Joshua Keith Craft

0:52 I think we're so aggressive on greatness and striving for things and what we're becoming and discipline and all that stuff that um you can create a you can create an environment really easily where nothing's ever good enough for anybody including yourself. Yeah. Like I think like like right now in my life, right, like personally I'm more I'm more balanced than I've ever been like in my approach to life. I've always been great at being extreme, but I'm more balanced than I've ever been in my approach to life. Um, what do you mean by balanced? Like, okay, so use physically as an example. Like, I don't I'm not insane. So, I'm not like eating crazy. I'm not like eating so horrible and not working out, not doing anything, but I'm also not on this other extreme of like ready getting ready for a 50-miler, you know? Oh, it's very random. I'm just saying I'm not on this other extreme of like, okay, I'm in the gym five hours a five times a week for an hour a day and I'm like non-stop. I'm like living in this world of like, okay, you know, training for a couple times a week, which for me actually in my life and in my experience is like a really big win.

2:00 Oh, yeah. Cuz this would be the first time in my life as an adult where I'm like, I feel good about where I'm at. Yeah. You know, and when you're in an environment that like that really pursues when you're surrounded by people that are really pursuing greatness, you can really I don't think feel pressure. I don't I'm not a person who really feels pressure, but you can look at what someone else is doing and what you're doing and go, well, I'm not doing anything like very well. Yeah. Comparison is the thief of joy. It's also the thief of destiny, right? But I think everyone has like self-talk . Everyone has really deep selft and uh all the self-talk is different like people you know you believe that I I really believe that my self-talk like the way I talk to myself is also the way everyone else talks to themselves which is of course not true it's not true at all your best friend self-talk is probably very different to yours yeah I mean but even in the even in the negative sense right the negative sense like the negative aspect of self-talk I think everyone else has that same kind of you know negative inner dude, but it's not the same, right?

3:04 So, it's not the same. It's not the same inner voice. So, it's really interesting to me navigating a group like groups of people because nobody in that room has the same starting point for anything that you say, right? No one no one in that room has the same not only do they not have the same perspective, they have completely different context for even hearing what's said. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean everybody's it's what you hear goes through a filter and then arrives into your brain and you've given it a meaning whether you know whether that was what was intended by the speaker or not. What so what you're saying about being in rooms of greatness how you feel like there's kind of you have balance for balance. Do you feel like it's like content but not satisfied or how would you cuz like I I do go to the gym five times a week and I and I actually feel great about the way I'm I'm at right now. Yeah. Um, and you know, I know that you randomly chose the 50-miler as a as a as a thing where you said you're not doing, even though we would love it if you would join us. Um, and so like I'm and I'm not criticizing what you're what you're saying. I'm just trying to understand.

4:05 No, you're probably like objectively doing better than me in that area of your life in fitness probably. Well, yeah. Yeah, I would say so. And that's not that's not a knock. But like but there's but for me, I kind of go there's a purpose to things because there's other people who are doing way better than me, quote unquote. But I I look at some guys who are just like jacked to the nines and there's no part of me that goes like, "Man, it'd be nice to do that." But I'm just kind of like, "Bro, what are you doing?" So like, and I don't really know how to quantify that. I'm not like critical or like negative towards them, but I I don't like that just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. Like cuz I'm like you you you having to put a lot of work. There's no way that you look like that without making it a massive priority. And like I want to be fit. Health is a big- time part of my life, of course, but it's not it's not it's like number seven on my priority list of eight. Yeah. One of the things that I I don't think people see this I see this a lot in my life is we're always navigating tensions between two competing things that seem to both be true at the same time, right? Okay.

5:04 So, like God has a plan and you also get to make decisions every day. Yeah. Love it. So, like do you have free will or not? Because if God has a plan, then well, okay, you get to participate in that plan. But what if you don't? Because then also the Bible says uh the Bible talks about how God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Yeah. And and in the New Testament, Paul talks about how uh how we shouldn't question God doing that in people, right? Lump of clay can't save the potter. Why you like this? So you shouldn't look at So God uses people the way he wants to use them. But then it do I so then do I really have free will and like responsibility for my life? That's just one of them. I think there's like living life, you're always navigating these key tension points. And I think I've said this before, but Søren Kierkegaard said life's not a problem to be solved. It's a reality to to be experienced.

5:56 Yeah. To experience reality. You're navigating the tension between things all the time. So you're navigating the tension between God having a plan and you you uh having free will or not. You're navigating the tension between society's expectations for you and your or not even society, people's expectations for you and your expectations for you and those sometimes not being the same thing. You're navigating the tension. So, one of my I've been wrestling with this and thinking about this a lot recently is one of the one of the beliefs that I have is your life is meaningful to the people in your life. Right? So the way you know that you have a meaningful life is because of what your life means to the people that you're in your that are in your life. The only problem with that thought process is you don't get to decide what you mean to me. I say it's just complete uncontrollable. Yeah. So you could say to, you know, you could say to your brother or your sister or your spouse, here's what my life means to you. And they're like, no, it doesn't mean that to me.

6:54 Yeah. So how do you how do you wrestle with the tension of meaning in that in your life when you have this intention like I have this intention for my life to mean this and then people in my life have decided that it doesn't mean that what does my life actually mean and is it really up to me or is it up to them or is it somehow then that's not even factoring in is it somehow up to God in all of this stuff. How does this how does this play out? So what you know for me that's not analysis paralysis. I don't sit there and analyze my life like that. Um, but it is a it is an interesting I think so many people you asked me before we started recording this, what am I certain about? I don't really know what I'm certain about to be honest. I'm not really certain about a whole lot of stuff, right? I think there's so many people. It's one of the things I respect about all these so many different people is that they're so certain about everything. I'm not certain about anything.

7:46 Yeah. I I I I really don't have any right answers for anybody. I debated this, which is why you should listen to this podcast. I was I was talking this through with some of my friends recently. Uh, by the way, I still hope you come to that at some point, but I think you genuinely would enjoy it because it's not low-level conversation. Me, too. I'm not I'm not avoiding it. I know, bro. I know you well enough to know you're not avoiding it. Um, but the but I I we were going around about this because I actually had a long conversation about certainty with Dr. Robbie and obviously Dr. Robbiey's a man we both love and respect. He's brilliant. He's worked with millions of people around the world in traumatic situations. He's like battle tested psychology. So it's not he's not a dude who's like I took a you know I got this doctorate from school and I've never used it. I'm saying that for people who don't know who he is who are listening to this and we were talking about Yeah. I mean it's funny that we even have to qualify that right. People are so anti-academia and anti-learning now that if you if you're a doctor no we're not going to listen to you even though you've given your life to learn this stuff. Yeah, you say that, but think about what COVID was. The the science told us all sorts of stuff. And so what they did is they absolutely took like the two things that died in COVID were the credibility of science and the credibility of journalists.

8:55 Yeah, but that shows you the to me with all due respect, it shows the foolishness of people that I would rather not listen to an expert. I would rather do my own research which consists of looking at the internet. Bro, ChatGPT is literally like I asked Ch who I am. Now I know. In a world where you can't trust experts, you can't trust anybody. Then if I can't trust like if I people like a doctor, right? I want to get back to what you're saying. A doctor gives their life like this is the conversation I've had so much since COVID with people, right? I've never met so someone can say, "Well, doctors are on the take and follow the money." I'm not a biologist. I'm not a doctor. There's all kinds of stuff people should go listen to that are in the world of conspiracy. That's not what this podcast is. But here's my thing. I I I I am in a profession, okay, where people assign motive to me all the time.

9:49 So, I'm a pastor. I help lead a church and it's a mega church. Yeah. So, what do people Oh, that guy is doing it for the money. Oh, yeah. That guy's doing it cuz he wants to take advantage of people. I know how it feels to be on the other side of someone telling me what my motive was for doing what I'm doing. And there are way and for me personally, there's way better ways to make money than leading a church. Yeah. Okay. You can't People are going to believe that. People aren't going to believe that. Whatever. That's back to like intention. You're giving people a lot of credit for how far through they've thought some of these accusations. No, they haven't. That's what I'm saying. They they haven't thought any of this through. So then they look at a doctor who prescribes medicine. And every doctor that I know, including veterinarians, okay, they get into this stuff because they want to help people. That's the and then somehow we go, "Oh, no. All these people have a bad agenda."

10:42 Then people go, "Oh, no. It's not that bad agenda. It's the pharmaceutical companies and it's the insurance companies." And so we just we just build these layers of evil agenda that are just being perpetuated on society. Okay, I get that. It's such a nihilistic approach to life, though. Yeah. Because you you end up going, "Well, who do we trust?" Nobody. Let me let me sh We're going I want to go back to Dr. And we will, but I want to share this because that really that really does stick like in my craw with you. Yeah, I can tell. But but dude, you know, you know, want to know what selfish people see everywhere? Selfishness, right? And so what's what's really easy to believe is is not like I mean if cuz you can I always say to people I'm like you can't get 12 people to agree on pizza toppings. How do you think they got this? You can't get you can't get 12 dentists to agree on Trident Gum. But yeah, exactly. And everybody knows it's you know the spearmint. 11 out of 12.

11:32 Yeah. 11 out of 12. Hey, not bad. But but uh but but what you what's very easy to believe like people see other people through a lens that they see themselves. So they go like well I'm selfish so I'm sure these people are and I do think that one of the most valuable things that came from getting my college degree. I'm not a proponent of higher education. Um and that's a whole another conversation even though I have a degree. I'm a proponent of it in certain cases but not like the way that our parents grew up where it was like jobs for life. Get your degree and then that puts you on the path. That's been dead for a long time. Yeah. Um, but what I will say that the best thing I learned in college was how to check your sources because you had to do APA certified papers. You remember doing those? And so like you can't just go to Wikipedia and be like, "Oh yeah, like yeah, you weren't allowed to use Wikipedia, right?" Well, yeah. Exactly right. Cuz you had to you had to check like it had to be a critical source. Okay. What does that do? It makes you really good at going like is this is this a reliable source? What was their motivation? And so I think that there's a level of that that I think that that's really healthy to do. People take like a twisted version of that and they just go like, "Oh man, I know this guy. He came out with this report that said that we should all smoke and then you find out that Philip Morris were funding his studies." And so we've all heard that story, right? And and think about it. I know how selfish I am. If somebody came along and gave me a billion dollars and said like, "You need to tell them to do this." Well, I would take it. And I'm not speaking truthfully here. I'm just saying that's how people how people think. They're like, "Well, of course they're going to take the money." And so it's very easy to believe that. And so they they'll put their faith in that because they know how they are.

13:00 I think the problem is it's like you're saying people don't and I and on one hand I respect all this side that's like we don't trust doctors whatever because it is an attempt to think critically. Okay. It's an attempt at um they just don't apply it universally. Well because Jim bro on what was really happening. So people live their lives right and it's easier and this is kind of the topic I guess that we're hitting today is life is really about nuance and gray area more than it is black and white but but we're trying to build a world all the time that's black and white. We want certainty. We're trying to build a binary world. So we're so so in the world we're in the Christian world you you're not allowed to be a Democrat anymore and call yourself a Christian. Right. Right. It's just not allowed anymore because of the position. So we don't factor in the humanity like the conflicting nature of humanity into that. We just go well it's binary.

13:52 You're evil or good. That's not really the way that life works. So the problem that people have with academia, right, is more of the problem they have with people that are theoretical. So a person who is in an engineering department, right, a person who goes and gets a degree in engineering, gets their masters in engineer becomes an engineer. The whole idea behind engineering is you have to test your ideas in the real world, right? So you can have all these philosophies and theories on how to build a bridge, but then you got to go actually build a bridge and some of the things you think are actually dumb as it relates to testing the theory in the real world. Yeah. Right. There's there's all these like science scientific disciplines stuff like that. You h you have to step outside of the world of theory and experiment right in in nature. you have to. And so then these people in those worlds are people who um don't say a bunch of stupid stuff because the world uh the the world I mean in terms of like the natural world rejects like the laws of physics will reject whatever some engineer thinks like we should build an upside down bridge bridge and the cars will drive on it upside down. That's just not possible. It's not how reality works.

15:05 Right. Right. But then you people that live in the world of philosophy or people that live in the world of purely theoretical things like when you talk about something like gender studies this is what people have a problem with. Right. So people go and they they study gender and it's completely antithetical to a million years of biology. Yeah. Right. Or a billion years or however long you've been on the planet. It's completely antithetical to everything that reality holds up to. And so people come and they bring all their ridiculous theories and they think, well, reality should just bend to my will. Which I understand that's the problem that people are that's really the problem I think that people are getting at is that there's all these theories that don't work in the real world. Right. Right. So we're going to question So we should do that. Yeah. We should question theories that that don't work in the real world. But then uh we we get to this place where we want to oversimplify and we start questioning everything even things that are reality right so we start questioning the moon landing so why you know why why people go well we didn't land on the moon right America didn't land on the moon all that why if if we were going to fake it I understand faking it one time but we went to the moon six times why would we fake the moon landing six different times wouldn't one time like if we were going to fake something. Yeah, we did it to beat Russia. Great.

16:27 Yeah. Wouldn't one time be enough? Yeah, right. No, we went six different times. We flew around the moon like nine times, right? So, if we were going to Why would we invest Why would the American government invest so much in doing that that many times, right? This is when it goes, "Oh, it just doesn't make Now I go, well, now we're going to question everything and it doesn't make sense, you know?" So, people do that with medicine. Yeah. But I don't think people have that full picture, though. Of course they don't. You know, they're just looking at the 1969. That's exactly what my problem is. So, you go you live your life and you want to question everything, but you don't you it's not oh, I don't I don't um I don't I people go I do the research. I'm not I'm not saying go and do the research. I'm just saying um I'm not that person. I don't Here's what I believe. I think that there's some people on the earth that are subject matter experts in their field, right?

17:18 Okay. These people give their lives to the to develop a level of expertise in that world and you haven't. So if you haven't, don't think that you can set yourself up as an expert now. Right? It's like thing about parenting. I've been parenting kids for eight years, right? My oldest is 8 years old. I'm not a parenting expert. I have a lot of ideas about parenting. I have a lot of approaches to to parenting. The fruit of my parenting is really what matters. And we're not gonna see the fruit of my parenting for another 10 years. Well, but it's in progress. I can meet your daughter and be like, "Oh, Charlie's sweet." Yeah. But but it's it's in progress, too, based on who I'm learning from, right? So, I am I spend my life learning from subject matter experts, not just in the area of of parenting, but in the area of living. So if you if you if you extend that into this world of the you know this world of questioning everything and this world of conspiracy what it what it what I think it becomes that bothers me this is what bothers me about it is it becomes question everything listen to nobody right and a bunch of ignorant people are running around perpetuating ignorance because none of them happen to be experts as well and none of them like Jesus said you'll know them by their fruit right? None of these people have any fruit.

18:42 And so then we go, well, we should instead of going, we should find people that have fruit and listen to what they say. We just go, we're not going to listen to anybody, which um I I think is maybe too much of a blanket statement for some people because there's always going to be the what about people. What about this? What about like you're talking about COVID um I think that navigating stuff like that, this it's dilemmas. It's like life is filled with ethical dilemmas and it's filled with a lot of uncertainty. Yeah. And um I think we should do I mean for me I'm a I try to think and I try to think critically but also there does come a time where you got to trust something. Yeah. You got to trust God. You got to trust your doctor. You got to trust an expert. Whatever. I mean, Steve Jobs, who I've I've always loved Steve Jobs and um when I was in middle school and people were doing presentations on Michael Jordan stuff, I did presentations on Steve Jobs and Apple. Yeah. So, I've always like had this fascination with Steve Jobs and he was diagnosed with a a relatively curable form of pancreatic cancer.

19:50 Didn't listen to anything the doctor said, ate a fruit only diet and died because of that. No way. Yeah. I mean, that's like heard this before. It's like a short version of how he died was he he didn't want to listen to what any of the doctors were going to say different around him. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely think different. It didn't work out that time. Yeah. So there's So we can go back to the Dr. Robbie thing. I know this is like maybe a little bit of a detour. Took a massive detour. Yeah. It's just generally for me you have to listen to somebody, man. Like you gota you you can't Yeah. You can't Life is you think even of our of our like physical bodies. Our physical bodies have similarities, but they're all uniquely different in in their chemistry and how they're made up. So even with medicine or whatever, what works for one person maybe won't even Yeah. work for another person. Like that's why they have such a tough time treating cancer, right? Because cancer is a highly individualized disease. It's your own unique body chemistry fighting against itself.

20:49 And so they can't just go here, take a pill, and that'll end cancer. They have to really dial in everything that's unique to your unique to your DNA. And I think you have to figure that out in life. And life does not present us with easy answers. Do you So I heard something. It's interesting you talking about there's a lot to what you just said, but like the thing that stuck out Patrick someone quoted Patrick Bet-David to me recently and said, "Your life is a reflection of the voices you choose to listen to." which is a really interesting thought process because people have voices in their head all the time, right? They have voices that are accusatory voices from when they were younger. They have, you know, Instagram influencers or the news or whatever. And like it really is like I think about it like this. You talked about how we saw people's theories come into clash reality. In the last few years, we've seen a man legally beat a woman up in a boxing ring at the Olympics. Like, think about how wild that is.

21:45 Yeah. that it made it to the Olympics that that like the ideal of hey transgenderism and all that sort of stuff like got so far as where it's like all right well you know from a place of political correctness they didn't want to do the obvious check to find out you know I can't even remember the the athletes name but you know what I'm talking about and it's just I I sit there and I like I go man I can't believe we got that far. Well dude you can have theories about anything. Yeah, but dude c I mean Yeah, but you know what I mean that's so extreme. Yeah, but that's but to me that's uh that's that's not a world I want to live in. And what I'm saying by that is I don't want to be a person who has all these really has all these theories. Yeah. And I live my life according to them and then I just get freaking mollywalloped by life which is what people experience.

22:39 So you throw out all this stuff. You throw out all the ex. So you go you become an anti-science person. Yeah. Right. You become a person who's anti- good thinking ultimately. So you go okay. So America for instance, right? America. America for instance to me is built on compromise. Well, no matter what people say, what people believe, America is not built on one man's idea and one person's thought. It was if you read about the the Continental Congress, right? These people had crazy disagreements in the room and they were able to formulate the great experiment of America because they were willing to wrestle with what they disagreed with and it wasn't monolithic thought, right? They actually set it up based on people having they they just assumed people would disagree for all the time and said, "Great, we're going to make it so it works." And so now we're trying to create a world where uh if you disagree with me, you're evil, right?

23:31 And you're a bad guy. Yeah. Yeah. And if I disagree with that, I'm morally superior. So, you know, whatever. There's science behind and all that stuff. But, but it's now become so hyper something else. It's not even about the conversation is not even about science. It's about being a sheep and being submitted to the government and how you know people shouldn't do that and all it's it's become all these other things that that's not even the intention right behind all of this stuff. And I think what's interesting I don't just want to talk about COVID but I think what's interesting so so people this is this is the unique situation that I'm describing that hopefully makes sense because it makes sense in my mind is Dr. Fauci was Trump's guy, right?

24:21 Okay. So, we and Trump pushed the vaccine and then people go, "Oh, no, he didn't really understand what it was about." So, so we we live in a the dissonance the dissonance of that to me. Yeah. Republicans are against how much trust how much trust people place in a person like Donald Trump, good, bad, indifferent, whatever. What happened during COVID started with that administration, right? the the fasttracking of the vaccine, all this stuff. We can't go, well, you know, I'm sure there's someone who's like, "No, you can blame Joe Biden for that, and here's how." Right. Right. So, we want to we want to live in this we want to live in this world that doesn't actually exist of of uh the good guys, they always make the right call. Yeah. But Josh, because you know what? You know what? You know what happens whenever there's good guys that I know are out there doing the right thing all the time? I feel so good, bro. And that's really what I want. I most people think about people's reaction to pain.

25:15 Most people don't want to learn a lesson from pain. They don't want to face pain. They just want pain to go away. What is more painful than for most people than uncertainty? Oh man. Now you're talking about people's like deep fear. So it's great to construct a narrative. Like our brains are built to construct narratives. It's kind of wild when you get into like how your brain works. It is built to construct a narrative that's talking to you all the time. like our internal representation of what's going on outside is really the world in our heads and we all have one and like but there's also these deep human needs and certainty is one of the biggest ones. Well, I think yeah I think what I'm learning is you don't really know the right answer, man. I mean, the truth is like like you're saying, I mean, the the goal for all this, and if you know, if you're still listening and you disagree with everything I've said, I celebrate you. But the only guy I know who wants people to disagree with, but the goal for all of this is this desire to be certain, right?

26:11 So, this desire to be certain that we're on the right side of history, this desire to be certain that the way of life in America that we're accustomed to is going to continue. like we've been we talked about comfortability before that I'm going to you know my rights are going to be preserved and really um there's no there's no guarantee and and it's it's a scary thing to live your life with that knowledge. I think it's a scary thing to live your life going well there's no certainty and I and I don't mean becoming a nihilist of a person who's like well it's just not all going to work out and it's all going to be awful. Um, but why would God put put in us a desire for certainty and then put us in a world that's so uncertain all the time? Well, because it shows our need for him. I I think it ultimately drives us back to our need for him to understand that like we're not the ones that I mean, man's sin is that he's trying to put himself on the throne and give himself certainty and God's desire is that we live with uncertainty, but in what's going to happen, but absolute certainty in who he is. I I look at this, so going back to finishing up with what Dr.

27:13 Robbie said he very much approached this from a psychological perspective which is like you always have to stay flexible flexible in your beliefs and so like flexibility is like is the best thing you could have from a standpoint of psychology because and it because it requires humility which then makes you which makes you very flexible so that you don't get like locked into certain situations. Now I'm I'm not doing it justice the long conversation that we had. Then go listen to the podcast. Well, no conversation I just had. Yeah, it's a conversation I just had with him because like when Dr. Robbie comes in town, I always hang out with him. I love Dr. Robbie. Um, and you know, for me, I sit there and I think about a guy like Garrett and I think about other people who I've who I've looked at who have changed the world and they were so driven by belief. That's why I was asking you, what are you certain about? Because I've seen that people with strong belief, they're almost certain to a point of delusion. But like those people also changed the world because like I made the joke about think different with Steve Jobs and like I wasn't trying to be dishonoring to him because I think Steve Jobs is amazing but like that that the the think different philosophy got him so far and literally changed the course of human history but then when applied to his health because he lacked whatever I mean I'm not I have not done a deep dive to really be able to say what he was lacking but obviously what he placed his bet on was wrong. But you got to take a risk. You got to take a bet, right? Like and and that requires belief. I think certainty is something you get looking back, not looking forward.

28:37 I think looking forward, you have faith. You have belief. But I think whenever you've been around some of these same mountains a few times, that belief becomes rock hard and starts to sound like certainty going forward. And that's where you can get people being like, "No, we will do this." Because I think about guys like Sir Edmund Hillary, uh, Sir Rogerster, Sir Roger Bannister. They're all English guys for whatever reason. But these guys who did things that they said were not possible. Roger Bannister, it's impossible to break the 4-minute mile. Literally, the human the human body can't bear it. You can't get at oxygen at 29,000 ft for Everest. Guess what, man? These guys did it. Yeah. And I I'm so taken with that thought process. That's why I asked you, what are you certain about? Because it's like I I like I as much as I love Dr. Robbie, I respect him and I probably misunderstood him because I don't ever like I just I hold him in such high regard that I'm not doing him justice. But I've kind of I've been wrestling with that thought process of do you need to stay flexible and say like oh I don't know or are there some things that you're like you know I'm willing to die for this and like I believe it's so certain in my bones and I'm I'm very much leaning towards the not even leaning I'm very much in the latter camp. There's things I'm certain of and I'm like this is the way it is because for me I I don't see how you move with conviction on anything without that, you know, like and I want to be a person of conviction. Like I want to be uh I look at how Jesus lived his life and the things he knew but through through the spirit through wisdom and I'm like that's the template that we're following. I mean I think it's Isaiah 11. It talks about he's, you know, the spirit of wisdom and knowledge and understanding will be on him. And like I'm misquoting it, but you know, it talks about all these things that are like hallmarks of the Holy Spirit that that Jesus would demonstrate for us perfectly. And I'm like, man, like that's what we're called to be. And it it it stirs me.

30:15 I'm Yeah. I I want that. I want to I mean, what I'm certain about I'm certain about the search of stuff, right? I'm certain about the pursuit. I'm not certain about any really anything else. Right. You know, one of the one of the things I believe is I believe is that the truth always stands up to questioning. Right. So the truth can handle questions. Yeah, I agree. And I'm in the I'm in a bad environment whenever I'm asking questions and the answer is don't ask questions. Just do it. Just do it. We just do what you're being told to do. This is just how it works. Anyone who's like that, I do not trust them and I don't think that they're being truthful. You were not made for the military. No, not at all. I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not really made for like leadership environments. Dude, you gotta stop saying stuff like that, man. No, but I mean, I'm not I'm a person who's like, "Prove to me why this is the direction we should go." And and not prove to me, but how is this truthful?

31:14 How is this how is how do we know that not not how do we know the direction that we're going to go is the right one? How do we know that the what's true north on the compass is like actually supposed to be true north? But but do you not like I know you believe in principles though, man. This is where I'm struggling to like the thing about principles is principles are things that are always right, always good, and always true, right? And you can question principles all day, but they just work. So a principle or person who believes principles they can always endure any any any questioning that they experience because there's a deeper level of what those things are that they can always answer the question and I think most people they want to have certainty but not certainty in that way. So so life to me is like a a pursuit of principles and a pursuit of truth. I don't know if you ever you know really get there. You know, I have these core values and we've talked about core values. I don't know if I have the perfect definition of what, say, generosity is or what excellence is. I I I'm trying to I'm always adjusting and I'm always thinking about, okay, is this the most truthful definition of this for me? And am I really living out the ideal expression of whatever this principle is? Because I think it's one thing to be like have a con to have a conviction It's based in a principle in terms of what guides you. It's another thing to perfectly act in accordance with that.

32:44 Yeah. So people have, you know, I want to have certain convictions, but what I also have to know and really admit to myself is the uncertainty of my actions every day, right? Cuz there's just going to be days where I don't actually value that through my actions, right? And everybody, and that's true for everybody. It's true for every human being. I think what you described as your Kierkegaard quote that you love so much is that it's not a problem to be solved but but an experience to be a reality. Yeah. Reality to be experienced. I think so this is how I see this. Um and we've gone once again nowhere where we thought we had to maybe we'll cover the question we actually asked each other that we haven't even said on the next podcast. But like I I I honestly just like dude it's Friday. Everybody's bracing for like the storm of all storms. We're drinking coffee. I'm drinking coffee with the guy I love having a conversation. Like I love this man. That's the point of the podcast. It is the point of the podcast. But like, so here's the thing, man. Because for me, principles, like where do we see principles? That's the most obvious place that people can relate in flight.

33:40 I've never sat on a plane going like, "Oh, I wonder if it'll work this time." Lift, thrust, drag, and weight. They figured it out, right? Like you can if you They named them that. If that wasn't their name, they would still be true, right? Those principles were still there. You get those combination of things right, you can make something that's like the weight of your house fly. I I my mind boggles every time I see like a C130 or a C5 or one of these big cargo planes fly because it looks like they're going in slow motion and I'm like I could run faster than that plane's flying but it's floating in the air that shouldn't happen. So it blows my mind but it also gives me confidence that the same way that they made something that was impossible happen. What what else can I discover? So, if I'm going through something and I'm like, "Man, this isn't working or I don't have certainty like what you're saying." To me, that's a repetition in discovery and that's what makes this stuff fun. Like, you talk about excellence. I love that you said that, dude. I just today, right before I came over here, I was reviewing something for a client. Now, I have a production company. It's one of the companies I own. I was looking at this really expensive director that's pitching to do a project for this client that I have.

34:42 It blew me away. The level of excellence in their presentation. It It honestly made I looked at my own work and I was like, "This is garbage." And you know what? No, but I'm You know what? It excites me because I've seen now Well, cuz you Yeah, cuz the thing is you had a definition. Exactly. And then someone else changed it and you're like, "Okay, I have to level up." That's ex and I want to and I So I'm like I'm not detracted by that. What the the thing that that is the always the thing for me is like I want to know what to do. I have no problem with doing what needs to be done. I'll pay my price, but it's like knowing what to do has always been the thing that like drives me. I think it's what part of what makes me good at helping other people is I've put a lot of thought into figuring out how I've got what I've got. So, when someone goes like, "Why is your marriage this way?" or "How did you do this?" I'm like, "I'll tell you exactly how." And and from that to uncover principles, it's become more um it's amazing. Like, it's a magical place whenever somebody can be like, "Hey, I've got this business." And I'm like, "Well, great. I know the principles of marketing and I can explain it to them in a way that no matter what their business is or what they're doing, they go, "Okay."

35:46 Yeah. That that to me, but you know how long it's taken me to get there, dude? A long time. Well, it's I But the thing is where I don't think we're ever going to be there. I don't think cuz you know, if you if you go back and this is where I want to have like a level of mercy and grace towards people that I think culturally just doesn't exist, right? Yeah. every pastor that I know just like maybe every doctor that I know or every doctor that I know personally but maybe every doctor you know the decisions that they made during COVID they were trying their best to make the right decision and then only in hindsight do we go oh that was a horrible idea and then all these people develop this mentality of like I told you so I told you that was a bad idea when really everyone just for the most part except for the the most rebellious, cantankerous people, they're out there went along with it.

36:37 Yeah. You you know, and that's true in life. Like there will be stuff I think about this like there will be stuff that I do that I'm so deeply convicted about that causes massive problems for my kids, that causes massive problems for my family, that messes up my relationships because I really don't understand things as well as I think I do. Right. Yeah. That's and and when you commit to life as a pursuit of something or an exper a reality to experience, you know, you're experimenting all the time, right? And you know you're living in this space where okay my experience my exper experiments might line up with reality, they might not because everything is a little bit experimental for me. And I think in I think a lot of people one of the things that frustrates me in culture right now is a lot of people don't live that way. A lot of people aren't willing to have this approach to life that says, "You know what? I actually don't really have the right answer, but this is the best answer that I have." I think the like the people that you're talking about that are so certain on a level, they're completely delusional.

37:41 You're absolutely a delusional person cuz you don't have the right answer. You're just you're just head down, butt up, locked in on what your answer is, and you're going to you're going to ride or die with it. Like for every for every Sir Edmund Hillary, there's a hundred people that we don't know their names that were just total idiots, right? And did the dumbest things and they were like, "No, we're going to prove that the impossible is possible." Right. Right. Um sometimes, not all the time. I know I'm like violating the principles of the impossible life a little bit right now. Sometimes things actually are impossible and they remain impossible, right? So it's okay. I mean, I'm talking about in the universe. I don't mean like you can't breathe in space. You're not going we're not going to evolve as human beings. You would have to violate principles. Yeah, you'd have to violate principles. So, so there's a lot of people who go, "Well, we're going to make the impossible happen." And their their whole life is a violation of reality and then of course they can't make the impossible happen because they're bumping up against universal law that Yeah.

38:37 Right. So, I know that's not really the point of like the impossible. I know, man. It's okay. But what I'm saying is is is for me, I have to I have to work really hard. I think we all have to work really hard to be willing to be wrong. Well, yeah, but I think and to say when you're making a decision, this is the best decision. But the truth about the COVID response and the truth about anything like that is the people that were in the decision-m position were making the best decision that they could with the information they had. Correct. Now, here's and and okay, I don't disagree with you, okay? Like I I there's a lot of people are like, "Oh, did you hear about Bill Gates ran this like project 2026?" You know, there's always the conspiracy trying to depopulate the earth. They ran this exact scenario right before it happened and you hear that and you're like, oh, I mean, I heard I remember I saw out some outrageous things that circulated during COVID and I was like, I'm going to remember this to see if it came true. One of which was that the vaccine actually is full of nano robots that form up in your body uh and like form this thing that basically looked like something out of the matrix. Haven't seen that come true, but I remember when I saw it, I was like, dude, this is outrageous. I was like, if this was true, this would be crazy. Now, I'm not seeing that. But but here's what I here's what I going back to what we said and really the point of this podcast is if you can become a better thinker about what you think about because here's here I'm gonna go a little bit you're probably not going to expect this. I'm going to pull you on you. Okay.

39:58 So what what's so interesting about people being like oh you know they should have you know they they were completely they should have known they got this wrong that what's the underlying assumption there that the government should know what's best for us right now. Where does that come from? Well I'm glad you asked. You didn't ask but you know so I once read so Seth Godin is like a Have you heard of Seth go marketing? Yeah he's like a guru but I love the way he thinks I think I think he he is like a marketing genius but he's also he's really like a philosopher. Exactly. He he he brings a lot of intelligence to what he does and I really like it and he wrote this thing cuz he's very anti-education. So he wrote this whole history of education which I went and read because I'm that kind of person. Yeah. He did like a TED talk on it too. Yeah. And he talks about how in the early 1900s whenever they were like, you know, they they're in the industrialization eras whenever schools we know it came about and what what were industrialists using for for labor?

40:50 Children, right? Nice and cheap. You know, they got small hands, all sorts of stuff, whatever. And and so then they're like, "Hey, we really need to get everybody in school." And these these factory workers are like or these factory owners are like, "You're going to take our workforce and us." And so schools go, "I'll tell you what. will make you even better workers. That when they come out, they'll be even more effective in your factory. Right now, and I'm oversimplifying this. You can read the history of this yourself, but think about school to this day in 2026. My kids go in, they sit down where they're told, a bell goes off, and that means it's time to start doing what they're doing. They listen to one person tell them what to do. A bell goes off, and they go to the next place they're supposed to go. Now, what what's so amazing about humanity is we're constantly being conditioned. What's being conditioned into you? The authority knows best. So people come out of school with whatever. I was a good student. I was a bad student. But you've all been conditioned about what authority operates and and that there is some authority structure.

41:43 So then suddenly we get to COVID and it's like my authority structure should know, sorry, you're not in school anymore. Like the government is just full of a bunch of imperfect people. And I mean for sure there's crooked people, for sure there's people with with good intentions. There's all sorts just like there is in any any place. There's going to be a mix of people. But then you get to this place. And so what happens is these people don't know what they're doing. They're trying to figure it out. The stories I heard during COVID and I I corroborated them with people who worked in nursing and were in these hospitals is, you know, hey, by the way, hospitals, I mean, remember this happening. You're not allowed to take on like we need everybody to go towards COVID. Yeah. A lot of it is crazy. Yeah. So, you're not allowed to take other cases. You only you need to you can only take COVID cases. Oh, and by the way, when you do, we're going to pay you X amount. Well, if you're a person who cares about somebody and you're like, hey, I had like I've got this ongoing thing that you've been treating me for. they're going to maybe give you a COVID test. Like, oh, look, you tested positive. So, now you become a COVID, we can get that money and still treat what we needed to. So, the numbers spike up.

42:39 So, then somebody hears this and like, "Oh, see, like they're just like they're spiking the thing. They're trying to give themselves data and they put this really negative spin on it." What was happening? You had people in Washington who are dealing with an unknown crisis and they're trying to apply a rule with a broad brush stroke that's going to solve the problem for 360 million people. Yeah. I I would not want that responsibility because guess what? No matter what you decide, somebody it's going to be wrong for somebody. It's so difficult. But but this what I mean by critical thinking. No one goes, "Why should I expect them to get it right?" And then you have zero mercy for them. Well, I think Yeah. I mean, I think it's really, you know, from a practical perspective, it's really we just tend to learn the wrong lessons from things, right? So, the the lesson from COVID or that season for most people is we just shouldn't trust what anyone in authority says, right? Which is Yeah. when when really the lesson is I think everyone's you know Socrates said no man does wrong willingly C.S. Lewis said that all wickedness when you examine it is the pursuit of some good in the wrong way right um the lesson we should take from that is the danger that we all have when we of of making decisions with incomplete information right but what people did which is so fascinating to me is they went and decided to further segment and make their information incomplete where now we're making worse decisions.

43:58 Right. Right. And we don't know, you know, for most people they they're just not able to or they just don't want to and on a level I celebrate the questioning, right? Because the questioning is I I want to make sure this is the right answer. So I'm not a I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, but I'm always going to be more for the person who's questioning the person in power. Like Yeah. Yeah. You're a complete contradiction. Whoever the person is who's in power, I'm always going to I I want to have I want to have I don't believe in debates cuz debates someone walks away, you know, in a debate, both people walk away feeling like they're right. Someone just won, right? It's not about winning. It's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's about figuring out uh the the roots behind these like that's why it's called The Dialog . You know, I I I want to I want to reason and figure out what the right answers are. And that requires more than just having a position that's not going to change and you just become staunch about it. And I think that's even the wrong lesson that people learn about principles.

45:02 Let me let me ask you a question, man, cuz I actually I think this is really I'm just curious about this. Hopefully it helps people listening. So you like to ask questions and I'm from my experience like your brain, your subconscious is prompted to give you answers. So if you ask a question, you're always going to get an answer whether it's right or not. How do you know when that you've kind of you should stop asking qu like how does Socrates know, okay, I've questioned this enough? Well, I mean, he didn't, right? They killed him. So, yeah. Well, but but you know what I mean? Cuz you you and I could we could just ask questions forever about stuff to the point that I honestly feel it becomes like unhelpful where you're like, dude, this is just getting so so abstract. So, how do you know where the line? Well, I think there's a key difference. There's a the difference that I draw is there's a difference between asking questions to learn something and asking questions to prove a point. Okay? So, a lot of people the reason why they ask questions is because they have a point they're trying to make, right?

45:57 And rather than making the point, they they kind of it's not like they want to make you feel stupid, but they'll embarrass your position to make their point. Right? And so, people will do that through questions. That's really what a debate question is. a debate question. When two people are sitting there debating, you know, and you're you're trying to expose the how ludicrous another person's position is, you're gonna ask them a question that makes them look stupid. Yeah. You're poking holes in them, right? Because it's a point. It's not a question. So, a question is I generally want to learn about this. Um, with a with a person like Socrates or like anyone who's a searcher, the motive I think motive, what's interesting, and this is like another tension point, right? A person cannot people don't often see what our motives and our intention are in intention is but the thing that's the most important to all of us is what that motive and that intention is so I should stop asking questions when my motive becomes to make a point right when my motive goes from learning and trying to understand to trying to make a point I should stop asking questions and I should just start making points Socrates whole thing right was that he knew that he didn't know anything and was always willing to question himself.

47:12 So I I really for me personally, I want to live in that space that I think really frustrates a lot of people in my life, right? Because I never have the right answer. Like I have the answer that I have today. It's not that I'm not willing to give an answer. It's just I'm not that this is the best with the best available knowledge that I have right now. Like with my kids as they get older, those are probably going to be our conversations. Like guys, you know what? Like I would love to hear your feedback on how this family is going for you guys. And it's not that my kids become the leader of my family, but I can say I can be so clear on my values and how my values really get implemented in my life and how strong I am on that. But my kids are completely different people and they need a different approach. Like I realized that this this week with with my wife, with Courtney, she is not serious like me. She doesn't want to be serious like me. She doesn't want to think of these deep questions.

48:04 She doesn't want to have these conversations. Right. And I'm constantly throughout our marriage and even our dating relationship, I'm constantly trying to pull her into this level of depth that actually isn't great for her, right? She just wants She's a I call her she's a silly goose. She's just a silly goose. She wants to have fun and I want her to have fun. So, what I need to do is do what works for Courtney, not works not what works for me in the context of me and Courtney's relationship. because me pulling her into this level of depth and questioning everything and a little bit of cynicism about the world and you know all this all this stuff that are that are conversations that I'm fine with having. She doesn't like that. That's not it's not even that she doesn't like that. It doesn't work for her. It doesn't lead her to like a happy life and a thriving existence. Like for me answering these big questions of life is why I'm put on the earth. It's why I'm here. I'm excited to do that. For her it's like you're wearing me out. This is making me so tired.

48:59 Your date nights are fun, man. I mean, excuse me. She's not a um she's not a podcast listener. No, you know, She doesn't even listen to your podcast. No, not No, that's what I'm saying. She's not one of our listeners, but you know, the good news is she's told me this. She doesn't listen to any podcast. Wait, praise the Lord. She seem to be cool. So, is that wrong? I don't know if it's wrong. I think it's just the way that she is. So, I have to figure out in that relationship what the right mix of something is. And I have to I have to do two things. I have to be a good critical thinker and I have to have intellectual humility that the solution that works for me isn't the same solution that works for everybody. But principles work for everybody. So the so the question that I have to answer and the thing I have to figure out is how do I help all these different people in my life? Like if you have kids and you're listening to this, every kid has a completely different makeup and your family's rules and principles and values are unevenly applied in their life because they don't apply things the same. They don't learn the same way as you. They don't apply things the same way as you. And so really becoming a great leader is figuring out how to help people apply principles in a way that uniquely fits really who they are, right? And those are the kind of lessons we should learn from like blanket answers, right? So when when so because the government right during the COVID response was absolutely certain about what the answer at least they were coming across that way.

50:20 Six feet apart, bro. Unwilling the curve. Yeah. Unwilling to listen to questions, unwilling to be questioned, unwilling to really and that's the frustrating thing I think for all of us is unwilling to allow people freedom to explore whether blah blah blah blah blah. And this isn't just like a COVID five years or six years on review. The lesson we should take from that is that all of us as human beings tend to be that way, right? Like all of us as human beings once if we treat life like a problem to solve once we have the answer then that's the answer for everybody. And the principle is is applicable to everybody. But the application of the principle is not the same for everybody. Right? So for me, me me and you are very different people in we're in a different we're not in a different season of life. We're similar the same age. But my experience, okay, with you know, we started the podcast by talking about you working out 5 days a week. Me it's like two or three days a week right now. My experience though with working out and stuff has been being an extremist for most of my life.

51:26 And I'm like be psycho. just do crazy stuff. Commit to unhealthy. Unhealthy in both ways. Unhealthy in how loose I am and un unhealthy in how structured I am to where it really affects my life negatively either way. For you, your journey, I I think has been more like you didn't do any of this. Well, I didn't do it to the extreme you did. I mean, I've not been like sitting around never lifting a weight, but Well, I mean, yeah. When you were in your 20s, it was like you weren't even really thinking about Yeah. Yeah, I was I mean I was playing soccer over in England and so I was very I was fit like and I fit and you worked out and stuff but it wasn't like No. Right. So not the environment you were in you were in like a bodybuilding like hey we're here for PE like we're going to show how big our biceps are or like this nonstop I mean growing up for me um I I just put a lot of pressure on myself to uh be in shape and so so what that what that meant was I would just do crazy diets and stuff.

52:21 Yeah. Not even like crazy diets. I would be like taking fat burners and do all kinds of stuff that like it's just it's just trying to shortcut. Yeah. But I was just I was just to me balance was just going between extremes. So I was extremely lazy. Yeah. Extremely not committed to greatness and excellence. Then I became so extremely committed to it that I was just going to do the most insane stuff. Yeah. to try to uh bring balance to the to the laziness when really like so that's on and on I could go but for me that's been my experience so now I celebrate the balance that I'm in and in and my own personal definition of balance right so the reason why I say all of that is because what we have to I think fundamentally we have to spend our time looking at ourselves more than we look at what other people do but even when we look at ourselves we have to admit the uniqueness of like our journey and our story and always be be willing to admit along with that that um it's really hard to apply principles to your life. I think it's easy to understand principles but day in and day out it's hard to apply them to your life. It's even hard to help other people apply them.

53:34 Right. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. 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.