Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 Okay, man. Good working. whatever you're doing is working. Yeah, dude. It's amazing what happens whenever you just go full monk mode cuz your family's gone. Consistency and discipline. Yeah, it's amazing what happens when you eat a lot of protein workout. Anyways, um dude, so I want to close the loop. We got to Yeah, we started talking about feedback a couple episodes ago. Yeah, but but specifically like I'm and I'm not going to I'm going to stay disciplined here, okay? And like I'm going to ask you to do the same thing. I make no guarantees. Okay, that's not promising, but we'll take it. Okay, so dude, you've been writing this book, man. And I'm going to give my summary version because that I'll stay focused for a few seconds here. Awesome. So like you were writing a book. You were very excited about it. I remember like the only episode that we ever did of this podcast that we said that'll never see the light of day was because of you were diving around this topic of what is truth at for part of your book. Like you wrote this massive book and because you have a literary agent who who's now tell I tell everybody what a literary agent does. Uh well, you know, basically what a literary agent does is they go and they present your they they work with you to put basically a book proposal together. So typically in the publishing world, you don't write the book first.

1:58 Oh, really? So yeah. So you have a platform, you have an audience, you have uh an idea, right? And you present that to you present that to literary agents or literary agents approach you depending on maybe your level of influence or your level of knowledge in a certain world. So like literary agents will go to professors at colleges and they'll go like hey we think you should write a book on this because you you of your level of influence or whatever. Then you put a book pro proposal together. You sell that proposal to a publisher and then the publisher helps you write the book. So you sell the proposal. Then the publisher then you write the book and then you work with the publisher to have it come out. Oh dude. So it's like making a movie. Like they want to know that it's going to sell first. Yeah. They want to know. They want to know what your audience is. They want to know what the idea is. You know, now, I mean, I'm sure you could say this as like a professional marketing.

2:51 This sounds right up my alley. Yeah. Now, a lot of marketing stuff with books that the market's so saturated that pretty much they're going to write you a book to sell to your existing audience. Yeah. I mean, it's it's good oldfashioned content marketing. Like, it's been going on for a long time. It works. Yeah. And so, I never I never really wanted to do any of that. I never thought I would. You know, I don't want to. I don't I've said this before on the podcast, but I don't really like marketing. And what I mean by I don't like marketing is not that I don't believe in feelings when you say that. It's still a lot of work. It's so much work and it's work I don't want to do, honestly. Yeah. I think I think you don't want to do inauthentic marketing. Well, I actually I like that. It's Well, not really. I mean, it's Yeah, it's and I don't want to be inauthentic, but also I don't want to sit down and go, okay, well, how do we make sure and tailor this message to this audience person who doesn't really like it's almost like, well, this person doesn't really care what you have to say, but you have to say it in a way that gets them to care about what you have to say because what you have to say can actually help them, right?

3:48 Which is very marketing conversation to have. Yeah, it is. So, I have ideas. The way I feel personally is I have ideas. I have a lot of thoughts. If you like them, great. if you don't go find someone else to listen to, right? But that's really immature actually. I think it's really um you know, I've said this on the first episode we did on feedback that I was talking to I think I said this if if I didn't. I was talking to McManus friend of mine and he's really well-known author, right? And he's published books that have sold, you know, millions of copies. So I'm in this I'll tell the story. I guess I'll come back and tell the story, but I'm making this point now. Some of this situation where people are like, "Well, we don't think this book is going to find an audience. It's a really great book. It's a good idea, but we don't think this book's going to find an audience." This is This happened to Erwin. This happened to me. So, I'm talking to him about it.

4:38 Yeah. So, I'm like, "Well, what would you do?" Like, "What have you done?" Cuz you've had maybe ideas that you really loved that, you know, they didn't feel like were going to sell. So, I said something that I go, "Well, I don't really care. I don't really care how many people buy it." Right? So, he's like, "Why would you say that?" He goes, "Why would you feel that way?" I go, "What do you mean?" He goes, "You know, number one, if you're trying to make a career out of this, you should really care about how many people buy it, right? Because that'll determine if you ever get another deal or if you make any money on the book." But the second thing is, do you think this can help people? I'm like, "Yeah, I think it help people." It's like, so why wouldn't you want this to help as many people as possible? Why would you Why would you go? I don't really care if anyone likes it or buys it. You want people to like it and buy it because you want it to help as many people as possible. So he said to me, he goes, "You have to think about," he goes, "You've done a great job thinking about what you want to say, which is really important, but what you don't think enough about is what people need to hear."

5:37 And it's very good. Um, and I wrote about this on on on my Substack, but the I've heard that feedback quite a bit over the past couple years where I was like, man, I really need to work on uh communicating in a way that actually works for people with where they're at and and what they need to hear. Because I mean, I said this on a on a couple podcasts lately, but you're always what you say is always at the mercy of a person's level of understanding. So, if I'm talking at like a level 10, you know, not that it's just super high level, but if I'm talking at a level that people can't understand, then what I'm saying doesn't actually help them at all. Yeah. Right. So, the average person, for instance, the average person reads at an eighth grade level. Yeah. And I can say, well, I'm going to write a book for uh, you know, a 12th grade level or I'm going to write a college level book. Well, the only people that are going to read that are at that level. You're not going to change the average reading level. like you're not you sitting down me sitting down and writing a book about all the things that I want to talk about isn't going to change whether or not anybody's interested in it, right?

6:38 But the ideas that I have and the ideas that people have can really move the needle and change the world if you package them correctly. And the problem for so many people, right, so many people with great ideas, so many people with great content, great things to say is not what they say, it's how it's packaged and put together. And I think I'm in a just an overall season of learning that because for a long time I haven't I I haven't cared and in my default state I don't really care. Yeah. Like I don't I I'm more concerned with truth. Right. I'm really interested in what's true and what's right and what's good. And if that doesn't resonate with you, I don't care because it's not, you know, for most people their their idea of success has something to do with influence or approval, right? Um, of like the masses. Like people get on social media and they post what they post because they're trying to get the highest level of engagement.

7:34 Look how many plays I got. I got and that there's there's a significant me measure of metric of success to that. people that you you think about um publicly owned companies, publicly traded companies, the whole idea behind that is we're going to maximize shareholder value. Right. Right. I guess in some ways that can be good, but in some ways that can be a very toxic way to live. Not only as it relates to actually adding value to people's lives and actually solving problems, but uh it can be toxic about yourself because you're not really focused on maximizing who you are or living a good life. What you're focused on is doing things that are popular, right? It can shift that way. Yeah. Yeah. Very easily. And so I've kind of run away from that to the point where I've lived my life saying no to things. Like I've lived my life saying not going to do this, I'm not going to do that because that gets me too close to maybe being a person like that. Right. Like when I wrote my first book, I had to get talked into it.

8:27 Yeah. By your dad. Yeah. Because I'm like, I don't want to be a book guy. I don't want to be some guy that's walking around with my book, pedalling my book to people, trying to get them to buy my book. Yeah. Right. cuz I've been annoyed at people like that, right? Like I've I've had so many people in my life who I'm like I have friends who write books and who create stuff and so but some of those friends the only time I hear from them is when they wrote a new book they want me to promote or they want to come be a part of my thing so I can so they can sell their book which by the way this episode is brought to you by The Way to Live by Josh Craft. Get it now on Amazon. Which to me is just really transactional. So I prefer not to have transactional relationships even if that's detrimental to me personally. Right. Like I remember the first time I went to u I was a youth pastor. I was in my early 20s. I'm like, man, I got to have friends. I got to have other youth pastors that I'm friends with, right? So I go to I go to like a youth conference and I don't understand the game at this point. There's a whole game that's attached to this. Okay? Right? So the game is that a lot of people I'm not saying this is the motivation behind why people go to church conferences but a lot of pastors and want to be pastors and want to be leaders in the church. They go to church conferences and they go to environments like church environments because of how much they want to be on a platform.

9:43 So they think I'm going to go to this room. I'm going to go to this conference. I'm going to go to this environment. I'm gonna get a bunch of people's numbers or I'm gonna become known there and then I'll find a way to get myself Oh, on a platform in that room. I'll find a way to become known and then I'll be able to best case scenario, I'll be able to accomplish what I feel called to do, right? Cuz I feel I've never heard someone say, for instance, hey, I feel called to speak to a room of 10 people. Right? I've heard a lot of people say, I feel called I feel called to speak to a room of 10,000 people. Right. Right. So, is that right or wrong? I don't know. It's just the way that it works. Well, I didn't know this is the way that it works. This is just how it works at networking events, by the way. Like, if you go to any kind of networking event Yeah. a lot of the ideas behind networking events are fine, but they're all transactional.

10:33 Matt, I hate I hate networking for that exact reason, dude. Yeah, it's transactional. It's promote my business. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. The church the church is not immune to that. Yeah. Right. It's human, right? There's Right. So, yeah. So, I go to my first youth conference and I'm like, I just want to have friends. I don't I don't I'm not I don't have any ambition to preach or to be like a guy like that. Um I also don't have anything that's an opportunity for someone like I had 50 people in in my youth group. Right. Right. So, I meet this one particular person. He's a he's a pretty high level youth pastor and I didn't know him before. So, I meet him before we exchange numbers. I'm like, "Oh, cool, man." I get home. I made a friend. So, he calls me like the next week. He's like, "Hey, man. I'd love to I'd love to schedule you to come out to speak to my youth at some point. This guy had a youth ministry of like 2,000 people. Right. Right. I'm like I didn't like we weren't posting videos of me speaking on YouTube.

11:27 Right. Right. So I'm like have you ever heard me speak? Like have you He's like no but I we could swap. So you come speak to my youth. I can come speak to your youth. Oh okay. And I go well you know I'd love to do that. And I said, I don't, you know, maybe sometime when you're in town, I don't have like money to, you know, pay you like an honorarium and I only have like 50 people in the youth. Yeah. So, you know, great. I'd be glad to have you, but I can't I can't pay for you to come in at all or anything like that. And he's like, "Oh, okay, cool." I said, "Well, I'd still, you know, if you still want me to come preach for you, like I', you know, I'd be open to talking about that." He's like, "Oh, no. Don't worry about it. It's okay." That was the last time I talked to that guy. No way. Yeah. I'm not saying every interaction goes that way, but that one just got stored deep in your like root your core memory bank. It's like so I haven't gone to like a church conference or anything like that in a really long time. I didn't know they did church outside of going to friends. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that outside of going to like friends conferences that I'm actually friends with because you go in the room and it's like so now I'll go to stuff and people be like, "Oh, what do you do?" I'm like, "I just help my dad." You know, I help my dad pastors a church. and and they're like, "How much does your church run?" Or, "What's it at?" I'm like, "I don't really know. I'm just there to help."

12:36 Is that the first question people ask is, "How big is it?" Yeah. How you guys doing? Usually they'll say, "How how you guys doing?" And what they're asking is, "How much you running? How many people you running?" So, if you were like, "Dude, the Holy Spirit is breaking out. We're seeing like lives transformed, making disciples." That's not a good answer. Yeah. Like, hey, we had, you know, we had 200 guys graduate from our mighty men path this last year. Whatever the number would be, it's only two only 200. Like, what are you guys doing wrong? For real? Yeah. I don't know. Okay. But it's it's it's all uh it's all uh uh you know like like a lot of leadership rooms. I'm trying to come up with a better word, but there's a word that starts with a D and then it goes with measuring contest, right? So a lot of it's like that. And dog measuring contest obviously. Measuring contest. Yeah. Um and so uh so I I didn't never want that. That's not really what I want. I want genuine authentic relationships. And so I don't just like don't hate the player, hate the game. I don't I don't dislike people that do that because you want to build what you're doing. I just have always been like I'm going to go as far away from that as possible.

13:37 I get that, man. So I've spent a lot of my time saying no to things and saying no to like people invite me to come speak at their church. I'm like no, I'm not going to do that. You know, people wanting to give me opportunities and me going, "Yeah, I don't want to be a guy who's it's" Which is So So I have questions I want to ask, but I'm not going to because I want to stay focused on what we're saying. So, I want to close the loop on the story that we started. I don't even know how long ago. So, you wrote this big book after having this literary agent. So, so this guy Yeah. So, this guy reaches out to me and Yeah. And he says, I still remember where I was whenever you used Have you ever thought about working with a publisher to publish your book? I'm like, I DM this guy back. I don't really look DMs. I look at DMs every once in a while. Um, but I'm not really super responsive. I'm not I'm not responsive in my personal life. I don't respond to emails or texts and all my friends know that. But anyway, I feel like I've got like maybe a 60 to 70% hit rate. Yeah. And it's not that the intention isn't there, by the way. It's not like that knows that.

14:31 So So I see this guy, he's like, "Would you ever think about going to a traditional publishing route cuz you self-published a book?" And I said, "No." And I sent him a long text, a long here's like eight reasons why I wouldn't do work with a publisher. I mean, he asked a very simple question and I gave him a very long answer back. And this is from like a well-known place, by the way. I didn't know who this person was. Yeah. I'm just I just want everybody to know this was not cuz like so here's the thing. Me, Garrett, and Josh have a have a text thread of homies and like we'll just text each other stuff and like I remember you put this to us and I was like dude this is awesome. And we were like very encouraging of you and then you're like oh this guy actually and once you start telling us I'm like Josh this is kind of a big deal like people dream of getting that DM. I wasn't. So, a lot of people what they do is they go around and they look for they they find they want to find an agent who can represent them because they want to get a publishing deal. Well, for me, again, the reason why I'm telling that story is cuz I don't I've never con spent time on that. I've never concerned myself with that. Self-published a book. It's, you know, my book is fine.

15:32 What a great review. I'm the best self-promoter in the world. Yeah, my my book is fine, dude. I'll step in for a second. It's a great book. The Way to Live is a great book, man. But, you know, it came out three years ago. It's probably sold a couple thousand copies in three years, which is, you know, I mean, that's cool. It hasn't made me a lot of money or made me very successful. And a publisher is not going to care about me selling 2,000 books. Yeah. But, dude, it was a great It was about a rep. You got a repetition. Yeah. I'm not saying that to be negative, you know? It's just incredibly negative. That's cool. Well, no. It's just more like I've I'm pursuing this truth thing and I feel like if if if God wants to bring the game to me, then God will bring the game to me. You got to be faithful in the process. Yeah. If I I'll I'm going to do whatever I can do to the best of my ability. And I don't want to ever be like a fake person or overly marketed to where it's it's I'm doing this for the wrong reasons because I feel like if God's going to open a door for me, he's going to open a door for me.

16:28 Yeah. You want to keep your heart right. I I get that, man. And I would rather make a mistake on that side than make a mistake on the side of ambition. Yeah, I I'm the same way behind it. So trying to figure out that balance can be really hard. But anyway, this guy, this guy reaches out to me and he goes, "Would you ever think about doing that?" I go, "No, here's the reasons why." He messages me back and he says, "Look, I'd really love to just have a it's a long text, but I he he messages me back to this short answer." He's like, "I just really love to have a conversation with you because I feel like the world needs your voice." And so what a great thing to hear. So, I look this guy up and I look up this this literary agency, right? His name's Rory Green. He works for a literary agency called Alive Literary. And Alive Literary Alive Literary is one of the largest or most successful literary agencies in the in the Christian quoteunquote Christian world. So, um they're Bob Goff's literary agent. They're all these New York Times bestselling agent people like they got a track record.

17:23 The Bible Recap, Ali Stucky, all that. They're Oh, they do. They do. Yeah. Who? Yeah. Whoever. Yeah. Yeah. Right. They they're working with a lot of big time people. I didn't know they were ter I think Bio Recap's great. Yeah. And so um I'm like, "Oh, this is So then like on their on their website, they don't even take submissions. So even if I wanted to work with them, they probably wouldn't work with you. Don't find us. Don't call us. We'll call you." Yeah. So they're they called you and you're like, "Get out of here." Yeah. They called me. They're like, "Hey, we want to work with you." I'm like, "I'm not interested." Yeah. Right. You got the wrong guy. So he's like, "I'd really love to have a conversation with you." I look it I go, you know, it's maybe worth having a conversation. But the first thing I say to him on the call is I'm like, man, why would you want me to I don't have any influence. I don't have like I mean, you shouldn't say you don't have any influence. You know, we have we have good influence in our community that we're in. We have a decent Instagram following. I mean, but that's it. I mean, I don't have like a big mailing list. I don't have, you know, like the guys that you see writing books are, I've got a million followers and I've got this really big platform. I'm not even the main guy at my own church.

18:27 Right. Right. So like I don't even decide when I speak at the church that I'm a part of. Right. So I I'm like even for me promoting a book in our church, it's not that my dad wouldn't be like all for that, but for me like promoting a book in our church would be like, "Hey, can we maybe figure out some time for me to speak a little more?" Right. Yeah. So, I'm not saying to be self-deprecating. It's just why would you Yeah. You're just tell me where your mindset's at. So, what do you say? Well, why would you want to? He's like, "Man, I just feel like watching your stuff and seeing what you do that you just have a lot to offer." And um we should work on a book together. Yeah. So, I go, "Okay." He's like, "Well, so the way it usually works, like I'm saying, is you sit down, you write a proposal, you sell the proposal, then you write the book." I just told him, I said, "I can't." And we talked about that a little bit a little bit ago about John Bevere. Like I just said, I can't really do that. I have to write the book first, right? So I, long story short, signed a deal with them.

19:20 He wanted to sign a long-term deal. I signed a one book deal. Dude, you didn't tell me that. I said, "We'll do one book." He wanted to do long term. And you're like, "No, he's like, "Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of books in you. I really We'd really love to represent you like really long term." And I said, "We'll just see how one book goes and see if we both like the process." You know, I'm very much about alignment. Well, I'm very much about alignment, man. And we're we're about alignment. Yeah. I I agree. And so me and me and Rory had a lot of great values conversations up front like what are your core values and what do you which like I I haven't really talked to him about that but I'm sure was like a little bit different than Dude, there's a lot of wisdom in that man cuz I think for so many people they would this and this this is like a little side nugget that I want to put in there because I think it's so perfect. I actually really love that you did that as much as I kind of slapped my forehead when you said you did a one book deal. But I hearing the reason why is so good, dude. The amount of people and I'm sure you could list off 20. We'd have to take your shoes off so you could count them all of people who got into a business deal with somebody because what a great opportunity in our church in circles we know.

20:18 Well, I had a I had a and some of that was me learning like even though I grew up in a church, my dad talks a lot about alignment. Yeah. And um I grew up in an environment where I heard that a lot. And we don't just talk about that in church, we talk about that in business that it's never about what you're doing, it's always about who you're with. 100. Yeah. And that sounds really great until someone comes along and they go, "Dude, look at the market capital. Like look at the opportunity. could happen here. Yeah, we could. And then so next thing you know, you're like, "Dude, I've got 10% equity and I'm going to do this." And then you're And then like you meet their business partner, you're like, "Dude, this is the most selfish, arrogant, but what are you thinking?" When I had in my 20s, yeah, in my 20s, I started a business with a guy and it went horrible. And we And what I mean by horrible, like we made money, but everything else was awful. And I thought I could just quit. Well, you can't quit. Yeah. When you own the company when you have a 50-50 partnership with a person, right? So, um, I had a I had a mutual friend of ours. Uh well, not really a friend now, but was a friend. Uh about 5 years ago, they wanted to start a a business, and they wanted us to be us to be 50/50 partners, me and them. And I said, "I don't know you that well. I know I they were they were a part of our tribe. They were with us, and they seemed like they were the real deal, right?"

21:28 Yeah. So, I said, "I don't know you that well, so I'm not going to do a partnership, but I'll do I'll take like 10% of the gross of whatever we do together." And um we we'll see about a partnership in the future once we've kind of been around each other. You wanted to date me first. Yeah. Yeah. So uh that person's no longer in my life. Doesn't really like me anymore and never paid me 10% of the gross of anything you did. Sounds like a solid plan. But the thing is I didn't have I didn't have a partnership. Well, thank God you didn't sign your name up to Yeah. with that person. Yeah. So So anyway, but that but that's real quick. really capture that because people get fixated on the on the upside and they completely ignore the principle about who you're with and the principle of alignment that the way I always say this. It's like going to Vegas and you end up marrying the stripper. Yeah. It's like no one thinks you know this can work. Candiy's great. No one thinks that's a good idea. I'm rescuing her, right? No. Yeah. Yeah. I swear she's going to change. Like no one no one thinks that. Like we're laughing but that's what you do because No, that's what people do. They're just they have dollar signs in their eyes or they think about, you know, in my in my situation, it's like, oh my gosh, this guy pursued me. There's all these green flags.

22:34 Yeah. It's the ego. Yeah. And this could be amazing, man. I could write New York Times bestsellers and turn this in. And of course, there's like that potential. Yeah. Uh but also there's there's potential for worst case scenarios, too. So, um, so anyway, I just went, look, I I'm open to all that and if our alignment is great, then hey, we'll do other stuff together, but I'm going to do I'll do one book and we'll take one book to a publisher. So, like a lot of authors, what they want to do is they want to sign multi-book deals. So, they'll sign a three-book deal. They'll write three books with a publisher and that's a really I'm like, we're going to do one at a time because we'll see how it goes. Yeah. Um, so anyway, I uh sign this deal and then I'm like, I got to write the book first. So I spent like eight months labored as as your friend. I saw you labor over there. I mean it was uh I signed the book deal a year ago. Yeah. I remember I was in England. I I didn't sign the book deal. I signed the I signed the rep deal a year ago and uh finished the book. I finished the book in January.

23:33 So it's like seven months. Seven months of pretty much non-stop writing. How many words was it? Just let everybody know that a good idea, man. Uh, I ended up with 70,000 words, which is like a 250 300page book, but the amount of words I took out. So, I have 70,000 words in like the main manuscript, but then I have 150,000 words that I add that were were in there that I edited out. Yeah. Homie wrote like a J.R. Tolken series for one book. So, I just spent, you know, it's like for me it's if there was one book I was going to write, this is the one book I would write. Yeah. Right. So, so Matt, I the reason we're telling the story, I kind of like this. This is like a new episode for us. It's like stories with lessons. The reason we're telling everybody all this is because we were trying to help you understand like this is like a dream for a lot of people. You pour your heart into this. Like cuz I I you and I would talk about it, not on on the podcast, but you would talk about how you were wrestling with it and you'd be like, "Man, I've just been like so deep in this." And we would text back and forth about it. I'm like, "Man, like you were laboring. You were literally pouring out your heart into this."

24:36 Yeah. And so um so I finished the so so think about all that and I know there's a lot that I just said but think about all that and think about the lesson I need to learn. Right. So at the same time throughout my life over the past couple years I've had really trusted people in my life tell me that I'm not presenting or communicating in a way that connects well with an audience. Right. Right. So that's been said in our church. That's been said in like the mighty men room that we're in. That's been said by people like Erin McManis who doesn't really see me speak a lot but knows me pretty well. Yeah. Um it's been said by my parents. On and on I could go. Trusted voices in my life. So I write this book and it's like everything I want to say. Yeah. It's everything that I feel like this is what God's put me on the earth to communicate. These are all the dots that God's called me to connect. Uh the way to live was like kindergarten compared to this book for me. Right? Because the way to live, the way the way to live, my first book, I would never tell people not to buy it.

25:38 But my first book was a series of talks that I gave in mighty men that was really about uh foundational Christianity and what it means to follow Jesus. I I do think it's like I remember when I read it, I was like, "Dude, where was this book when I first gave my life to Christ?" I really think it's a great read for this foundational approach to Christianity that's kind of rooted in stoic philosophy. Well, it's giving people the real. It's like you lay it out like I'll just ruin it for people and not ruin I mean you should get it but like you lay out the not a novel spoiler right? Yeah there's no there's no secret ending. Guess what? Jesus wins guys. Like we all know that one. No but but the uh but you lay out I think you do such a great job of laying out how the like you go through the 400 year period of silence that ends after the book of of Malachi. Between Malachi and and Matthew there's 400 years, right? 430 I think between the time that Jesus comes which not so coincidentally was the same amount of time from uh the Exodus right until they got taken out. God likes to work in he speaks in rhyme. And so you talk about what happens in that period that then influences the writing of the New Testament and the world that Jesus comes into and you talk about what it like how that influences the way we need to look at our decision to follow Christ. And I just thought you did it so well because you it is really like a hey count the cost understand the game you're playing book and it was so good.

26:50 Well and and understand the pract like I grew up in a version of Christianity it's not very practical. Oh yeah, like similar, you know, you mean you had similar kind of charismatic Pentecostal upbringings and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just things that don't need to be spiritual or overly spiritualized. There can be something wrong with it if it's immature. Yeah. Right. So um so anyway I wrote that book from that perspective or I did these talks and that became a book but I didn't really talk about everything I would want to talk about because the biggest question is there's basically three questions in that book that you know yes that you ask so that we ask in life that determine whether or not we live a meaningful life. One is what is truth? Yeah. Um the the second I haven't even thought about it. I haven't thought about this in a few months. That shows you where where my head space at. The first is The first is what is truth. One of my kids is coming in on this podcast right now.

27:45 Hi. In just a minute, we're going to be done. That's a good that's a good alert. That's like she's our producer. She's like, are you all done yet? Like get to the point. Uh what is truth? The second is uh who am I? Yeah. Right. And the third is what's the meaning of my life? So that that book is basically here's how we've tried to answer that question historically as human beings, philosophy, history, all that. But then also here's how God answer those answers those questions and how those how those things all tie together. So this is a book I was really excited to write. And when I wrote it, put it together, I feel like I just I spent so much time like really just trying to trying to focus on what these what the universal truth is behind these these questions, right? and um send it. I don't send the publisher. I don't send my agent the whole book. I send him the proposal and um Yeah, cuz you were talking to me about that. You had to put a pitch together for this book that you'd already, right? I already written the book and that's usually not how it goes, right?

28:46 But for me, that's how that's how it goes just based on how I write. And so I put this proposal together and that was in uh that would have been at the beginning maybe end of December, beginning of January. And then for from January, February, March, we're just going back and forth on talking about it. Right. Because I mean, he's a fan. He likes what I have to say. Feels like the world needs my voice. But he's like, "Man, you have to really think about whether or not this is what people need to hear right right now. Sounds like feedback you've had before." And he's like, "This is a book." So the the conversation basically landed on, you know, he and it was great, man. He's been really so helpful um that he went and had a bunch of different people review it. Oh wow. You know, supposedly We'll see, right? I mean, I don't know. Don't be so I don't want to Well, I don't He's like, "Bro, he The last time me and him sat out and met, he's like, "Dude, I'm just telling you everyone's asking about when Josh Craft's book's going to come out, which you're immediately going to be like I find that hard to believe based on my current audience, right? But anyway, I believe that." But he's like, "Dude, everyone's waiting for your book and all these publishers are really wanting to see it." I'm like, "Okay, you know, I don't I don't know how much that is him just play the positive what if monster.

30:01 What if that's true, bro?" So, I might be like I might get famous from being on your podcast. He shows this he show he shows this this proposal to multiple people and they all pretty much have the same feedback, which is um this is a these are great ideas. These are great things to talk about, but no one will buy it. Dang. And I'm like, well, why why wouldn't anyone buy it? He's like, this is the kind of book that you would write as like your fifth book, right? Like this is a book you would write once people trust your voice. Because in the Christian world, he's like in the Christian world, which is mostly what they sell through. They don't want to have these conversations, right? So, so the biggest problem for me in writing this book has been this is like our greatest issue. This what I'm talking about in this book is our greatest issue. The problem is most people don't realize it. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe.

30:55 And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com. Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.