Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 What you say is always at the mercy of a person's level of understanding, right? What I say and what I do is not my identity. It's just how I'm communicating in that particular moment. Dude, hold on. What you just said actually makes me think that like group communication is one of the worst, least efficient ways we could ever communicate. 100%. And yet that's how we communicate all the time. Well, it's amazing. I mean, you think about the the advancement of the gospel or like a church service or like a TED talk or anything like that. It's amazing. Anybody walks away with anything because everybody's got this whole unique story, this whole unique perspective. And you know, we don't like the word triggers, but everybody's got their own like triggers in their life of what causes them to go like we we you know, I the thing is not about the thing, but everything's about everything. Like we we talked about this about the guy that left the podcast comment, right? He me and Garrett have me and me me and you and Garrett have the same value system.

1:50 We don't have the same way of communicating that value system. So this guy based on how I communicate versus how Garrett communicates thinks me and him are enemies in some way, right? Yeah. Me and Garrett don't disagree on anything important, right? We just don't. So we're saying the same stuff. We're just saying it in a different way. But that that filter is so important, right? And you have to speak to the filter. Like one of the things my dad has always said is you're never talking to the person, you're talking to their filter. So when you understand that, you go, "Oh, like I should be really good at listening to feedback on my communication so that I can come across right to this person." Yeah. I I always find it amazing that when they say that when you write you should write for a seventh grade reading level which is like I mean that's my daughter right now and smart so it's like I would say she's probably over the seventh grade reading level and that's like that's a hard thing to do man.

2:49 Well and the problem I mean to me like the problem with immature people is that they believe that what they understood equals what you said. Mhm. So a person's like to me a person's one of the one of the hallmarks of a person's level of maturity is their ability to ask clarifying questions like to seek to understand. Yeah. Like for them to for me to say something and for them to go, hey, here's what I heard you say. Is that what you said? And then I and then if a person does that, that's how you know you're dealing with a mature person. If a person doesn't do that, that's the hallmark of an immature person. Like to me, the hallmark of an immature person is when I say something to them and they just they don't ask any clarifying question, especially in like one-on-one communication or like small communication. But but people do this all the time.

3:40 Like they'll, you know, well, in church, the biggest misunderstanding is money. So we'll get up, we'll talk about money. Here's here's what God wants you to know about giving. And they hear something completely different than what we said. And that's okay. What you could do is come back and go, "Hey, like I I heard this. I would like some clarification on that." And you could have like an actual productive conversation with somebody, but we live in a world now where people just assume and they fly off the handle whenever they hear something that they think is like, again, it's like a trigger. It's like, "Oh, you oh, you know, like people walk in a church of more than 500 people and they're a prosperity gospel church." It's like, well, why is that? Well, because of all this stuff in culture anyway. So for us, for for me as an individual, I don't want to be that way. I I want to encourage everyone on this podcast, don't be that way. And that requires you to be really good at getting feedback, right?

4:35 So So if I there was a time and I'll come back to wisdom. So I remember, man, in my 20s, I just got my tail kicked like every day going to work, working for my dad. Like there's a lot of people that love my dad and want to be close to him. and and you love leaders and you want to be close to certain leaders and you look up to them and you want their mentorship, right? Um my my biggest caution with anybody who's like, "Hey, I really want to be close to so- and so because I want to learn from them." Is you get close to them, they're going to be straight up with you about all the stuff that's wrong with you. Yeah. Right. So, I got to work for my dad and it's just awful for me. Right. And I'm getting all this non-stop feedback about how bad of a leader I am, how not good I am, all on and on and on and on. And all of a sudden, man, one day it felt like all of a sudden, it really wasn't. But it I stopped getting corrected. So people stopped talking to me, which if you played sports or if you had have had any kind of coaching in your life, when the coach stops talking to you, that's when you're like not going to play in the game anymore. you're going to ride the bench and we're not going to ask you to come back next season, you know. Um, so I go to I go to my dad. I'm like, "Hey, you know, I was thinking about this and I really haven't been corrected in a while." Such a weird conversation to have, you know, I really haven't been corrected in a while and I I want to I want to be great. I want to learn. I want to develop and I don't want you to stop correcting me. I'm really nervous about that.

6:04 And he says, "Well," he goes, "I really haven't thought of anything recently that you need to work on." He goes, "I think you've just probably learned to correct yourself." So I'm like, "Well, explain to me what that is." Okay. So what is So then this leads to this question for me. What is conviction? What is the conviction of the Holy Spirit? What does it mean when God convicts you? That means that God's talking to you about something that nobody else knows and he's giving you a chance to fix it without having to have it exposed to the whole world. Yeah, that's good. Right. Yeah. When when I read scripture, this is why scripture is so important to me. When I read scripture, the Holy Spirit speaks to me about something going on in my wife, in my life that nobody knows, including my wife, about all all kinds of stuff. Stuff I'm processing on, stuff I'm just thinking about, things I'm ruminating on that aren't healthy for me. And then what I'm getting this mercy and grace of me just being able to have a conversation with God about it, and God's like, "Fix it." So, what does a wise person do? A wise person doesn't just listen to feedback. a wise person is able to give themselves feedback about what they're doing before anyone else becomes aware of it.

7:14 Like if you're a good like there's times with my kids, you know, I'm not like this all the time. I'm not like this every day, but the other day I was um you know, man, just like having two babies, having twins and having three little kids, it's like I'm in a place in my mental and emotional state where it's like we're really close to the to the surface here. I don't have a lot of filter right now like in my family, right? Yeah. So, I just I got really intense with Charlie about something. I can't even remember what it was. And I instantly saw her get really sad and she didn't say anything. She went and she went and did what I was asking her to do like immediately. And I said, "Hey, Charlie, did I hurt your feelings when I said that?" And she just like shook her head yes. So, I said, "Hey, I'm sorry. I don't want to be that way." And I just I gave her a hug and I'm like, "I'm just I'm I don't want to be that way. I'm really tired. It's not an excuse. just just give me some mercy. I'm really sorry.

8:06 That's not because she walked out of the room crying. That's not because she said something to me, right? So, it'd be one thing if my 8-year-old could say to me, "Hey, like that really hurt my feelings when you said that." She's not going to do that at this point in her life. So, I have to be aware without her saying it of So, for me personally, that's a big win that I noticed. Yeah. Because there's been so many times in my life where with people who I really love, I've really hurt them and they've never said anything and I've learned about it like five years later. Like I've had people call me and go, "Hey man, I just want to let you know I forgive you." Like, "Uh, okay." Like what about what? Like, "Yeah, me too. I forgive you." They're like, they're like, "Yeah, man. It's not it's not even worth repeating. Just know like I I mean, there was one particular guy who I felt like I was really close with and he called me one day. He's like, "Hey, man. Can I talk to you about something?" I'm like, "Yeah, for sure." He goes, "Man, I've just been carrying something for like 5 years." He didn't tell me what it was. He said, "I've been carrying something for like 5 years that you said to me, and I just want I just today I got to this point where I really could forgive you for that." And I was like, "Oh, man. Well, I'm really sorry." You know, I had no just I don't feel like I'm I'm a jerk like all the time, but I mean, so you have no idea, right? So, wisdom is the ability to correct yourself with like that's that's to me what the wisdom of the Holy Spirit is.

9:24 is it's God being able to lead me and guide me and me being sensitive to that. So, how does that start, right? Well, how does it start in our life? It starts with how we approach correction from a young age. And so, like, if I'm really I don't I don't necessarily have this full theory because I think I'm a human being, but I really think I don't have to have really intense and I don't you've been married longer than me. I don't think I have to have really intense fights with my wife because if I pay attention to how what I'm doing is affecting her, I can fix it before we blow it up. Oh, for sure. I I I and I look there's I am not a marriage counselor and I don't play one on the internet, but I have a very happy, successful marriage and there's a lot of things I share with people. Um, some people do blow it out and and I don't really know enough to know how their unique situation, how to assess that, but I'll just say for Re and I, we we like never fight, man. Literally, it's just not I I don't know. Call it cuz we're both second born or what you you can come up with all sorts of philosophies or or ideas of why that is. I'm just I'm not really like the hey, we just need to like battle it out. Do we have difficult conversations?

10:34 Yeah, we do. For sure we do. And is there times whenever some feelings are hurt because of that? Yeah, there are. But I think it's just the expression of that is not like like there's not an attack because I think where one of the things I'm trying to train my kids in in feedback and I think it's really interesting that you talked about you start at a young age is I tell my kids all the time like hey the things I tell you that you don't like it's cuz I have your best interest in mind. I've told them and this is this is something my dad my dad used to tell me growing up like I'm preparing you for your marriage someday. Right. Your spouse is going to be glad I had this conversation with you. Well, I I just tell my kids, I'm like, "Look, it's going to come. Like, this is how life is going to be. You're going to have to make choices, and I'm preparing you for what it is later down the line, but what I what I've been adamant about with my kids, and I have been tested on this, and um it it is not convenient to do this, but it is I I believe it's worth it. We'll see. My kids are doing pretty great so far, is I don't ever want to parent out of preference. I want a parent out of principle." And what I mean is this. When I was growing up, the amount of times I'd ask my dad why, and the answer would be because I said so. I hated that. I made a determination that I would never say that to my kids. And guess what? I don't. So, I encourage my kids. Ask me why. Because if I don't have a good reason, chances are it's probably because it was just annoying me at the time. And, you know, I I just didn't want to do it because it would be a little bit more pain or little bit inconvenience for me. And so, when you when you parent out of pre out of principle, like for example, here's where it really stung. Hope wanted to get a a rabbit. And by the way, for anybody listening, don't ever get a rabbit. It is the worst pet you could ever get. a gerbil or a hamster or anything.

12:05 Dude, gerbils and hamsters are are okay. At least they come with a cage. This rabbit like it had this hutch and then because she wanted to have all this land, like all this area her basically her bedroom turned into like this rabbit place. Well, she asked me for a rabbit and immediately I was like, "Nope, don't want that." And I sat there and I thought to and literally this is what went through my head. In my head I was like, "No chance." And then I sat there and I thought, "Does she take care of our existing pets? We have a dog. She has a lizard. I'm like she takes exceptional care of that. So, how can I say, and here's the principle. How can I say to my kid, faithful over little, ruler over much. Guess where I got that principle from? It's not mine. It's God's. It's stewardship. And Jesus gives it to us. How can I be teaching her that if she takes care of the little things that she's going to get to rule over big things? And then the moment she asked me for something, I go, "Well, I don't like it." Yeah. Doing that right now. Yeah. So, we got a rabbit. That thing pooped all over the place. It like added nothing. Great lesson.

12:57 It added nothing to our family. It disturbed her sleep, which made her moody. Like it was a horrible. It was honestly Hey, but it's a great maturity experience. Like you wanted this and now you're responsible for it, right? No, but but she was good about it. But for like 8 to 10 months, there was just like this tension in our 8 to 10 months. That's a long time, bro. It was a This is what I'm saying. This this But this what I mean. It's not convenient. And And we finally got to the point where I was like, man, this thing is like I didn't realize how disruptive it was until we got rid of it because I didn't realize how much it was affecting her sleep cuz I thought she was just going through hormones. And it turns out like maybe she was because she was the right age. But you wore out all the time. But I didn't realize how loud this thing was until we got displaced from our home and I would hear this thing in the night. I'm like, "What was it?" Sound like someone was just like punching a wall. And it's because this rat would like like thump its foot down. Well, she's sleeping 5t from that. You don't think that's going to disrupt or her sleep? It 100% was. So then she's waking up tired. She's emotional. She's like more argumentative. And I'm taking a breath going like, "Okay, this is the season we're in and I'm going to love her through it." So, I say all that to say we eventually got rid of the rabbit, but we did it in a good way. We found somebody, got it rehomed. It was great.

14:02 But like I I don't regret that at all because we because for my my daughter, she's going, "Okay, I took care of this." And she's also learned a valuable lesson about like, you know, we didn't really know the cost. We counted the cost. We found out, okay, we we undid that situ like we made a different decision after we got full knowledge on it. Lesson learned. So, it was a huge learning experience all around. But like, you start that way. Hopefully, you have someone that has your best interest in mind. At some point, you have to progress to, and this is what you're saying about being able to correct yourself. I think that that's a mature thing because guess what? You you're exposed on on internet, in our church to thousands of people. I am too with our with with the podcast Garrett and I do. We we have thousands of people that listen to us. It's very cheap for someone to leave a comment, right? And we get them. You get comments in your, you know, on Spotify. You get them here. You get people you lead. And I've had this a lot more. Same as you. People will come back and tell you things about you that you don't want to hear about how you hurt them. And your your heart was not to do that at all. I've had it where I've said the exact right thing to somebody, but I've said it in the wrong way. And guess what I've done? I've I've had I've had the love of God break my heart to realize that at the moment I was communicating that I was not at all interested in that person. I was 100% interested in telling them what they what I what I knew was true and I was wrong. And when you get broken like that, man, now somebody could come up to me and say anything to me. And my first thought is, is that accurate? Because like that to me, like you're saying, that's where it grows to is in maturity.

15:24 Like to start with, you need to have people around you that have your best interest. But you can't stay there because you're going to get otherwise you're very limited because there's not that many people that are going to have your best interest if we're being honest. And so I think you have to grow to the place where you can actually take the feedback and go like, "Yeah, that's accurate. you you have my you want to hurt me and actually I'm gonna thank you because you're right. Yeah. Well, the dynamic right that most people live with is to go back to principles and preferences and identity and behavior is for most people their identity is rooted in their preferences, right? Oh yeah. So my identity is in a value system. It's in who God says I am. It's in principles. My behavior is all preferences. It's all ways I just want to be. Right. So I can change all that. Like I can change I can change all this stuff about myself that's behaviors I might not necessarily want to. I don't I don't really want to. Like I can be an extroverted person. I just don't want to be extroverted.

16:17 You're you're amazing. I just have to say this on on the part. You're amazing at this. So like people hear Josh talk on stage like I don't like people. I don't like my friends. And I'm one of Josh's close friends. I don't really say it anymore. I don't say I don't like people anymore. But I did for a while say I don't like people. Yeah. Well I'm glad you don't say that anymore. I'm I'm improving. I've gotten good feedback. Hey you have. Great job. Proud of you. But like, but then you go and see you out in the thing and you know what? You know what I know about you? You do love people, man. You're a very tender-hearted person. You genuinely care about people. And I think that I'm glad you don't say that stuff anymore because I think you've painted yourself wrong whenever you do. So, anyways, I just wanted to say that cuz we all I mean, we all should care about people, man. The meaning of our life is what we mean to people, right? And and I do deeply care about people. I uh just don't want them to care about me as much. Um, but no, I I like one of the things I've learned about that I prefer being introverted. I prefer not being around a lot of people. I prefer like even and this is just how I am, man.

17:14 Like even us having these kids, everyone's so excited for us and it's wearing me out the amount of communication I'm getting. It's like, hey, how's everything going? You guys doing good? It's like, yes, leave me alone. That's what I want to say is like just let me I have a lot that I'm adjusting to in my life, right? That's nothing's bad. Like everything's been really healthy. our kids are doing great, but I have five kids now. I'm doing school drop off. I'm doing pickup. I got a whole life that I'm living. And then I feel like I got to respond to this person's text cuz they're my friend. All that. So that you didn't respond to my text, for example. It's cuz I know the only people I really responded to were the people I knew to get their feelings hurt if I didn't respond. The thing is I knew I kne I actually did think I was like Josh does not want to have to tell everybody about it. So when you didn't respond, I didn't impress you cuz I was like, I know I'll hear about it eventually. Yeah, we'll talk about it. But cuz to me that's way more about man I've been given this privilege and responsibility to be like kind of responsible on a level for making a person feel loved, right? So I can't sit there in any dynamic and go well I just don't want to do that because it's like too much for me.

18:15 You said it right there though and I'm sorry to keep interrupting you but I want to pull out the stuff because what you're saying is really valuable for people. So when you said your beliefs are b your your identity is based on principles not on preferences that may sound hard to break down but your your identity is your beliefs your vision and your values those are the components. So what did you just say but I believe you literally spoke it out. So what are your beliefs that are principal based? They're all in the Bible. There's no way that you can take on an identity and be like I'm a follower of Christ. I'm a son of God and like but screw that guy. Like I can't stand people. You you're you're lying to yourself. You don't actually believe that because your vision is wrong and you're not valuing the right thing. No, I mean you you feel that way for maybe a multitude of reasons and that's how you express it. But everybody needs people like I'm I pref like I said I pref the way I say it now is I prefer being introverted. I don't say I'm an introvert. I don't think that introverts and extroverts I don't think that's a label that is like again I I kind of weigh that all based on scripture, right? So scripture is not like oh here's here's the introverts here the here's the extroverts. So it's these categories we've just imagined, right? Most personality profiles are like that. Like your Enneagram is not your identity, right? Your whatever the whatever the personality profile is that you like, Myers-Briggs, whatever. That's all fine, right? It helps you know yourself and it helps you know maybe like your defaults, but you don't have to be any of that. You can be something different.

19:36 So, uh, so for me, the question is like, well, what is it? What does my life mean to people? And I know for me personally, I'm worse when I'm not in relationship with people, right? I I don't need a lot of people, but I need people. Yeah. Right. And so, I've got to like serve those people well. And so, if I you know, the best thing that someone can do, there's this um there's this book called Primal Leadership. It's a it's the best book that I've ever read on emotional intelligence. It's better than the book that's called Emotional Intelligence. Primal Leadership. I've never read Primal Leadership. Right. Yeah. And um uh in that book they they they talk about in studies that they've done in in large companies the number one reason why leaders don't receive feedback well from subordinates or people around them or 360 feedback or whatever is because that leader doesn't believe that they can change. H.

20:32 So the problem for the problem really for all of us is I really think that my behaviors are my identity. I think my preferences are my identity. We could say it that way too. And so when someone assaults my preferences, so to speak, or criticizes my behavior, they're criticizing who I am as a person. Yeah. That's not true. But that's kind of a default state that we have as human beings. Yeah. So right. So then the number one reason why people don't give feedback is because they don't believe that the leader wants to change. Right? So that's a it's a it's a you think about that in your marriage. Think about that in your parenting. Think about that in every relationship that you have. The number one reason why you really honestly, if you're honest with yourself, the number one reason why you and I wouldn't listen to feedback is because we really don't believe we have the power to change. And maybe we don't have the power to change ourselves. But God God can change us 100%. Yeah.

21:29 Right. That's that's and again back to wisdom, listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your life. And then how do you listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit? Just start with reading the word and God will begin to shift you and change you. The Bible says in Romans 12:2, we talked about it a hundred times. Allow God to transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. God will begin to do that. Right? So the number one reason why people don't give us feedback or the number one reason why we don't listen is because we don't believe we can change which is really sad. It's really tragic to be that way to go through life and not really think you can be better. Um it's really sad because of how it affects your relationship because the number one reason people won't give you feedback is not because they don't believe you can change. They believe you can change. The number one reason they won't give you feedback is because they don't think you want to change. M it's like I remember with you know when me and Courtney first got married we don't really fight a whole lot either and a lot of that has to do with her.

22:24 She's just a very easygoing like low drama person. It's amazing. Like I just the the longer me and Carter are married the more I'm grateful for the gift that she is to me. It's good. Um cuz I'm surrounded by high drama people. So I get to come home and be in a place where it's like not not that way. So, but there's a there's a double-edged sword to that because when we first got married, um we'd fight about stuff and then probably like two or three years in, Courtney started saying this thing that really like was not good. And that's she would go, I don't know why I'm saying anything. You're not going to change any of this anyway. Yeah, that's feedback. So, yeah. So, she but her belief was I didn't want to. Yeah. Like one of the things my dad's always said about relationships is um in conversations is these aren't the only things we're going to talk about, but these are things we're always going to talk about.

23:19 Like for me, there's certain issues that I have that I can grow in and I can get better in, but they might always kind of be present issues in my life. Like sin, sin, your sin nature is like that. I think, you know, we all have preferences. I still have my preferences. Yeah, I still want to I still navigate the introvert dynamic even though and I'm better on some days than other days. Some days I'm like I just can't handle this right now and I still have to navigate that. So the thing Courtney experienced was she was tired of having the same conversations and she was feeling like I really wouldn't I didn't want to be different, right? But I told her when when she said that one particular time, I said, "Listen, like I really don't do that because the reason why you're talking to me is because you believe that I can change, right?" She's like, "Yeah, I just don't think you want to." I'm like, "No, I want to. It's just I have defaults and it's really it's really hard for me." M and um having having that awareness like having the awareness in our life that the people around us who are trying to correct us and the people around us who stop correcting us, people around us who stop giving us feedback, they don't do it because they don't believe in us.

24:30 They do it because they don't think we believe in ourselves, right? Or not not because they don't think we they they do it because we don't believe in ourselves and they don't think we want to change. They believe like all the people in in my life who are trying to correct me and trying to help me, they believe that I can be different. Right. Right. And so the way I should reward that is by being different and doing whatever it takes to submit myself to correction, to listen to the people that are closest to me. You can't listen to everybody. And we can like do we can do more more podcasts on this on this topic later. You got to be really careful about the voices you listen to and all that stuff. I'd like to come back because we didn't even close the story loop of your of your book. Like we didn't go Yeah. We'll come back to talking about the book because the reason why we're talking about that is because I got a lot of feedback and have kind of changed directions based on that. But it's all been really good. Yeah. But we have to be the ones so to just kind of land the plane here with God.

25:25 God's always trying to get us to become a wise person. He's always trying to get us to correct ourselves. And so he surrounds us with correction. He surrounds us with discipline. He surrounds us with voices in our life who are going to tell us things we don't want to hear. And then the better we become at listening to that, the more wise we become, which means the more we're able to correct ourselves. 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.