The Foster Dad Perspective with Corey McKinney

Fostering can sound like a noble idea until it’s your front door, your kids, your routines, and your fear of what you can’t control. That’s why this conversation matters. We’re joined by Corey McKinney, a foster dad, author, and longtime mentor, to talk honestly about the “silent” part of the foster care community: dads who want to protect their families but also feel the pull to help kids who have nowhere safe to land.

Corey shares what it looked like to resist foster parenting for nearly two years, what finally shifted his mindset, and why foster care has to be a full yes from both partners. We walk through the reality of a first placement that ends in disruption, the guilt that can follow, and how talking to a trusted friend or spouse can keep you from carrying it alone. We also dig into trauma-informed parenting in the most practical way: structure, food insecurity, school fights that don’t show up at home, and the small daily habits that help kids feel safe.

Then we go deeper into the part most people misunderstand: attachment. Corey explains his “temporary assignment” approach, where the goal is to send a child out of your home better than when they came in, while still loving them fully in the here and now. If you’re considering foster care, adoption, respite care, or you’re already living it and need language for what you feel, you’ll walk away with clarity, courage, and concrete tools. Subscribe, share this with a foster dad you know, and leave a review so more families can find these stories.

Find Corey here:

Instagram: @TheCoreyMcKinney 
Facebook: Corey McKinney   
LinkedIn: Corey McKinney

Website: www.coreymckinney.net

We know that foster care and adoption present unique challenges for your marriage, so we created this Same Page Checklist as a conversation starter for you and your spouse. You can download it for free on our website at https://www.havenretreatsinc.org/couples-free-resources-1. Enjoy!

Registration is now open for our annual Bio Kid Retreat weekend June 26-28 at North Florida Christian Camp. Go to www.havenretreatsinc.org for more information.

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Transcript

Welcome And Foster Dad Spotlight

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us today on Behind the Curtain. I'm your host, Rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. I am so excited today because we get to hear from a population of foster in the foster community that we don't get to hear from very often, and that is a foster dad. My guest today is Corey McKinney. He is the author of the award-winning finalist book coach Daryl's Colts. He's an international speaker that specializes in conflict resolution and principles of success. Both are necessary in foster care. He is adamant about steering our youth away from gun violence, peer pressure, and bullying. He's also a mentor at the Steve Harvey mentoring camp. He's a former Division I basketball player and has 30 years of mentoring experience. Corey, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Yeah, thank you so much, Miss Harvey and Rebecca for letting me come on. I appreciate everything that you do as well. So thank you for the uh the offer to come on to the podcast. I'm really uh really excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I am excited because we don't often get to highlight a dad's perspective.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

It's a very silent aspect of foster care. And I remember at our first Haven retreat in 2019, we had the first one. So January. So before the world shut down in 2020, we have our first parents retreat. And at the end of the parents' retreat, this dad looks at me and he says, When is the dad's retreat? And I said, Uh, it's not, I'm a girl, like I don't know how to do this. And he looked at me and he said, Please do not forget about us. Yeah, we don't have anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

And I was like, I will not forget about it. And so we we started trying to develop this, but but his words hold so true all these years later. How did you, as a foster dad, a how did you experience

From Resistance To A Full Yes

SPEAKER_00 2:10

it? Actually, you know what? Let's start with this question, Corey. Who wanted to foster first, you or your wife?

SPEAKER_03 2:17

My wife, it wasn't me. It wasn't me. So so you know, that's one there's three reasons why I wrote wrote this book in the first place, but that was one of the reasons right there, because I didn't want to be a foster parent. Like it was nowhere on my radar at all. Like at that time, my wife wanted to be a foster parent, and I kind of was pushing it off and pushing it off. And my mindset was so negative at the time, my thought process was was all negative. You know, it was nothing positive about it. So I I had the wrong perspective in my head, and I pushed it off for probably almost two years. It was almost two years before I finally said, because you had to do it as a group, you know, to take the classes and the courses and get certified together. So I was just kind of like, nah, that's not you know, nothing I want to do. And and I had never thought about it. Like it never crossed my mind. I had time, I had to have time to kind of think about is this something I want to do? We had two sons in the house as well. So it was kind of like, do I want to, you know, incorporate uh kids that I don't know? And and everything I was thinking was just so negative, you know, it was all it was coming from a bad space. So it was like it was her idea. Two years later, I finally gave in and said, okay, well, let's just let's try it. You know, I'm the guy in the house, I'm the dad in the house, can't be too bad, you know. So let's see how this thing goes. And um, so I gave in and I caved and whatever. And but but my heart had to be in the right place too. Like I tell people all the time, you know, don't force yourself to be a foster parent. Uh, like it has to be a joint decision if it's a married couple uh or couple, and make sure that your heart is aligned and in the right place and ready and willing to help. So once I got my heart in the right place, that was that I was ready to go after that.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

That is, I mean, 100% rock star advice. It's what I tell people. If one of you is a no, you are both a no.

unknown 4:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

This is too hard to do, like pulling your partner in with you. Right. You have to both be a yes, and then it's a go. Um, but I want to circle back to something that you said. You were you were talking about um your thought process, and you were like, it was all negative. And I wonder if we could if we could like sit with that for just a second, because there's a role that men play in relationships, right? Like you are geared to prove protect.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

And so I wonder if we could just sit with that and go, like, was it negative, or were you looking at the ways that your family could be put in potential danger if you did this?

SPEAKER_03 4:46

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's that hits it on hit the nail on the head, really, because you know, I am a dad and I do have this protective mentality, you know, provide, protect, profess. So, and I'm real strong about that. So it's kind of like I was thinking about my children as well, kind of like, you know, um, you know, what are some things that they could be affected by? You know, how how would they respond with other people in the house and having to share their rooms and share everything basically? So I was, I think it was it was a lot of being protective. You know, as a father, I kind of was like, I didn't know what these kids may bring into the home. I didn't know whether or not our kids would adapt to that. So I was a little fearful and protective. I was just trying to protect my family. You know, I'm just I didn't want anything to kind of go left or go the wrong way, um, that that we had no control over because you know, you you don't know what you don't know. Right. So it's kind of like I was just really being protective of my family and um just wanted to make sure that everything kind of stayed on point and where we're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

So then when you're when the thoughts started to change, can you pinpoint like where it changed and how it changed to where the protective thoughts are good and necessary? When did you start to see it a different way? What was the thought that moved it into the other area?

SPEAKER_03 6:08

Well, one thing was the persistence from my wife. She she she just continued to want to do it. And I was just like, wow, like this is something that she's really uh wants to do, you know, and and that kind of made me kind of like, well, let me just kind of see what this is all about. But another thing I had to start thinking about it was my my perspective and my mindset. Because when you think about foster care in the foster care system, every child that comes into a home or into the system, they're not in there for something that they did. It's just something that, you know, probably happened with a family member or a parent or a guardian or something like that that placed them into the foster care system. So it wasn't so much that these kids are evil or bad or negative. It's like, hey, they they were being in an evil or negative or bad situation and had them placed into the system. So no kid comes in on nothing that they particularly did on their own. So my mindset kind of starts shifting to the fact that wait a minute, these kids need help. Like this is not something that that they did and they're deserving of this or or or something that the parents did that put them into the system. Like, so I my mindset just shifted to the point to where it's like, you know, let's see what we can do to help these kids out versus thinking about um what they could bring in negative into the home.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And between that and going, no, I'm the dad and I'm gonna be okay. I can handle the thing that happens here.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

And I said that. I actually said that I was like, you know what? I'm the father in this house. Like, you know, you can't break anything in here that I can't handle. You know, I'm we've raised in two kids now, and uh, I'm I feel like I'm a you know a strong guy and you know, God led young man, man, and whatever. And it's like, hey, you know, I can do this, like I can handle anything that's coming our way. And I I started getting real positive about the mindset, and I took that male father's perspective, like, hey, I'm gonna leak this thing and I'm gonna make sure that everything goes the way it's supposed to go.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

So you shifted really from um completely being opposed to it to being curious about it, to taking ownership. Right.

unknown 8:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

And when you took ownership, now it's a go.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Right. And and I'm the type of person that like once I'm once I lock in on something like that, like I'm in. You know what I'm saying? So it was like, you know, once I got to the point to where I shifted that focus and I shifted that, okay, let's take charge, let's go, let's make this thing happen. I was all in. So it was, it was like, you know, no turning back now. And let's, you know, I got my full attention to this thing to make sure that, you know, our kids, the kids that coming in are coming into a home um that's loving, that's warm, that's kind, and it's going to be there for them to help them along this ride.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Gosh, that is so good. And it is so necessary. I remember so when my husband and I were dating, we'd been dating for two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And we were driving across a bridge here in town, and I said, Hey, there's something I need to tell you. It's kind of a deal breaker for me. And he's like looking at me like, what is about to happen? And I said, I'm gonna foster and adopt kids. So if you do not want to do that with your life, if you need all biological children or whatever, then it's been a really lovely two weeks, but I'm probably a waste of your time. Like, this is what I am going to do. So he like co-signs from the beginning, right? Like he goes, Okay, well, I think that I could do that. And um, 17 years later, I'm like, Oh, we neither one of us knew each other well enough at all for that conversation as it played out to um to land. We were both saying different things in that conversation.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

It was almost part of a package deal. Like, hey, if you want to date me, you get this is gonna be included in this package, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yeah, I was 27, he was 34. I was like, listen, don't like, don't waste your time dating me if you don't want to foster and adopt kids later on. And he knew no things at about it at all, right? Meanwhile, I'd like wanted to do this since I was 16.

unknown 10:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

And there was um there was a moment a couple years later where somebody asked him a question. Somebody was asking me about um adoption and our plans for adoption. And then they looked at Brad and they said, Well, how do you feel about that? And he said, I don't know, I guess we'll talk about it. Or I guess we'll see, or something like he he gave this like very dismissive answer. And we were at a party, like a uh like a Memorial Day party or something like that. And I was like, We need to go and we need to go now. Like, get in the car. Like it was like, This is if you are not in the same boat as me, yeah. If if I'm the only one rowing this boat, you need to tell me. And because I can't like again, the same, if it's not two people with a full yes, then it's a no because it's so hard. And so to hear you talk about how like you didn't just say yes in lowercase letters, you said yes in all capital letters. Yeah, like it turned into a full-bodied,

First Placement Ends Too Soon

SPEAKER_00 11:21

I'm in it, no matter what comes into my house. What and by what I mean like what behaviors or what what chaos or or the case where, like, no matter the situation, I am here. So you get your first placement and life takes an immediate turn a couple weeks in. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Yeah, you know, when we first got certified, like we didn't uh we didn't get kids right away. Like, you know, I had gone through this whole shift of not wanting to, to I'm thinking about it, to okay, let's go. I'm all caps, I'm ready to go, let this thing happen. And there was like a delay, and it was like we didn't get our first kid, and I'm kind of like, what is going on? Like we did all this work and we're ready to rock and roll, and no kid comes in, and I'm sitting there like, this is like what's going on? And then the first kid comes in, and um, he was like a four or five-year-old kid, and he comes in and um, cool kid, nice kid, everything. And then he actually, when he started going to school, he started to get in trouble. And he was getting in trouble at the school. I had to come up to the school a couple of times, and he just kept trying to fight and get, and I kept asking, is anybody bothering you at school? Because I would come up there to protect you, you know. And he was like, No, nobody's not bothering me. And then at the afterschool care, uh, which all of our kids had to go to after school care because our work schedules couldn't allow us to pick them directly up from school. So this behavior kind of continued on in the aftercare, and he was getting into fights and things like that. So I we sat down and talked with them like numerous times over and over and over again, time trying to tell them, like, listen, you cannot, you know, not behave in after school or school because you know, we can't come and pick you up until after it's over with. So um, you know, like I said, he wasn't doing it at home. I don't know where this information was coming from while he was acting so violent at schools, but eventually, uh, the after school program had the zero policies on on fighting and hitting or whatever. And uh they gave us a pass one or two times and it just continued. And they said they couldn't actually keep him anymore because of his actions or whatever. Uh they had to let him go. And we didn't have anywhere for him to go after school. So it was one of those cases to where we ended up having to call this worker back and just say, hey, you know, not a good fit. We can't really uh keep him here because of the fact that um what he was doing in his period, and we we we notated everything that was going on and let them know. So we ended up having to uh let him go back. So it was kind of like I was kind of heartbroken, you know. I was kind of like, wait a minute, like this is not we did all this work to get these kids in here. And the first kid comes in, and it's like, you know, he's not staying with us. And I was like, this is not what we're supposed to be doing, we're supposed to be bringing the kids in, not you know, let them go back. So it was just kind of difficult at first because I was like, this is not the way I thought things were supposed to happen. But you know, I had to come to realize that, you know, um, it was just a learning lesson, whatever he had to go back into the system, and then we just moved on from there. But it was it was difficult, you know, because like I said, you know, it was a two-year wait for me to even get into foster care. Then the first kid comes in and have those issues, and we just couldn't support him because we we had no way of picking them up directly from school. So it was a tough one. That first kid that came in.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head with everything that you're gonna experience probably over the next eight years when you said this is not the way things are supposed to happen. Right.

unknown 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So you know you got a crash course placement one of kind of something coming in from left field and going, do we have the capabilities of handling this in-house or or do we need to uh reassess and move forward? And um it's so hard. Always disrupting a placement is so hard, it's such a big decision. But for you and your wife, at the time it was um like no, our hands are tied here. We have to go to work, and so that helps a little bit, but I imagine it's like like what you were saying, like I bet you went to bed that night going, yeah, I I was gonna make a difference and like feeling this like emptiness, I would assume.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

And you know what? That that's exactly how I felt. You know, I felt he was already starting to to to to get better in the home. Like he had already started making the adjustment on uh discipline, um structure, on doing things the correct way, doing things like our family does things every day. And um he was he kind of staying, he kind of took to me being a guy, you know what I'm saying? So he kind of was always under me. And his behavior issues was had did a total 360. So I knew that if if he stayed longer, then I was gonna help this kid. I knew it. I mean, because I because I was seeing it every single day, the way he was kind of, you know, just gravitating to our home and and and and starting this new life and doing things the right way. So if I had more time, I think we could have gotten to that point of the issues, the hidden, the behavior issues at school, and uh got that corrected, you know, because uh it wasn't happening at home. And you know what I'm saying? So I don't know what what was going on, where he felt like he had to protect himself or felt like he had to do whatever. And we have tons of conversations, like you can't put your hands on other kids at school, you can't put your hands on people, you know. If somebody's bothering you, let the teachers know, let the let the counselors know, or let us know. But he he he told me every time that it wasn't somebody picking on him. So I really don't know what was going on, but yeah, I felt terrible. Like I felt terrible. I was just like, oh my God, like this is and it was because I knew I could help him. I knew that I could help him. And he was actually being helped. And unfortunately, you know, that situation just came to an end to where we had to let

Processing Grief And Getting Support

SPEAKER_03 17:05

him go back in the system. So, you know, that was the end of.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I think for guys, how do you process those feelings in real time? Who do you process them with? Who did you who did you go to when that happened and share your heart?

SPEAKER_03 17:21

You know, well, I talked to uh one of my best friends at the time, and I um um my man, my wife, we talked a lot about it as well. So that's where the most conversation came from. It's like, you know, hey, you know, what's the game plan going forward? You know, did we do enough or did we, you know, but it really, like you said, our hands were kind of tired, you know, we had nowhere to place them after school. So it was nothing we really could could do, but we just had we talked a lot about, you know, um, you know, did we did we do the right things? You know, was it something else different that we can do? We both came to the conclusion that, you know, hey, we did our very best to help this kid out, you know, and I and I talked to one of my best friends at the time who um who's actually passed away now, but he's a real, you know, godly guy. But he he kind of echoed the same thing. He was like, man, you guys did a great job with him and did really all you could do. Like there's nothing else that you could have done to save that situation. So don't beat yourself up over it, you know. Continue to do this work that you guys are are destined to do with these young people.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I'm gonna ask you a leading question. Do you feel like talking about it at the time helped? I did. Yeah. I did. I'm just saying it in case that there is a guy listening who doesn't talk about his feelings. That finding somebody that you can share these things with, it really does help you process it, assess it, move on. You get the next placement because this is the first hard thing, but it's not going to be the last hard thing you experience for eight years.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Absolutely, absolutely. So that was definitely uh uh very helpful to kind of share the information and share your heart and be open and authentic about it and get that reassurance that hey, wait a minute, you know, don't beat yourself up too bad about this one situation or whatever. You got a lot more stuff coming this door down the line. So, you know, just you know, re-up, get yourself together. Um, don't change what you're doing because you're doing your heart's in the right place. And I think when your heart's in the right place, you're gonna, for the most part, do the right things and make the right decisions.

The Eight Qualities Foster Dads Need

SPEAKER_00 19:15

So then more kids come and go, and and in your book, um in foster dad, you have this list that I loved. Can I read the list to find if I read this list that you were talking about? Like you have to have these qualities. And so I guess one of my my first question would be when did you know that you that these qualities were really important and and that holding these qualities were kind of your job as a foster dad? Did you know it beforehand, or did you learn it as you went and you went, oh, the more that I show up in these ways, the better this is for my family? And I'm gonna I'm gonna read the list while you think about the answer for that question. Okay. So mandatory, you call these mandatory qualities you must possess love, having a warm and kind spirit, patience. Each child will adjust differently when coming into your home or new environment. Lord have mercy. Is that correct? Discipline. Some kids come lacking structure, so they will have to get used to do things, doing things in an orderly fashion. And I would imagine that these next things come from your sports background. Um, hard work, it's not easy, adding extra responsibilities to your routine, but you can do it. Persistence, don't give up so easily on a child, be determined to keep them and be a positive influence in their life. Guidance, sometimes you have to show them the right way versus the wrong way. Um, compassion, be the person who cares and has their best interest at heart, no matter what's going on. And prayer, praying daily for the children in your home. So of that list, was that like known beforehand? Did you learn it over time? And then I guess my third question is am I right that a lot of this comes from your sports background? And you were like, hey, if we work together as a team with these qualities, we can actually go pretty far.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Yeah, the first part of it is I knew I knew some of it, like the discipline part. Uh sometimes, you know, with kids coming on discipline, the structure and guidance. Uh, but a lot of those points that I kind of gathered along the way. You know, it was kind of like, you know, once I went through those experiences and I thought about the stories, I was like, okay, this story, we really had to, we really need the patience with this kid. You know, when I thought about different stories, it was like, okay, we had to show love. We had to be so everything kind of was was attached to something. So I kind of learned those things along the ride. And once I got to the end of fostering, it was kind of like, you know what? Let me just go back and put together a list of everything that I Feel that it took to be a successful foster parent, you know, in the house. And um, again, some of that stuff is from sports, because I'm a big sports guy. I've played sports my whole life, you know, and those things are uh are valuable for his teamwork and consistency and effort and not giving up, you know, things like that. And I think those things hold true as well as fostering. You know, these kids, you know, you have to, you have to uh you don't you don't want to give up on them. Like, you know, if things are not going well at first, you know, don't just be so quick to just want to push them out or push them away. Like life is life is not smooth for anybody. You know, things are gonna happen, things are gonna go up and down, you know, you just have to hang in there with these guys and show that love and show compassion and everything. Um, and I just I just put it together as we went on fostering. And I thought about each point, I was like, you know what, we had to do that, we had to do that, we had to do that, we had to do it. So all of the eight characteristics at some point in time throughout this foster journey, all of those were necessary. So I just felt like anybody who was reading the book, anybody who's fostering, anybody who's thinking about being a foster parent, like this is some, this is like a guideline that you can go by to to to help you along the way. Because I think I think there's gonna be situations and circumstances where some of these things are gonna come up that you're gonna have to use utilize, uh, and it'll help you get through that situation.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah. Uh I mean, coming at it from such a like a mentoring perspective as well, right? Like I'm here, I have a job to do. I have this child in my home for a specific period of time. It's uncertain, but it but it's we know that it's gonna be um transient, right? We're we're the middle. Um and coming at it from that perspective, like things like when you're talking about discipline and that kids come lacking structure, yeah. Corey, I'm sure that you and I could tell stories for hours about um the the way that children come in versus the way that they leave, if they're in your home for long enough, one of the things that I found really helpful um was and in Florida, like most foster children have to go to daycare, right? And if foster moms are stay-at-home moms or kept their biological children in at home in the younger years or whatever, there's this struggle. There's this like, I don't want to send them to daycare. They can be home, they can be with me. Yeah, and I get it, I totally do. And I I don't have an ounce of judgment one way or the other. My point is simply that I found daycares to be very structured and very helpful in the struct, like teaching that structure of the day. So when you're talking about like the lack of structure, I'm like, yes, like this was one of the just kind of like how how to live in and not every kid, certainly not every kid, but some come and they're like they didn't they didn't have family dinners, they didn't eat at a table,

Teaching Structure Through Daily Routines

SPEAKER_00 25:20

they didn't have a table. And so I I mean, I remember more than one time having to teach children how to sit at a table and eat dinner. Did you also experience that?

SPEAKER_03 25:32

I was gonna say that I have two stories that uh I can share right quick. There was like one time a kid comes in and um, you know, he comes in the house, and the first thing he did was shoes on, clothes on, is he gets up on the the couch and just run across the couch, you know, with shoes on and everything. And I was like, what? I was like, I was like, hold on, like wait a minute, that's not that's not what we do, you know. You come from outside and playing in the dirt, and you come jumping on the couches with your shoes on. But you know, he just didn't have it, he didn't have the structure, he just didn't know. And uh another situation is like you said, about eating. One time we were actually at a restaurant, and these two kids had come in, it was kind of the some of the first two kids we got, and we came, we went to a restaurant, and I really do believe that this was their first time ever going out to eat. First time ever. And um the the waitress came out and she kind of put the roles on the table, you know. So we're sitting there, and both of the kids just dove on the table, grabbing the roll, you know, almost like they never had nothing to eat or just didn't really know how it worked, or if they wouldn't, you know, they didn't know if they was gonna get something to eat later. But they just dove in, like they dove on the table and grabbed the rolls, and we were just like, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, you know, you we're gonna have plenty to eat, you know. So I thought about it. I was like, you know what, they just didn't have the structure. They just didn't know. There wasn't nothing that, you know, you can be mad at them about that they didn't have the the structure or the guidance to know what to do when you go out to eat. And it was just as simple as that. So it was kind of like, okay, learning lesson. We're gonna take them out again and we're gonna do it, and we're just gonna teach and we're just gonna let them know how it's supposed to go. And that was the only time they did it. So I knew that that was just something that came from a lack of structure. They just never knew how to act at a dinner table. Like the simplest things that you don't think about, and you know, and it was shocking because it happened so fast that I didn't even know how to react at the time. I was kind of like, okay, wait a minute, guys, wait a minute, guys. You know, that was some of those roles too.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

They're gonna bring more roles out. You know, I want some myself, so hey, you don't have you don't have to grab all of them.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

So it was it was funny, but at the same time, I was kind of like, you know what? That this is another teachable moment that we can do to show these kids the way to do it when we go out to eat.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, that teachable moments I found worked really well in low stress environments for me. So, um, and you can talk about how you learned this because it sounds like you did. I couldn't, I learned this through mistakes, first of all. Like I learned it through not doing it this way and going, oh, that didn't work very well at all. And then going, oh, because there's so many assumptions, right? There's so many assumptions that, like, yeah, we're just gonna go up. We have this like um, it's not fast food, but it's like quick food restaurant here in Jack's called um Tijuana Flats, right? And it's just like Tex-Mex, um easy, low pressure environment, same situation, yeah, same like what is happening at the table, like right, and then going, oh, they don't know how to eat food at a restaurant. And if you think about it, restaurants are so overstimulating. They're so they have a routine and rhythm that is specific to them that we're not in control of, right? So, like you're taking a child who might have food insecurity out of a home where they know where the food is, it's some stranger bringing it to the table at different timed intervals that they don't know. There's a whole kitchen behind there, right? Like, right. One of the things that I've learned that I have to say to my kids is order what you want, order what you're gonna eat, order what you want. Um, if you're still hungry after you've eaten it, we can always order more food. It's like a standard thing that I say now at restaurants with children who have been in my home now for five years of like, we can always order another quesadilla. It's totally fine. Eat this one if you're still hungry, right? But but I found myself in that situation with with kids and and the grabbing and the reaching and the like, I don't have the octopus arms necessary to like do all of the things, and we're at younger developmental ages and and the stress and the stress and the stress. And I went, Oh, I have to practice taking them to restaurants when I'm not hungry.

unknown 29:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Maybe it's one at a time that I'm taking them, but I'm intentionally teaching them this life skill. Yeah, I'm intentional, I'm recognizing the the void and I'm intentionally doing this.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Did you find as a as a dad, was that more something that you were used to doing? Like, was that you? Was that your wife? Like, how did the roles play out for you guys as foster mom and foster dad?

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Yeah, yeah. So, so a lot of times, well, one thing I'll say, let me share this part first. A lot of times um, I would try to gauge the kids coming in to see kind of how I needed to come in uh as a as a father, because I knew uh some of those kids didn't have dads in their homes. And um, so I would kind of take the the nice role or the I would just kind of see, you know, because I didn't want to come in and be like a strict, strong, you know, presence and it's kind of like she be scared them or something like that. So I would always just gauge the you know um the kids and how they were uh acting coming into the home.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Can I ask you a quick question? Yeah, with your biological sons, are were you the strict authoritarian dad? Or are you a firm, um firm, but like not necessarily strict? Like how would you how would you say you naturally are with your biological children?

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Um, I would say I probably was was a little disciplined disciplinarian, you know, to make sure that things are going in order and going the right way. And um, so they they they kind of knew already kind of like you know what to do, what not to do. I mean, I was I'm fun and and things like that as well. But you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Firm hand, it would be very easy for your for your wife at the time to say, wait till your dad gets home.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Like that is like an actual threat in your like I mean, that's not a threat of like physical safety, but like, oh, I'm gonna have to talk to dad. No, I'm good. I'm gonna get it together right here, right now.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Right, absolutely, 1000%. So, you know, it was I didn't I didn't have to take that, I didn't take the same approach with the kids coming in because I used to try to gauge them. Like, there was a kid that came in one time, and you could tell that there were some things that probably had been going on with this kid, you know, the way he was acting and his mannerism. So I leaned over one time when he first came in and I said, Um, and I said, Hey man, how you doing? And my name is Court, and I just reached my hand out to him and he jumped. You know, and I was like, Okay, there's something that happened before today to either with a guy or male or something, because he didn't do that with my wife. But when I I and all I did was just reach my hand out just to say hello. And me reaching my hand out shook him and he he jumped back. So I knew right off the bat, I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to come in at a different angle so he can be comfortable with me. You know, so it was a lighter approach, you know, it was fun. The like the guy, now I still tried to make sure there was discipline and structure, but I just kind of, you know, in that situation, I just wanted to come in warm so he can just know that, hey, I'm here for you. I'm not here to be a mean guy or a bad guy or whatever may have happened in the past. Like this is not the same deal, you know. So I was definitely trying to uh be the disciplinarian. Um, I was like the homework guy, you know, I was the one that was sitting down doing this the lot of the schoolwork and the teaching and the discipline. And hey, it's trash day for you, it's trash day for this person. So it was all about the structure and the discipline and doing things the right way. And uh my wife at the time, she was more of the nurturing, the kind, the loving, the cook. So, you know, they stayed around the kitchen because you know that's food. It's often it's always the food to eat with mom. So it's like, yeah, let me go over here with mom. She's got the kitchen and thing, everything warming up. So that's kind of the balance that was taken. You know, she did a lot of the paperwork, a lot of the the motherly type things.

Trauma Awareness And Parenting Roles

SPEAKER_03 33:45

And I did more of the the fun, the basketball guy side, playing outside, the homework stuff, the disciplinary and the structure. So we just made it work, you know, um, both working at different parts of it.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah, that's that's fantastic. When you were telling the story of the kid that you could tell had experience and things, yeah, immediately made me think of this one little boy that we had come. And on the first day, um he rocked a lot when he was anxious and nervous. That we we didn't know the first day. He was just sitting on my couch, like actively rocking on a couch that doesn't have a rocker of it, and just like hitting the back of the couch over and over again. And I was sitting next to him and he looked at me and he said, Are there whoopins in this house? And I was like, No, sweetie, there's not any whoopens in this house. And he was like, Okay. And he just kept rocking and rocking, and it was this like, Oh, whatever happened before, I have to be really conscious of the fact that he never feels afraid. Like, I have to be really conscious of my body in a room next to him. If that's a question that he's asking when he barely knows my name, right? Like, and um the way that you get gain access is so important. I hear so much like intention and awareness in how you're talking about about your time in foster care, like how how you approached it with so much intention and awareness. Um did anything take you by surprise, or I should say, what what do you rem what story could you tell us about something that took you by surprise in either in how something played out or in what you saw in your own self come out? Because I don't think let's actually go there if you're willing to. Because I think at the beginning of foster care, like we all get into it because we at some level we have a high opinion of ourselves as a parent, right? Like, I can do this.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Yeah, I can do it.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I'm a good parent. I've some of most of us, some of us have have raised uh biological children to some age. We've had some level of success there that we would call success. And we're like, yeah, okay, I'm a I can do this. And then we get into foster care, and kids come and kids come and kids come, and they're all different, they all need different things, but they also all touch a different part of us, is what I experienced. Did you experience that? And then what surprised you about yourself, good or bad? Um, what surprised you about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Well, you know, that that was uh there was a kid that came in, um, one of my earlier kids that came in, and for it's like just surprising me what these kids are dealing with and going through. Um, I remember the first night they came in, it was the five and three-year-old. And I was at work when they came in. So I got home from work and they were uh asleep and they were on top of the cover. So I was trying to cover them back up, and I and I didn't really know which one of them was the five-year-old and three-year-old because they was kind of almost the same size. And the next day I was kind of asking my wife, I said, Hey, I thought it was a five and three-year-old Kane, you know, last night. And she was like, It was. So I'm thinking the whole time that they're opposite, that the five-year-old is the three, and vice versa. But the um the three-year-old kid was uh about 25 pounds and um, you know, a pretty decent kid, but the five-year-old kid weighed 23 pounds. He was really malnourished, whatever. So I thought he was actually the three-year-old. And it just kind of just like it was a tough situation because you could see the rib cages and you know, mom had some um some issues with uh, I think drugs and things. Dad was in prison, prison at the time, and they really didn't even have a lot of family members that could actually reach out to them to check on them or anything like that. So it just was kind of like it just kind of made me just learn and and think about things totally different, you know. It like throw out foster care. Like this is this is human life now, you know. This was this is stuff that's that we don't even think about on the day-to-day basis that's happening around us every day. So it's community. Yeah, yeah. And it just made me just really realize uh how blessed we are. Um, how how how how we we shouldn't be complaining about things if these kids are going through that and dealing with these things. So it just opened me up as a human, you know, just forget being a foster parent. It was just like, wow, like there's some situations out here that and then also being that we got those kids and we had those kids for a couple years. And I'm actually still the godfather to those kids, actually, to today. Um, so they still come over on the weekends and um and and hang out with us on the weekends sometimes well. So, but it's just it's just funny how just that that experiencing that, just learning that situation, and then on top of all of that, when they were in our care, uh the mom that the one person that they had that was calling and checking on them or whatever, even though she had some issues, she passed away.

What Foster Care Changes In You

SPEAKER_03 39:00

Like while they were sitting in custody with us. So I had to take these kids to the funeral of their own mom while the dad was in prison. You know, so that story was just really warm my heart and it just opened me up to the fact that they're so we're so needed. And and it also made me think about that two-year delay. So it was kind of like, you know what? God planned all this stuff to drop at the right time. Because if if I had said it a day earlier, a week earlier, that I wanted to foster, maybe the alignment wouldn't have matched up for us to get those kids. You know, maybe if um the the delay we had to get our first kid would have been different, then this this alignment wouldn't have happened with these kids. And maybe even if that first kid situation where he kept fighting and getting in trouble and had to go back, our home maybe have been had not had the room for these kids that came in. So everything just was like aligned for that to happen. So I knew at that point, like, yeah, this is something that you know I'm supposed to be doing. And it just opened me up as a human being more than anything to make sure that we're in the right place and we're doing the right thing for these kids.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

That's a fantastic story. That um gosh, you hit on something that I struggled with as a foster mom, and that is the timing of things, right? Like the specifically around other griefs where it's like this thing happened, and the grief was high, but then on the back end, it was like, well, if that had worked out, then these other things wouldn't have happened. Right. And and in the other things happening, like you can really see the path shaping and and and but it's very like um it's it can be very disorienting in the moment when it's not working out correct when it's like I'm sure that I'm sure that your your wife during those two years was like, for the love of all that is holy, Corey. Yeah, I I know the direction that we're supposed to go. Like, can you just get on board here? Because this thing is inside of my spirit so strongly that it's that there had to have been some minimally there had to be some tension there between you guys.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Um, and then to see it play out on the back end where it was like it just makes everything somehow more peaceful and somehow more confusing.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Yeah, because you just never know, you just never know the steps that's gonna happen. Like, and we had those conversations. Like, I got a few of those conversations, and it's like, you know, what are you doing? Like, what are you waiting on? And I was just like, and it wasn't so much that I didn't didn't just want to, it was like I didn't want to be, I wanted to do it naturally. I wanted to, I wanted my heart to be naturally wanting to do this. So, like you said earlier, we can have two yeses, you know, because if you got a yes and a maybe, you still gotta know, you know. So it was like, you know, I wanted to be a full yes, a full capital YES yes before I went into it. And yeah, there were some hard conversations uh leading up to that two years, you know. But it all worked out, you know, it's like everything happens for a reason. Um, the timing for everything, you don't control that. You don't really know on the front side what's down the line, what's gonna happen. But I just do know that, you know, if your heart's in the right place and you're aligned and you're doing the right things, it has a funny way of just working itself out. You just have to trust the process and trust your guts and trust your heart and know that you know you're doing this for the right reasons and continue to do it for the right reasons.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

What was the hardest part of foster care for you?

SPEAKER_03 42:41

The hardest part, um, you know, I get I get asked a lot about um getting attached to the kids. Like, you know, how do you be a foster parent and and and you don't get attached to the kids? And uh, and and you do, like I, you know, I'm not gonna lie about it, you do get attached to it. And um, what I tried to do for is um trying to ease that hard part of not being attached to kids is this is what I did. I I used to tell myself and I used to psych myself out. I don't know that this will work for everybody, but I used to tell myself this. I would say, okay, we're into fostering to help these kids. And I thought about fostering as kind of like a temporary rehab facility. And my mindset will tell me, okay, you have a job, and your job is to make sure that this child is better when they leave your home than they were before they got to your home. Right? That's the mentality that I tried to take into every situation. Like, you know, that's your job. Make sure that this kid is better because he encountered you, that he stayed with you. So whatever happened on the exit part of it, when they go back home or if they go back in the system or whatever the case may be, they're better because they came through your program, through your home, through your system. So when it was time to leave, I would try to psych myself out and say, like, okay, time's up. You did your part. This kid is better because he's been with you. And and I don't know if it worked all the time because you still get attached to some of them or whatever. But that's what I tried to do. And then, like I said, it was hard, especially for the ones that were there long term, you know, because we had kids a weekend, we had kids a month, we had kids weeks, we had kids years. You know, so those ones that were there years, they were all of them were family, like both of our side of our family knew them. They went everywhere with us, they went on vacation with us. They were our kids, you know. So when it was time to detach from them, that that was difficult, you know. But again, I just tried to use my mental, I tried to psych myself up to this is a temporary assignment. And and that's that's how I tried to handle it.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

You had a mission statement, if you will, focused on foster care. Like right, like it's like this. Um I had the same thing. I wrote it on on this um board that we hung up that I had a tree, and every kid that came through, we did a thumbprint and like the dates that they were in our home. And on the top of it was my mission statement for fostering. And it's like that they would know the love of God because when they were in our home, they felt it. No matter what happened for to them in their life, they were in our home, they would feel the love of God towards them.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

Yeah. Can I can I say something right right quick about that? Yeah that there was a situation to where, and this is just like you said, by the love of God. We were uh we always took our kids to church and everything too. So I can remember uh a time to where we had two kids at in the house at the time. And you know, we're just going to church regularly and coming home, doing our normal thing. And one Sunday, there was a kid that asked me out of the blue, I didn't tell him anything about this, but he asked me, he said, he said, Miss Corey, um I think I want to join this church, and I want to be baptized. And then the other kid that was there was like, yeah, I want to be baptized too. And so that was just the impact that you can have on kids just doing your normal routine.

Attachment And The Temporary Assignment Mindset

SPEAKER_03 46:05

Like I never forced that on them. I never asked them about it. They saw it, you know, you know, at church or whatever, but they never I never pushed them them on to make that decision. And they came to ask me about that. And I still have pictures in my phone today of the actual baptism. You know, so it's almost just like, you know, like you said, man, that that that's a powerful thing. I thought that those kids asked to do that uh even without me even asking them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Yeah, it's just it's so knowing um it's more than knowing your why, right? Like my why for foster care was very clearly because I felt very called to it. It's like it's a mission statement that you can come back to over and over again. You can come back to it on the hard days, you can come back to it when um there's not as much connection with a kid, right? Like it's like, no, you're like your yours is this is a temporary assignment, and my job is to impact their life for the better while they're here in my home. Right. And having it worded in that way keeps the lines clear. And I we're landing on like one of my soapboxes with foster care because oh god, always when we when we hit a soapbox, and I have so many, um I'm like, do I want to go into it? But but I think that that specifically around attachment, right? You're people say, like, I don't know how you do it, I would get so attached. And you hear in the foster care community, I love them as if they were my own. And I want to I want to pause here for a second because in your book, you talk about this moment where one of your kids is playing on the football team and he's making this great play, and you're running down the sidelines, and you are like exuberant, and you're like, Let's go get it. Like you, I mean, I can just I can picture you running down the sidelines. And somebody says, Is that your boy? And you say, Yes, my boy, like that is yeah. Um, and at the same game, his stepdad and mom are there, yeah. But your pride for him is the same level as if one of your two biological sons is running down that field, and I'm looking at your face right now. You're remembering that play.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

I can tell.

SPEAKER_03 48:34

I remember that play exactly.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Your face is getting very emotional. Like you're like, I was so proud of him. And like you're like, it's all it's all right there on your face right now. And in those moments, but he goes home, and and it's two paragraphs later in your book where like the stepdad comes to you and he says, Like, I'm working hard to get him back home. And you're like, Man, go for it. Like, yeah, I'm behind you 100%. And by the end of football season, this he has gone home. Yeah, and so it's this dichotomy where you have that level of pride. Somebody says, Is that your boy? You say, Yeah, without without a batting an eyelash, yeah, no hesitation, no hesitation, and and release back to stepdad at when it's time because he's done the work, right? Yeah, and that is the foundational aspect, like that is the core. If there is a foundational block of foster care, it is that it is that while they are in my home, they will experience my love towards them as they're for you, father, for me, mother, yeah, into the same equivalent, like they will experience that pride, that joy, that love. There will never be a time where I'm serving ice cream to only my biological children. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's not, there's not like, oh, I'm sorry, you're you're one of the foster kids. Like, you know what I mean? Like that kind of equality inside the home, but also the correct place in our hearts, the correct acknowledgement of temporariness, yeah, right. The correct acknowledgement of responsibility of I am responsible to them for a short time or maybe long time. You have some kids for years. We had kids for years. Yeah, for the duration of time that they are in my home, I'm I am responsible to them like this, right? But then I will release them out of my care to an adoptive home, back to biofamily, to family members that can care for them, whatever. And so my soapboxes when we start talking about like I love them just like my like the as if they were my own. Yeah, I always am like, I want some clarity around that for people because I think people would be less afraid to foster. Yeah, if it was like,

Pride On The Sidelines Then Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 51:10

no, the request isn't that you have the same connection with them that you do from your as your child that that you held in the hospital and brought home. And were like that's it's can you care for them here and the now? Can you love them in the here and now? And go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

And that's what I wanted to do with this book. I wanted to make sure that people actually felt like that, like they can say, Oh, you know, Corey did that, you know, I maybe I can do it as well. And it's crazy that you brought that story up because just yesterday, my youngest son actually ran into that kid and he was telling them where he's working at now, asked about us, whatever. So he he's a cool kid. And that same kid, when he came in, he was struggling in school. And um, and again, I'm the homework guy. And um, so I was telling him, I was like, Look, man, you got to get these grades up to uh play play sports. You know, I was like, you know, you can't just go out there and play football and your grades are back. I said, people are not gonna accept you in schools or whatever. If you I said job number one is to get these grades right. So he had to finish homework every day before he even went to practice. You know, and he had never really done that before. And it was just a little small thing that I helped him with. He kind of had um sometimes, what is it called when you kind of write things backwards a little bit? Dyslexia. Dyslexia. So some of the times he was working out his problems, he would do it correctly, but write the answer backwards. So it was just a small little tweak that we had made, and and we helped him kind of go from a D student to a B and C student, you know. So when he got on the field, now you you're in my lane now because I'm a sports guy and I played football, but I but I but I didn't even come in that way. I came in as let's get the grades and stuff first, and then we'll go to the football second. So I again I felt like we helped him because we helped him shift his grades first. Now he was really good on the football field. I do remember that play you're talking about because I was running down the field yelling and screaming, and they was like, cool, because people knew who I was. Like, that's your son. Like, yeah, I was still running down the court field or whatever. So that was cool. And then the moment when this um mom and stepdad, he he didn't even want to go over there at first to uh to speak to him. And I was like, I was like, dude, I said, Man, you know, I understand mom having some issues, challenges right now, but she'll be glad to see, you know, she'll be glad to see, you know, go over there and talk to him and talk. And then like I said, me and dad, stepdad, we talked for a while, and um, like I said, he eventually got to go back with stepdad. So I remember that day vividly because I just thought it was a special moment that he, you know, he did well, and then he still went over there, spoke to them and gave him a hug or whatever, and came back, you know, with us for like another month or two. So yeah, that was that was a pretty cool story with my guy.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Yeah, I loved it. I loved reading it in the book. I mean, I I've experienced it so many times, you know, like and I think that I think that that's one of the like most incredible gifts that foster care gives to the caregivers, to the foster parents, is we get to experience these moments where our story intersects a kid's and we get to be the voice, literally cheering them on from the sidelines. Like actually metaphorically, like all of it. Like, I just I remember like sitting in a room and tears streaming down my face because a kid that had come in globally developmentally developmentally delayed, yeah. Um a year, a year in, like passed a test at school. Like a and I just I like looked at their work and I just was sobbing. And I called the their bio parents and I called their caseworker and I called their guardian at light of it. I was like, look what they did, like look at this. Like this was a tremendous effort that they did to get to this point, and just just watching the determination and the the like the will to keep pressing on and keep going is so underrated, like that. We get a front row seat to this with in all of its challenges, with all of its hurdles that we get a front row seat to watching it's take on life head on, and our stories get to intersect for a second. Yeah, I just love it. Okay, last question as we're wrapping up. If you could say anything to um a man who is currently being talked, um, he's in conversations with his wife. She wants to foster, he's not sure. Yeah, you did it for eight years. You had how many kids came through your house?

SPEAKER_03 55:47

Probably about 40, over 40 kids.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

40 kids come through. All of the challenges, all of the hurdles, all of the success stories. If you could say one thing to that guy, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 56:01

Give it a give it a give it a shot, give it a try. You know, even the the thing like recipe, where you don't have you can sign up to be foster parents, and you can start maybe even the recipe just giving all the foster parents breaks, like maybe on the weekends or certain days, so you can kind of see, you know, if there's something that you want to do. But just I would just say, think about it, open your heart, you know, open your heart first before you do anything else. And I would say give it a shot to try it. Because there's something, that's a quote that I have on my phone, and I kind of I kind of go back and look at it all the time. And it says something to the effect of uh, when God puts something on your heart, do it without hesitation because you have no idea who's waiting on the other side of your obedience. So with me, my obedience to say, okay, yes, I'm going to foster. There were so many kids that that was needing us in that situation later on down the line that I couldn't see. Like I couldn't see that kid coming in at five years old with 23 pounds. I couldn't see that kid coming in at eight years old. Uh and they found another local dumpster trying to get food for his two-year-old sister. Mom was gone, dad was nowhere. Like, I didn't I didn't see that stuff on the in on the front side of it. So if you just open your heart up and be obedient to that, you know, you don't know who's gonna be you're gonna bless on the on the back side of this thing. So I would just say try it, do it, open your heart up, then open your home up and go for it.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Is it worth it?

SPEAKER_03 57:21

Absolutely, absolutely, 1000%. You know, and then you know, the full circle moments, like you know, you don't think about this stuff too, and I'm and I'm and you know as well as I do, you know, because we got years into this thing, but the eight-year-old kid I was just talking about that that his mom, his mummer never came about the whole time he was in this in the system with us. So he had zero calls from anybody from for years. And just last year, we were able to reconnect through social media, and he was playing high school football at a school about an hour and 15 minutes away from me, and he asked me to come walk him out on a senior night in his high school football game. He's been adopted now, and he has some great parents that has adopted him. And I walked out with his adopted parents and him on his senior night of football last year, and then went to the high school graduation last May. And this year, he's part of the uh he just went to the U.S. National Guard, you know. So, and we still keep in touch even now. And this was a kid that was eight years old eating out of a dumpster, didn't have anything to eat, didn't have anybody to help him, you know. So had we not signed up for foster care at the time we did, then I don't know where he would have gone into the system. And his foster parents, I mean his adoptive parents right now, um, they told us, they said, listen, he's he's been through different foster cares, you know, but you're the only person that he's ever talked about, your home. The whole time he was in foster care, he never talked about another parent except for you guys. So that's just a full circle moment that you know it it verifies and it confirms, you know, that's

Advice For Hesitant Men And Full Circle Wins

SPEAKER_03 58:55

the fostering is something that you know we all should consider if you have the capacity to do it. Open up your hearts and open up your homes and uh go out there and make a difference in the world.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

I love it so much. Um, at the end of every podcast, we uh do a little lightning round if you're getting okay. Um your bedside table, messy or clean?

SPEAKER_02 59:18

Messy. Normally it's clean, but it's it's I'm gonna be honest, but it's messy today.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

Be honest. I had a guest one time who wouldn't, she knew that I was gonna ask that question, and she wouldn't record the episode until after she cleaned her bedside table. And I was like, that is a lot of pressure for a simple question.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

And normally it is clean, but I'm I'm just being transparent. Like today, no, no, I got papers everywhere and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

My husband is a cleaner person than me, like and just naturally, he's a more organized person. Um, he's one of the only neurotypical people in our family, and so that helps him with organization. We're like six out of eight of us have some type of neurodiversity. Um, his bedside table is messier than mine almost always.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

And I love it, Corey. I love it. He also does not load the dishwasher correct, if I'm being honest, but yeah, he's the one who loads a dishwasher, so I don't care. Right. I do not come behind him and change it. Um, what books or podcasts are you loving right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:26

Um I um I'm actually on, I can't think of the name of the podcast right off the bat right now. Oh my god. It's a couple of different ones that I'm looking at. And um uh shoot, the power of success book. I think I've been reading that one. I got a couple different of both of them, so I'm not really sure on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

But like motivational yeah, just like motivational uh power. Leadership esque, like mentoring esque kind of podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Absolutely. So I try to listen to things that that kind of kind of motivate the motivators, like you know, I'm a professional speaker as well. So a lot of times I look at um uh podcasts on motivation, on leadership, or on getting better as a speaker, on getting better as a leader, or just being a positive uh influence as a person as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

I love that. Um I find that I need some of I always need like a slight variety, but I listen to to those. I'm like hooked right now on the diary of a CEO. Okay, a guy named Steve. Uh-huh. He inner anyhow, I could go like I'm obsessed with his podcast frequently. And so it's it's become a problem. My kids are like, oh my god, mom, listen to music like a normal person. Um, and then my last question is what is bringing you joy right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

You know, um the mentorship part, like what I'm doing for is uh changing lives for speaking because you know, I kind of transitioned from fostering over to the mentorship side. Um, still mentoring some of my former foster kids that I had years ago, like that really brings me joy because it's like you still can play a role in these kids' lives even after the foster care time is up. You know, so that really brings me joy. And then the work that I do for is uh going to speaking in schools, speaking to kids, trying to steer them away from gun violence, peer pressure, bullying, uh, teach conflict resolution workshops as well to try to let our

Lightning Round And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_03 1:02:20

kids know that there's other ways to resolve issues without resulting to violence or fighting and things like that. So actually the work and then the mentorship part at the Steve Harvey program, mentoring these young kids and trying to help them get through their teenage uh age area, whatever, and trying to toward adulthood, just the things that I'm doing as far as work and mentorship, it just brings me joy because I'm a I'm a server and I'm a giver and I like to help people. So I feel like if I could help our young people, you know, make better decisions that they can be successful in life as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Yeah. It's like do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Right. Absolutely. It's so fulfilling. Corey, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:58

Thank you so much, Recca, for doing what you do. Like, I mean, foster fostering this podcast show, like everything, your heart, you know, because you could tell when people have good hearts and they're genuine and they're kind. And and we need more people like that, more people like you. So continue to do what you've been doing as well. And I'm just thankful that you know, I was allowed to be on the show and be a part of it so we can continue to try to push this positivity and light throughout the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

Oh, well, thank you so much, Corey.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:23

Yeah.