I am joined today by Clay Steves. He is a business owner, author, podcast host, and he is doing a lot of things that he believes in! When he reached out to connect – I wanted my listeners to hear how they can do the things that they LOVE in life without having to take away from the things we care most about. In this episode we talk about what it takes to truly build a life you love, so let’s dig in!
Show Notes:
1:50 CLAY’S STORY & BATTLE WITH SUBSTANCE ABUSE
Clay is passionate about four things in his life: Jesus, his family, orthopedics, and adoption reunification. These are all critical elements that are a part of his passion, and critical themes in his story. He was adopted at 13 days old and he has an incredible family. He has been a husband for over 15 years, he’s got 5 kiddos, and he is an entrepreneur in the orthopedic realm.
In college, he went through substance abuse, and he ended up failing out of college at the age of 23. It was a season for him of breaking down and hurting those around him. That really began his journey because after that trainwreck, he made a decision to change his life and start over.
7:40 GOING BACK TO SCHOOL & MEETING HIS BIOLOGICAL FAMILY
It was 2010, and he was at an event where you try to find your vision or purpose for your life. While looking back on his life, he felt a prompt to go back to school and finish his degree in 2011. Just a few days before graduating, he received a letter from his biological mother in hopes of meeting him. It was at this time, he and his wife were called to start fostering children.
16:00 WHAT PROVIDED THE COURAGE TO KEEP MOVING FORWARD?
There has to be a first! Clay thinks that when it’s not about you anymore and when you’re tugged, you have to decide if it’s serving your passion or family. You have to put yourself in the larger story. And remember that it doesn’t always work out. Clay was rejected by his birth dad when he reached out, but he was able to learn from it. Every baby step gets you to the next step.
23:00 BALANCING FAMILY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
There’s a constant pull between family and business. It is all about the concept of integrated priorities. We are human beings, so all of our priorities are integrated. Start asking yourself “what do you want?” If you want a healthy thriving marriage and a successful business, you might have to skip golfing on the weekends! You must define what’s important, and start giving up the things that aren’t in alignment with those things.
33:24 NON-NEGOTIABLES & PLANNING YOUR WEEK
Clay has non-negotiables in his family life and business. However early on in his career, he had to sacrifice many of his priorities. Starting is hard. It takes sacrifice. The key is making that choice consciously. One piece of advice that helped immensely was weekly family planning. So Kiersten and him sat down and hashed it out at the beginning of every week and figured out what sacrifices they needed to make. And one of the priorities now is always ensuring 4-5 family dinners per week.
50:30 DIGGING IN TO WHO YOU ARE & FINAL LESSONS
When you start to take your baby steps, you start to uncover things that are inside of you. If you’re struggling with belief, you already have what you need inside of you, but it takes work to uncover it. When you know who you are, you’ll know what to do.
It is not necessarily about the next step, but more so of who am I, and the reflection period of who you are meant to be. Sometimes we need to stop and reflect. For Clay, he had to keep digging the soil to prepare the growth for who God made him to be. No matter where we are in life, we might have stuff in our past that we might have to finish! We have to let ourselves heal and learn. Every trial, hardship, and accomplishment is there for a reason.
Click here to visit Clay’s website!
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