The School of Greatness - How To Stop Feeling Stuck In Life (By Doing THIS) w/ Craig Groeschel EP 1394

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today!Craig Groeschel is the founding and senior pastor of Life.Church, an innovative multi-site church known for creating YouVersion, the world’s most downloaded Bible app. As one of the most respected leaders in the Church, Craig frequently speaks at leadership conferences worldwide, including events for the Global Leadership Network that reaches hundreds of thousands of leaders around the world annually. Groeschel hosts a leadership podcast, and is a New York Times bestselling author, and his latest book, The Power to Change: Mastering the Habits That Matter Most, will be released in February 2023. In this episode you will learn:How to channel your inner leader.When to step out of your comfort zone.How to prioritize your life and set realistic goals.Why discipline is so critical to reaching your goals.For more, go to lewishowes.com/1394How To Change Your Behavior And Accomplish Your Goals [MASTERCLASS]: https://link.chtbl.com/1317-podDr. Joe Dispenza: Break Free Of The Addiction To Negative Thoughts & Emotions: https://link.chtbl.com/1309-podBruce Lipton on How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind To Manifest Your Dream Life: https://link.chtbl.com/1312-pod

Okay, so if you haven't heard the news yet, I've got a new book out called The Greatness Mindset. Unlock the power of your mind and live your best life today. It's coming out soon, and I'm pumped to invite you to be a part of the launch team for this book. This is a rare opportunity to get your questions answered and network with other champions of greatness in this exclusive community of conscious achievers. If you're ready to receive early access to the first few chapters of the book, behind the scenes updates from me, plus VIP access to bonuses and giveaways, then this is for you. For instructions about how to join this greatness launch team, make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash launch team right now. Again, make sure to check it out at lewishouse.com slash launch team right now. Again, make sure to check it out at LewisHowes.com

slash launch team right now. You have to create the pockets of time to do what makes you great. What are those things that drive you, that renew you, that give you energy? And then you have to... Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I feel like a lot of people don't even know what it means to be a leader because they're so wounded. They've got a lot of hurt, they've got a lot of adversity they're facing or they've faced

and haven't overcome yet. They've got a lot of pain and fears from their past that keep them stuck in the past as opposed to a beautiful vision of a future. And I want to ask you, when was the time you were the most in pain internally? And how long did it take for you to finally heal that pain? Was it when you were younger? Was it when you were married? Was it when you were launching a business? When was that moment? What was it? And when did you realize this was something that was holding you back? I think there, Lewis, and that's a deep question. We go in right away.

Yeah. Let's not get warmed up. I'm not going to lay it up for you. I'd say there's probably two seasons. And there's almost like pre-leadership mindset and then leadership mindset. So the pre-leadership mindset for me was in college. And the pain that I experienced is I just was not a person of integrity. And so I would try to be one person for one group, another person for another group. And I ended up just hurting a lot of people.

Really? Hurting a lot of people and Really? Hurting a lot of people and just did not live a good life. And so it was a result of my own actions that I was in pain because I was causing pain. And it's pretty much what I'd seen modeled. And so that's who I was becoming. Interesting. And so it was my own failure that led to changes. And then in leadership, my own failure that led to changes. And then in leadership, I would say, I mean, there's almost too many, like you kind of live in pain, you know. When you're in leadership.

Yeah. I always say, if you're not hurting, you're not leading. Really? So yeah. I mean, there's always, I mean, like I'm walking in today with pain after having to make a really painful decision. And so if you're not hurting, you're probably not leading. And so several examples come to mind. I had a mentor and a hero who ended up taking his life and I didn't do his funeral. That was pain. And then just the pain of failure is very, very real. Public failure of trying something that doesn't work. And then relational pain of any time you don't handle something well with somebody. It's just that you have to live with that.

So it's season after season after season of pain. But that's part of it. I always tell people that sometimes the difference between where you are and where you could be is the pain that you're unwilling to endure. Sometimes it has to be the pain of making a hard decision that actually gets you to the right place or the pain of some kind of a discipline you add to your life. And so I try not to run from pain. I don't like it, but I know that it's a part of it. And so I try to embrace it as a part of what we do. Why do you think so many people avoid facing pain when they know that's what's going to help them get to the next level and actually remove the pain and suffering they're in? Yeah. I don't know that everybody

really knows that. I think sometimes they think that avoiding pain is the goal. And they don't necessarily see the benefit on the other side of the pain. Yeah, let's say someone in a business has a an employee that's got kind of a toxic mindset. And so they kind of put up with that for a while. And then eventually, they remove that toxic employee and they have no other like, oh my gosh, things are so much better. I have no idea how it's like, it's amazing how much better it is. And they don't realize also when they tolerate that intolerable behavior, how much credibility they're losing with everybody else. And so eventually the toxic employee is not the problem. The person who's putting up with this, the problem. And in avoiding that pain, it ended up creating more pain. And so that's what I think that a lot of times, it took me years to understand that I could avoid the short-term pain because it's painful, but that pain could actually compound over a longer period of time if I don't deal with it. And so I try to step into the pain that's going to lead to the progress. And sometimes I don't feel like it and don't do it.

But when you do, you didn't become a two-time All-American athlete. By being comfortable. By being comfortable, right? Growth and comfort rarely coexist. You have to step into the discomfort. Yes. So I feel like my life is a constant discomfort. Oh, man.

So it's painful to be a victim, and it's painful to be a leader. It is. But, but the leadership one. Choose your pain. You have to choose your pain. Choose your pain. Yeah. And there's better results on the other side of being a leader, but the pain doesn't go away. It doesn't sound like the pain goes away as a victim or a leader. No, I don't think the pain, I don't think pain goes away. And in this broken world, pain doesn't go away, but there are certain types of pain that lead to a better tomorrow, and there are other types of pain that lead to more pain. That's true.

So your season, you're mentioning two seasons, the first one being in college, being out of integrity. And I'm assuming, well, I don't want to assume, but there's probably things you were doing or saying that were out of integrity or not being your word. Or you said being one person to a certain group and being another person. And I had a season when I was 10 to 12 where I was stealing a lot. Candy bars, cigarettes.

Did you ever get arrested for it? Never got arrested. I did. You did? Yeah, I did. Really? Wow. How old were you?

I was in college. Wow. So this season of pain it was yeah i you know there's this guy i looked up to he was an older athlete and he went he was he i can't remember what he called he said like we go something we never go out without a hit i think it's what he said and so you go out you always steal something really and so i kind of wanted to be liked by him i wasn't as good as he was. I got caught. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I was a college athlete and I was going to lose my scholarship. It was just, you know, yeah, it was, it was, I mean, it was a spiral of things like that. That was one of many things that I did that

were, uh, brought a lot of pain. So how did you overcome that? Like when you got out of jail, I mean, was it just the night or for an hour? Yeah, no, it was, they actually just scared me. It was a really good, and they effectively scared me. It was a, they did a pretty good job, but I, my dad was an alcoholic. And so I ended up, you know, drinking way too much and thought I could stop it. And then one day I tried to stop and I couldn't stop it. And that was in the season of all the other things. And so for me, we had, I was the president of the fraternity that I was in. We had four guys commit grand larceny and our house was in a big bunch of trouble. And so I came up with kind of a plan to try to establish some credibility. And part of what I did, it was at a kind of a religious Christian university. So I said, we're going to do a Bible study there.

And that was part of my plan. And so what I did is I went on just kind of a quest for spiritual meaning, which ended up me, I'm obviously a pastor, which led me down a path of faith. And so that was when I had my big kind of turnaround, which was I hit bottom, couldn't stop drinking, was stealing, cheating on every single girl I ever dated at that time, and betraying my friends. And so kind of hitting bottom made me ask some bigger questions in life. Really? Were you into, I guess, faith growing up before then?

No. So we went to church, but it was nothing but an action. But when you see your father, an alcoholic, or your parents struggling or fighting, you're like, well, they're not living to this message. There was nothing real about it for us. It was just a Christmas and Easter, feel good, go every now and then. And so then it became going, am I going to live in a way that hurts people, or am I going to live for something that's more meaningful and lasting? And that's when I had a big life change. So that was season one of pain.

When was it? You said there was two seasons? Well, I'd say, I mean, then like leadership. And so I just, it's really hard to say the biggest time. It's just, it's really hard to say the biggest time. And early on, you know, the mistakes that we made and, you know, the failures. And it's just, it's been a not, so 27 years of leading the church that we started. And it's just been 27 years of different types of pain, you know, and 27 years

of different types of like blessings and wins and, and, uh, things that we're proud of as well, but you just can't lead a lot of people without experiencing a lot of hurt. Really? How do you, I guess, forgive yourself or be okay with, you know, unintentional pain that you may cause on others from 10 years ago, 20 years ago from just, you made a mistake. You, you didn't say the right thing at the right time and someone took it the wrong way. How do you learn to forgive yourself and not hold on to the suffering of that? That's a great question. So what is forgiveness? And so one is you have to receive forgiveness and some people can say, okay, well, I feel like now I'm forgiven. But then the forgiving yourself part is a huge deal.

And there's kind of an illustration someone used, like if you're holding on to broken glass and you squeeze it like that, you're hurting yourself. And when we hold on to any kind of unforgiveness or what we did wrong and squeeze it, we end up hurting ourselves. And when we're hurt, we tend to continue to hurt other people. And so there has to be a point where we say, I cannot change that. I can't change what I did. I can't change what I said, but I can change what I'm doing moving forward. And in order to become different moving forward, I have to let go of what I did in the past. When did you learn to let go? I would say I'm still learning to let go, meaning I still am very hard on myself

when I do something that is beneath my standards. Right. I mean, it's something as small as there was a guy that I didn't know very well that went through a horrible thing and I thought I'm going to call him. And then I didn't call him and didn't call him and didn't call him.

And then too much time went and I thought I'm going to call him. And then I didn't call him and didn't call him and didn't call him. And then too much time went. And I thought, well, if I call him now, it's been too late. And then I bumped into him a year later and I saw him and I was just like, I didn't do something. I didn't call you. It was a horrible situation he went through. And I just didn't do something like that and I beat myself up over it. So there's people with high standards often have high shame. What we want to

do is we want to have a high standard without high shame. We have to let that go and move on. How do you let it go though? And not feel guilty or shameful if you don't do something? Well, for him, I apologized. And I said, would you please forgive me? Because I thought about it and I didn't do it and too much time went by. And so I just named it and he was very gracious to me. I didn't do it and too much time went by. And so I just named it and he was very gracious to me. And so sometimes it comes with an apology to someone else. Other times it just, it's almost like you have to draw a line in the sand and said,

I'm not going to let the actions that I did or didn't do continue to rob me from doing the right thing today. And so it's kind of an internal choice to move forward. You have to move forward. How do we learn to fully heal and create peace? And so it's kind of an internal choice to move forward. You have to move forward. How do we learn to fully heal and create peace? Can you do that if you don't forgive yourself or others? Can you still start to heal while holding a grudge and being shameful? Or is that part of the process towards healing? Yeah.

Okay, so my dad was an alcoholic, which creates challenges in any kind of family. And so there was a lot of hurt there. I don't think I could be doing today what I'm doing without having forgiven him and forgiving myself for my part in what went on. So first of all, it's forgiving him. And the second thing is, I was often not, my reactions weren't always good to what was going on. In fact, the times were worse than you could imagine.

And to apologize, he went through a 12-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous, he's now sober over 30 years, and I talk to him every day. And I look up to him today, not for the reasons I wanted to look up to a dad for a kid, but totally different reasons. Now for a man who's humble, for a man who's caring, for a man who helps other people. And that healing in both of us created something on the inside that says we can overcome. We can move forward. We can make something better. We can do something different.

And so much of life is a wound, an addiction in many ways. So someone comes to me with a pornography addiction. And I go, I can't stop. I can't stop. What I'll try to say is, okay, when did you look at it first? And they'll tell some kind of dramatic story of I was in the fourth grade and something, or someone did something inappropriate to me and then I started whatever. And so I'll say what that actually is, is it was a wound. It was a wound. You experienced something, you feel dirty, like you did something wrong, but that actually was a wound. And what you have to do is you have to protect that wound in order for it to heal. Meaning you have to stay away from the thing that continues to

infect that wound and let your mind be renewed, how you see yourself, maybe how you see people or images or the opposite sex or whatever. And so you literally, you have to place a protection around the wound because if you keep picking up the wound, the wound doesn't heal. And then, and it may be you get therapy, it may be you read the Bible, it may be you get in a group of people that are working together, but you do something different.

It doesn't, wounds don't typically heal without some time of treatment some time of help and some time and you have to have all some combination of all this yeah how does someone learn to manage their thoughts hmm when they have a wound that becomes an addiction that seems like it's just whenever there's pain or anxiety, they go right to that thought. Well, a hundred percent. Yeah. And you do because of the way our minds are created. And when we think a thought, we create a neural pathway, which is kind of like if there's a road between the two of us, if we travel across the yard the same way every day,

you create a path. And that's what our thoughts do as we create the neural pathway. And what we have to do is we have to learn to stop traveling the same destructive thought pathway and create another pathway, which is not easy. And so we have to determine what is the wrong thought or what is the lie that I'm believing. And then what we have to do is determine what is the correct thought or what is the truth. And we have to think that thought over and over and over and over again. I would say like, write it down, whatever it is. Think it, confess it till you believe it. Write it, think it, confess it till you believe it. Write it, think it, confess it till you believe it.

And so what I did, Lewis, is I had some thoughts about me that were not always positive. What was the hardest thought for you to overcome? I would say I always felt like I'm not enough. Yeah. And so. Why is that for so many people? Myself included. Yeah.

Why is that? They seem like the core of a lot of our fears. I think it's because we're not enough. We're not because we're not. We're broken human beings. And we're not the source of creation. We're not. We're not.

We're not. You know creation. We're not. We're not. We're not. And we know our flaws. And so we always know that we're not enough. But living in that belief that I am not enough, I'm never good enough, I'm not going to be smart enough, pretty enough, whatever it is, that doesn't support us either. No. But that's probably why a lot of the people in the School of Greatness you have feel that way because in in our dysfunction we try to prove that we are right so you'll be you'll become a great athlete too or you'll become successful and you're trying to prove to someone else or prove to yourself that you are enough and that works for a little while but it doesn't sustain success it doesn't last so how do we get to a place where we stop thinking I'm not enough? I'm never enough. I'm

stupid. I'm an idiot. I'm always a failure. How do we eliminate those thoughts? What do we replace it with to create peace? Yeah. Well, it depends on your framework. So I'm a pastor and so I have a spiritual framework. And so for me, it starts with Christ. And so for me, and there's actually a verse in the Bible that's a pretty powerful verse. And I know people from all different faith backgrounds, and we actually love that, respect it. But there's a verse that says, you have everything you need for life in godliness. It's a powerful verse. In godliness. In godliness. You have everything you need. And so in other words, if you recognize that God, or whatever your source would be, I would say God has given you the relationships you need, the mind that you need, the resources you need, the internal strength you need, the people to call that you need, the emotions that you can need.

He's given you everything you need for life and godliness. Then you go to him or go to your network of friends or whatever it is and say, I'm going to apply the things that I have to get things done. And so I'll teach that in leadership, too, is that we tend to think that a lot of people say, I can't because we don't. I can't do this because we don't have this. I need more people, money, more time, whatever. And I'll say, you have everything you need to do, everything you're created to do. If you choose, instead of saying, I don't have the time, we say, no, you actually have the time to do what you choose to have the time for. You make the choice.

Right. We don't have enough money. Actually, sometimes too much money gets in the way of innovation, right? That's true. I mean, it really does. You're not hungry. You're not creative. No, no.

Too much money makes you sloppy. And so the most innovative companies, you're usually the most innovative in the startup phase because they have to be. They got no money. They're trying to figure it out. So back to your question is, I want to fundamentally, you do what you do because of what you think of you. You do what you do because of what you think of you. If you think you're broken, you act like someone who's broken. If you think you're insufficient, you're always going to feel like you're lacking something. To change what you do, you need to change what you think of you. And so when we talk about discipline and we talk about habits, we start first with the who, not the do. What do you mean by that?

It doesn't matter so much. So not about what to do, but who you believe you are. You do what you do because of what you think of you. but who you believe you are. You do what you do because of what you think of you. Of who you believe you are. Who you believe you are. So it's changing the belief around yourself first. 100%. So how do we do that?

They did a study, basically, when you get any kind of situation, subconsciously you have three thoughts. The first thing is, what type of a person I am? Who am I? What type a person I am. Who am I? What type of person I am? And the second thing is that you're asking the subconsciously every time, what type of situation is this? And the third question is,

what does a person like me do in a situation like this? And that's how you make decisions. And so if you want to change what you do, you have to change what you think of you. What type of person am I? It's a dumb story. I'm a pastor. I'm in an office building in the early years.

We had this rented building. There was only 40 staff members at the time or something. And these teenagers pulled up in the parking lot outside, and they got on a car. These guys took their shirt off, and a fight's on. And so I thought, this is amazing. I'm in here studying. There's going to be a fight. So I ran through the office like I'm 15 years old. I'm going, fight, fight, fight. This other pastor

named Robert, he's like, you know, he's a man's man. We were out. It's like, fight, fight, fight. And we're watching that. It watched his fight go on for about 30 seconds. And he looked at me and I looked at him and I go, wait a minute, who are we? We're grownups. We're supposed to break this up. So when you know who you are, you'll know break this up. So when you know who you are, you'll know what to do. So when you know who you are, you'll know what to do. So we broke the fight up because we remember who we were. And fundamentally, when we want to change our habits, it has to start with identity. What would a person like me do in a situation like this? If I continue to do the

wrong thing, it's because I've got the wrong mindset. And so we have to change what we think about. So how do we shift our identity if our identity has served us in some ways, but not in every way? Yeah. So our dysfunction can serve us, meaning like I'm the oldest adult child of an alcoholic, which makes me a people pleaser, which works until it doesn't. I'm a type A personality. It's going to be an achiever, which works until it doesn't. Yes. I'm a type A personality. It's going to be an achiever, which works until it doesn't. And so those things, our dysfunctions can work for us up to a point. But to truly have sustained health and sustained impact, we have to be healthy in what we're doing.

So the mindset matters so, so, so much. And essentially what we have to do is we have to retrain our minds. I mean, we literally have to retrain our minds. I've got a dog that would run out into the street all the time and was going to get killed. And so I tried to train her. Eventually I had to buy one of those collars that would shock before she went on the street. Now we don't even turn on the thing because she knows she doesn't go past a certain point. So she's trained.

What I want to do with my mind is I want to train it not to go to those dangerous places. And if you, you know, I'm 55 when this comes out, if I've thought in a certain way for 20 or 30 years, the idea of changing my mind in a week is almost impossible. Right. Right? It's a discipline. So in the same way, 15 years ago, I decided to get serious about my health and diet. It took me probably three years to see significant benefits in my physical health. And I mean, you see some immediate ones, but to tell it becomes a sustainable lifestyle is probably three years. Wow.

And then probably another seven years of dialing it in with supplements and meals and workout and such. And the same thing with my mind is in order to take out all of the, or at least as much dysfunction as I can, and start to replace it with healthy, sustainable, productive, positive thoughts, it's taken years. And you don't get great at anything without a lot of time, and you don't get great healing your mind without putting some work into it. So after this 10, 15 years of doing these activities to kind of retrain your thinking and your habits and your discipline and being the leader you are now, when a thought creeps in

from the past, like maybe it used to consistently and it creeps in, what do you think and what do you say to yourself about it? How do you shift it? How do you get back to your new identity? Yeah. So there's, like, science would call it, you know, creating new neural pathways. Scripture would call it renewing your mind. And there's actually a Bible verse that says you were to capture any wrong thoughts. And that's a great kind of metaphor. And so let's just say that you feel like I'm never going to be good enough. The moment that comes up, you want to recognize it as early as you can. And you want to capture it and say, that's just not true. And what is true?

And then you want to replace it with what's true. And if you don't capture it, it's kind of like if you let a few roaches in your house, you're going to have a bunch of roaches in your house. You've got to solve the problem. You got to see the problem early and solve it quickly. And so you want to recognize. And one of the key things is, is like a lot of us just don't recognize the wrong thought patterns.

You see it with people on social media when they say just dumb things and everyone else goes, that person's not healthy because they don't see it. And so you want to, first of all, recognize what is it, what wrong thought patterns are holding me back. And when you believe a lie long enough, you just start to think it's true. And so sometimes you have to have outside help too. For example, the performance psychologist I worked with, he helped me to see that because of my feeling unworthy, I find it difficult to ask for help. I find it very difficult to ask for help. And so he said to me, what do you need in life? What do you need? What

are your needs? What do you need? And so in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, well, I need to eat. I need to sleep. And I kind of slowed down there. It's like, what else do you need? So I've been, I have been married to Amy for 31 years. We've had a great marriage. I kind of slowed down there. It's like, what else do you need? So I have been married to Amy for 31 years. We've had a great marriage. I kind of need her. Not technically, but I really want her, yeah. And he goes, no, you're believing a lie. What you need is you need recreation.

You need friends. You need enjoyment. You need time without a ton of people in your home. You need to go to a place where you have anonymity. You don't need that. No, actually, you need time without a ton of people in your home. You need to go to a place where you have anonymity. You don't need that. No, actually, you need that. And so what he helped me to do is to dignify need, that that doesn't make me less of a servant

or it doesn't make me more, it doesn't make me narcissistic. It doesn't make me a bad leader. It doesn't make me a bad husband. It makes me a human being that has needs. And so as one who's been trained to always serve others, it's okay, it's not only okay to ask for help or to have need, but it's important to ask for help

and to let others meet your needs. And so I've had to retrain my mind to do that, which is not, hasn't been easy. What happens if we ask for too much help? Is there such a thing or is that a good thing? Well, I think certainly there's such a thing that you can't let other people do everything for you. You can't let them solve all your problems.

If you create a great course and it's always free and I don't have any skin in the game, then I might not take it seriously. So I think that there's, if you're a baby, you probably need unlimited help but when you're not a baby at some point you have to you have to feed yourself absolutely yeah what's the place in your life right now you feel like if you continue to level up to the next level would solve a lot of problems either either internally, emotionally, spiritually.

If I leveled up, it would solve a lot of problems. Or if you overcame or if it was something that was holding you back still, even if it was a smaller level. I mean, you're at a whole nother level than most people because you've been so disciplined for 15 years. But is there anything still, a thought that holds you back, an emotion that holds you back, an intention? I would say my disciplines are pretty dialed in, which is good. But I think that probably the... Here's something. So I told our team, it's hard to say, but I basically had been leading afraid.

And so there's a part of me that just is cautious now. In the early years, I was too dumb to be afraid as a leader and didn't have anything to lose. And so I took a lot of risks. And now what I realized, in this culture, someone like me and you, we can say something small, something a misstep, we can misspeak, and it can be incredibly costly. And so not only could it hurt me, but you know, I've got a thousand employees. I take a misstep. It could be costly there. I represent something that's more than just a brand, but it's, it's spiritual. And so, so I think that, um,

I've been way too hesitant. I've played it safe. I haven't been as bold at times. And I think that when I did a lot because I was fearless, I've done less because I've been fearful. Interesting. What would you step into if you weren't fearful at all? I think that there are, I've actually stepped into some of the things more recently is I think there are certain subjects that, that even like we talked about off camera that are a little more controversial that I have been stepping back into, tipping toe back into because what I want to do to do is I want to keep the conversation going. And so there's certain things I can say or certain things I may believe that if I come out too strong, the conversation ends real quickly. If you come out too strong.

Yeah. I can lose credibility. Yeah. And, you know, I'm actually pretty open-minded and have a wide tolerance and love for a lot of people. But I do have some pretty firm beliefs. And so what I don't want to do is I don't want to push them. But I believe they could be really helpful. And so I'm wading back into some things I think are important for someone like me to talk about.

But they're risky. So I'm going back and doing some of that. And I think every now and then, for example, our church created something called the YouVersion Bible Lab. And it's on over half a billion devices. We give it away for free. And we've been, the language I use is we've kind of been nickel and diming it, meaning we put a lot of money toward it and have a big team. But we've been playing it safe. And we steward what is probably the number one tool in the world, in the history of the world, of getting out that word. That's pretty powerful.

And we've been playing it safe. So what we've done, and we've come in and we're ramping up, we're taking some risks and putting a lot toward it that may or may not work. So that's something now that I'm saying I was hesitant and I'm not going to be as hesitant there. And so if I thought about it for a long time, there's probably a ton of areas like that where my fear has just kept me from being as bold or... Playing a little safer. Playing a little safer.

Well, this is the challenge, I think. You've accomplished so much individually and also with your church. I mean, you have so many locations. You reach a lot of people. The app has a half a billion people using the app. The books, your work, your credibility, your leadership, all the different things that you've created. Why do you think it's so hard for people once they've created something that to other human beings looks like a lot, right? That looks very credible and a big platform.

Why is it so hard for people to continue to be courageous in using their voice? Not saying you're not doing that, but to continue to do the things that got them there. to do the things that got them there? And also, why do you think so many people wanna bring down those that have created something that they aspire to create themselves? Why is there this culture in the past five, 10 years of just like, let's pick apart anyone who's doing anything of value?

I'll start with that part of the question. That's easier. So in like in New Zealand or Australia, that's where the tall poppy syndrome would be most well-known. And so whatever the poppy that grows the tallest, people want to cut it down. I think it's a sad commentary on human nature born out of insecurity. And so here's what I found is that for a big part of my life, I was very much like that. If I saw something that was successful, I felt threatened by it. And I must not be good enough because I'm not doing that.

So there must be something wrong with them. So I kind of grew up in a home or a mindset where I was taught wealthy people are bad. I mean, literally, that was almost word for word was said. They're evil. They must have done something wrong to get that way. And what's interesting is a family member that believed that ended up marrying somebody that had wealth. And it was this world-class wealthy person, like world-class, generous, kind, amazing. And so I said to that person, I said, do you think maybe that they are wealthy

because they've treated people well, because they've had integrity, because they've served people well? And then that person who was marrying, I said, now you're gonna be wealthy and you're gonna get to decide what kind of wealthy person do you wanna be? So it was interesting because that was,

we were raising a mindset where people wanna cut them down. As I've grown to not be threatened by success, but celebrate success, I'd rather cheer people on like crazy. And it takes a real different mindset. It's like the difference between an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. And what is scarcity? There's one pie, and if you get a piece, I don't. Abundance is we can make more pies. And so if we believe. Limited pies, yeah. We can make tons of pies. And so if we believe that successful people probably did something to deserve to be there, and it's hard to be there, and then we would cheer them on rather than tear them down.

them down. And just also, I read, I think it's Engelman's that does the trust surveys now. I think it's 67% of people choose not to trust unless there's a reason to trust, which is horrifying. Because I don't know you, but we're on a podcast together. I'm putting my trust in you. I flew in a plane to get here and trusted the pilot to get me here. When I go out to lunch today, I'm untrusted. They don't spit in my food. So our whole society is built on trust. But when 67% of people don't trust, unless it's proven, it's almost like a breakdown of relational anything. And so I think long answer to that, what we criticize the most is often what we understand the least. What should we do instead of criticize? We should be a student.

Get curious. Get curious. What have you done? You've been curious, and that's what makes you great. And so you don't tear down greatness. You create a school of greatness. Exactly. school of greatness.

Exactly. Yeah. Why, you know, I've seen over the past, I don't know, five, seven years, different pastors, just leading churches in general, stumble, right? Have marital issues or a cheating scandal or financial scandal or something like, I've seen it. I don't know all the details. I'm not in the scene really, but I've seen this happen. And then, you know, they lose their credibility

or their, or whatever it might be. Why do you think that's happening to certain people in the faith-based communities? And why do we have such high standards for these individuals to not also be human and make mistakes? Can you speak into just this? Yeah, I could talk about this for a long time because it's really important. First of all, yes, we have had some visible leaders fall.

And we've had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of leaders, spiritual leaders, not fall. And thousands of visible ones, visible ones not fall. So we do have a problem, but we also have a lot of places where things are going really well. And so I just always like to point that out because we live in a day where the failures hit the news and you know right rightly so if we're doing something that's um isn't right uh so but i also want to say there's a lot of a lot of people doing it really well so we don't forget that why is it happening i think several reasons i think that i mean it's almost too many reasons to count i think um if we put our identity in the wrong place, we get vulnerable. If we work too hard without recovering, we get vulnerable. If we're visually distracted by

something we shouldn't look at, we're vulnerable. If our identity is in, if we neglect our marriage, we're vulnerable. If we don't have, and this can be a problem, if we don't have real accountability, the people that we answer to, and we're on the show, we're incredibly vulnerable. And that can be an issue. And so I think the list goes on and on and on of why we're there. And one of the things, one of the challenges is,

let's say we take a small misstep, at least a bigger misstep. A lot of times, spiritual leaders don't feel safe confessing it. And so like where we are, what we want to do is we always say we want to be a safe place to confess sin early. Meaning, if for someone to do something that would be newsworthy or disqualifying, that's generally not a one-step action. Generally, there's one, two, three, four, five, six smaller steps that led up to that. Right. It's not just, oh, I have this idea.

I'm going to go act on it. No. It's like, I've been thinking about this for years. And working toward it. Meaning, and compromise here, compromise here, compromise here. And so what I'm a big believer in is high levels of accountability. Okay. So let's say we're going to look at your life and there's certain disciplines in there.

You've got parameters. So there's certain things I'm going to eat today, certain things I'm not going to eat today. There's certain things I'm going to do with my time. When it comes to guarding my marriage, 31 years and six kids that are grown, five grandkids, I have parameters in my life of safeguards. Give me a few. Tons of them. So people would criticize this all day long, and I understand in certain circles this would be, but I'm just not alone with someone of the opposite sex. Right. You're not alone.

I'm not alone. I'm not alone. My computer and my cell phone and all, they have, there's like tracking stuff on there. Every click I make on the computer, someone else sees. Same with my phone. It's got blockers of inappropriate material. I can't book a massage because I can't type in massage.

It blocks things, which is incredibly inconvenient if I want to get a massage. But it means I can't look at something I shouldn't look at. And so the bot, and someone's like, well, pastor, are you really that vulnerable?

Are you that big of a sickle? And the answer is- Which is about keeping you accountable, right? The answer is like, generally not. Yeah, generally not. Yeah. I mean, like most days, no. Right.

But you never know if there's going to be a time when I'm upset, mad, angry, vulnerable, whatever. And so the way I always phrase it, Lewis, is I'm going to close as many doors as I can to something that could be costly. And the way I say it is, why would I resist a temptation in the future if I have the power to eliminate it today? Wow. Okay? I love this.

Why fight it? Like, I don't know when I'm going to be vulnerable. So if I am, because I'm still a human being, let's not have that thing, be able to, let's not have access to it. Sure. And so there's, and then, you know, how are you gonna do this? Well, you're only as strong as you are honest, right? You have to be, you have to be honest. And so for someone like me to say, I have those kinds of parameters, that implies that I could be vulnerable. And the reason is because I could be vulnerable. Because of where I came from. And I always joke around,

long before I was a pastor, I used to be a man. It's so true. Right? Right. And just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I'm not a human being that's capable of wrongdoing. Sure. Wow. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, where am I vulnerable? And I'm going to put safeguards in those places. So every keystroke and every link you go to, someone's able to look at it. 100%, yeah.

Who is that? Someone on your team or your wife or your email. Oddly enough, in my office, like on my computer. And so if you, you may not like this, but if you text me, someone can see that. Sure. So I'll only text you inappropriate things. Yes, and there's a couple people that need to remember that.

So a couple of my friends. And so like everywhere I go, my mileage is tracked, so people in my office know everywhere I am. Wow. Every dollar I spend, I've got several people that help. They all see that. Every dollar I make, every dollar I give. And so there's financial transparency with a group of people. It's extreme accountability. And that's not even accountability.

That's just how I have my life set up. Interesting. And then what is there to hide? So when I took up a new, I took up jujitsu three years ago. And so the lady by my office, she's going, what's this place you've gone to four times in Guthrie? Right, right. Because my life is so boring. I went to a new place.

So that people see that. And that would be really extreme for a lot of people. I know a lot of your audience going, this guy's wacko. This guy's weird. And I've had a lot of people criticize my standards and end up in trouble. And so I have a lot to, I have a lot of reasons to stay on the right path.

And so I'm gonna put fences up to keep me from going on the wrong path. Yeah, and if you took those away, let's just say, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years now, I've been having these parameters, these these guidelines these boundaries that I've set myself I'm in a good space and if you started to pull them all back you know maybe for a year or two you would still continue that but then oh no one's gonna see this let me get away with this little thing this isn't really that big a deal but it

can lead to some there are a ton of boundaries I have right now that I do not feel like I need right now right but. But you never know. You never know, man. I don't feel like I need it right now. You were born a man. Yeah. And I don't feel like at this age, I am way less vulnerable to some things I was before. Sure. But I'm not invulnerable. but I'm not invulnerable. So I'd rather be wise than foolish. I mean, it's an extreme way to look at things, but it's gotten you extraordinary results in your life and a sense of peace and freedom that you probably wouldn't have otherwise. That's what discipline is. Most people hate discipline. A simple definition of discipline is choosing what you want most

over what you want now, right? And there's some things I want a lot. There's some things I want now. And sometimes they're not the right thing. And so it's all the way down to my diet, which is really, really strict. You're dialed. I can tell. Well, thank you. But it's not because I don't like donuts. It's not because I don't like chocolate ice cream. I like it. I just don't have access to it. Do you want to have energy? Do you want to live a long time?

No. So, I mean, my meals are pre-planned, and I've got the healthy snacks around all the time. Because if I don't, I'll be vulnerable to it. And so there's just choices that we make to put the right people in our lives, the right environments, the right systems, the right accountability, the right structure. And people will say, Craig, you're incredibly disciplined, and they'll say, I'm not disciplined. I'll say, you actually are disciplined.

Some people, you may be disciplined to eat Doritos and play video games all day, sleep in, but that's what you've chosen to do, and you do that consistently. And I'm not naturally disciplined toward the right disciplines. I have to choose them. And it's like your mind, once you choose them often enough, you create pathways and then you see the benefits from it. And then it becomes, then it's who then it's so for a while as i was a person who was trying to eat healthy now i'm a person who values this is this is the temple of the holy spirit is what my faith would believe and so i'm going to put good things in it wow that's who i am

not just what i don't just eat right don't know this is this is who i am as identity if you want to change what did you change what you think of you. And so it's the mindset that goes a long way. What's a thought you think of frequently throughout every day that supports you in your life the most? I would say there's several things. So I have kind of, for Amy, I would say, I will love her like Jesus loved the church. I'll lay down my life to serve her.

Wow. And so I want to, I want to, I want to love her. I want her to feel blessed, honored, cherished. And so that relationship matters so much to me. When did you get to that point?

Was that from day one? Was that like 10 years in where you're like, okay, this is mine. We decided going into that, we wanted to have something that was different. We really want to have something that is different. This is a different way of thinking 30 years ago. People weren't thinking that way, right? You just kind of follow the norm.

You date for a few years, you get engaged, you get married, and then you get divorced. So I told you- Or you're miserable. I did everything that would have been wrong in the dating life that I could have possibly done. And then when I had kind of my change, what I did is I took two years and I stopped dating. So you kind of have some weird stuff like this too, right?

So I stopped dating to try to reset myself. And I started back, I started reading everything I could on marriage. I started listening to cassette tapes. This tells you how long ago it was. This was the 80s. I started journaling what would a good husband be like. And I wrote love notes to the person I would marry one day. I didn't know who it was, but I wrote these love notes. So like three months in a date name, I had this shoebox. I should have made a presentation.

I was like, I think these are for you. And I gave her these love notes. And so I just went into it thinking we're going to be different. And you have to be different. I mean, you have to be way different. So people laughed at us, made fun of us. Our finances were different. We didn't, you know, we were going to save and invest. And they made fun of us. Our priorities were different.

And then after a while, things started kind of working and working well. Wow. And then it earned a little bit of credibility when before we didn't necessarily have it. So that's at the top of, that relationship with her is at the top. And then I'll say I can do everything God calls me to do because I have everything he needs me to do.

And so that's kind of one of the things I say over and over again. It's like a mantra throughout the day kind of. Yeah, I'll believe the best about people. I try to always tell myself that, that I would rather be wrong believing in someone than being skeptical because of my nature. I'm skeptical, so that goes against my nature. And I feel like to really be good in leadership, you have to believe in people you have to believe in people if I want Them to so we always say that trust is given mistrust is earned

That's opposite of culture that I want to trust you until you prove I can't versus In culture today's the other way around so to have a team That's really healthy, that really wants to be there, I want them to know that I wanna be a you-oriented leader, I wanna believe in them. And that's counterintuitive to the way I was raised,

so I have to force that to the front and renew my mind in that way. Wow, that's inspiring. Who is the mentor that inspired you the most in this space? Maybe someone around your age or older that paved the way in their relationship, in their faith, in the way they did things in the business. And what was the biggest lesson that that person taught you? I would say for me, there's not a single person. It's almost like, and I always tell people, don't look for a mentor. Look for categories of mentors.

And so I have a ton of difference in each category. If you ask me a category, I could tell you a person. So kind of like in business and leadership, there's a guy named Michael Adele. He is disciplined, great man, great family leader. If you look to them, if you look in leadership, I would say I was hatched on John Maxwell in the early years and read everything that he ever wrote. A lot of the people you interviewed years ago, just listen to Ferris and his four-hour work week, which a lot of it

is kind of almost like hyperbole, but there was gold in there. And then listening to, everybody I listened to, they did sonic hold plunge or they meditate, almost everybody. And so I'm going, if they're doing that, I'm going to try it. And so I do that now. And meditation has not been as consistent, but it's, it has, I do it. I actually created my own form of meditation that I do in the sauna, which is different. But if there's someone I respect that's doing something, I want to do the thing. I want to, I want to, I can't always do what they do, but I want to know how they think. And I want to know the why behind it. And so in every category, I've got different mentors that inspire me. Wow. What's the best relationship advice you heard? So when Amy and I got married,

there was a writer in the newspaper called Ann Landers. She was real big back then. And she wrote this thing that said, neglect the rest of the world if you have to, but never neglect your spouse. And we cut that out. This was back when you put magnets on the refrigerator and we put that up there. Neglect the rest of the world if you have to, but never neglect each other. And so we just took that in mind. And so we really prioritized our marriage relationship. But how do you do that? I mean, you've got over a thousand employees. You're leading millions of people around the world. The weight is on your shoulders to have the right message to say in the right way every single week. You're writing books.

You're running other businesses. You've got the Bible. How do you put your marriage or the relationship first when you're creating so much with your mission? I would say there's a couple things that people wouldn't understand. One is that the amazing people that I have around me that do so much. So you would be shocked at what I don't know and what I don't do.

Your head would spin like, you don't know that. I don't know so much about what they do. I trust them. So there's great people. There's that. Then the other thing is that my life is just stupid boring. Meaning it's just- Get out and work out. You do this. It's the same thing over and over and over again.

You eat the food. Yes. And I mean, I'm done at the same time. And so it's one of the big things I try to teach. I call them artificial deadlines. And so my message, I have to preach it on Sunday, right? But it's due on Wednesday noon. Who created the deadline? I did. You did, yeah. So also I leave at 3.45 every day, which is really early.

I probably started a little earlier than most. But if I create an artificial deadline, what that does is it makes me delegate more. It makes me not do some things that I probably shouldn't be doing anyway. And it makes me make decisions faster. So think about that. If I have an open-ended day, I'm probably going to be not as productive because I'm not going to delegate. I'm going to do some things I shouldn't be doing. I'm going to be slower to make decisions. So creating an artificial deadline makes me more productive. To have time with Amy, we block it out. And it's just a priority. And so really productive people don't have more time.

They just do more with their time and they do more through other people. And then you have to prioritize what really, really matters. You just have to prioritize it. And so like, how do you have time to work out? Well, you choose to. How do you have time to have your wife? You choose. How do you have time to pray? You choose, you choose to. How do you have time to have your wife? You

choose. How do you have time to pray? You choose to. I got my pilot's license. Now I'm working on my instrument rating. How do you have time to do that? I chose to. I chose to. Did you fly out here yourself? No, no, no. I just flew in the clouds. I did my first instrument landing yesterday, so I'm not that good. But I have my license and I'm getting instrument rating. But what that does is that's a disconnect from my mind. So how do you have time for that? You choose to.

And so typically, if you want someone who will actually get something done, you go and get someone who's doing a lot of things because they know how to manage their time and your energy. Energy management is a whole different category and a whole different way of thinking about when do you have the most kind of creative energy or when do you have the best decision-making energy. So I'm disciplined all the way down to I don't make decisions on certain days. If you want to ask me decisions, we do them after I've done certain things. So it's really boring. It's structure, but there's freedom in that. There is. There's freedom in it. What happens on the other side if someone's like, well, no, I don't want to have It's structure. But there's freedom in that. There is. There's freedom in it.

What happens on the other side? If someone's like, well, no, I don't want to have that much structure. I don't want to be that diligent with my time. I want to be able to do things when I want, eat what I want, work out whenever. Well, I would say that it would be wrong for a lot of people that are not wired this way to try to do this. It would be cruel to ask someone that's not wired like this to perform like this. But what I would say is, let's say you're way more artistic or let's say like I'm an ESTJ, let's say you're an INFP, you're much less structured, more relational, more

floaty-floaty. I'd say you probably want to have some kind of like artistic structure. And that might mean on Tuesdays I go away and I look at the clouds and I paint but you do it on Tuesdays and that's the day you might do it or instead you might say during this week I don't take any kind of appointments because of whatever so you have to create the pockets of time to do what makes you great. And structure and systems and goals and agendas and accountability, that makes me do better than some. For other people, it might be creative. It might be flexibility.

It might be relational time. It might be reflective time. But you have to define what are those things that drive you, that renew you, that give you energy. And then you have to ask, when do you do them best? Meaning, like like I create content in the mornings, not in the afternoons. I'm fresh in the mornings. And so then you direct your energy, your gifts in a way that's consistent with how you're wired and you find freedom and predictivity in that. So I don't want to ask anybody to be like me. That'd be dumb because they're not wired like me. But what we want to do is find out how are you wired?

What brings you joy? Where are you great? When are you great? How are you great? What are the environments around you that are great? And then go recreate that. Yeah. Lean into that.

Lean into that. Your wife's Amy, right? Yep. What's the thing you love about Amy the most? I love her consistency. She's just, she is, I'm like, I'm intense. I'm emotional. She's just, she's solid, steady, easygoing.

And she's just fun. She's, I mean, she's fun. Yeah. Yeah. What's the quality about her that, I'm sure you tell her all the things you love about her all the time, but what's the quality about her that you think about that maybe you don't say enough about her?

I say it all. You say it all. I promise you. If you think something good, say it. And so I'm a words of affirmation person, so I say it. A different question for me is maybe what should you do for her that you don't do? And then I could get into a lot. What's that?

Meaning I would just say serving her better. So I'll express the words all the time. But she respects my work schedule so much, there are times when I should probably take a morning off and spend it with her. And I don't. I'll spend it at work. So it wouldn't be how I say something better. It would be how would I serve her better.

That's cool. I love that. So when are you going to take off? What morning are you going to take off in the future? I don't take off mornings. Maybe some Friday in the future. I'll take off in the afternoon. But the mornings are dialed in.

So your afternoon. Which afternoon are you going to take off in the next month? Yeah, I'll tell you what, man. You text me and let me know what you do. I will do it. I will do it. I will 100% do it. If I don't do it, you can hold me accountable. Yes, exactly. What does she bring out and what's the thing that she brings out of you that is the best version of you? She helps me believe in me. When she saw, I'm fundamentally insecure. Really? A hundred percent. Are you, are you? I'm a lot better. I used to be more insecure. I'm way better. I'm way better,

but you know, a million times better, but at its core, there's still that, sure. Am I good enough? You know? And so there's a, in any kind of public, anything You've got fans and you've got haters, right? And the fans are meaningful, but they don't move the dial internally. And the haters can get to you or not depending on the day. And so for me, if she believes in me, I think it was Maxwell who said that. He said, what is success? He said, success is when the people who know you best love you the most. That's real success.

I like that a lot. And so if the person who knows me best loves me and believes in me, I feel confident. That's beautiful. And then it goes beyond that. It goes like into my office, my assistants. If they believe in me. And so every assistant I've had in my office, if they're not still there, they're still a part of the church and still part of our lives. That makes me go, okay, we must be doing something right.

They didn't run away from you. They didn't run away. They're still a part of our internal circle. That means a lot to me. If I didn't have that or if she didn't really believe in me, I would question myself. That's beautiful. What do you feel like is the thing every man should give to their wife more that would bring more joy, peace, and love to the relationship

and every woman should bring to their husband more that would create more peace, love, respect? It's a great question from someone who's dating right now. Exactly. That's pretty serious. That's a great question. So I would say, I'd answer it in two different ways. The first way I would say is what we want to do is find what is their love language.

And then we want to love them in that language. We don't want to love them the way we want to be loved. We want to love them the way they want to be loved. So that's the first thing. And then I think the second thing is that for women, what they typically need, and it's always dangerous to talk, but women generally want to know, do you love, cherish, and value me today? So they want love, cherish, and value.

Or what a man usually wants is some version of, do you believe in me and respect me today? Those are two different things. And so what tends to happen is, a woman wants to be loved, cherished, and valued, so she wants to love, cherish, and value her husband, and kind of that more intimate. And a guy wants to be respected and admired.

And so he may say, you look beautiful, kind of admire her looks or whatever. And at some point she's like, I wanna be more than just a physical person to you. I wanna be an emotional person. And so I would say, what I wanna do for Amy is I want to love, cherish her and value her. And then the way she loves me is more

the belief in me, admire. And so I tend to think that your spouse is often becoming more of what you see in them and say about them. If you see greatness and speak greatness and encourage what you're seeing in the winds, they tend to become more of that. They tend to do what's rewarded. And if you tell them what they're not and tell them where they're failing and how they suck, oftentimes it tears them down and they have a harder time pulling out of it. And so we're multipliers, right? So when I met you today, you gave me a long hug. And so next time I'm going to hug you longer.

You said I give long hugs. And so what you give me, I give back. And so if you don't like what you're getting in a relationship, you need to look at what you're giving. True. And so we're either investing in and helping someone become more or we're tearing down and becoming less. And if I give her affection, give her the words that build her up,

love her in her language, and she gives back to me, then it starts compounding. And then we just, it's not perfect by any means. Sure, sure. But it becomes rich and meaningful. And then you can endure the hard times. If I'm tearing her down,

she's telling me, you're nothing, whatever. I wish you were something like so-and-so. It robs me of confidence. It robs me of intimacy. And it spirals in the hard times. If I'm tearing her down, she's telling me, you're nothing, whatever, I wish you were something like so-and-so. It robs me of confidence, it robs me of intimacy, and it spirals in the wrong way. I love that. I'm really careful about the words I use in my relationship with Martha.

I don't think I, I don't know if I'm ever critical of her. And I think I was telling you off camera, I was like, once I decided I'm going to be committed to you, I'm going to accept you for who you are. So why would I be critical of things if I'm accepting of you? Right.

And that doesn't mean I won't give her an opinion if she asks for it. And sometimes I'll say, hey, listen, would you like a suggestion about what I'm noticing that's happening right now? Some suggestions, some feedback, only if you're open to it. But I'm not going to be, yeah, because I don't want someone to be like, you need to stop doing this, this, and this, this, because I'm not going to receive that well. See if I want the feedback first.

Right. Maybe encourage some good things in me first, and then, you know. 100%. And then be like, hey, but this one thing you're doing over here, you know, I see it maybe affecting you. Yeah. You may want to take a look at it. That's brilliant.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And what you're doing is you're working on your relationship. I call it working on it in non-conflict times. Yes. Not at 2 a.m. when you're tired. No, no. And what you're doing is brilliant, too.

So here's what we've learned to do is it's evening time. The kids are in bed. And we'll have kind of a marriage checkup. it's evening time, the kids are in bed, and we'll have kind of a marriage checkup. And so I'll say, what are three things that I'm doing that are blessing you, and what's one suggestion of a way I could love you better? So what does that do?

Three things. She'll often tell me things that I'm doing that are not what I thought were blessing. Like, I just bought you flowers. She doesn't really care. But I helped go spend time with her to grandkids. She cared about that. So it helps me know what are the three things.

And then there's three things. And then what's one way I could love you better? Not one way I'm horrible at, but one way I could be better. A positive. Yes. But then she gets to, after affirming me, give me something that really might be a complaint. That's good. It really bothers me when you do this, but it's framed.

And so then- I like that. And then we do it both ways. And we've learned so much. We've learned it so much. And it's during a non-conflict time because you know when you're emotional. I don't want to hear this. Yeah, exactly. This is beautiful, man. We're going to have to have you come back on and do a whole relationship episode sometime. But I've got a couple of final questions for you, Craig. Your book, The Power to Change, Mastering the Habits that Matter Most. I want people to get this because this is practical, biblical, and doable when you discover the power to change. So I want people to get this book because I feel like we're either going to be stuck in a situation we don't enjoy,

stuck in a situation we don't enjoy or we're going to need to overcome something by experiencing some type of pain, some type of change, transform from the inside out in order to enjoy life better. So somewhere there's going to be pain like we talked about in the beginning, but it's really learning the habits that matter most to support you in changing in the right ways. And so I know people are going to get a lot of value from this book. I encourage you guys to get one for yourself, a few for some friends as lot of value from this book. I encourage you guys to get one for yourself, a few for some friends as well, The Power to Change. Make sure you guys get a few of these copies

for your friends. Where can we go and get this book or support you specifically for the book? Yeah, the book is Anywhere Books Are Sold, and that's the best place to get it because we don't sell any. Yeah. And so yeah, Amazon, Barnes Barnes & Noble, Mardell,

anywhere books are sold, it's there. What's the best website for you to stay in touch as well and also the social media that people can follow? Yeah, so my name, Craig Groeschel, on pretty much most platforms. And website would be life.church is the church that I lead that's in 44 different locations. And then, of course, there's an online avenue there. And then for anybody that maybe wants to learn more about the Bible,

the YouVersion Bible app is something that we're honored to give away completely free. YouVersion. YouVersion, Y-O-U-V-E-R-S-I-O-N. And there's literally hundreds and hundreds of translations, hundreds and hundreds of translations, hundreds and hundreds of languages, devotions from people all over the world, plans and such that can help people on a spiritual journey that would be meaningful to me to give that as a gift to someone.

That's amazing. We appreciate that. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called three truths. So imagine your last day on earth many years away. You accomplish everything you want to accomplish. You rid yourself of any insecurity you might have. And you live a beautiful life the rest of your life. But for whatever reason, everything you've created has to go with you or somewhere else.

We don't have access to the book, the apps, the churches, for whatever reason, hypothetical. This podcast has gone everything. But you get three things to share with the world, and this is all we would have of your content, three truths or three lessons. What would be those three truths for you? I would say, and I hope that a broad audience would accept this from me,

because I wouldn't push it, but I would say that when you look at who Jesus was, the way he loved, the outcast, the broken, that I believe that he is, that Jesus is love and that Jesus saves. I would say number one. I'd say number two, what I would say is that you're a leader because you have influence. Use that influence for something to make a difference in this world. And I would stay there for just a moment because most people truly don't see themselves as leaders. And we have to ask ourselves, what is leadership? Leadership is influence and everybody has influence. And so I really try to help people see that they have influence. And then I would say that in a world full of doubt, hate, brokenness,

that again, to go back to the book that inspires me, that love never fails. And I would say that love generously, that that's the best thing you can do to make the world a better place. And the more that you give, the more that you give love, the more you serve others, the more meaningful life's going to be. So I would say Jesus saves, you're a leader, use it, and love well. That's beautiful, man. I want to acknowledge you, Craig, for the way you show up. Again, I've watched your stuff for a while,

and just meeting you and connecting with you, you really show up as a leader to me, the way you've designed your life, your marriage, your business, your church, your service, and it's inspiring, it's very inspiring to me. So I acknowledge you for how you show up, and how you show up at a high level, even when you feel like you might have more to lose

or something, when you've accomplished more, or you've accomplished a certain level so i acknowledge your constant courage to lean into being more fearless and taking the necessary risks and and just the way you serve man i just really acknowledge your message uh you know in your example so i want to thank you well thank you for creating content that helps me and so many other people that the, to be on this with the quality of people you bring in is humbling and an honor to be amongst some of the greatest people that I've ever learned from. And so thank you for creating that.

I appreciate it. Final question, Craig, what's your definition of greatness? Well, I have to go to script on that, that the greatest would be those that serve. Yes. And I mean, just the way your team has served and welcomed me today, you have that quality. And so that really is greatness, to make a difference in other people's lives, to leave them better, to come as a giver, to believe the best and serve others.

That makes greatness. And I read a book, a really good book, called by Rabbi Daniel Lappin. And anyway, basically he says, how do you create wealth? You actually serve people. And the more people you serve, the more wealth you create. And so if we define wealth broader than finances, but in friendship and in health and in meaning in life,

the more people we serve, the wealthier we get in a way that matters most. And so let's keep serving. Craig, appreciate it, man. Thank you. Thanks, man. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has

told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.