Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 So, I think people live their life and they don't understand, we get older and we don't understand the seriousness of the decisions that we make and how they affect everything in our life. Yeah. You know, I think to myself, I could I could live in a trailer. I could live in a one-bedroom apartment in the in like a bad part of town. I'd be fine. Right. Right. The only problem that I have now is I've been married for 11 years. I have a wife. I have three kids. I have twins on the way. Be five. Yeah. can't drag however many six other people. Yeah. Seasons of life, right? Yeah. And and uh I think a lot of people they want greatness and they want to have great things and they want to they want to do big things. I heard Charles Neman I think I've said this on the on the podcast before, but I heard Charles Neman talk about stewardship one time and he talked about how a lot of people, you know, the Bible says if you're faithful in little, God will make a ruler. God will make you ruler over much. A lot of people they want to be um they want to be ruler over a I can't remember it. Let me look it up.

1:59 We'll cut this part. Yeah, it's okay. No, we can just Oh, we don't have to. Yeah, let's I I was cuz I was just talking about cutting the podcast while we're recording the podcast. Yeah, dude. That's great. That's uh this people getting the real real. No, but I um I I like you talking about that makes me think of seasons of life. I was I don't know why, but when you said that, it took me back to being 23 years old. It's easy for people Sorry, let me just Sorry. Yeah, finish it. It's easy for people to to rule over a little and be faithful with much. Yeah. So, a lot of people say that on the podcast. Yeah. A lot of people think to themselves, well, if God if you give me a lot, I'll manage it well. But the problem is that's not actually how it works. So, there's this verse in the Bible, Hebrews 13:17, that that uh the writer of Hebrews says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls. allow them to do this with joy and not with sorrow because that would be of no benefit to you. So growing up in church for me and growing up in leadership environments that verse was always used as a u kind of like a point of you have to always submit to leadership and you always have to understand spiritual authority which I think spiritual authority authority is like a really deep concept to talk about but that's not even the main lesson I take away from that. That middle part of the verse is scary. So they keep watch over your souls.

3:15 Yeah. So if you're in a leadership position of any kind, you're keeping watch over a person's mind, will, and emotions. God's actually made you responsible for that. And I think a lot of people don't consider that. Like last last podcast we talked about, you know, you said that when we started, but last podcast we talked about you shouldn't trust the government basically. But but the reason why you shouldn't trust bad leaders is because bad leaders don't consider this, right? Like bad leaders don't consider the effect that they have on other people's souls. Yeah. So they don't think they just think they're living their life. Like this is like this is how easy it is to have a bad marriage. Okay. You think living your life? I'm just living my life. I was just me before. I was doing my thing. I was rolling how I roll. I'm going to get married to someone and I'm going to do the same stuff. I'm going to live the same exact way. this person is just now, you know, if my life is a motorcycle that I'm riding, this person is now just in the side car.

4:12 Yeah. We're going the same place and we're going to the same place doing the same thing. And that's not true. This person is a completely different unique individual from you. And if you're married to someone independent of what your gender is, you know, well men and women, if you're the man in the relationship or the woman, not if you're a man married to a man, but if you're married to someone, you have a responsibility to learn what it means to take care of their soul, right? Cuz in a marriage, in a relationship, you're both kind of the leader at a peer level, right? When you have kids, God's made you, whether you realize this or not, right? God's made you responsible for these people's souls. If you're a manager at your job, if you if you're the president of the student council, like God has made you God has made you responsible for the mind, the will, and the emotions of those people. and you have a responsibility to assess how you're affecting that dynamic. And I think there's so many people they don't they don't they don't weigh that. And so they make a call or they make a decision that works for them or that they like, but the question is not does it work for you. The question is does it work for other people? Like I was talking to a mentor of mine recently and I was talking about I've been in the process of writing this book since June.

5:42 So it's January right now. Good seven months. So I've been writing a book pretty non-stop for like seven months. And I was telling him uh well I could say I was a mentor. I was talking to Erwin McManus like I don't know. I'm not trying to keep that a secret. He's a writer so he writes books. I was talking about the writing process. I was like man I just get I when I write it's like this exploration. and I'm exploring all these thoughts and ideas that I want to talk about. And he said, "That's your problem." And I said, "What do you mean that's my problem?" He said, he said, "When you're writing, you're thinking about where you want to go. You're not thinking about where they need to go." Yeah. And I think a leader, the delusion we can have as leaders, whether that's leaders in our family or leaders in life, leaders of ourselves, is we can think, "Where do I want to go?" When really the question God asks us when we get put in leadership is where do these people need to go? Yeah. It's a function. Yeah.

6:34 Yeah. And I think it's um you know Yeah. It is funny that you're you're you contrasted last episode to this one. But one thing that's the process of a dialogue. Yeah. But I mean but but we're also but here's the thing. You can't control the government. You can 100% control you. And if you're in a position of leadership, you should realize the weight that you carry. Now you said in marriage that they're both leaders. But is that actually like you know God has made a very clear leader in the in the marriage, right? I just want to be clear on this. or are you are you kind of like not well I'm a complementarian you know and what I what I mean by that is I think uh in a marriage a man plays a very unique role but a woman does too okay and I think if if I think yeah I mean there is a I God I'm trying to I'm trying to think about how far I want to go because I could say some things that are pretty heretical that I like that you're doing this in real time not heretical in terms of marriage. But, okay, I'll say this because I've texted you this before and I've said this before, but I'll say this and this might become the topic of the podcast now.

7:41 Here we go. This is how we always roll. We're think we're going to do one thing and then we get, you know, I don't think a democracy is God's way, right? Including America, right? I think that democracies are a fine uh adaptation to how human beings work. God does not the leadership structure of God is there's always one person in charge and it's him. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Then in scripture he establishes a king. Now that now that's what I'm saying can be heretical because it's like well you're an American saying we should have a king. I had a humanities professor in college who got up and asked us a question. He said over over history what's the most effective form of government in the history of the world? Well everyone in that room is pretty much American. So we all said, "Well, a republic or a democracy or however you want to define what America does." He's like, "No, that's not true. The most effective form of government in the history of the world that we can look at history is a benevolent dictatorship."

8:35 Now, the only problem with that is the worst form of government is a malevolent dictatorship when you have a bad leader in place. And that and the Bible reflects that. The Bible says when the when the wicked are in power, the people groan. So, um, so I'm saying that from like a leadership perspective. It's not that I don't believe in democracy. I think uh it's maybe the best form we can create that causes the least amount of problems for the largest amount of people. But God's God's uh leadership standard is one person's in charge. No, you're you're Well, I remember the first time I heard that I was in Bible college in the UK and it was so interesting. Well, of course they're they're monarchical. Yeah, they are. But but it was actually really I'm so grateful for the time I got in the UK. I'm 21 years old, man. And I flew over there in a Yankee. You got to see a totally different perspective. I flew over there in a Yankees hat like God bless America. Come from the greatest country in the world to gift these peasants my presence for you. I mean like honestly I was just so American and so just that's how we all feel when we go anywhere in the world.

9:35 I mean rightfully so. Are you glad that I came? Yeah. No, but I I mean I went over there with just you know I bled red, white and blue and I still do. I love this country. I think it's the greatest country in the world. But I went over there and just was not prepared at all. I had no idea how sheltered I was and how much God was like about to just shotgun blast my bubble because you know I'm sitting in there and I'm like of course democracy America's pretty much you know there's a flag on the throne of God everybody knows that you know like and I'm not actually thinking these things but like the way the environments I've been raised in it's like yes you know like so pro America and America's God's country and all this stuff. So you get over there and they go like, "Hey, God's way is a is a dictatorship." And you're like, "What?" Immediately, because when I say dictator, who do you think of? Like Mussolini, you know, Stalin. Yeah. Hitler. You think of all these guys who just ruined millions of people's lives and killed so many people. And then you have to like, so I take you I'm immed "Oh, wait a minute. You're actually right." Because but it's like it's not repeatable because what's what's inherent in that? You have to have a god-like nature, which no person has.

10:39 Which I think even, you know, even the idea of monarchy in scripture is God making a concession for what people wanted. Oh, yeah. For sure it is. Yeah. So God God says to the children of Israel, he says, you know, you guys want a king and as a concession for your hard hearts and how you guys are, I'll let you have a king, but it'll cause you all kinds of problems, right? And um it's a very unique thing to think about because really there's this ideal I think that's in scripture of leadership as it relates to um I I think it was Jim Rohn I heard I think it was Jim Rohn that said this I can't I can't remember Jim Rohn credit cuz he said Jim Rohn deserves all the credit to me. Um he said I'll take care of me for you if you take care of you for me. Yeah he did say I I posted the real the other day right and I think that's uh that's what God wants us all to do. M so God wants me to take care of me with him for other people and God also wants whoever I'm connected with to do the same thing.

11:34 So I guess it's not that heretical what I'm saying but we're only sitting in a room just the two of us. So we'll see what the response is to me saying it. But how dare you say anything but America's way is best. Yeah. Well, you know, but but how can you argue against that? If you're looking at the if you're looking at the word of God and you look at how it's set up, how can you possibly argue against that? Well, I think beyond beyond that, I mean, even like like and that's what my professor talked about was that when you look at history, if you have a a good person in power, they can make decisions a lot faster and affect change on like a very quick high level for a lot of people. Now, the only problem is when you give an evil person that level of power, which is kind of to the point that we're making. So, if you give any person that amount of power, it's dangerous. marriage uh like we're talking about I think there's a leadership role that men and women play that is vitally significant. I think I have a lot of I probably theories on marriage or ways that I think I think that regardless of personality I'm not saying this is like gospel or true I think that in a marriage um at least in my marriage this is true the my wife Courtney thinks so great about everything short term the kids need to eat they have to go to school there's doctor visits this week there's what she's so great at planning and structuring everything in our life If you ask me to do that, it's going to go horrible.

12:57 Right. So, there's there's a there's this aspect of leadership that a woman does bring that says, "Okay, there's all these short-term concerns that have to be managed and navigated effectively, right?" Well, then the role that that I feel like in my marriage at least, and the role that I see a lot of husbands play is they're like the long-term thinker, right? So like I'm more willing to let my kids experience danger because I know how much they need to live in a society that is not safe for them all the time, right? So my wife doesn't want them to have short-term stress or struggle or whatever, but I'm thinking like long term. So there's always this this balance between that and that's what I mean by being a complementarian. And there's this dynamic. It's not like I'm being overly careful about what I say, but I think men um they they they there's a there's a book called I I'll let me explain the metaphor I'm about to use. There's this book called Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull and he talks about language in there and he says a lot of people they use language without understanding the meaning behind it. And it's kind of like that's true.

14:02 It's kind of like pulling a suitcase. The meaning behind what you say is the suitcase and the language is the handle, right? Well, most people just have the handle. So, so people will say stuff, that's why I want to take time to talk about this because people will say stuff like, "Well, the man's the leader of the of the marriage." And that's the handle without the suitcase. Because what we have to understand is in this specifically in this the the Bible states really clearly that that God has, you know, wives submit to your husbands, right? It's what that's what scripture teaches. But then also right after that, yeah, the Bible says husbands give your like sacrifice your life for your wife as Christ loved the church, right? So yeah, I mean there is a leader in a marriage, right? But that leader in that marriage should be so sacrificial that really the leader is your wife. Yeah. I mean it says the but it says no that's not I I don't agree with that.

14:54 I'm not say I'm saying that to just say that that way. What I mean is where you are so concerned about how everyone else is doing that you're willing to sacrifice your way for what works for everybody. Right. Well, but because but really hear what you just said and you know maybe we can pick apart a few things but you the first thing you said was Hebrews 13:17. You talked about the point you made was like hey leader like we're he's referring to people who are being led but we can also say that for the leaders you're bearing the weight of other people's souls. When I first got into leadership with in Mighty Men and what we do with, you know, over 400 men every week in our men's group, um Garrett, I remember he told me, he said, "You need to understand you're carrying the weight of other men's souls." And I took it really seriously and I still do. And I have a lot more guys now that I look at, I'm like, I'm responsible for these guys. Now, so I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back. I'm just saying when you realize the weight of it, I don't It's not an honor. It's really not. It's not an honor. It's not a privileged position of like it's an honor but it doesn't feel like fun.

15:53 I mean dude honor is an honor whenever you have a retirement ceremony and they give you they give you a statue. I don't feel I I would say in leadership I don't feel privileged all the time. I feel uh the weight of it. It's not not stressed but I feel very much I got to make the right call here. I got to factor a bunch of things in. I've got to consider some things. It doesn't feel like, oh, well, you know, guys, aren't you guys so glad I'm your leader today because everyone's just going to listen to what I have to say. Well, like, you know, it's the it's good to be the king. I put my feet up while you guys go shovel, you know, bags of coal and like keep me warm. That that is the polar opposite because if you're kingdom leadership, it's inverting the the train. That's the idea of being being faithful over a lot, right? It's like, you know what, if I was king, I would order everyone around and they would all be my subjects and and and a person who and so we get we get in such a hurry to be in that kind of position.

16:50 But being faithful in a little and God making you ruler over much means that when you have a little, you learn the importance of nuance and finer distinctions and caring deeply for people. like when you're not the leader of the team, you know, I remember when I was in my early 20s, I remember talking to my dad one time and I wasn't the leader of the team I was on and I felt like the leader did such a bad job of caring for everybody. So I'd talk to my dad be like, "Why is this person in leadership, they they just run over people and they steamroll everybody and they they this and they do this and they do that." And so my dad was like, "Well, what do you do to help help that?" And I go, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Well, do you have to be the leader to care for people, to make people feel cared about, to like encourage people on the team?" It's like, "Not really." He's like, "Well, maybe that's a gap that you're supposed to fill, right?" So, when you're when you're being a when you're being faithful over a little, what you understand is I have to give all these people, not just the situation, I have to give all these people my best because these are people that God's put me in their life. Whether I'm positionally in a leadership position or not, these are people that God's put me in their life to care for them. And a lot of people they they get so focused, they get so uh obsessed with the idea of a position.

18:03 That's exactly right. Because of what it means for them, right? So like a guy thinks in a guy can think easily in his mind, you know, and I'm saying that more with marriage to be like aggressive, I guess. But a guy can more think in his mind that man, I'm the leader of the family. Things are going to go how I want to go. Yeah. Submit to me. And a lot of guys that's the only unfortunately for a lot of like really immature men that's the only leadership position they have in life. So they mistreat their wife, they mistreat their kids because it's in their mind an exercise of leadership authority when they don't understand the tension point like the tension point for me. So I'll use this short-term long-term thing as an example in my marriage with my kids raising my kids. I can't sacrifice the long-term vision for the short-term needs. Exactly. Right. Right. I can't do that. But I have to be deeply considerate of the short-term needs while I'm thinking about the long term. Otherwise, I'm not caring well for these people.

19:03 Correct. Right. Because with my kids, I can be so focused on their philosophical development and their identity and them learning whatever lessons I think they need to learn that that then I become a person who doesn't make them feel cared about in that moment. You can skip a meal, you'll be fine. Yeah, you can skip a meal. Or I I remember one time, man, we were at the beach and Charlie was 3 years old and uh she's she didn't know how to swim, okay? But I don't want her to be scared of stuff, so she's walking. I'm letting her just walk into the water at the beach and just go into the waves. She doesn't She's never really like experienced this before. She got wrecked, right? So, she gets wrecked. She gets pulled out. She's like looking like she's like she's so scared. She's freaking out. I just let the I just let it happen cuz in my mind, here's what I know scientifically it takes 2 minutes to drown. I'm standing right there.

19:55 Right. It's She's not going to drown. Yeah. I'm right here, right? Well, Courtney's like, "What are you doing?" I'm I was wearing like swim shorts and stuff. She's wearing normal clothes. She runs into the water, gets Charlie out, and Charlie's like crying and screaming and all this stuff. I'm like, why would you do that? She was I needed her to I need her to face her fear. Courtney's like, "She's three, man." Yeah. You know, like, did is this really the moment that this needs to take place? And then I ended up My parents were there, so I ended up in this whole conversation. How did that go about how you if you get too focused on that when your kids are that young? I mean, which my parents are masters at this. They're master leaders, right? They raise kids. If you get too focused on those kind of experiences when your kids are young, it doesn't teach them to embrace fear. What it teaches them is when you're when they're scared, you're not going to be there for them, right? And I was like, ah man. You know, so in that context, I have to I have to listen to the short-term concerns of my wife that I'm really not I'm not making my three-year-old feel like she's safe with me, right?

20:58 Because of my idea of like you should be able to go into anything you would be afraid of and just, you know, go fear is not my master, fear is the mind killer. That's not really the right move, right? Yeah. Because that's understanding how a three-year-old's going to interpret that because you were giving it a very adult meaning. And so like because and I think that there are you know it's good like you could have probably helped her face that in a way that was not as constructive that was more constructive like beware your no but no but I'm being serious because I don't think what you're saying is wrong to try and be like hey let's face our fears but there's a way to do it that you understand how how a three-year-old is going to react. And that's and that's the whole point I think of what we're talking about is there's an appropriate way to do that that's considerate for people because it's really you know I think as a leader you can be so focused on the lessons you want people to learn and the exper and and all of that that you don't give people the right measure of what they need in order to actually learn the lesson.

21:55 Yeah. And that's it. It's not what you what you communicate. It's what they what they hear. And that's that is a big one. My dad always has said this. There's a there's all communication is for the purpose of connection, right? And we all the reason we communicate, the reason we talk, the reason we share whatever it is that we share is for the purpose of connecting with people. And the bridge between communication and connection is care. Right. Right. So people are only going to listen to you as much as they feel like you care about them. Yeah. So when the Bible says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls," I think that an immature leader, the way that they approach life, is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if these people feel like I care about them or not. The fact that I'm trying to drag them into this mission to go accomplish is proof that I care about them because I want them to be great.

22:47 Which is nice that you think that nicely about them. I work with multiple companies and I will tell you there are a lot of I guess I'm talking more about a high character moral. You're talking about people who have some like have more character. I will say there's a lot of people out there who express zero care and they don't see the points like I said this you need to do it or else I'll fire you. No. And guess what? Those people are not super motivated. You know what's so interesting about you talking about the men who might mistreat their wives or anybody who gets into leadership and has like a hierarchical understanding of like great now I can have things my way. Um, really that's like a worldly understanding of leadership because look, men are meant to be the head of not even men. God put man as the head of the relationship. I I could argue that with anybody scripturally if they choose to recognize scripture as the authority. I'm sure we could then dive into um nuclear family and psychology. There's Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff we could go into, but I'm not going to I don't want to go down that route. I want to look at it like this. One of the things that's been so interesting to me and that's like constantly revelatory to me is to is the nature of God, right? To like to know him. I think this has been something that's been like a deep desire in me from a young age is that I think the thought that we can know the creator of the universe as best as possible is an absolutely wild thought. And I say as best as possible because I don't I'm absolutely convinced that our brains cannot fathom an infinite God. My finite brain. And if you're going, "Well, I don't know, man." Well, how do you understand a God who has no beginning or end? Okay, I'm already done. I'm broken, right? Like I can't. Everything I know in life has a beginning and end. Elijah asked me the other day. He goes, "Did God create himself?" I'm like, "Bro, I I honestly don't know." Like, I know he didn't, but I don't know how. Like, he has no beginning or end, and it makes no sense.

24:21 Well, I think you're you're given the way I think about that is like you're given temporal. We all as human beings, all the processing apparatus, like all the processing systems we have are temporal. Yeah. They're all they're all temporary. God's eternal, right? So, of course, you can't really understand. You can't really process, right? It's like trying to It's like trying to put a floppy disc in a CD drive, you know? You can't We don't have the equipment to process the eternal. Like, we can perceive the We have a deposit of it. Yeah. But we can't fully understand it or process it because none of our processing systems are eternal. Right. But but let's let's take what we understand about God and he everything that he created he spoke from his very nature right so like you think I think it's so fascinating like I feel like God is speaking in poetry in all of creation to us all the time and and when you dive into things you have an understanding of who God is it's like such an amazing reveal and so I thought about this for a while um you know God is three in one which is just wild to to think about John Bevere wrote in one of his books the closest thing we get to understanding it is water which I thought was genius Because water can be liquid, gas, or solid. It's still water, right? And so like cuz cuz like wait, wait a minute. And I thought that was just so brilliant. And I just shared that just cuz I think it's cool. But here's here's where I'm going with this.

25:39 So you have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Who's the greatest in that one? Well, they all serve a function. They all honor and serve the other the other ones in the relationship. So from that place, is God the Father ultimately the one who said like, "Hey, here's plan." Yes. Jesus comes to the earth, right? He's like he's like, "Okay, I'm here to do the Father's will. Then I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit who's going to testify to me. What does that look like? That's three playing a function. There's no hierarchy. They're all serving the same purpose. Is there functional roles? Yes. So I look at that in marriage and I go, "Okay, what's the Holy Spirit referred to? The helper. What's woman referred to by in in Genesis 1 or in Genesis 2? A helper." And so people get hung up on the hierarchy of it. And to the point you're making, if I realize that I carry the weight of my my wife and my kids souls, dude, that is a huge responsibility. So my job is to be the leader that has the vision for, okay, here's what God said for our family. Me and my wife are in on that together. I don't I don't need to go to my wife and kids and be like, well, you guys need to do certain things for me for me to feel the right way about myself so then I can go and do what we need to. It's like, no, I'm here to serve you, right? And like I think as you mature more and you be like it's hard to serve people well when you need something from them. It's hard to love people well when you need something from from them and to lead people well when you need something from them cuz like if I need people to agree with everything I say, how am I going to lead them someplace they don't want to go? But that's good for them.

27:00 Well, or if it's just fundamentally about me. Well, that's what you're saying. I think if you if you want to not be a good leader, make everything about how it makes you feel and what you think and your ideas and and I think that's that's the idea behind uh the Bible saying that Christ gave his life for the church. Like there was a definitely a vision there and a mission that was not compromisable. It wasn't like well Jesus we we really don't really agree with the mission so we should change that. But there's this this approach if you're going to be a great husband, there's an approach uh as hard as probably submission is for a wife, sacrifice is for a husband. Right. Right. Yeah. So there's this approach to life that says I have to be willing to sacrifice my dreams, my whatever I think for the dynamic of care, for the dynamic of caring for caring for a family, caring for my wife's, you know, concerns. And there's uh and I think that's kind of like what we're exploring always on the podcast. There's all these nuances and there's all these always these gray areas that we navigate. And we don't, you know, we talk about certainty. We talk about certainty a lot. We don't really want things to be that way. We don't really want things to be that that gray, but life is that way. So the question that as a leader, which all of us really are leaders, no matter who we are, what our gender is, what role we play in society or whatever, we're all leaders. And the question we have to ask is how well do I care for people? How how well do I make not how well do I care for them in terms of there's this dynamic of care. There's me there's me understanding that I'm caring for people and then there's them feeling cared about, right?

28:46 So there's some kind of balance there between like you know and using parenting I think is a good example. There is me caring for my kids, putting a roof over their head, making sure they you know my kids always want to eat unhealthy food just like every kid on the planet. So if you know when when it's time to eat dinner, of course they're going to feel like they want to go eat McDonald's or whatever. But for me to care for them, I need to provide them with healthy food. And they might not feel like that's what me caring for their concerns is, right? So, we always have to navigate this tension. But the I had someone I've had a lot of people ask me because I have great parents. I was raised by great parents. So, I have a lot of people ask me, you know, I'm really just so concerned with being a good parent and how do I how do I be a good parent? And I think the fact that someone's asking that question means they're probably going to be a good one because they think about it. Like no bad parent or bad leader really sets out to be a bad leader. They just don't ever think about the kind of leader that they are.

29:45 So a person most of the people I know that have had maybe bad parenting or they had bad experiences with their parents. Their parents never thought about how they were parenting the kids. Well, do you know that though? I mean, because you're making a big assumption there. No, it's a theory. It's it's it's a theory that I have. But like bad leaders like bad leaders don't consider the quality of their leadership. They're they're not considering how I think that's the that's the function of a bad leader. Like they don't consider how their leadership affects other people, right? They their only thought is them. Do they want to do this? Is this something that aligns with uh whatever it is that they need it to align with? I think there's this, you know, from a leadership perspective, there's this balance. There's mission and there's morale, right? So, and it's there's kind of like a spectrum between these things. And mission is we're going to go take the mountain, we're going to go climb the mountain, we're going to accomplish whatever it is that we need to accomplish. Morale is everybody getting up the mountain.

30:44 Right. Right. So, a person who's highly missional, they can take the mountain, they can accomplish a lot of stuff. The only problem is that no one else except them is going to make it. Everyone else is going to die on the way up the mountain. And so people approach that and they go, "Well, it's survival of the fittest, right? Just it is what it is." That's not caring leadership. On the other side is morale. So morale is the kumbaya person who if you lean way too far towards morale, what you're going to do is you're going to go, "Well, you know, it's really uncomfortable for us to get out there and climb and base camp. We have these nice tents and they're warm and at least we're together. We get to eat food and we get to be together and you know the mountain's nice but what's nicer is just us being here together and making each other feel loved. So there's this there's effective leadership is the right balance between those things. And the right balance between those things doesn't mean being right in the middle, right?

31:38 It means in the right situation making the right application at the right time. Cuz sometimes right in a leadership environment we don't have time to sit here and worry about everybody's feelings. we got to go make some stuff happen. But then other times, yeah, we got to make some stuff happen, but if everybody's not in a great place, we've got to spend some time not worried about the mission, but worried about the morale. Yeah. So the question for all of us as leaders ultimately is how well are we caring for people's souls? How well are we caring for the people that God's put in our life? And that answer is different based on the environments that we're in. It's it's based on like my kids have their own personalities. My wife has her own personalities. The people I work with every day, the people I'm around. These people have their own approaches to life and their own stories and their own things that they're navigating. And if I really care about them, then I'm going to care about that.

32:34 Cuz the Bible says the last part of that verse is it's to God that we're going to be held accountable. So when I die and go to heaven, Yeah. Uh, I'm gonna sit there with God and God's going to be like, "Hey, uh, let's talk about this time that you did this with this person. Let's talk about this time that you because I I put you in this position of like authority in people's lives and how well did you effectively steward that?" Yeah. And so many people, like we're talking about, are in a hurry to become a ruler over much when really the the the opportunity that we have with the little bit, whatever the little bit is for us, the opportunity that we have for a little bit is to learn how to really deeply care. Yeah, man. I think leadership's so lacking in society as a whole, like on on every level. It is such a gap. Um, it actually amazes me because I work with a lot of different companies for what I do. It actually amazes me how common bad leadership is. And what I mean by that, like what we what's inherent in leadership that we've not even said because it's so obvious, but is actually really important to notate. By definition, you are leading somebody somewhere, right? Like you can't, you know, the leader is the person who's going, "Okay, here's where we're going."

33:42 Even if where you're going is in circles, they're like they're they're taking someone somewhere. And so I think what really great leaders do is that they they they're able to cast vision like here's where we're going. And then from that they're able to bring order like here's here's what we're going to do to get there. And then you have to maintain like you have to uphold the standards. Those are my big three. Cast vision, bring order, uphold standards. So when part of bring order is the care piece that you're talking about because there's no point like to me leadership is that you're I'll I'll borrow the Eisenhower definition. I'm kind of bleeding over here because this is something Garrett you know says all the time. So you get people to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. And here's the kicker that they want to do it. Man, so many people can get people to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, but they will hate every bit of it. And what happens is you burn those people out and like you said, the morale drops. You end up in the top of the mountain without those people, but hey, we took the mountain. Yeah.

34:33 And it's like or or you know, and that's a whole other thing. Or you've manipulated everybody into thinking they want something that they don't actually want, right? Right. I mean, I think that's that's a scary thing of like that a leader can do is you can manipulate people into thinking that this mission is also what they want when it's really just what you want and you need people to come help you. Well, yeah. I mean, selfishness selfishness kills. Absolutely. I mean, really, when you boil all sin down, it it just boils down to sin. You get organizations and you get different places where it's like everyone's so incentivized to be selfish and it's like, but that's like I mean, and they talk about like a good thing. Hey, when when you win, we all win. And doesn't that sound great? But what ends up happening is you can't have a bunch of people who are only thinking about them because at some point you got to give. And if you've just been like constantly incentivized to take, there's nothing left, man. Right? Like everybody's taking everything. It's gone. And that's where you see a lot of these, you know, you'll get people I find from my experience, especially in sales. You'll get the great salesman who becomes the sales manager, but he's actually terrible at like leading a group of people consistently over time. what he's really good at is having conversations and influencing people in a moment to do X or he's really driven towards targets or whatever it may be and it's like yeah I mean that then you get a lot of people who are hurt because they're like you know what's this guy this guy doesn't care about me at all and you burn through people but it's um that understanding that you carry the weight of people's souls man that that's a very Christian uh Christian thing I agree with you I don't think it's really understood well it's not I mean to me it's just fundamental It's it's beyond I mean it's it's just fundamental truth. It's like a principle of life. And so the question for all of us there's not like an answer on this subject. But the question for all of us is how well do I care for I have to care for the mission. I have to care for what needs to happen. But I also need to balance that with what's best for people like what's best for other people and what's best for them. what they're, you know, and this this isn't just about corporate leadership, but I mean, when you're when you're, you know, Henry Ford said, "I wanted to hire a pair of hands, but I got the whole person, right?" So, you don't get to in a professional capacity, you don't get to ask people to not bring who they are to work, right?

36:46 And that's like what a what gets created a lot is, well, we're just here to accomplish some things and you need to worry about your personal life outside of here. That's not how human beings work. We're not compartmentalized creatures. And so, you're always dealing with the whole person. And when we do our best as leaders to care to care deeply for them, then they and and it's like kind of like a law of power in that you can use this poorly. You can use this wrong. If you make someone feel cared about, they will care about what you care about. And that's where I'm saying you can be manipulated into valuing something that you probably shouldn't value because a person can we can all manipulate people and go, "Well, hey man, I really care about you." And we can play that game to get them to do what we want. But then that's where God holds you accountable. So we have to know, man, God's going to hold me accountable for how I leave lead. He's going to hold me accountable for my motivations. I need to care for people for the right reasons. And the reason I need to care for them is cuz God's given them a soul that he wants to be healthy. And I'm either a contributor to their health or I'm a contributor to their unhealth.

37:50 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.