Joshua Keith Craft

0:51 And we're back. Hi everybody. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Thank you for being a faithful uh subscriber. And we took a break. We took a little hiatus. Did not mean to do that. That was not at all intentional. Pretty much in my life, I have a couple weeks a month that are just insane. I don't have time for a whole bunch of stuff. Uh so we try to record podcasts during those weeks that aren't like that. And this particular month, we just ended up losing some recordings. And so I wasn't able to do that. and uh we took a break. So, but here's the good thing. That gave me a lot of time to think about what this podcast looks like and what it's going to look like. And we started this podcast about a year ago and I really appreciate everybody who has come with us on the journey. We have somewhere over 500 people that listen to this podcast every time we put one out and it's been amazing. It's been really cool. And in this new season, I think this is like a season two uh of the podcast right now. on this new season.

1:52 Nick's still with me, still helping. But I wanted to try some things. I want to try some new things with uh with what we're doing and gave me a chance. The break that we just accidentally took gave me a chance to take some steps back and consider what I want to talk about and what what we need to talk about, you know. And what we started this podcast with, if you go back and listen to the first episode, is talking about what a dialogue was. And the goal of this podcast is not just to have a dialogue on uh the podcast, but to get us to have conversations with ourselves. That's what Socrates said that the goal of dialogue was was to get you to have conversation with yourself. So, we're going to take a couple weeks. We're going to take some time and I want to talk about some stuff and get you to think about what I'm talking about and we'll have some kind of conversation or you'll hear what I have to say and that'll help you have a conversation with your with yourself. Uh, I'm in the the middle of just some some some of my own process. I want to give you guys some updates kind of on what's been going on. Uh, as you know, we were I was in negotiations, been talking about doing a book with a major publisher for oh man, almost a year, probably over a year now. And just this week, as I'm recording this, as of yesterday, uh, we found out we weren't going to get a book deal. So, um, that doesn't mean that my writing is not good. That doesn't mean they don't like my writing. They're just not the the deal just didn't really work for the kind of deal I wanted. And I'm in a great, you know, I think I'm in a great se season in my own life where I can be the buyer, not the seller. And what I mean by that is all of us want opportunities. And sometimes to take advantage of an opportunity, you have to give up a lot. And you have to basically be the seller on someone buying you. And uh because of I think some of the some great opportunities and some great blessings that's there some great blessing that's in my life uh I'm able to really be the buyer. So when I looked at the deals that publishers were looking at at that particular period uh they just weren't confident in my ability to have a market to sell books which is realistic. It's totally true. I mean, I've never spent my time, we talked about that on this podcast, but I've never spent my time thinking about marketing or thinking about my audience.

4:08 I just spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to say and developing myself as a communicator, which is massively important, but at the same time, there's that's only 50% I think of the equation. The other the other 50% is actually saying things in a way that people want to hear and building some kind of audience that you can serve. uh because for all of us there's um the the the greatness that's in us I think needs to be able to be accessed by as many people as can possibly hear it. And so I've never thought about that and honestly that's a little bit daunting to me to even think about um being in front of that many people or having that large of an audience. But one of the things I've realized that I need to work on in my own personal kind of journey, leadership and growth journey is there's what people need to hear and there's what people want to hear. And if you're a communicator uh or you're having conversations with people a lot, there's a lot of things you want to say. There's a lot of things you feel like need to be said. Then the question you and I have to ask ourselves is how how are they able to receive this? what's their level of perception that's going to determine whether or not they're able to receive what I'm going to say. So, I want to talk about philosophy. I want to talk about the meaning of life. I feel like the greatest problem that many people have in their life is their inability to understand the purpose and the meaning of their life in that life does not ask us or we don't get to ask the question what does our life mean? Uh we get to answer that question. And I think a lot of people go through life and they have a tough time with that uh because they never really decide what their life means. They never decide to live by higher truth. They never decide to live by virtue, live by core values. So those are the conversations I want to have.

5:50 And really the conversations and even in the coaching space that I'm in, the conversations that people want to have are like how do I make more money or how do I get my kids to like me or how do I achieve whatever level of influence or success that I'd like to have? And that those to me aren't really the right questions to ask, but those are questions that people are asking. So, what's the mastery? What's the mastery of communication? The mastery of communication in that context is being able to sit with someone and say, "Hey, I know you want to make more money." And uh but but the way you get to making more money without losing your soul is by developing a really great philosophy of life. And um so I'm learning how to do that. But with that said, I wanted to I want to circle back. I had a I had a person request this of me. So, uh, my friend Andrew, I'm going to request a few months ago. It's September right now while I'm recording this. And I turned 39 at the end of July. So, let's say a month and some change ago, I turned 39. And on my Substack on do.jkc.is, is I wrote a wrote a little post that was just like a quick kind of a quick thought on 39 lessons that I learned I've learned in 39 years of of being alive. So I just turned 39.

7:09 I learned, you know, in my 20s, a lot of people told me this in my 20s that your 20s are really all about laying a foundation for your life. And I think that's true. I think my goal throughout my 20s was to get as much information and education as I could to read and learn and grow and be in all kinds of different different environments where I could just learn what the world looked like. I could lay this foundation. I could choose to like live by scripture. Then I got into my 30s, right? And your 30s are about all taking all the thing I feel like your 30s are about taking all the things that you've learned and actually applying them to your life. There's a lot of people that know theory and the way we say this in our culture, the way my dad's always said it is there's a difference between uh theor being theoretical and being transformational. And so being theoretical is having all the information, which a lot of people have. Most people their problem is not information. Their problem is application. You know, people that are in debt and in a really tough situation financially, some of them don't have the right information, so they don't understand how that works. Most people that are really in a tough situation financially, they knew that they were making bad decisions along the way and they just kind of hoped that it was going to work out, right? So, they knew the information that would have prevented them from having a bad situation, but they didn't apply it.

8:26 Therefore, that information was not transformational for them because ideally, when you learn something that helps you, you can apply it to your life and it can transform your life in a positive way. And that's really what I feel like the 30s in my life have been about. my 30s have really been a lot about growth and development and taking everything that I've learned and everything that I've decided to grow in and actually grow in that in terms of how how I've applied that and um the proof of application is adversity. So you know when you reach adversity when you hit moments of adversity when you hit times of adversity uh that's when you hit the growth zone. So a lot of people they go well I want to grow yeah sure I want to develop yeah I want to apply the things that I'm learning I want to apply the things that I who doesn't who doesn't want to well the challenge becomes not do you want growth but do you embrace adversity as a part of your daily life right uh cynica uh cynica said we should treat all adversity as a training exercise Albert Einstein said that adversity introduces a person to themselves and so my 30s were a time or still are I mean I'm 39 so I still have uh however many a year a year to go 11 12 11 10 months to go uh your 30s at least to me have been a time of tremendous adversity not like just a lot of really really bad stuff but hard stuff really really hard stuff difference between bad stuff and hard stuff so death of dreams realizing stuff I wanted to happen or planned to happen probably isn't going to happen and um there's a big difference between growth and adversity and the big difference is is our perspective. So if I see something as I I recently I'll say it this way. I recently saw for like the third time I finally got to see the Odyssey in IMAX and it was worth the wait. That's the first time I've ever bought tickets that far out in advance.

10:21 First time I've ever gone and done that much. I've seen movies in IMAX before, but never with with that level of weight. So it's my third time watching the movie in theaters. And I love what Christopher Nolan had Cersei say. Uh she said he uh Odysius says to her he says if you curse my men and she said I haven't given them a curse it's not a curse it's a truth and it that made me think that there's an interesting dynamic between curses and truth a lot of people feel cursed and what causes I think a person to feel cursed on a level is when they don't live according to truth like when you don't seek to live according to truth the truth becomes a curse for you so the way life works the way that you know you can you and I and say, "Hey, I don't like this. I don't like that. This is not something that I want. This is not how life should work. This is not how the world should work. This there's these universal laws." And we've talked about that on this podcast.

11:14 There's universal laws that govern the universe. And I can say, "Hey, those shouldn't apply to me and they don't apply to me." And I can believe I can live my life as if those things aren't true. The only problem is Benjamin Franklin said it this way, "Experience teaches hard lessons." And those are the only lessons that fools ever learn. So if you have to learn by experience, you learn through adversity, which we all kind of learn through adversity. But what determines whether or not adversity is suffering or growth is ultimately my perspective. So if if am I being trained by this or am I being punished by this? So there's a curse and there's a truth. The truth brings a curse with it. And that if you don't live by truth, your life seems cursed. So, that was this like thought process that I had just sitting in that movie. And there's something I have in my 30s that I didn't have in my 20s, and that's perspective. I I say my 20s are the were the worst time in my life. And the reason why they were the worst time in my life was because I was such a bad thinker. So, the only thing that can make a bad situation worse in your life or in my life is if our thinking is really bad.

12:20 And I was really great at that in my 20s. So, my 30s, I've had more adversity than I had in my 20s, but it hasn't been as hard. It's been very hard, but it hasn't been as hard because of how much I've learned and how different my thinking is. And so, as I as I kind of prepare for 40, uh, one of the things I've heard my dad say throughout my life is that your 40s are about trials, transitions, and triumphs. And, um, what does that mean? the that that your 40s I think to me the way I interpret that is your 40s are really a culmination of all the things you learned or didn't learn in your 20s and they're mixed with the things you applied or didn't apply in your 30s. So the truth of our life is either I've laid a good foundation or I haven't. Either I'm either I'm building something in a good way or I'm building something in a bad way. uh the fruit starts to show up in my 40s in terms of how I live and um so how do I make sure that I benefit from my 20s and my and my 30s I become a person that uh I learn my life lessons that's been one of the greatest things that I've learned. So with all that said um I want to talk about the uh as I end my 30s here's some of the great lessons that I feel like I've learned and I want to explain them to you. So, these are not in any particular order, but I'll just give you 39 of them in 39 years. The first one, not in not number one, but the first one is faithfulness is the key to all success, even when it feels like it's not. When I was in my 20s, I read I was in the process of quitting my job.

14:01 I didn't want to work with my dad anymore. I didn't want to be a part of anything I was a part of. I decided when I was 20 years old, I remember sitting in a college class and deciding that my dad had given his life to build what he's built. And I was just going to come home. I thought I was going to get a film degree and go work in film. I decided at that point to come home and just serve my dad however I could serve him. And um so I came home and I did that and it just wasn't really what I thought. I didn't come home and do that because it was like the best option for me. I came home and did that really out of a heart to really just serve because my my parents are great. My dad's an amazing man and um the thing that I thought was he he'd given his life to build what he's built and what he's built is pretty great and so I'm going to come serve that. I'm going to figure out how to serve that. And that really sucked. The problem that I had I mean a lot of problems. The problem that I had was uh I wasn't really ready to serve that. I didn't really like the kind of people uh in that my dad had around him. I didn't like the people that my dad had put me on a team with. Um, I thought I liked them, but I didn't once we started working together. There's there's there's a it's one thing to like somebody, it's another thing to work with them and try to achieve any kind of business results or success. So, I just couldn't do it anymore. I got to the point I was like 23. I'd been home from college for two years. And I was like, "Yeah, I'm out. I'm out on this whole thing." So, I'd written my resignation letter and I knew my dad loved me and that he was a very relational leader.

15:24 And so it was like 10 o'clock at night and I said, "Man, if I send that letter, he's going to call me and I'm just not in the mood to have a conversation. So I'll wake up tomorrow and I'll send it." Well, that night I'm reading the Bible and uh Proverbs 3 3 and 4, I read it in the ESV version and it says, "Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you'll find success with God and with man." And I really felt like, and I've never really heard the audible voice of God, but I really felt like I like God spoke to me and said, "Are you gonna be that kind of person or not?" And um so then I go look up the word faithfulness because I'm for sure that there's an out. Like maybe faithfulness means that I you can you you just get to decide and and you can just leave or there's like a I'm just trying to I look up the Greek or look up the Hebrew because I'm just trying to explain myself out of being faithful at this point. God says that to me, I'm like, "Oh, well, let me find out if I really if what let me find out what it means to really be that kind of person." And so this word emet in the Hebrew, it means to just keep showing up. It means certainty. It means dependability. It means reliability.

16:34 Um, and I I tie that in with the idea of a covenant in in scripture that I I really not every relationship works this way, but in my own personal life, I made a covenant to be with my dad, to roll with him, and I didn't know what that meant when I made it, but I made it. And um faithfulness means you're just going to keep showing up tomorrow. So if you decided that you're going to be married to somebody, if you're going to be faithful at that marriage, it means you're just showing up in the marriage and you're not going to be the one that leaves. If you decide you're going to be that kind of friend to somebody, if you decide that you're going to roll with somebody, if you decide you're down to ride, then be down to ride. Don't have conditions on that, right? And that's actually really hard. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's a lot harder than any of us think that it would be for a lot of reasons that we don't anticipate. like I anticipated being able to work with my dad who loves me and believes in me and has has uh uh has a desire to work with me and understand me. Well, the problem is everyone else around him didn't. And those are the people that I had to work with, not with him. And so, here's what the Bible says though. It says you will find if you do this, you'll find success with God and with man. So, if you want to be successful God's way, it starts with this foundation of faithfulness.

17:43 I'm going to keep showing up. I'm gonna keep doing what I know to do even though doing what I know to do doesn't seem to be getting any results. And all of this is about relationship because if you have the right relationships in your life, if you have the right people in your life, no matter what the season is or the situation looks like, keep showing up and watch what happens. And the problem that most people have, Napoleon Hill told this story about 3 feet from gold. You can Google it. You can read it. But most people are not successful because they just give up. They stop they stop being faithful. They give themselves a reason to stop showing up. They give themselves a reason to stop giving their best. So, I know I just I know I said that I didn't really rank these, but that's probably the number one lesson honestly of my life. It's a lesson I continue to learn. It's something I continue to live by. Uh the Bible says in Matthew 5, Jesus talked about this. He said, "Don't make vows. Just let your yes be yes and let your no be no." So, if you say you're going to do something, just do it. If you say you're not going to do something, don't do it. Right? And that's how easy it can be. But that's like a really big challenge. But once you learn how to do this and apply it to your life, you become successful. And I've seen that. I continue to see that of me showing up in the people uh in the lives of the people who I love and who I've decided to commit to. I continue to live a really blessed life. So then the second thing, acting your way into a feeling is way harder than feeling your way into an action, but it's also that much better.

19:07 Um, my dad likes for me to say acting your way into a feeling. Act act acting your way into a feeling is easier than feeling your way into an action. I don't think it's easier because of the inertia of emotion, inertia of our feelings, but it's way better, right? It's way better to act our way into a feeling. And it feels harder in the moment, but in the long term, one of the things I like to say and I like to think is the one of the ways to guarantee a bad decision in your life is for you to make a decision based on emotions. So in order to not make decisions based on your emotions, you have to decide to act your way into feelings. What that means is you do not let your feelings dictate what you do. You decide what you do and then your feelings come after. Right? There's a friend uh that I I had for a long time and he's not as much in my life anymore and he doesn't really like me so I won't I won't say who it is but I really like this quote that he gave. He he said uh amateurs make decisions based on their feelings and pros make decisions based on their commitments. And I think that's absolutely true that when we live a certain kind of life and to live the right kind of life we have to make decisions based on our commitments and your commitments are more important than how you feel. So anyone can do something third lesson anyone can do something for a year or two or three but very few can commit to the long term. I don't know if you see a theme here. Uh the dynamic is faithfulness and grit and continuing to show up and continuing to give your best and continuing to bring what you bring.

20:34 Even if you feel like there's not results in that, you're not seeing the income. You're not seeing the success. It's just being the kind of person that says, "I'm going to I'm going to The biggest challenge that I think most of us have, me included, are just consistency. Can I consistently do the thing that I need to do? Can I consistently do what I've decided to do? Can I You know, this is how I feel a little bit about this podcast, honestly, is I I committed to do this, so I'm doing it, right? And I had a little accidental break, but I can't just shut down the podcast because I said, "Hey, we're doing it." So, anyone can do a podcast for a year or two years or three years, but very few can commit to the long term. Fourth thing, I love this. Andy Stanley uh in Deep and Wide, he said this in kind of the introduction. He said it's one of the greatest lessons he's learned is that it's not his job to pour his cup out or it's not his job to fill up someone else's cup. It's his job to pour his cup out. And I think the world is better served when we learn that lesson. Like when we get to a place in our life where we go, you know what?

21:37 My job's just to bring my best to every situation whether it's valued or not. My job's to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Uh my job if you're a leader like if you sit in a position of leadership role or you're discipling people or you're speaking to people's lives speaking into people's lives you can determine the quality of what you give them. You can determine how prepared you are. You can determine how great u what you give them is. What you can't determine is whether or not they listen to anything you say. What you can't determine is what they do with that information. What you can't determine is whether or not you help them enough. I've had people throughout my life who uh I've given them I remember one time I had a meeting with some people that I was working with and and they were I I was their leader and um in the context of me being their leader uh I was get I felt like man I am just wearing myself out. I'm trying to give them everything that I can give them. I'm trying to do everything I can to help them achieve any level of success. and uh they're sitting there in a meeting with me saying that I just really it's I just really wasn't doing enough for them. And I'm not a very like emotionally led person, but at the same time it just made me so upset like to where I was like um I mean I got very emotional because it's like man I'm laying everything on the altar for this team. I feel like I'm giving this team everything I have and it's just not enough. And I'm grateful to learn the lesson that I'm supposed to give everything I have, right? I'm just not I don't get to determine if me giving everything I have is meeting everyone's needs, right? And I think that's a huge dynamic for all of us that we all live in of uh I don't I I can decide how much I give. I can't decide how much how many needs that I meet because of what I give. And when you let yourself go, when you let the outcome go, when you go, "Okay, I'm not giving. I'm not giving out of myself because of how this person values it. I'm giving out of myself because this is what God's put me on the earth to do." You play free. You live in a in more of a flow where you just give everything your best and you let God worry about the results. The Bible talks about that. Paul said that Paul watered, Apollos or uh Paul planted, Apollos watered, and God brought the increase.

23:51 So God always does what he does with our efforts and our energy. We just have to do the effort and the energy part. So I just have to take my cup and pour it out. And the best friends and the best relationships that I have in my life are people who uh receive from what I'm pouring out. And it actually does fill their cup. That's how I know I have a person in my life who's a really great friendship. And the fifth thing at least the fifth thing. You don't get to decide who loves you for you. You might think that certain people are supposed to love for love you for you. Maybe they're in your life. Maybe in your mind, the reason why they're in your life is because they're a person who God's given you as a gift to love you for you. But then that person might not love you for you. That person might be more interested in changing you or you being what they need you to be. And in all different kinds of relationships, we have to learn to be those kind of people. But there will be people that God brings into our life who absolutely love us for us. And those people a lot of times are not people we would think.

24:44 They're not people we would plan. They're not necessarily people who um for most people, they're not necessarily people who would be in our our family of origin. That's what our family of choice is. You know, one of the things we talk about a lot in our culture. One of the things my dad's talked about a lot is that you don't decide the family you're born into, but you decide the kind of family that you live with and the kind of family that you're around and the kind of family you raise your kids with. And there's this really interesting uh idea in the ancient world, right? We we say today that blood is thicker than water. That's what a lot of families use to try to uh to try to uh guilt trip us into being with them, doing stuff with them. Um but what's interesting is when you look up kind of the history of that term, people don't really know where it came from, but one of the stories behind that term that I that I like is um there's kind of two two meanings to it. One is um in the ancient world, one is the blood of the battlefield is thicker than water of the womb. Right? So, what that would mean, and you see this especially kind of in the Roman military in in ancient Rome, that if we've gone to war together, if we've been on the battlefield together, if we've shed blood together, if we've bled together, our bond is closer than if we would have shared the same womb.

25:56 That's actually way different. That's than blood. We'd say blood is thicker than water. Well, yeah, you're right. Blood of the battlefield is thicker than water of the womb. What that means is that if I've gone to war with somebody, if we've stood side by side, if we've taken some ground together, that person might actually be close to me than closer to me than a sibling. The the other the other meaning that people say that exists with this statement, blood is thicker than water is blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb. So covenants are these ancient I wrote about this in my book, The Way to Live. Covenants are like an ancient contract. When you decide to make a covenant with someone, it's a it's a undying commitment basically. And the idea behind that is that if we make a covenant together, if I promise you and you promise me, that's more important than my alliances with my family. And um that's a really huge concept for us to think about because I don't get to decide who loves me for me, but the people who love me for me are the people that I should spend most of my time with. Those are the people that I should roll with the most is not people who just who just are in who happen to be in my life by default, but the people who maybe God's put into my life by design. Number six, focusing on what you can't control is the worst thing you could ever do. And number seven, I'll mention those together. Anxiety is the sign, capital letters, it's the sign that you're focusing on what you can't control. So if I have anxiety, then what that means is that I can't control whatever it is that I have anxiety about. And anxiety is a really hard thing for all of us to navigate. I think everybody on some level struggle struggles and navigates with it struggles with anxiety and navigates it.

27:39 Uh I didn't really navigate it until I had kids. Now I have five kids and navigating anxiety is different because I feel like I can handle a lot of things that would happen to me. What I don't ever want my kids to have to experience is the hard things that could happen to them. And I'm not really in control of that. Only God is. And if I have anxiety about something, it's a reminder. I've trained myself this way. If I have anxiety about something, it's just a reminder for me that I'm focusing on something I can't control. So, what I should do is get my focus off of what I can't control, and I should focus on what I can control. And that's simple, but not easy. That's way easier said than done. But here's what I know. Focusing on what I can't control is the worst thing I could ever do. Cuz when I focus on what I can't control, I give my power away to the situation. And I'm just tossed to and fro by the waves of life. And that's not at all what I'm supposed to do. God gave me the ability to control certain things. He gave me the ability to control what I can control, which comes down to my thoughts, my attitudes, and my actions.

28:46 And if I start to get focused on what I can't control, I'm not in control of my thoughts now. The situation is I'm not in control of my attitude now. The situation is. I'm not even in control of what I'm going to do next. I'm going to live this reactionary life just reacting to events and live a life that's completely by default. And that's how most people live. They let their feelings, again, acting your way into a feeling is important because most people let their feelings decide what they're going to do. And uh if you ask a person who made a mistake, why'd you do that? A lot of times they're like, I don't know why I did that. And the reason why they don't know why they did that is because they did it based on an emotion that doesn't exist anymore. Feelings are fleeting. They come and go. So when we make decisions based on emotion, hopefully we're making the right one. But if we decide that we're going to focus on what we can control, no matter what situation or circumstance we find ourselves in, the way that we end up living life is we end up living a more powerful life.

29:44 because we actually can make progress in areas that we have control over. You know the Bible says in Romans 8 this this thought process comes from stoicism. So stoicism or not [clears throat] even stoicism this thought process comes from ancient philosophy ancient philosophers Heracitis and started with Heracitis who was a proto philosopher. He's like a philosopher before we really identified philosophy. And one of the things he established in kind of the history of philosophy is this idea of the logos, right? This idea of there's this, it's the Greek word for word. We've talked about it on this podcast before, but there is a there is logic and reason that governs the universe. There's this huge concept in Greek philosophy that the logos controls everything. That the universe trends towards reason and logic. And then the stoics kind of came and developed this thought a little bit further and said that if the if the universe is controlled by reason and logic then everything we can't control is being controlled by reason and logic and reason and logic are the highest good. Therefore everything we can't control is going to work out for our good. Well, what does that remind you of? If you know the Bible, Romans chapter 8 verse 28, the Bible says God causes all things to work together for good of those that love God and are called according to his purpose. So God uh is going to whether you're a stoic philosopher or a Christian, there's this idea that what you can't control is being governed by reason and logic. And if you haven't read my book or haven't heard me talk about this, John chapter 1, the Bible says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us." So John uses the word logos, capital L, the governing principle of the universe to say this is who God is. So you guys as philosophers think it's just reason governing the universe when really what it is is it's God himself. So so the stoic idea becomes a Christian idea or vice versa.

31:41 It was a God idea first and then and then the stoics kind of found it is that everything I can't control is going to work out for my good. Okay. Why is that so important to understand? Because if I focus on what I can't control, then what I'm not doing is focusing on what I can control. Because focus is a finite resource. I only have so much ability to focus. Well, God is going to take care of everything I can't control. So, there's this question, if God's going to work everything I can't control together for my good, why don't more things work out for my good? To me, the reason why more things don't work out for my good is because I don't control what I can control very well. God will work in the context of the situation. God will work things out for my good, but the problem is if I have a bad attitude, if I have a bad attitude throughout the whole journey of that, it's probably not going to work out for me. If I think poorly about my life, about the situation, about the circumstance, about whatever it is, it's probably not going to work out for me. Even if it would would have worked out for me, I'm not going to see it because of how I think. This is target fixation. This is this idea of uh you know, if you learn to ride a motorcycle or you learn how to ski, then what they say is, hey, if you want to hit the trees, look at the trees, right?

32:52 If you don't want to hit the trees, don't look at the trees. This is our thinking. So, if I if I experience negative stuff, that's one thing. If I spend my time fixating on that, that's another thing because I'm going to go wherever I look, right? because ultimately my thoughts become my attitudes and my attitudes become my actions. So all these things that I can't control are going to work out for my good. But the problem is I've done I've made a lot of mistakes in the context of that. And so it really hasn't worked out for my good because not because of what I couldn't control but because of what I could control. So that's why it's the worst thing you can ever do is focusing on what you can't control. And when you feel anxiety, my encouragement to you is when you feel anxiety, what you have to remind yourself is this is a little bit of a warning sign. This is a red flag that I'm probably focusing on what I can't control. Anxiety is an emotion. It's okay to have an emotion. What you decide to do with that emotion is more important. And so, if I decide to take my anxiety and allow that to focus me back on what I can control, I'm probably going to make a better decision and I'll navigate the situation a lot better.

34:02 Number eight, blessings and battles don't happen in different seasons. They always happen together. I heard Rick Warren talk about that a long time ago. That uh he when he was younger, he said blessings and battles. He thought blessings and battles happen in different seasons. Um and as he's gotten older, he's realized that those things always happen together. That's 100% true. It's been true in my life for sure. I mean, there's there's great things there's amazing things that are happening right now in my life. There's awesome stuff that's happening in my life. There's also battles that are happening in my life. I started this podcast by talking about how I didn't get a book deal after a year of working on a book deal. That's kind of a little bit of a battle for me. It's not been great. I haven't necessarily enjoyed uh the dynamic of that, but there's also really amazing blessings that are taking place in my life. We're I'm I'm building some amazing communities. I'm doing some amazing uh real est real real estate investment deals with friends. I'm taking care of I'm blessed. We had twins in May. Hey, we had twin boys. All these promises of God are happening and these battles and these blessings are happening at the same time. And when you understand that, you live you live u you live in the tension. I always feel like we live in the tension between things.

35:13 And so I live in the tension between blessings and battles. And what I've realized is that whatever I look at is magnified in my own life. So if I look at the if I look at the blessings, I see the blessings and the blessings become a bigger thing. But for most for many people, the way that they look at their life is their their their life is constantly in the context of battle. So everything's a battle. Everything's a fight. And yes, there are fights we have to go fight. But I can actually fight fight fights with a smile on my face because I know I'm blessed, right? That's been my situation with dealing with publishers. It's like I don't really I'm going to be the buyer. I don't really need a deal. I'm blessed. My life is really great. So, if this door closes in this season, I don't think it's going to be closed forever. But if this door closes in this season, I'm okay because man, I have so much blessing that's coming from everywhere else. And that's just a battle that I'm fighting. Number nine, the difference in growth and punishment is perspective. I talked about that kind of as we started this podcast. I wish I would have learned that way earlier in my life. If I see things as punishment, I'm not seeing it right. If I see it as an opportunity for growth, then I have the opportunity for growth. Punishment doesn't help you grow. And the difference between growth and punishment is how we decide to see the suffering and the adversity that we're experiencing. Right? Number 10, boundaries aren't really about the other person. They're about you. So some people think I got to get I got to get away from unhealthy people. I got to keep unhealthy people around me. Well, why do you have to keep unhealthy people around you? Because of how those things affect you. One of the things I've learned in my life is um I'm I have a tendency to be an overshare. I think a lot of people on this podcast, a lot of people in my life would completely agree with that. I have a tendency to overshare about my process, my thinking, what I'm navigating. What I've realized in my personal life is that I have to really be aware of who my close close friends are because I'm going to those people are going to hear a lot about my inner world and what's happening with me. And I haven't protected that a lot throughout my life. And so it's led to difficult things that didn't need to be difficult. Like when you have a friend, you know, a friend should be a safe place for you to process and navigate whatever it is that you're navigating.

37:16 I've had friends throughout my life that I've processed with them. And one of two things have kind of happened. Either number one, they use that as a reason to judge me and be diminished in their eyes as if I'm like a less than person because I'm struggling, or number two, they kind of have used that process against me to disqualify me in other people's eyes. So they'll go talk about. So what me and my friend are talking about they'll go talk about with a bunch of other people and uh not not with [clears throat] the intention of making me look bad but it does kind of make me look bad and that's not why I'm sharing it with my friend. If I want to share with the world I'll share it with the world but that boundary me creating boundaries with people of what I share with them or who gets close to me because of how I share is way more about me than it is about them. It's not that oh I can't trust people anymore. My lesson is I have to be careful who I trust because of how important trust is to me and how import and and the dynamics and makeup of my unique personality. I just am the way that I am. And so I've got to actually protect that rather than assume that that's going to be protected or take it out on other people whenever that's not protected. Like you've got to know the way you are. You've got to know the kind of people you need in your life and you've got to know the kind of boundaries you have to have for yourself, not for them. Too many people live their lives blaming other people for what they decided to do that affected those relationships. I don't want to be that kind of person. Right?

38:38 Then number 11, having one great friend is worth losing all your bad friends. There was a time in my life uh around the time I got married that first year of marriage uh my I was close friends with a lot of different people who are no longer in my life. No longer in my life at all. I don't know where they're I don't know what their life is. I hope it's going great. I don't know what their life is. I don't know how it's going. Uh, in all honesty, I don't really care because I'm living a different life now than I was before. But there was a season where I was close with all these people and and um they were all close with me and we had a series of events happen in our friendship group that just kind of destroyed everything. Some of that was on me, some it was like an uncontrollable uncontrollable issue. uh my sister uh one of my really really close friends, probably a best friend at that time, uh had married my sister and they had gotten a divorce and no one in the friend group really knew what to do with this whole dynamic and so uh people including me just didn't navigate it very well and I lost a lot of friends in the context of that. I really felt like in that season I lost all my friends. A lot of those people who are in my life aren't in my life at all anymore. Um, but what God did, which is really amazing, is he brought me a person named Jeremy Baker in my life who's one of my best friends. He pastors Elevate Life Connecticut up in the Northeast. And around that same time where I lost all all those friends, God brought me one of the greatest friends I've ever had in my life. And we've been friends for I don't know, over 10 years now. It's been so amazing. And I would do it all over again. If I was going to make a trade, like a draft day trade, trade my first round picks for Jeremy Baker, I'd do it all over again just because of how great that friendship has been and how much of a blessing it's been. And um that's how we should see it in terms of the decisions we make about who we do life with. It's not about the quantity of our friendships. It's about the quality of our friendships. And it's worth whether you're making the sacrifice or that decisions being being made for you. It's worth committing your life to being around the right people for you to make that make that decision. Number 12. When you focus on the wrong things, you miss the main things. That's back to perspective. You know, there's so many great like God's leading us on a journey in life. I feel like my life is just uh you know, the Bible says Proverbs 3:5 and 6. I read Pro I said Proverbs 3 and 4 earlier. Proverbs 3:5 and 6. Bible says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God and he'll direct your paths." And um there's an inherent I think expectation that God has out of us that you're just not going to understand. So don't try to understand.

41:12 The way that human beings work, the way that we work is if I understand it, then I'll trust it. Right? If I understand you as a person, I'll trust you. If I can understand, if you can give me referrals, if I can understand your Google reviews, if I can read the Better Business Bureau reviews on you, if you someone would vouch for you, then I'll understand you and I'll be able to trust you. With God, it's not actually the way it works. Trust comes first and understanding comes later, if at all. God's not about our understanding. God's about our trust. And so, um, I can go through life and I can focus on the wrong things. One of the wrong things to focus on is understanding. One of the right things to focus on is where is my trust placed. So I should place my trust in God, not when I don't understand. I should place my trust in God. And also the only thing I probably can understand in my own life is that I don't understand. And I just kind of live my life that way. I live my life a little bit on a journey with God.

42:10 And I don't want to miss what he's doing because I'm focused on the wrong thing. you know, if I'm focused on my way, if I'm focused on understanding, if I'm focused on my goals, I think I love goals. I think goals are massively important, but at the same time, uh, my goals are my goals and my plan is my plan. And it's not always God's plan for me. So, when the plan changes or when we pivot, if I just focus on what I've lost, if I focus on the plan that's not happening, then I really do miss God's plan in the situation. And so focusing on I think one of the key things for me in my life has been if I'm focusing on understanding I'm focusing on the wrong thing. If I'm focusing on trusting then I'm focusing on the main thing and that's especially with God right then the number 13. I always have the option of having no opinion. Marcus Aurelius wrote that in the meditations. I don't have to have an opinion on everything that other other people have an opinion on. I don't have to have an opinion on the rapture. I don't have to have an opinion on the book of Revelation. I don't have to have an opinion on politics. Everyone's going to say you should. Everyone's going to say, "Here's what you need to here's how you need to think and here's what you need to think and everybody needs to have a fully formed opinion on this, this, this, and this." And uh there's so many times in my life where where people ask me, "Hey, what do you think about this?"

43:26 I'm like, "I don't know. I don't really have an opinion about it." And in culture, that's almost not allowed. It's almost not allowed to have an opinion. But I really don't have an opinion if I haven't learned fully about a subject or a topic. And there's a lot more I don't know than what I do know. And so I take the option quite frequently of having no opinion. People will ask me, "Hey, how do you think this is going? How do you think that's going? How do you think this person's doing?" I don't know. I don't have an opinion. I'm just We're just doing our thing. I'll have an opinion when I have to have an opinion. Right. Number 14. Stop trying to fit into things. Reframe them instead. Um, that's been a huge lesson for me. I'm not like a uh Socrates when when when um when people in in these stories of of Socrates see Socrates this Socrates never wrote anything down and it was all written about him. So people like Plato or Zenapon they wrote stories about Socrates and one of the things they say Socrates was frequently described as this Greek word atapose and atapose means out of place. It's like you don't fit into whatever the normal cultural way of fitting into things is. And I don't think we any of us do. I don't think there's a such thing as normal.

44:40 Like we're all we're all talking about normal, but there's really not a normal person that exists. There's nobody who's who's average. There's a story I love to tell about uh the American Air Force after World War II. these pilots uh they they were just having these crashes like all the time and they couldn't figure it out. They couldn't figure out if it was pilot error or training or all this stuff. They these pilots kept crashing and so they did this study and they found out that wow, you know, the issue is not our training. The issue is not that we have bad pilots. The issue is that the pilots, you know, when when things get hard or things get weird up in the air, it's harder for them to reach the controls because the cockpit just doesn't fit certain pilots. So they decided to design a cockpit that would fit the average pilot. So they went and they did all these different measurements, a whole bunch of different measurements on every pilot that was currently in the Air Force. And they took the average and they built a cockpit around the average. Well, the planes still kept crashing until a researcher came along and said, "Let me see if there's anybody who's in the Air Force that actually fits the average."

45:42 So we took the average and it was like wrist wrist width, forearm to wrist length, knee to foot length, all this stuff. So they took the whole average and they looked at all the individual measurements of each pilot to see if there was one pilot that fit the average. And what they found was that there was no pilot who fit the average. What that means is that average is a total illusion and average doesn't exist. There is not an average person. That's actually impossible to be average. It's impossible to be exactly in the middle. Average is like a good uh general measurement of kind of where we fall, but nobody's really average. What they realized was that if a pilot might have had like an average arm length, their long their their their legs might have been longer or their neck might have been shorter or something like that. And so what they did was they designed the adjustable cockpit where you could adjust where the pedals were.

46:35 You could adjust where the joystick was. You could adjust where certain controls were on the on the plane. You could adjust the seat belts. That wasn't a thing. You could adjust the seat belts. And what began to happen is the the wreck stopped happening because pilots were able to to adjust the plane to themselves rather than just being expected to be in the average. This led actually to the invention of things like car seats where we can adjust car seats to children. Uh anything that's like ergonomic and adjustable like has kind of has this to thank for it because they had this revelation there's no such thing as average. Well, I think that's also true in life. So when you look at the average and everyone's and there's like this cultural pressure of fitting into the average, what you actually end up creating is a situation that's actually impossible for you because you're one of one. We're all one of one. We're all singular. There's a difference between the average and singularity. There's a difference between uh all these different things. And I I've written about this pretty extensively, but we don't fit into stuff. We're not supposed to fit into stuff. We're supposed to reframe it around who we are. So, if you're a leader and you're like leading in a business, one of the ways to think about your team is what am I good at? What am I naturally good at?

47:45 What do I bring to the table? What are the things that only I do? And then what what are the so what are my strengths? but also what are my weaknesses and how can I build a team around me who's strong where I'm weak. Well, not everyone's weak or strong in the same areas. So if you don't if you or I don't think of our lives that way then what we end up doing is maybe being hit or miss or more by default in terms of the situations we get into. We should look at whatever situation and circumstances and opportunities that we have and go man like not does this fit me that's a fine question to ask but how can I make life fit how can I make life fit me not how can I fit into life and that's how a lot of people think is well I have to fit into you know every job description that's ever been created and every like role that exists in society someone was the first person to do that so someone was the first person to do that and then we go well I should fit into that. No, that was just something that got created for them. And you have the same, you're a human being. You're one of one. You have the same potential and capacity within you to build something for yourself, but you've got to see that in yourself. That's been a huge lesson that I've learned in my life. Uh 15. Life is a collection of experiences. You can't accumulate great ones separate from bad ones. Good and bad both happen, but the ratio of good to bad is a matter of perspective. So, is your life 50/50? 50% good, 50% bad, 60% good, 40% bad, 80% good, 20% bad.

49:14 The the framing of your life matters more than the actual situation. I love how Ryan Holidayiday talked about this in the obstacle is the way. He said, you know, what we do is we look at situations and circumstances and we say this situation happened and it's good or bad. The situation happening is objective, right? That's just a matter of fact. Good or bad is a matter of subjective judgment. That's a subjective judgment that we're making. That's our perspective. So, I can't separate great great experiences separate from I can't accumulate great experiences separate from bad ones, but the ratio in the mix is up to me. Like, I maybe could live a life if I if I master myself well enough where 100% of my experiences are good. I don't know if that's really possible, but I I would rather bet on me making that happen based on my perspective than being a 50-50 type person. I don't want to be a realist. I don't want to be a pessimist. I want to be an idealist. I want to be positive. I want to live in that space. And I think the ratio of what's good or bad in our life is determined by how we choose to think.

50:17 Number 16, the implementation of something new requires the elimination of something old. Uh you you you you do uh addition by subtraction. And that's mo most often how life works. You don't get to start a new thing without ending an old thing. And when you end the old thing, sometimes there's a time gap. This is what I've experienced in my own life and am experiencing currently in this season is there's old things that end and new things that start and there's an in between period. The old things ending and the new things starting don't often happen in that sequential of an order. So the old things end and then you're kind of in a holding pattern and you wait and then the new thing starts to begin. And I'm starting to see that happen in my life right now where I'm starting to see some new things happen that I didn't know were going to happen that wouldn't have happened if the old thing would have ended. 17. Anywhere in your life where you do not see the future is already dead. If you want something to live, you have to see the future of it. So, uh I in the Bible, the Bible talks about without vision, people perish. That's what the book of Proverbs says. So if you want something to die, just don't see the future of it. A f a vision, a vision is the future that you see. So if I don't see a future in my marriage, I'm not going to have a marriage. If I don't see a future for myself physically, I'm going to be physically unhealthy. If I don't see a future for myself emotionally, I'm going to be emotionally unhealthy. I mean, there's all these different kind of aspects to that. But if I want something to live, if I want a relationship to live, if I want to live, if I want my kids to live, if I want things to be good, I've got to actually have a picture of the future.

51:56 I've got to have a vision of that. So, um, if I want it to live, I have to see the future. If I don't want it to live, it's already dead. Well, let's say it this way. If I don't see the future of something, it's already dead. Number 18, you should trust people more than you trust processes. trust processes for yourself personally, but at the same time, we've got to place our trust in people. We've got to place our trust in God. We've got to put our trust in people's character. Um, in work, this is especially true. I like to say that the only the only um the only people that can exist in a dummy proof system are dummies. At some point, you got to trust people to do their job. Some people at some point you got to trust people to be an adult. And uh we should spend more of our time thinking about the kind of people that we should trust rather than the processes that we build around us. Number 19, your responsibility is to do your best work. God's responsibility is to reward you. Don't don't work for rewards from anyone or expect them to value your work. It's in the book of Colossians. Do everything you do is under God. There's stuff that all of us do. There's stuff that all of us have done that has not been valued.

53:00 And honestly, some of the reasons why we're doing what we do is because we think a certain person or a situation or a circumstance is going to value that thing. This is back to us pouring out our cup versus having our cup filled. God's going to fill my cup. That's God's responsibility. And he's going to do it, but he's just not going to do it in sometimes the way that I think that he's going to do it or should do it. Frankly, uh if I you know, you're if you're working for God and not for men, sometimes you're working on a job where you're not valued by your employer. But I love how Zig Ziggler talked about this. The thing Zig Ziggler talked about is you're always working for a raise, even if even if it's not with the current people you currently work with. So treat yourself as if man, my responsibility, what I can control, these lessons kind of all build on top of each other. If I can control what I can control, all I can do is that. And that means my responsibility is to give my best. My responsibility is to live by core values. Even if nobody else doesn't, even if it's not valued, even if nobody cares, God's responsibility is going to be to reward me. And God really always does his job. Number 20, only in recognizing and accepting your reality can you transcend it. A lot of people, me included, uh we don't want to embrace objective reality. And so we end up ignoring it and wishing that it would just go away and thinking that if we ignore it for long enough, it's just going to go away. Like if you're in a tough if you're in a People do this with their health all the time, especially men, right? They just they have some kind of issue going on. They go, "Well, if I it's going to go away. It'll eventually go away." And then it's like days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years. You have a chronic issue that could have been solved if you'd have just gone to the doctor and had it addressed. Uh but you won't accept the reality of having a particular struggle in your life. um in your in in every aspect of our life, the things we've got, the thing we have to do, which is often the hardest thing for us, is to just embrace the reality of where we're currently at and the dynamic that we're currently in. Of course, we all want to I'll say it this way. Of course, we all want to make more money.

55:01 We want to become more successful. We wish that we had more than we have. But the reality is, you know, what God always talks about is stewardship. And the Bible says that to those who use well what the what they have, more will be given. And to those who don't use well what they have, it'll be taken away. One of the the biggest question that God asks us about our growth, our development, having more, whatever more looks like for us, is how well are we stewarding what we have right now? And for many of us, that's actually the biggest challenge that we have in life is we're not managing well what we have right now. And we're expecting to transcend that. So I expect to transcend my reality. I expect to have a different life. I expect to have an ideal, but I'm not doing my best right now with what I have. But the Bible talks about this concept of stewardship, which is all about how well you manage what you have right now. This is the problem of personal debt in the United States of America. Things like credit card debt.

55:54 It's me feeling entitled to a life I currently don't have the capacity to live and thinking that society should support that. The idea behind like a union, right, is that you should get paid more for the same amount of work. When really that's just no matter what, no matter how we slice it, that's just not how life works. So we have to embrace the reality that the work that we're doing only has a certain level of value. And if I embrace that reality, what I can do is I can do more work that adds more value. And guess what'll happen? I'll be more valued if I take the money that it's that's in my life right now. And instead of looking at it and going, I don't have enough and I should just go into debt. What I should do is I should manage well what I have right now. And then what's really crazy, what's so interesting, this is just how God designed the universe to work. If I manage well what I have right now, I will go beyond what I have right now and I'll have more in the future. And it's all about stewardship. But stewardship starts with me embracing the reality.

56:49 Stewardship starts with me looking at what I have and going, "What I have is enough and I'm going to do well with what I have and I'm going to trust God with the rest." Number 21. Average players want to be left alone so they can slide by. Great players seek out coaching. If you're getting coached hard, if you're getting directed hard, you're a great player if you love the coaching. If you want to be coached, if you want to be developed, if you u are the kind of person who says, "Thank you for correcting me and helping me be better," then you're going to be a winning player. uh average players, even low-level players, they never want to be coached. They don't want to hear feedback. They don't they they can't they can't navigate it. They can't deal with it. So, it's just better not to say anything. Um and there's a book called Primal Primal Leadership that's about emotional intelligence in the workplace. And one of the things they say is really interesting is that for most people, most people in leadership, the reason why they don't receive feedback well is because they don't believe that they can change. What that's called is a fixed mindset. They have a fixed mindset about themselves and they don't think that they can change. So when they get feedback, they take it personal. And the reason why a person would take feedback personal is because they think that the way that they are is their personality.

58:05 It's who they are. So, a person critiques you and corrects you or I'll I'll use my example in my own life. I'm not really good at responding to emails or responding to texts, right? Person could give me feedback on that and then my response could be, well, how dare you? That's just a part of who I am and I'm just never going to be good at that. That's how a lot of people approach feedback, right? Well, I think I can get better as a communicator and I want to get better. So if someone tells me that I can get better at that then yeah okay I want to have a growth mindset in that area of my life not a fixed mindset. The problem that most of us have is even if we're in leadership we have a fixed mindset about ourselves. So when we get criticism or feedback whatever you want to call it on our leadership we ostracize that feedback. We try to cut it off from us. We try to create a boundary there because it's like how dare you give me feedback. I'm not able to change any of that in myself. The the thing that's interesting is that the reason why most people don't give feedback, and this is at work, the reason why most people don't give feedback is because they don't believe the person wants to change. So, it's this weird dynamic of a person won't receive feedback because they don't believe they can change. But then a person won't give you feedback because they don't think you want to change.

59:16 Here's the thing. You can change whatever you want in your life based on what you want to change. If you want it to be different, you can make it different. you you can decide to do that whenever you decide that you want to do that. And um that's what a great player does. A great player knows I can learn this. Most most of life is about skills, not talent. I can learn the skills. I can learn how to do what it is that I do really well. And if I get the coaching, then I can develop it and I can become great. And that's what feedback is. Ken Bl Ken Blanchard said feedback is the breakfast of champions. I love the story about Jerry Rice. You know, Jerry Rice, the greatest wide receiver in the history of the NFL. He wasn't the fastest runner. He wasn't the tallest, but he was the best route runner in the history of the NFL. Well, route running for wide receivers is not a talent. It's a skill. It's something that he just worked on mastering his craft. Uh the craft of that. All greatness really, honestly, most of the greatness that you and I deeply respect is based in development and growth and coaching.

1:00:16 Look at people like Tom Brady who drafted in the sixth round. You guys know the story just as well as I do. What's the difference maker in the go the greatest of all time, the greatest quarterback of all time was just willing to take coaching and develop and grow. Number 22. You're never happy because of someone or something else. So it's not ever anyone else's fault why you and I aren't happy. Happiness is a controllable thing in my life based on how I choose to see what I choose to do and how I choose to live. Again, go back. You can act your way into a feeling or feel your way feel your way into an action. You can act your way into into happiness or you can just wait for happiness to show up in your life. You're never just talking to the person you're talking to. Number 23, you're talking to all the people that they will ever talk to. And that that is a massive weight to carry if you play any kind of leadership role in people's lives. You're going to talk to all the people that that that those people talk to. If you're a parent and you're raising your kids, your children, like I sit here and I can say a million things about what I've learned from my dad and I remember all throughout my life all the things that uh all the things that he's talked to me about. So there's 500 or so people that listen to this podcast every month.

1:01:30 So you're not hearing what I'm saying. You're hearing what my dad said to me when I was a kid. So my dad in talking to me growing up was talking to all the people that I'm going to talk to. I I travel around and speak and there's thousands of people in my life who hear me talk and what they hear is the lessons that I've learned from the people who've talked to me. So, you and I should be really careful about what we say to people because they're going to talk to people about what we said to them. I have a friend in my life who um grew up in the middle of nowhere in Texas and he has told this story many times in many different rooms, but I think his third grade teacher told him growing up that life is like a highway and he was like a speed bump and every and what that person said to him, he has talked to all the people that this guy has talked to. Now, he doesn't live his life according to that, but but you're always talking to all the people that someone else will ever talk to. Seowing seed is not the same as having a funeral. So what that what that's number 24. What that means is is that when we sew and when we're generous, we're not like lo that's not taking money or time.

1:02:37 If I'm generous with my time, if I'm generous with my talent, if I'm generous with my treasure, my money, for me to intentionally give it away is not me throwing it in the trash. It's me sewing a seed and knowing that there's going to be a harvest in the future. I've learned that throughout my life. And when you live a generous life, the the book of Proverbs says in Proverbs 11 in the message version, the world of the generous gets larger and larger. The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. So when I understand that sewing seed for me is not a funeral, it's a celebration because I know there's a harvest that's coming that there's going to be a multiplication of that [clears throat] seed. Number 25, never go to battle where there are no spoils. I say this as a person who is a professional arguer. I don't I think people think I like arguing with people and you know maybe I do maybe I'm just like a little bit sadistic in that way. Uh I do like playing devil's advocate though and I like thinking about all the angles of a situation. There's been so many times in my life where I've gone to war with somebody. I've fought about something and there's not even anything to win. There's nothing to win by winning the argument. There's nothing to win by proving your point. There's nothing to win by standing on the uh you know taking someone to court because it's just the principle of the issue.

1:03:55 Winning based on the principle of the issue doesn't really work in anywhere except your own life, right? You have to live your principles. You have to be the bigger person. But being the bigger person actually costs you more and there's nothing really to win sometimes by being the bigger person. So it's not about proving anything to somebody. It's not about making sure that they know that you won and they lost. It's about just going, hey, look, if there's something to win here, if there's spoils for this battle, we should go to war on it. If there's not spoils, if there's not something for me to win. If there's not some kind of positive outcome that can happen, I don't I actually don't need to fight the battle, right? Number 26. If most people aren't living living their dreams, why listen to their feedback? I listen to feedback mostly from coaches in my life, like people that I've hired to coach me. I don't listen to everybody's feedback. I I don't necessarily care all that much about what the average person has to say about what I do or how I live. Uh because I desire to live an above average life. And uh Epictetus talked about this. He said um there was a guy one time that was talking to him about how people did not approve of how he was living his life. And he says to the guy, he says, "Are these the same people that you're in the habit of calling lunatics?

1:05:06 Is that your is that your goal in life to win the admiration of people you call crazy?" So, like we look at the world, right? We look at like the average person in society. We're like, "Man, these people are idiots." I mean, everybody pretty much does that it seems like, right? And then we get upset whenever those people don't approve of what we're doing or what we're saying or how we're living our life. It's like, well, of course, of course these people aren't going to approve of us. Their lives are horrible. Like, of course, a person who has really horrible criteria for making decisions is not going to understand why I'm making the decisions I'm making. So instead of trying to uh apply what they're saying or being upset about them not approving of me, what I should just understand is that like I'm trying to live a life that I'm living my dreams and they're not. And so their feedback is coming from the place of a person who's not trying to live their dreams and I should probably be careful about how much stock I give to that level of feedback. Now if I get feedback from someone who's winning or successful or living their dreams, then I should probably consider that. But I should always consider the source. And if I wouldn't um if I don't want a person's life, I'm not really interested in uh what they have to say to me about stuff.

1:06:16 I can maybe learn something from it, but I'm not always interested in the feedback of people who uh I don't respect or look at their fruit. Right? Number 27. If you have to explain a behavior, it's probably a weakness. Most people when they explain their behavior, they explain here's why I did what I did. Here's why I'm doing what I'm doing. A lot of the reason, not every time, but a lot of the reason why we explain our behavior is because it's like the wrong behavior and it's bad behavior and we think if people understand it, then they'll be okay with it. And really, we should just change our behavior and have better behavior. Number 28, in the home stretch, last 11. In every situation, you're either making it better or making it worse. So ask yourself that question. How am I making this situation better or how am I making this situation worse? Number 29. Your next level is determined by how much you love correction. That's what coaching is all about. The reason why but here's here's what I decided I decided this in my 20s. The thing I decided in my 20s was that I am going to the Bible tells me the Bible tells us in the book of Proverbs that if you hate correction that you're stupid. And what I decided in my 20s that I was going to love correction especially from people who are leaders in my life. Now when I say correction that's what you have to understand. I'm not talking about feedback from everybody. What I'm talking about is correction from people who are coaches or leaders in my life.

1:07:35 That includes like a boss, right? Because most people when they coach you, they're not just trying to control you or hurt you or hurt your feelings. They're trying to help you go to your next level. When you get coaching, when you get correction, whether that's from I don't know how old people are that listen to this podcast, but if you're like a teenager and your parents correct you, they're not correcting you because they hate you. They're not correcting you because uh they want to ruin your life. They're correcting you because they want you to have a good life, right? This the whole point of correction. Like the other the other night I was at Charlie, our firstborn. She had her first volleyball practice and she's she's we'll see how coachable she is cuz her coach tells her, "Whenever you hit the ball, you need to go get the ball. You need to go chase after it." Well, I'm watching her. I'm just sitting there, you know, trying to let the coach coach and I'm an introverted person anyway. I don't really want to talk to anybody. So, I'm watching Charlie. She hits the ball. Her coach goes and gets it. She hits the ball. Her coach goes and gets it. So I go, "Hey, Charlie, come over here." She comes over to me. I say, "Charlie, did your coach tell you to go get the ball when you when you hit the ball?" She goes, "Yes." I said, "So you need to go get the ball." So she goes, "Okay." And she goes and gets the ball. Well, I don't know how many times we're going to have to have that conversation, but her ability as a volleyball player is not based on her ability. her her greatness, let's say, as a volleyball player will not be based on her ability to go get the ball, but her ability to be great as a volleyball player will be determined by how much she loves the correction.

1:09:03 So, if she starts to hate the fact that she's getting told to go chase after the ball, then we're going to have to deal with the fact that you don't want to be great at volleyball because you don't want coaching. That's the dynamic that most people miss in their life. They dislike the correction. They don't want to do it. and they get hung up on whether or not they like the correction. When the correction is really about you becoming great. So if you want to be great, you're going to love correction. Number 30, people are into talent. God is into character. God wants us to develop, and this is back to what I was talking about as we started this episode. God wants us to develop a philosophy of life. God wants us to live by virtue. God wants us to live a meaningful life. You know, God is not concerned, what a lot of people ask is, "What's God's will for my life? What am I supposed to do with my life?" And the way we think about that is some kind of like job role or position or some some some title that we can earn. God's not like God's will for your life, God's will for my life is not a certain job role or a title or a level of influence or amount of money. That's all stuff that we want for ourselves. What God's about is us becoming something. So God, I think in my reading of scripture, is not ever primarily concerned with what I'm doing. He's concerned with who I'm becoming. Talent is about what you're doing. Oh man, you look great. Oh man, you look amazing. Oh, look at how awesome you are. God is concerned about who you're becoming in the process of that. And when you understand that, I love what Socrates said. He said that money doesn't come from virtue, but from virtue comes every good thing, including money. Success is on the other side of character, nothing else. And that's what God's into is developing us into great people, people with integrity, people who live by values. And when we live that way, the success of our life takes care of itself. Number 31, if you understand the nature of people, you'll understand their actions. If you understand what a person's motivations are, you'll understand what they do.

1:10:55 Socrates said, "No man does wrong willingly." Um, I I believe that that most people in their life, the decisions that they're making are decisions that they think are good decisions. No one's intentionally going, "Hey, I'm going to go make a bad decision." They make decisions that they believe are good. Now, those decisions can be bad. And most the reason why those decisions are bad is because so many people have only short-term thinking. So, they think about comfortability. They think about happiness. They think about whether or not they feel like doing something. Like again, amateurs make decisions based on their feelings. And the reason why those decisions are bad is because you have to live life in the long term. So you can think to yourself, well, I feel like eating unhealthy today and I feel like eating unhealthy every day because as I teach my kids, there's a difference between mouth food and body food. Mouth food is food that's good for your mouth but not good for your body. Body food is food that's good for your body but isn't always good for your mouth. Thinking long term requires you to eat more body food than mouth food. But the nature of people says, "Hey, I just want to be happy. I just want to be comfortable. I just want to feel good." So most people end up making long-term bad decisions because of that. Right? If I understand a person's nature in being that way, which pretty much all of us are that way unless we've been trained differently, then I'm going to understand their actions and I'll understand what how they're going to live life. Number 32.

1:12:19 This leads us into number 32, which is if I expect people that do not share my values to be guided by them, I'm a fool. Expecting people who do not share your values to be guided by them is foolishness. I can I can I can say all day, here's what I value. Here's what I think. Here's all the things that I've learned. And really, all that's there to do is serve me and serve the people who want to be served by it. I can't look at society. I can't look at the world and really be all that critical because everybody's doing what they think is best. Their problem is the definition of good and bad. And thank God that I have a good definition of good. Thank God I have a good definition of bad. But I can't expect people to be guided by my views. I can't Marcus Aurelius wrote about this in the meditations. I can't expect people to be guided by what I value. What I need to do is understand that and not get upset about it. And hopefully God will give me the opportunity to help people be guided by a better value system. Number 33.

1:13:16 There's three things you'll always have in life. Pain, uncertainty, and hard things. And enjoying life means learning to love the process of dealing with them. Learning learning to deal learning to love the process of dealing with uncertainty, learning to love the process of dealing with hard things and even pain helps you to enjoy life. Now pain, I don't know if that's something we can really learn to love the process of of enjoying, but there's great lessons and there's there's great outcomes that come as a result of us seeing pain in the right way. That's a whole other lesson for another day. 34. There's a difference between the quality of decisions and the quality of outcomes. Make quality decisions and the outcomes take care of themselves. Make I learned that from a staff meeting with my brother-in-law, Klay Jones. He t he taught about that in a staff meeting a few years ago. It's one of the greatest lessons I've learned in my life is I can feel like there's so many times for all of us where we can feel like we're not getting quality outcomes. And so we have to change our decisions. It's not about that. What we have to look at is the quality of decisions that we're making.

1:14:19 making decisions according to our values. Making decisions according to our virtues, controlling what we can control in the way that seems best based on not how we feel, but what we know is true. And then let the outcomes take care of themselves. I wish I would have learned that a lot earlier. If you learn that right now, it'll change your life. Number 35, don't try to teach people who don't want to learn from you. There's a lot of people in your life, they're just going to see you as a friend. They're just going to see you as a son. They're just going to see you as a daughter. They're just going to see you as a co-orker. And there's a lot more that you are than that. But you don't get to decide how people perceive you. The way my dad says it is how people perceive you will determine what they receive from you. And it's up to them to determine how they perceive you. You can't change that. Only they can try to only they can change that. And there's a lot you can teach people. There's a lot you can help people with. But you can't teach people who don't want to learn from you. Number 36. God doesn't activate you. He redirects you.

1:15:18 Hard work is my responsibility. The direction of that work is God's responsibility. So what I have to determine to do is I'm already going to be a hard worker. What a lot of people say to themselves is, "Well, I'll work really hard once I'm in the right space. I'll work really hard once I'm in the right engine that's going to make me the amount of money. I'll work really hard once these criteria conditions are met." And what God does, what what history shows us, what scripture shows us is that God takes people who are already working hard anyway. And he helps them in their life get on the right track of what they're going to work on. He doesn't change their work ethic. So develop strong work ethic, develop the ability to work really hard and then watch what happens in the direction of the work that God takes you. Number 37, the only thing that God will never surrender to you is timing. These things again build on top of each other. I can determine how hard I work. I can determine what I work on. I can determine who I'm around. I can determine a lot of different factors, but I can't determine how long it takes.

1:16:19 I can't determine whether or not the time is going to come. But the Bible says time and chance happen to them all. So, back to the three feet of three feet of gold story. If in my life I know that the time is coming, what I have to make sure that I do is when the time comes, I just have to be ready. And the way I get ready is by working really hard. So the time is going to come. It might not be the timing that you think. It might not be when you think, but it's going to happen. And the only thing that that will prevent the right thing from happening in my life or in your life is when the time comes and we miss the opportunity because we just didn't work very hard. In 38, knowing something works doesn't equal knowing how it works. So there's like all these principles and I've talked about this and we'll continue to talk about this on this podcast. There's all these principles that govern the universe. God created the universe to be governed by these principles and um we don't understand them. I don't understand how the law of sewing and reaping works. I just I just know that that it works. I don't understand why character is so important. I don't I don't I don't understand how God can be so concerned with who I'm becoming and not what I'm doing and that work, but it just works. So, this is back to trust and understanding. God wants us to kind of understand. I don't know if he's that interested in our understanding. I don't know if God's like, "Okay, cool. You don't understand. I'll sit here and explain it to you again." I think God's just like, "Hey, man. You got to trust me, right? So, I don't have to know how something works in order for it to work in my life. I can just start to apply it to my life." I don't have to know how, you know, the Bible talks a lot about forgiveness and the importance of forgiving people that have wronged you, even if they never apologize. I don't understand how that works, but I know it works. And so I have a responsibility if I know something works to do it. Even if I don't fully understand it. That's a really hard lesson to learn. And then number 39, if you're not going to push the envelope, don't write the letter.

1:18:12 Just give give life everything you got. Give everything you got everything you got. Whatever it is in front of you, push the envelope, pedal to the metal, and let's go. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. That's why we're having these dialogues. I can't wait for uh I can't wait for next week. I can't wait for what we're going to talk about next. Thank you guys so much for being on this journey with us. I'm excited for this new season of What's Going to Happen. We'll see you next week. Thank you for being a part of The Dialog . If you liked it, make sure you subscribe and send it to a friend who you think might like it. If you'd like to know more about me, what I do, what I talk about, you can follow me on Instagram at Joshua Kcraft or go to my website, jkc.is.