The Dialog

In my 20s I worked for my dad, and I got corrected every day. Then one day the correction stopped. So I went to my dad, nervous, and asked him not to stop. He said, "I think you've just probably learned to correct yourself."

Most people never get there. The number one reason people stop giving you feedback is that they don't think you want to change. My co-host Nick Surface and I talk about the filter everyone hears through, what maturity sounds like in a conversation, and how God corrects us before anyone else has to.

Why do people stop giving you feedback?
They believe you can change. They don't think you want to. And we don't listen because we don't really believe we have the power to change. Maybe we can't change ourselves, but God can change us (Romans 12:2).

Why doesn't what you said match what they heard?
What you say is always at the mercy of a person's level of understanding. You're never talking to the person. You're talking to their filter.

What's the mark of a mature person?
Clarifying questions. Immature people believe what they understood equals what you said. A mature person asks, "Here's what I heard you say. Is that what you said?"

What is the conviction of the Holy Spirit?
God talking to you about something nobody else knows, and giving you a chance to fix it without having it exposed to the whole world. A wise person gives themselves feedback before anyone else becomes aware of it.

Scriptures
Romans 12:2 · Matthew 25:21

Books
Primal Leadership: why leaders don't receive feedback well

Chapters
0:00 Cold open and show intro
0:53 What you say vs. what they understand
1:06 Same values, different delivery
2:16 "You're talking to their filter"
2:49 The mark of maturity: clarifying questions
3:39 Why money sermons get misheard
4:35 When the correction suddenly stops
6:18 What is the conviction of the Holy Spirit?
7:14 Noticing the hurt before anyone says it
8:27 Hurting people without knowing it
9:28 Catch it before it blows up
11:24 Parent out of principle, not preference
11:56 The rabbit and "faithful over little"
14:22 Growing into self-correction
14:55 The right thing said the wrong way
15:44 Is your identity in your preferences?
16:20 "I don't like people"
18:15 Identity: beliefs, vision and values
19:44 "I don't need a lot of people, but I need people"
19:58 Primal Leadership
21:13 Do you believe you can change?
21:59 Why people stop giving you feedback
22:46 When your spouse stops bringing it up
24:13 They stopped correcting you. Here's why.
25:20 God surrounds us with correction

Previous: 1.31 / Why do we hate being corrected?
Next: 1.33 / What is your fatal flaw? The Greek word behind sin

New episodes most weeks.
Follow Nick on IG / https://www.instagram.com/nicksurface1/
Follow me on IG / https://www.instagram.com/joshuakcraft/
Go to my website / https://jkc.is

What is The Dialog?

Ancient philosophers used the dialog to find answers to life’s greatest questions. The Dialog is a search for truth in modern life through the lens of ancient philosophy, history, and theology. This podcast will challenge your assumptions, change your thinking and show you how to master modern living.

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. I'm interested in one thing, the future, and believe me, I know the only way to get there is together. What we've got here is failure. Milk Cake. You may think you know what tribut, but believe me, you don't what the truth. You can't handle the truth. For centuries, philosophers have used the dialogue to search for truth, because it's through conversation, through the logos, that we find it. This is the dialogue where ancient philosophy, history, and theology meet modern life. Together, we'll wrestle with big questions and give our answers to the way we live. Let's start the conversation. 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, and yet that's how we communicate all the time. Well, it's amazing. I mean, you think about 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, the thing is not about the thing, but everything's about everything. Like we talked about this about the guy that left the podcast comment. Right, me and Garrett have me me and you and Garrett have the same value system. 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 filter is so important, 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 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 it's 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. Well, the problem, I mean to me, like, the problem with immature people is that they believe that what they understood equals what she said. 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, like for them 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 questions, especially in like one on one communication or a small communication. But people do this all the time, 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 a god wance you do 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 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 five hundred people and they're a prosperity gospel church. It's like, well, why is that? Well because of all this stuff and culture anyway, So for us, for me as an individual, I don't want to be that way. I want to encourage everyone on this podcast don't be that way. And that requires you to be really good at getting feedback. So if I there was a time and I'll come back to wisdom, so I remember, man, in my twenties, I just got my tailkicked, like every day going to work working for my dad. Like, there's a lot of people that love my dad that want to be close to him. 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, My biggest caution with anybody who's, hey, I really want to be close to so and so, because I want to learn from them. As you get close to them, they're gonna 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, I'm getting all this NonStop feedback about how bad of a leader I am, how not good I am, 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 stop talking to me. Which, if you played sports, or if you have have had any kind of coaching in your life, when the coach stops talking to you, that's when you're like not gonna play in the game anymore. You're gonna ride the bench. And we're not going to ask you to come back next season, you know. 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. It's such a weird conversation yet, you know, I really haven't ha been been corrected in a while. And 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. And he says, well, because 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. 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 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, 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. 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, you know, man, just like having two babies, having twins and having three little kids. It's like I'm at a place in my mental and emotional state where it's like really close to the surface here. I don't have a lot of filter right now within my family. Right 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, And 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 I don't want to be that way. I'm really tired. It's not an excuse. I just just give me some mercy. I'm really sorry. 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 eight 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 your 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? Yeah, me too, I forgive you. They're like they're like, ah, man, it's not even worth repeating. Just know. Like 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 about something? Like yeah, for sure? He goes, I, man, I've just been carrying something for like five years. He didn't tell me what it was. He said, I've been carrying something for like five 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 I 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 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 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 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 that I share with people. Some people do blow it out, and I don't really know enough to know how. To assess that. But I'll just say for Reen and I, we we like never fight. Man. Literally, it's just not I I don't know, call it because we're both second born, or you can come up with all sorts of philosophies 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? Yeah, we do, for sure. We do and is there are 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 and feedback. And I think it's really interesting that you talked about you started 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 because I have your best interest in mind. I've told them and this is this is something that. My dad, my dad 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. Well, well, I just tell my kids. I'm like, look, it's gonna come like this is how life is gonna be. You're gonna 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've been tested on this and it's it is not convenient to do this, but it. Is I believe it's worth it. We'll see my kids were doing pretty great so far is that I don't ever want to parent out of preference. I want to 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 then 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 just didn't want to do it because it would be a little bit more pain or a little bit inconvenience for me. And so when you when you parent out out of principle, like for example, here's where it really stung. Hope wanted to get a rabbit. And by the way, for anybody listening, don't ever get a rabbit. It is the worst pet you could ever get, dude, Gerbils and the hamsters 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 turning 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 myself and literally this what went through my head. In my head, I was like, no chance. And 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 a little, ruler over much Guess where I got that principle from. It's not mine, it's God, 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 that right now. Yeah, So we got a rabbit. That thing pooped all over the like 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. Yeah, but she was good about it. But for like week to ten months, there was just like this tensions. That's a long time. It was this is what I'm saying, this this, but this one, I mean, it's not convenient. 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 because I thought she was just going through hormones. And it turns out like maybe she was because she was the right age. But you know the time, 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 because this rabbit like like thump its foot down. Well, she's sleeping five feet from that. You don't think that's going to disrupt our sleep. 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, I'll have to say, we eventually got rid of the rabbit, but we did it in a good way. We found somebody who got it rehomed. It was great. But like, I don't regret that at. All because for 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 undid that situation, 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 mine. At some point you have to progress to that. 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're exposed on the internet in our church to thousands of people. I am too with the podcast Garrett and I do. 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 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 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 one one hundred percent interested in telling them what they 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 that accurate? Because like that to me, like you're saying, that's where it grows to, is immaturity. 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. 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 have my you want to hurt me, and actually I'm going to thank you because. Well 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 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. You're amazing. I just have to say this on the on the foot. You're amazing at this. So like people here Josh talk on stage, You're like, I don't like people, I don't like my friends, and I want of Josh's closes. I don't really say it anymore. I don't stay it on like people anymore. But I did for a while staying on like people. Yeah, well, I'm glad you don't say that anymore. I'm improving, I've gotten good feedback. You have great job. Pride to 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, I just wanted to say that true. 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 just don't want them to care about me as much. But no, 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 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. Rights 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 and doing pick up. I got a whole life that I'm living. And then I feel like I got to respond to this person's text because they're my friend all that, so that. We can't respond to my text. For example, it's. Because I know the only people I really responded to are the people I knew woul get their feelings right. If I didn't see the thing is I knew 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 press you because I was like, I know i'll hear about it eventually. Yeah, we'll talk about but because 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. You just said it right there though, and I'm sorry to inter keep interrupting you. Yeah, I want to pull out the stuff because what you're saying is really valuable for people. So when you said your beliefs are your identity is based on principles, not on preferences. That may sound hard to break down, but 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 principle 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're lying to yourself. You don't actually believe that because your vision is wrong and you're not valuing the right thing. I mean, you feel that way for maybe a multi reasons, and that's how you express it. But everybody needs people. I'm like I said, 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 kind of weigh that all based on scripture, right, So scripture is not like, oh, here's here's the introverts. Here, here's the extroverts. So it's these categories we've just imagined, right. Most personality profiles are like that, Like your Enneagram's not your identity, right, you're 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. So 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 don't need a lot of people, but I need people, 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 there's this book called Primal Leaderships. It's the best book that I've ever read on emotional intelligence. It's better than the book that's called emotional intelligence. I'm leadership. I've never had a leadership, right, Yeah, And in that book they talk about in studies that they've done in large companies, the number one reason why leaders don't receive feedback well from subordinates or people around them or three hundred and sixty feedback or whatever is because that leader doesn't believe that they can change. 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 or 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. That's not true, but that's kind of a default state that we have as human beings. 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. So 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. Right. 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 twelve two, we talked about it one 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. It's really sad because of how to 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. So, 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. She's just a very easy going, like low drama person. It's amazing, Like I just the longer me and Courtney are married, the more I'm grateful for the gift that she is to me. Good because I'm surrounded about hi 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, 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, let'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 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. 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 send send your sin natures like that. I think, you know, we all have preferences. I still have my preferences. 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 experience 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. It's really hard for me and 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. They do it because they don't think we believe in ourselves, right or not, because they don't think 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 my life who are trying to correct me and trying to help me, they believe that I can be different, 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 every everybody, and we can do we can do more more podcasts on this, on this topic later. You've got to be really careful about the voices you listen to and all that stuff. I'd like people 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 bookcause reason why we're talking about this 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. 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 we're going to tell us things we don't want to hear. And then the better we become listening to that, the more wise we become, which means the more we're able to correct ourselves. Thank you for listening to the dialogue. 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 dot com or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.