and sometimes I blog and I might hope to write a book someday. And you know, now ask. I'm a writer. What have you published? Well, okay, I've only had one fiction book come out. Well, now, two. I wouldn't call myself a prolific writer, but I'm a writer. It's what I do. And I know I'm good at it. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna own that and be confident in it. And so I think once you, once you feel like you've mastered the craft, you understand it and you're practicing the craft daily, it doesn't necessarily matter if you're published or if you self publish versus traditional publishers. That doesn't matter. What matters is you studied something, you worked hard at it, and you're offering it back as just a sacrifice of this is what I did.

Yeah, I love that. It's great advice for anyone in any vocation. If there's something we want to get masterful at it, study the heck out of it, right? And go submit yourself humbly to people who have already mastered the craft. Kelly, I just want to commend you. I'm such a big fan of yours. I'm grateful for our friendship. I'm grateful for your commitment to the ministry of excellence. And just like creating really great art that tells these redemptive themes that implicitly points to the gospel. I think again, I haven't read like we're from its course cover to cover yet, but so many of my friends say, yes, Jesus's name isn't, you know, paramount and screaming from the rooftops in this book, but the gospel is right. The, the, the themes of the gospel are so I'm just so grateful for you. Your work is important and I'm thankful that you make space for it in the midst of five kids. And I understand a little bit of how difficult that is. I've been in your house when all five kids are going nuts. So thank you very much. Hey. The book is A Silver Willow by the Shore by Kelly Stewart. It just came out. You can pick up a copy right now on Amazon. Kelly, thanks for hanging out.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate what you do as well. So thanks for encouraging others.

What a great conversation with my friend Kelly Stewart. I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I learned so much. I really, I don't understand fiction. I think you guys are learning this about me. I wish I did. It's something I wish I loved. I just don't get it. And I certainly don't. Wouldn't even know where to start to write it. I'm so glad I have the ability to sit down with a world class fiction writer like Kelly and just pick her brain. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the Call to Mastery so you never miss an episode in the future. And if you're already subscribed, you know what I'm going to ask you to do. Please review the podcast. Take 30 seconds. Go review the podcast on the podcast app of your choice. If you have no idea how to do either of those things, head to jordanrayner.com podcast or even made it really, really simple for you to do both of those things. Hey, before you guys go, I got another comment conversation with another author that I want to share. As you guys know, I'm a big reader. A couple of months ago, I started sharing some of the books that I've added to my personal reading list in my weekly devotional email. By the way, if you don't receive that weekly faith and work devotional, sign up for free right now@jordanraynor.com Anyways, I've started adding these books to the end of those devotionals, showing you guys what I'm adding in my reading list. And I really recently sat down with the author of one of those books that I actually recommended a while back. It's a book called Win at Home first, and it's written by this guy named Corey Carlson, who's based in Cincinnati. This is a great book. I've really enjoyed it. Super practical tips for being exceptional both at work and at home. Kara My wife and I, we were at dinner with our best friends, Claire, Bethany a few weeks ago, and Bethany, who's an avid reader, was saying that she saw my recommendation, bought the book and devoured it and absolutely loved the book. That's a big endorsement coming from Bethany, who's quite the critical reader. I hope she's listening to this episode. So anyways, I recently sat down to talk to Corey Carlson about Win at Home first, what the book's all about. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Corey Carlson. Foreign. Carlson thanks for joining me, buddy.

Well, thank you very much, Jordan, for having me on. I greatly appreciate it.

Yeah, so I'm really excited to talk about this book. I, I mentioned in my introduction that I was at dinner with with some friends recently, one of whom is an avid reader, and she saw my endorsement of your book, went home first, read it and like loved it. Like, we spent, I don't know, like a quarter of dinner talking about this thing, the book to be really, really helpful. So let's just dive in, talk to me a little bit about what the book's about.

Corey yeah, great. Well, that's fun to hear about the, the dinner party and someone enjoying the book. Good to hear. You never know when you write a book who is going to impact and how it's going to impact. So it's fun to hear, you know, what the book's about is or you know, some background on. The book is I do executive coaching. I used to be at Corporate America. I hired an executive coach about, you know, six years ago, use the executive coach for those three years and then eventually said I want to go and do this myself. And you know, the reason for it is as I was learning the content, a lot of the content which is in the book I was using on my direct reports at the time I was president of Sales for a national contractor had 30 people reporting to me, some of which believed in Jesus, some of which did not. And so the ones that did, I said, hey, Jesus said here's a tool to shape or the idea. And I saw growth and transformation. But what was crazy is even the ones that didn't believe, I'd find another quote, maybe a quote by Steve Jobs or somebody else. And here's the same tool, shape or idea. And I started to see transformation. I started to see people dating their spouses again, people starting to be intentional with their kids. And it became purpose over profits. But yet our bottom line also increased. So as I was doing this in my particular job, I was like, man, I want to do this for other clients, not just my direct reports. And there's nothing wrong obviously staying inside corporate America. But I just felt God calling on me to go outside. So I get hired by clients to help for the vision values, or how do I improve my profit and loss statement? How do I improve the culture of the company? So those are the reasons I would get hired as an executive coach. But was interesting as I was having these one on one type discussions. What was really keeping the business owner? The executive up at night wasn't even really business related. It was how do they connect with their spouse more? How are they more intentional with their kids, how do they lose 10 pounds? How do they drink less? Just all these different things. And so I kept finding myself saying, you have to win at home first in order to have extra capacity to lead well at work, in order to have margin in your life, to be creative or strategic, in order to sit down and be empathetic with someone. And so that's what we started to work on. And after just continually saying that one phrase went at home first, then, you know, during some of my quiet times, I think, you know, God would nudge me, hey, you need to write a book. But I would ignore it because I never thought of myself as an author, you know, civil engineer by degree. We're known not to be able to be able to write. But then clients started saying, you need to write a book. And so I began the journey and published the book just a couple months ago. So it's been a wild ride.

Yeah, and we talked about this. So when I was running threshold360 as CEO, one of our core values was be exceptional at work and at home. But I like the lens that you're coming at this topic with, that you have to win at home first in order to win at work. I love that. All Right. Corey, who's this book for? So obviously this is for people where, for the people that you started teaching this content to, people in corporate America. But is it broader than that? Like, what's the audience for this book?

The audience for the book, when I wrote the book, it was for business leaders and owners and executives. I can relate most to them. I, them myself was then was that individual someone who's married, someone who has kids. They can, they can pull from different pieces in the book. But what I'll tell you, Jordan, is I've had people who don't fit that who are loving the book and they're finding pieces out of it. And so I, my heart when I wrote it was, hey, this is who I think it's going to go for. But it's gone to others. And I think one reason it does is because all of us want to live a life to the full. All of us want to have life and have it abundantly right, as Jesus talks about in John 10:10. But we don't. It's chaotic. We're running from meeting to meeting, email to email. And so there's a couple things that go through this book that anybody, no matter what they do, stay at home, mom or high level executive, that they can pull out of it. And the first part has a lot to do with identity. Where are we taking our questions of our identity, like who are we and understanding our identity. So have some great content that really helped me that I learned that I share in the book. And then the other is a way to live a prioritized life so that we are intentional. So you know, we're controlling our schedule and our schedule's not controlling us. So we're making decisions. There's a quote that's in the book that I absolutely love that was given to me was the quantity of our nos will drive the quality of our yeses.

I love that.

And by using a framework that's in the book called the Five Capitals, it actually allows you to have a framework that you can make decisions. Do I say yes or no to that? Does it align with who I am and what I'm going after? And so we're not reactionary.

I love that the quantity of your nos impact the quality of your yes. That's really, that's really good. I mean, that's the heart of Master of One, my newest book. So, so. All right, last question for you. So you're actually a member of my audience. You're subscribed to my weekly Faith and Work devotional and I would argue you're a pretty good profile of who my audience is. Right. The people listening to this podcast are high achieving Christians who are seeking to do really exceptional work for the glory of God and for the good of others. How is this book going to serve that audience?

Well, you know, great question, and part of it is helping, like, line out the five capitals. So there, there's a framework that you have a structure to think through and make this decision so you can have greater impact and so you can do some of those other pieces and, and so that's part one. And there's some different pieces in part one about, you know, pruning, understanding the things you just say no to, to have, you know, the greater impact. But then the rest of that book is the idea of, hey, how do I manage both the responsibility, the execution of getting things done with the tension of, I also need to have a relationship. I can't just be going all about results. There has to be a relationship in there. And so there's some different frameworks that will help you think through. It's both relationship and responsibility. It's not just, hey, we got to crank out the creative work all day long. And so it's finding that tension between responsibility and relationship, and so that's provided in there as well. And as I work with clients, a lot of their missteps on not winning at home is their marriage. So provide some tools that have helped me and helped clients. Whether it's dating your spouse, that's like the number one thing. If anyone get anything out of this, I would love for them to buy the book. I'd love to get more, but date your spouse.

So can I ask a follow up question there? How do you date your spouse?

Well, like you specifically, specifically, we make sure we go on at least two dates a month where we get away and we just go have dinner. And so, you know, sometimes it's a variety of different things. You know, maybe it's we go to a nice restaurant, maybe we're going to a cheaper casual restaurant, but it is to get away where her and I are looking eye to eye. There's no kids around. There's also no other friends around. It's just her and I, We're. Holly and I got tripped up early in our marriage was we thought we were together, but what was the reality was we were with all these other people all the time. We were going on double dates. We were having parties at our house, we were going to parties and we just lost sight of, hey, what's really going on in your life. How's your heart? You know, what are you going after this season? And so it's so critical. You know, the pushback I always get is, you know. Well, it costs a lot of money. Well, it's a lot less money than marriage counseling, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than divorce.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, Karen and I were actually talking about this idea of, like, just being alone on date nights instead of being with friends. Like, we love going out with friends, but that's not really dating your spouse. And you see certain things come out of your spouse when they're with friends that you don't when you're alone. And that's a beautiful thing. But that alone time is. Is really, really critical. And we're also big believers in date nights. Don't need to be. Don't need to be fancy. I mean, quality time does not need to be expensive. Time to hit your bank account really hard. Hey, Corey, thanks for taking a couple minutes to talk about this book. Like I said, I have loved the book. I found it to be super practical. I know a couple of my friends have as well. So thank you for writing it. I just commend you for writing an excellent book and sharing your story and sharing this advice with the world. So thanks for being here, buddy.

Oh, man. Thank you very much, Jordan. Thanks for the support and the kind words. Appreciate it.

Again, the book is Win at Home first by Corey Carlson. Go pick up a copy today. Hey, that's it for today's episode. Again, if you enjoyed this episode, if you're enjoying the call to mastery in general, go subscribe to the show. And if you haven't already, please leave a review so that we can ensure that more people discover this podcast and that more people can more deeply connect their faith at the work and be exceptional both at work and at home. So, hey, guys, thank you so much for listening this week. I'll see you next time.