BJ Communicates on Hard Conversations
BJ Communicates joins the podcast today. He is a writer, artist, and expert in Industrial-Organizational psychology. We explore the nuanced themes of his latest book series, 'Hard Conversations.' The episode looks into the significance of addressing one's past to facilitate healing and personal growth. BJ articulates that individuals often remain entrapped by unresolved issues from their history, which impede their present and future. He emphasizes that failing to confront these issues is akin to traversing a treacherous river; although one may survive the ordeal, the unaddressed wounds will continue to affect their journey. Through the lens of urban fiction, BJ crafts narratives that resonate with the struggles faced by many, particularly those from urban communities, highlighting the necessity of reconciliation with one's past to foster a healthier future. His reflections on the intersections of personal narrative and broader societal issues provide listeners with both insight and encouragement to engage in their own hard conversations, thereby reclaiming their narratives and moving toward liberation.
Takeaways:
- The podcast episode emphasizes the importance of addressing our past to heal our present and secure our future.
- We discussed how our pain can either serve as a springboard for success or as an anchor of shame, particularly for people of color.
- The conversation highlighted the significance of hard conversations in fostering healing, humility, and restoration of relationships.
- We explored the idea that storytelling and sharing personal experiences can facilitate understanding and compassion among individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Transcript
Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.
Speaker A:This podcast is all about providing clarity insight encouragement for life and mission.
Speaker A:My name is Aaron Santemayr and I get to be your host today.
Speaker A:We get to sit down and have the phenomenal opportunity to be with BJ communicates, got to read some of his work, got to spend some time with him, listen to a little bit of the music he's produced, and just thought it would be great to have on the podcast.
Speaker A:He has written a series called Hard Conversations and I just found it valuable.
Speaker A:He brings unique giftings and talents into this space.
Speaker A:So he has a degree in IO psychology, something I had never heard of.
Speaker A:I've done 300 plus odd episodes of this podcast and never have had somebody on the podcast that I know of who had a specialty in IO psychology.
Speaker A:So that was insightful.
Speaker A:And then he's a writer of urban fiction and we delve into some great conversations, just about hard conversations, understand people's story.
Speaker A:Two of the quotes that we got to just spend some time on.
Speaker A:One is where our sum total of our stories, how we process them and how we allow them to process us.
Speaker A:Insightful.
Speaker A:The other one that just really hit me was this idea that he mentions that people of color, when they reach success, pain is seen as a springboard.
Speaker A:But when you fail, our pain is never considered as an anchor that submerged us in the bottomless pit of scandal and infamy.
Speaker A:And so we get to spend some time as he unpacks those.
Speaker A:Just his love for God's word, his love to make the name of Jesus known, and he's using this unique genre of urban fiction to tell people stories and to weave that in and just learned a lot from him.
Speaker A:It was a great time.
Speaker A:Do want to ask you to continue to subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker A:I know the podcasts I subscribe to are the ones I listen to.
Speaker A:They show up on my feed and know what I'm going to be listened to throughout the week.
Speaker A:And please continue to send in your questions for backchannel with folks.
Speaker A:F that's where we get to sit down with Dick Foth and we get to learn from him.
Speaker A:Well, there's no time better than not to get started.
Speaker A:So here we go.
Speaker A:Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.
Speaker A:So excited to be here today with a new friend of the podcast, BJ Communicates.
Speaker A:Bj, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker B:So, Aaron, Aaron.
Speaker B:I just want to make sure I have a friend named Aaron.
Speaker B:So I just want to make sure I say it Correct.
Speaker B:Thank you for me today.
Speaker B:I really appreciate you having me and I'm glad to be here.
Speaker A:Yeah, looking forward to spend.
Speaker A:And so it's interesting you said that.
Speaker A:My kids call me double A Ron when I'm, you know, I'm a type, type A personality, but when I'm on vacation, they call me Ron.
Speaker A:So you gotta, you gotta diss right on the on.
Speaker A:They said I leave the double A personality behind.
Speaker A:So, bj, will you go ahead and share BJ communicates.
Speaker A:Will you go ahead and share a little bit about yourself before I start asking you some questions?
Speaker A:I got to read through your.
Speaker A:Your books got to read about, so I got a lot of questions for you.
Speaker A:But will you share a little bit about yourself before I jump into the questions?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So I am from Virginia.
Speaker B:I currently live in Richmond, Virginia.
Speaker B:I've grown up in Virginia all my life.
Speaker B:I am a writer and an IO psychology professional, which simply means I use psychological principles to solve workplace problems.
Speaker B:So I do a lot of work in that space in corporate America.
Speaker B:But my passion is writing.
Speaker B:So I am a songwriter, I am a book writer, writer.
Speaker B:And so I love to help urban believers learn how to positively and effectively move forward in their career in their communication.
Speaker B:And so that is what I do as my passion, what I feel like I'm assigned from God to do.
Speaker B:And so that takes many different forms.
Speaker B:I'm a husband, I am a father.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker A:You are, you know, I'm about 338, 40 episodes recorded and you're the first IO psychology professional.
Speaker A:I had to, honestly had to look it up.
Speaker A:I consider myself semi intelligent, but I thought, I don't know what IO psychology is, so.
Speaker A:But fascinating, fascinating profession.
Speaker A:And yeah, it just, it was, it was very, very interesting.
Speaker B:Very, very interesting.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So you share in the book.
Speaker A:You know, I just wanted to ask a first question was based off you dedicate this book to your dad and that you could just in the words, you're a phenomenal communicator both orally and in written word, which is unique because sometimes people are really good one way but not so good the other way, or one this way, but not.
Speaker A:But you have a gifting in both directions, both orally and in written word.
Speaker A:But you can feel the, in that introduction or dedication, you can feel the love you have for your dad.
Speaker A:Can you just share a little bit about that and the desire to dedicate this book to him?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So I'm gonna try to do it without crying.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B: sed away at the end of August: Speaker B:My father has been in my life my whole life.
Speaker B:My parents got divorced when I was five, but my dad has always been in me and my brother's life.
Speaker B:My dad had complications in his own life, some substance abuse issues, but it never stopped him from working.
Speaker B:He had a job his whole entire life and a great job at that, but had some recreational issues that caused him not to show up in the way that he should.
Speaker B:But regardless of all of that, I still honored my father.
Speaker B:I still, you know, he still was a vital part of my life and my son's life and all of that.
Speaker B:But that means we had some ups and downs.
Speaker B:And so the last couple of years of my life, last couple years of his life was very challenging for my dad with not just substances, but with depression and going through some things with the loss of some of his major friends and retirement and all of that.
Speaker B:And I don't think men talk about that a lot, that a lot of men struggle once they retire with their value and their usefulness.
Speaker B:And so, long story short, a lot of things in my dad's life increased.
Speaker B:A lot of will to live decreased, in my opinion.
Speaker B:And on the day that he died, he called me, he called my brother, he called his sister and just was talking regular as if.
Speaker B:And this is after him going to the hospital for a myriad of things and me being there every day and making sure he was okay and making sure that, you know, and a lot of it was self sabotage.
Speaker B:For a while, my dad stopped eating just because.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:He just didn't want to.
Speaker B:And he called us and said, he told me, my brother, hey, bring your boys over here on Saturday.
Speaker B:I want to cook for you all and all that now.
Speaker B:And we said, fine, dad.
Speaker B:And he hung up the phone with my brother, lastly.
Speaker B:And it appears that he stood up to go somewhere else and drop dead.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:And that devastated my brother and myself.
Speaker B:You, you never expect that.
Speaker B:And even though I believe the Lord had been preparing me that for about two years, the Lord has spoken to me and told me that I get ready for your dad to transition.
Speaker B:I just, you know, I. I say that I lived two years not, not exhaling, believing that, never knowing when the call was going to be, that call.
Speaker B:But I kept it to myself, of course, because I didn't want to send anybody else into a panic.
Speaker B:But when he died, I write in the intro that when he died, it released a pain in my body that I didn't even know was possible.
Speaker B:I Felt like my eyes hurt, my ears hurt, my bones hurt.
Speaker B:But in the midst of that, I just miss my dad.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I just miss him.
Speaker B:And I dedicated to him because though our relationship was not cookie cutter, it's the reality of a lot of people living with parents, that everybody's parent is not like the Winslows or the Leave it to the Beaver.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:It's not that perfect.
Speaker B:I don't have that story.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:But I love my dad and I miss him terribly.
Speaker B:And so I dedicated it to him because a lot of.
Speaker B:In his dying, my brother, who was older than me, told him.
Speaker B:And obviously my dad was my dad, but he was my brother's best friend.
Speaker B:And so my dad shared a lot more with him than he did with me.
Speaker B:And so a lot of pieces of my dad's story that made me not understand him, I learned after his death from my brother.
Speaker B:And so it helped me to understand him.
Speaker B:And now I understand where I sit as a person that a lot of who I am, it first came from him.
Speaker B:He may not have realized it all, but I believe that God made an investment in him that is upon my life because of him.
Speaker B:And so I dedicated him because I love my dad and I miss him.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker A:Well, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker A:And wow, you can, like I said in the written word, you can, you can see your love.
Speaker A:You can.
Speaker A:As you read it, you can see your love for your dad.
Speaker A:And thank you for sharing that.
Speaker A:I'm sure that that speaks to many that listen in the realities of love we have for parents.
Speaker A:I appreciate you sharing.
Speaker A:You know, I don't think any of our families are cookie cutter.
Speaker A:And just, just to let us understand that we all have family stories and yeah, that's what we're going to talk about today because you, you talk about hard conversations and, and you write, you have a series about hard conversations.
Speaker A:So what is the series about?
Speaker A:And then what do.
Speaker A:What do you consider a hard conversation?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So the series is about five people, fictional people all across the country.
Speaker B:They are people of color and they are people who have built amazing lives.
Speaker B:They've accomplished a lot.
Speaker B:They got some of them have a lot of money.
Speaker B:Some of them are moving and shaking in their careers.
Speaker B:Some of them are trying to form relationships or keep relationships, but they have found themselves hitting their head against the same brick wall in life.
Speaker B:And that brick wall is that they've moved people, they moved on in life without addressing their past.
Speaker B:And so therefore, they find themselves continuing to cycle in the same situation.
Speaker B:Different people, different faces, but they keep coming back to the same conclusion in their life.
Speaker B:That something is preventing me from moving forward.
Speaker B:And so the book that was just released is part two of this series, and it's a continuation of the story that started in book one of these five people who have different situations right there, there is sexual trauma, there, abandonment.
Speaker B:There is complicated issues with parents, complicated issues with siblings.
Speaker B:There's a lot of different things that.
Speaker B:There's adoption stories in there, and it's all about these people trying to navigate how do I heal from my past so that it just.
Speaker B:It doesn't keep affecting my present and it doesn't derail my future.
Speaker B:And so you see their stories unfold book by book.
Speaker B:And so it's gonna be another book after this one, but this is just a continuation of those stories.
Speaker B:And every book, leave each of the five stories with a cliffhanger for the next book.
Speaker B:And so I always encourage people, if you're going to read the book that just came out over and over, then you want to go back to the first one.
Speaker B:Bird crumbs at pass.
Speaker B:Because you may be lost.
Speaker B:Because it doesn't recount everything that happens in the first book, it picks up right where the last one left off.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:Can you.
Speaker A:Can you share that?
Speaker A:What you just.
Speaker A:That that quote you just said there about our past, present, and some of the past, present, future.
Speaker A:Could you.
Speaker A:Could you share that again?
Speaker B:If we don't address our past, it will continue to disrupt our present, and it would limit our future.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It'll keep us from moving forward.
Speaker B:And sometimes, and I say this a lot, that oftentimes we believe that if I've survived it, I can just move on, and we have to take inventory.
Speaker B:And I use this as a great analogy.
Speaker B:I always say if I swim through a river of piranhas and I make it to the other side, yes, I'm grateful that I made it.
Speaker B:But if I never assess the damage that was done while I was swimming, then I will think that I'm okay walking, and I'll be bleeding out the whole time.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:And so therefore, I can't be effective in doing anything from the point that I survived because I never addressed the wounds to stop the bleeding before I tried to move on.
Speaker C:Wow, wow, wow.
Speaker A:And great word picture.
Speaker A:Once again, you.
Speaker A:You have the ability to paint pictures and.
Speaker A:And tell the story.
Speaker A:So hard conversations.
Speaker A:What would be some reasons maybe we don't want to have these hard conversations?
Speaker A:Because as you.
Speaker A:You Illustra, you would think we'd want to take care of ourselves and not Bleed out and that word picture.
Speaker A:But at the same time, what are some reasons we don't want to have these hard conversations and address our past?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So one reason is fear.
Speaker B:That's the biggest one and that has many branches.
Speaker B:One is the fear of how our story will upset other people.
Speaker B:And that is huge in every community that a lot of times we do not address to what happened to us because we are afraid that other people are gonna be upset.
Speaker B:Even if it's the truth, we are afraid that we're gonna upset the apple cart that is gonna make other people look bad.
Speaker B:And yes, that is a valid feeling.
Speaker B:But at the same time, if it's imprisoning you, why do they get to be free and you be in prison?
Speaker B:Why you can't move on in life, Everybody else is happy and you're unhappy.
Speaker B:And so it doesn't mean that you have to disparage other people.
Speaker B:It doesn't mean that you have to sully other people's name.
Speaker B:But the truth is simply the if this is what you experience, if this is what happened to you, then you have a right to tell your story.
Speaker B:And even scripture says, confess your faults one to another, that you might be healed.
Speaker B:And so if I can't confess it, I can't heal.
Speaker B:And so it is important for us to do that because of fear.
Speaker B:Sometimes we have fear of how people will see us if we really tell the truth of what happened to us.
Speaker B:Will they still love me?
Speaker B:Will they still look at me the same?
Speaker B:And we have to get rid of all of those.
Speaker B:Even though those are things that come to our mind, we have to cast.
Speaker B:Cast all those things down and say, I don't care what it costs me.
Speaker B:I have a right to be free.
Speaker B:I have a right to be free.
Speaker B:I have a right to be able to live the abundant life.
Speaker B:The Bible says, you said that he came that we may have life and life more abundantly.
Speaker B:And so if I can't live abundant life, then something's wrong.
Speaker B:I am devaluing what Jesus came to give me.
Speaker B:And so I have to be willing to have those hard conversations regardless of the fear.
Speaker B:The fear that I may have that people look at me differently.
Speaker B:The fear of how it'll upside at other people, right?
Speaker B:Or even the.
Speaker B:The fear of their reaction to what am I saying.
Speaker B:Not just the fear of how it may make them look bad, but the fear that people may not believe me or the fear of the person that did it may never apologize.
Speaker B:And so I always tell people, you have to have the Hard conversation number one.
Speaker B:So that you can be free.
Speaker B:You can't be concerned whether they admit it, whether they say, I did it and I apologize.
Speaker B:You have to do it for you.
Speaker B:You have to do it so that you can be free, so that you can be fully present.
Speaker B:One of the things that I address in the book with one of the fictional characters is the fact of you can't even show up in right relationships in your present life because of the broken relationships of your past.
Speaker B:And so the people that's in your life now, they really want to love you.
Speaker B:Can't really love us because of the fact that we are still held hostage.
Speaker B:We can't even give them the full us because parts of us have been lost along the way.
Speaker B:And we want to address it through having hard conversations and telling our story.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:I'm going to.
Speaker A:I have a few quotes I'm going to share with you out of the, out of the, out of your writings.
Speaker A:You share that we are the sum total of our stories, how we process them and how we allow them to process us.
Speaker A:Can you unpack that a little bit for us?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:Everything that we have been through as people, they are who we are and how we process them.
Speaker B:Meaning that if we allow ourselves, allow God to heal us from those issues or not, it contributes to who we are now.
Speaker B:And so if you are unhealed, it's going to show up in your life.
Speaker B:No matter how many layers of makeup people put on, no matter how many things we acquire, no matter how big the house is, what type of Tesla or Mercedes or Audi that we have, it will continue to show up in your life.
Speaker B:And we see it in the characters in the book that no matter what you amass what has happened to you in your life, if you have not healed from it, it's going to keep showing up in your life.
Speaker B:Hence why I call this the subtitle of this book over and over.
Speaker B:Because until you heal it, the same scenario will continue to play out in our lives over and over again.
Speaker B:And really what it is, is God is allowing us to learn the lesson.
Speaker B:He's saying you haven't gotten it yet.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:And so let's repeat this again.
Speaker B:And so though it may be, you may go to another job in another city or another country, but you'll just meet the same people with a different face.
Speaker B:Because what you are not healed from will continue to be attracted to your life.
Speaker B:Because in God's love, he wants you to get the lesson so that you can move on.
Speaker B:It's not that he wants us to go through pain, it's not that he's causing it to happen to us, but the Lord is saying, because the Bible says Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted.
Speaker B:And so we're walking around with broken hearts.
Speaker B:And when that heart, the Bible says in the book of Psalms that out of the abundance of the heart, excuse me, out of the heart flows the issues of our lives.
Speaker B:And so everything that's going on in our lives currently, the reality that we live in is really a sum total of what's in our hearts even.
Speaker B:And I say this and I'm going to be quiet, no, you know what?
Speaker A:You're doing good, man, you're doing good.
Speaker B:One of the things that I notice is that a lot of times when you are unhealed right in an area of your life, life, even when you don't speak it out of your mouth, you, something in us attracts people that appeal to our brokenness.
Speaker B:And so that's how a woman can date the same man with a different face.
Speaker B:I don't know why I keep attracting a man that is abusive towards me either verbally or physically.
Speaker B:If she would check and allow the Holy Spirit to take her into our heart to see where she's broken, if she can heal what's broken on the inside, the attraction or the connection to those who pick up on that, that will be severed.
Speaker B:And so it will continue to process us, our pain will continue to process us until we allow the Lord to help us to heal it.
Speaker B:Because we can't do it alone.
Speaker B:We can't.
Speaker B:Every one of the stories has a faith element because we can't do it by ourselves.
Speaker B:We in our human nature don't have the ability to heal ourselves.
Speaker B:That's why Jesus had to come.
Speaker B:And so we have to present our hearts to him.
Speaker B:When my dad died, at this point in my life, I've buried my father in law, I buried my sister in law, I buried my dad and me and my wife even buried a child before we had our son.
Speaker B:And in all those situations, what I had to do in the midst of grief is get up every morning and say, Jesus, here's my heart, I need you to heal it.
Speaker B:I can't.
Speaker B:I can't do it on my own.
Speaker B:I can't.
Speaker B:I'm broken beyond repair.
Speaker B:But you said you came to heal the broken hearted, so here's my heart.
Speaker B:But here, that's the thing.
Speaker B:We have to be willing to give him our hearts and say, lord, I can't do this by myself.
Speaker B:And so that pain will continue to process us if we don't process it.
Speaker C:Wow, good word.
Speaker A:And challenging.
Speaker A:Challenging.
Speaker A:Challenging for all of us.
Speaker A:You mentioned, you mentioned in, in your writings that for people of color, when they reach success, pain is seen as a springboard.
Speaker A:But when you fail, or when we fail, our pain is never considered as an anchor that submerged us in the bottomless pit of scan in infamy.
Speaker A:That's a powerful few.
Speaker A:Sentence or sentence?
Speaker A:One sentence there, two sentences.
Speaker A:Could you share about that?
Speaker A:You know, obviously we're looking at each other.
Speaker A:I'm not a person of color and that really, you know, honestly, as I said, your, your, your writings have challenged me.
Speaker A:This jumped off my, jumped off the page as I read through, you know, as I do my, the research for these interviews.
Speaker A:This, this one, this jumped off the page for me.
Speaker A:So I'd like for you to share about that part of it.
Speaker A:And then if any wisdom for somebody like me who's not a person of color on how I can care for, how I can encourage, and how I can not inflict more pain on somebody, that's that maybe feels like they're anchored down by pain.
Speaker A:So anyways, are those fair questions?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And you're my brother anyway, so that's the matter.
Speaker B:So first of all, yes, that's from the first book, Breadcrumbs of the Past.
Speaker B:And I, I said that because when you look at media, right, when you look at media in this country, what often happens is when someone becomes successful, right?
Speaker B:And I'm talking about you gain media attention for whatever you do, right?
Speaker B:Your background or where you came from, you grew up in the hood or you grew up in adject poverty or anything like that.
Speaker B:People look at it as, oh, this is a good PR story, right?
Speaker B:You're from rags to riches, people will call it.
Speaker B:And so that is what's highlighted.
Speaker B:You know, you grew up and you could not read or you dropped out of school at this age.
Speaker B:And a lot of times when it comes from people of color, it is seen as a way of, wow, how did you make it out of that?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:You grew up in, you know, you grew up in a crack house or you grew up with no parents or whatever that might be.
Speaker B:And that's not every person of color story, but it is a lot for those that become successful, especially in the American context, right?
Speaker B:That is always a part of the story.
Speaker B:Where did they grow up?
Speaker A:Up?
Speaker B:What did they go through?
Speaker B:How hard was them growing up?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So that's highlighted then.
Speaker B:If they make a mistake or if they fall.
Speaker B:That same story is now nowhere to be told.
Speaker B:In most cases, we focus on what they did, not how maybe what they've been through contributed to what they did, not excuse them what they did.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because we all have a level of accountability.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But we never consider.
Speaker B:Hmm.
Speaker B:I wonder if the reason that they have bad behavior now goes back to them not having parents growing up.
Speaker B:That's not even considered.
Speaker B:We don't.
Speaker B:That's not even a part of the sound bite.
Speaker B:It's just focusing on what they did and how terrible it is that they do it and how they should be banned or how they should be canceled.
Speaker B:You know, in today's culture, how they should be canceled for it and no one ever.
Speaker B:And I guess my assumption is most people don't care.
Speaker B:We just care about what is the most sensational storyline or headline and not even just in the news, but in our community, communities.
Speaker B:When someone does something wrong, there's very rarely that people say, I wonder why, what contributed to that?
Speaker B:Not just what they did, because most people just, just don't jump up and do something.
Speaker B:There are little bread crumbs that if we look back in their past, we can see.
Speaker B:And, and I'll give you a great example that all of us know about.
Speaker B:Most of us have heard about R. Kelly.
Speaker B:Yeah, Right.
Speaker B:The things that R. Kelly is accused of are absolutely horrific.
Speaker B:They are.
Speaker B:They've been proven in court to be true.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it is terrible what he did.
Speaker B:And yes, he should be incarcerated for what he did.
Speaker B:But we don't hear a lot about, R. Kelly was molested by his sister.
Speaker B:R. Kelly was molested by a man in his neighborhood.
Speaker B:R. Kelly grew up in object poverty.
Speaker B:He does not know how to read by reports.
Speaker B:He did not have a lot of schooling.
Speaker B:And so though he is exactly where he should be, we don't talk.
Speaker B:We don't.
Speaker B:We don't.
Speaker B:And I don't expect it from the world system.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But we don't talk about the story.
Speaker B:Where's the compassion?
Speaker B:Where is the digging into?
Speaker B:If your brother be caught in offense, let's restore one in the spirit of weakness.
Speaker B:We don't have that in us.
Speaker B:And I believe that it's because as believers that the world has rubbed off too much.
Speaker B:Where we don't, we don't have that, where we can have compassion for one another.
Speaker B:To the second part of your question, I think that is an amazing question, Erin.
Speaker B:That's an amazing question because I love talking about this.
Speaker B:I love talking about it because I think that the first Step is what you asked.
Speaker B:How can I be more sensitive?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I think that we have to be aware, no matter who we are, that everybody did not grow up where we grew up, how we grew up up, right?
Speaker B:And though we don't excuse bad behavior because what the word says is wrong is wrong, and what it said is right is right, we have to be open to the possibility that other people's experience is not ours, not better or less or lesser than ours, but just different.
Speaker B:And we have to be able to look at things with a wide lens.
Speaker B:To say, even though I don't agree with what you did, I am willing to hear your story so that I might have compassion.
Speaker B:As I said earlier, with my father learning more of my dad, the more we learn about somebody's story, the more compassion we can have for the outcome.
Speaker B:When you know, and I think the Bible does a great job of this, right?
Speaker B:We find the woman with the issue of blood and the Holy Spirit gives the writer the insight to write down that she has been struggling with this for 12 years.
Speaker B:She's gone to many doctors and none of them could cure.
Speaker B:I think that's important.
Speaker B:It's important because now when you see her breaking protocol, going, pushing through the crowd when she should not be around anybody, right?
Speaker B:And she's touching the hem of his garment, even though people are outraged by what she did, us now as the reader knowing the story, understand exactly why she did what she did.
Speaker B:And it allows, it makes the story, makes it even the more powerful that when you could be at home in bed, when you've been ostracized by society, still you broke protocol to go after what you knew that you needed.
Speaker B:And so I think that it gives us compassion.
Speaker B:I have much more compassion for my dad now.
Speaker B:Even though some of his mistakes that he made, hearing his story through what he told my brother now allows me to have compassion for him as a man.
Speaker B:Not just as my dad, but as a man dad, I can see why.
Speaker B:I can see why my dad made the decision that he did.
Speaker B:Though I don't agree with it, I can now understand why what his mentality was.
Speaker B:I can empathize with him based on knowing his story.
Speaker B:And so I say for people that are maybe not be people of color, we have to be open to hearing other people's story.
Speaker B:I think we have to hear it without judgment.
Speaker B:I think we have to hear it with realizing that our perspective is not the only our.
Speaker B:Let me say our experience is not the only experience in the world.
Speaker B:As well as saying, hey, I may still disagree after you tell me your story of why you did what you did it.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And now at least I can understand.
Speaker B:And now I can minister grace to you, because now I can begin to, as the Holy Spirit leads me, help you with unpacking what happened to you so that though you made the mistake here, it doesn't continue into your future.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker A:And that's brings us back to the, the healing, you know, that you've spoken about the healing that can take place and getting to know people's story, it's, it's.
Speaker A:It takes time.
Speaker A:I think that's one thing in our, in our world today.
Speaker A:We move it such a fast pace and to slow down and to listen and to really listen and hear people and hear their story and as you said, not start judging it or not thinking about how we're going to respond to it or.
Speaker A:But just to listen and hear.
Speaker A:The majority of the audience that listen into this podcast are missionaries that are serving around the world.
Speaker A:And we live in team, right?
Speaker A:So people that come from different backgrounds, different perspectives get on team and you think, hey, we might be all from a similar part of the country or whatever.
Speaker A:We start to live life and we realize, wow, their family of origin and their story and their story, it really impacts the way we live out our life today.
Speaker A:And I think Pete Cesaro, what does he say, you know, Jesus may live in our heart, but our grandfather lives in our bones or something like that.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:And so those family stories, man, they impact us.
Speaker A:They impact us.
Speaker A:So you've chosen to write out of.
Speaker A:With urban fiction.
Speaker A:So of all genres, how did you land on urban fiction?
Speaker A:And, yeah, can you.
Speaker A:I'm going to ask you a question about becoming an author, but urban fiction, how did you settle on urban fiction?
Speaker B:So one of the things was.
Speaker B: So I wrote another book in: Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:One of the things that I talk about is that me and my wife are pastors.
Speaker B:We've been pastoring a church here in Richmond, Virginia, for 11 years, over 11 years now that we founded.
Speaker B:And it is an urban ministry.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And the reason I do urban fiction is because though I am, most times when I lead with, I'm a past a senior pastor of a church, people think that I should be writing about the spirit realm and prophesying and all of that.
Speaker B:And even though that is a part of who I am, that's not all that I am.
Speaker B:And so I specifically chose to write outside of the box because that's not all that I am, right?
Speaker B:And I chose it because it frees me to not have to.
Speaker B:Have to not have to write on a topic.
Speaker B:And what I mean by topic is that, you know, sometimes when you're writing books about the Bible or a book about John or Peter or something like that, there's a lot of historical research that you have to do, and it can limit you.
Speaker B:Because how many ways can we write about the life of Peter?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:How many ways can you write about the life of Lazarus?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Lazarus.
Speaker B:And so writing urban fiction, every time that I sit down, I usually don't sit down with, like, a storyboard, okay, I'm gonna write about this, this, and this.
Speaker B:I sit down literally at my laptop and say, holy Spirit, help me to tell somebody's story.
Speaker B:Then I just start writing, and the story just flows out.
Speaker B:Because the Holy Spirit knows all things.
Speaker B:He knows all people.
Speaker B:And I always say that the stories I tell in the book is not just a fictional story.
Speaker B:It's a story of your grandmother, your mother, your uncle, your aunt.
Speaker B:It's all of our stories, right?
Speaker B:You know, somebody who probably grew up in a very similar setting to what I write about in the story.
Speaker B:And so it frees me to be able to just tell stories without having to say, okay, did I say that right?
Speaker B:Is that historically right?
Speaker B:Did this happen this way?
Speaker B:And I can write and just tell people's story, and it lands.
Speaker B:I gave a couple of advanced copies of the new book to a couple of people in my circle that are also authors and say, hey, just read me.
Speaker B:Tell me what you think.
Speaker B:And one of the people came to me and she said, I could feel it.
Speaker B:I felt like I was there.
Speaker B:It was one scene.
Speaker B:It's a funeral scene in one of them.
Speaker B:But she said, I felt like I was there, and I felt you.
Speaker B:She said, I know you.
Speaker B:And so I know going you're.
Speaker B:You know, what happened with your dad, it contributed to that story in some ways.
Speaker B:And so I could feel it.
Speaker B:And so it gives me the freedom, the liberty to.
Speaker B:I don't have to write about me.
Speaker B:I don't have to write about my life.
Speaker B:I can write about everybody's life.
Speaker B:And so that's why I chose urban fiction.
Speaker B:It gets me.
Speaker B:Freedom to tell the stories of people of color or urban people.
Speaker B:And urban people are not just people of color.
Speaker B:It's people who understand the urban context that understand that even if you are not a person of color, that you are open to the experiences in life of other people.
Speaker B:You have seen what they've seen in one way or another, and you understand their pain.
Speaker B:And so I get to write about it.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, that's why I chose urban fiction.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker A: ook was in, I think you said,: Speaker A:You're organizational psychologist, IO psychology professional.
Speaker A:How did you end up becoming an author?
Speaker A:And then I'm going to ask you a question about is there a character or two in the book that you most identify with?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So before I was IO psychology professional, I was just working a job.
Speaker B:And so I have always been a communicator.
Speaker B:I think God gives us breadcrumbs to who we are to be, even if we don't understand it at the time.
Speaker B:And so for me, I've been writing songs since I was probably eight or nine, just making up songs around the house and then writing it down when I learned song structure and all of that.
Speaker B:And so I've always been a writer.
Speaker B:Every writing contest I entered in high school, going into college, I always won.
Speaker B:I didn't know what I was do with it.
Speaker B:I just knew that I could write a good story.
Speaker B: And so I got saved in: Speaker B:And then I started to teach the Word.
Speaker B:And I just felt like.
Speaker B:And at that time, I wrote a book about Lazarus called Removing the grave Clothes.
Speaker B:And I wrote that book because I was like, you know, I have more in me from studying the Bible than just a sermon.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so let me turn it into a book.
Speaker B:And so that was the first book.
Speaker B: so that was the first book in: Speaker B: So from: Speaker B:And so that's why it took so long.
Speaker B:Just the listeners.
Speaker B:And then when I said, okay, I am a writer, there is a writer in me.
Speaker B:This is one of the tools of ministry for me, whether I am blatantly talking about Jesus or not.
Speaker B:This is a tool for me to bring people into kingdom content and to help people to know their stories and begin to heal through the grace that only Jesus provides.
Speaker B:And so I said, what do I want to do in urban fiction?
Speaker B:I remember growing up reading urban fiction.
Speaker B:I tell this story often that the first book that I ever was really interested in besides comic books was in seventh grade.
Speaker B:My English teacher gave us a book to recall roll of thunder Hear My Cry.
Speaker B:And it was a book that I could not put down.
Speaker B: ck family in the south in the: Speaker B:And so I read that book and it was so good to me that I went on on my own and to read all the sequels.
Speaker B:Let the Circle Be Unbroken.
Speaker B:And it was another one after that.
Speaker B:And I just read it in leisure.
Speaker B:That's when I fell in love with reading right then as a teenager.
Speaker B:My grandmother was a librarian.
Speaker B:And I remember watching Oprah with my grandmother and just so happened they had this author on there, Iyanla Van Zant had never heard of her before.
Speaker B:And so when I heard about her book yesterday, I cried.
Speaker B:My grandmother saw that I like reading and because she was a librarian, she encouraged all of that.
Speaker B:So every book book by Yanna Van Zant that ever came out, my grandmother gave it to me for a birthday, Christmas or whatever.
Speaker B:But I didn't want to be an expert on, hey, telling people do this.
Speaker B:You need to do that in a way that in that format.
Speaker B:Urban fiction allows me to get the message out in a way that is digestible for people that may know God and may not know him.
Speaker B:Because the common theme is people store.
Speaker B:We all have one and we can identify even if we're not in church, even if we've never been introduced to Jesus.
Speaker B:Even though you will see the themes of that in my inspirational urban fiction books, it still gives them an introduction in a way that it is.
Speaker B:It's almost like a parable, like Jesus taught in parables.
Speaker B:You can identify with the parable even if you don't identify with the spiritual aspects yet.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker A:So my.
Speaker A:You're telling librarian stories.
Speaker A:So my librarian, Mrs. Rowan, she introduced me to an author called Walter Dean Myers and he wrote their fictional books.
Speaker A:But it was mainly around the Vietnam War and urban people that end up in the.
Speaker A:And people of all colors, but end up from urban settings end up in the Vietnam War.
Speaker A:And man, she, as you said, she started she.
Speaker A:Once she knew I liked that genre, she continued to give me books, got me a signed copy.
Speaker A:She went and met him.
Speaker A:So anyway, it's amazing the people to influence us to read and then how that once again part of our stories.
Speaker A:So I got one last question for you.
Speaker A:What from this, the newest book, what is one or two books takeaways.
Speaker A:You want people to take away from this new book?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So the first takeaway would be in.
Speaker B:And there's a setting that I have on this T shirt.
Speaker B:You can't see it all but it says hard conversations, they heal, they help, and they humble, right?
Speaker B:And so they heal.
Speaker B:Because as I said earlier, I can't get healed unless I can confess.
Speaker B:If I can't talk about what I've been through, I can't heal from it.
Speaker B:And so in to order, order for you to heal, you have to have the hard conversations, number one, with yourself.
Speaker B:You have to be able to have it with God.
Speaker B:I always say that if you can have it with God, you can have it with you, then that prepares you to have it with other people.
Speaker B:If you can't Even talk to Dr. About what you've been through, then you can't move forward yet.
Speaker B:And so they heal.
Speaker B:They help me to be healed from what happened to me, even if others don't agree, even.
Speaker B:And I even encourage because I do communication coaching, even for people.
Speaker B:I encourage people.
Speaker B:And I'm not talking about necromancy for all of your listeners, but for people that may be holding something on someone that has passed away, I always tell them, write it down in a letter as if you're writing to the person because you got to get it out of you.
Speaker B:You write it down to the dear, this, when you did this, it wounded me and I've been stuck for five years because you did X, Y and Z, write it down.
Speaker B:Even if you tear it up later, write it down because you have to be able to tell the story to heal, right?
Speaker B:So hard conversations, they heal.
Speaker B:Number two.
Speaker B:Hard conversations, they for two reasons.
Speaker B:Number one, they help me to move on.
Speaker B:Number two, they also help to restore relationship.
Speaker B:Oftentimes we are offended with someone, we are offended in our mind thinking that they know what they did.
Speaker B:And oftentimes I have found when I do communications coaching with couples and families that a lot of times what we think they should know that they did wrong, they have no idea.
Speaker B:And so a lot of times I've seen it in my own life where people were in relationships with you, you because they are offended at you and you have no idea of what you did.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:And so hard conversations help to restore relationships.
Speaker B:They help because when we talk about it, then you can say, well, I didn't intend it to be that way.
Speaker B:That wasn't my intention.
Speaker B:I apologize.
Speaker B:And sometimes we would rather cut off the relationship than have the hard conversation.
Speaker B:And then it may be restored.
Speaker B:They may apologize, they may tell you that I didn't mean it that way.
Speaker B:This was my perspective on it.
Speaker B:Please forgive me me.
Speaker B:And you can still have your friend, right?
Speaker B:Even.
Speaker B:Even scripture says in Matthew 18 if your brother offends you, go to him and get it right.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And a lot of times we don't do that, even as believers.
Speaker B:We just will throw people away and cast them away and move on.
Speaker B:But they help.
Speaker B:Hard conversations help because I can restore and at the least, I can get off of me what you did so that I give you the opportunity to change or to.
Speaker B:To, you know, reconcile the relationship, even if you don't.
Speaker B:At least I've gotten it out.
Speaker B:And so it helps to me me, even if it doesn't help you also.
Speaker B:They humble because a lot of us think that we're perfect in all our ways, everything right.
Speaker B:We've treated everybody right.
Speaker B:And when someone comes to us with a hard conversation, what it does is give us the opportunity to see where we're imperfect, where we need improvement.
Speaker B:And they humble us, right?
Speaker B:It let us know that you ain't.
Speaker B:You have not done everything right.
Speaker B:You are not right in all your ways.
Speaker B:You still are in need of the grace of God, and you still have room to grow.
Speaker B:And so if nobody.
Speaker B:And sometimes people avoid hard conversations and we do a disservice to the people that we won't have it with because everybody knows somebody in their workplace, in their family, where nobody wants to deal with them, right?
Speaker B:They just let them have it.
Speaker B:They have such an overbearing personality that nobody ever argues with them, nobody ever confronts them.
Speaker B:They just let them be.
Speaker B:And what I found a lot of times is, even as an I psychology professional in the.
Speaker B:In the workspace, is that nobody has told them how they are.
Speaker B:And so in their mind, they think that they.
Speaker B:That they are all that they think that ain't there.
Speaker B:There's nothing wrong with how they show up in the world.
Speaker B:And somebody has to love them enough to have a hard conversation to say, do you realize that you are offensive to people?
Speaker B:Do you realize that you're nasty as a person?
Speaker B:Do you realize that you don't know how to talk to people?
Speaker B:And that helps people.
Speaker B:It helps them and it humbles them.
Speaker B:And if we say we love people, we have to love them enough to have the hard conversation with them and say, what you did was wrong.
Speaker B:And so how can people change if nobody ever tells, if nobody's ever willing to confront them and to say, no, your behavior is unacceptable and it's not right, and it won't stand with me.
Speaker B:Even if it stands with others, it won't stand with me.
Speaker B:And that gives them the opportunity to humble themselves and to change.
Speaker B:And so that's the Main theme of the book, of all the series, Hard Conversations, that I pray that people would take that away.
Speaker B:And of course, above all else, that they would take away being introduced to Jesus, being introduced to Christ in ways, because each of the people have a thread of faith in their story, whether it's through their parents, their grandparents, through their own journey with God.
Speaker B:And so I want to introduce people, I'll use it as an evangelistic tool as well, to introduce them to Christ in the hopes that it would inspire them to know that the only way to your healing is through him.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Amazing.
Speaker A:And where can people find the books?
Speaker B:The books are everywhere.
Speaker B:Online books are sold.
Speaker B:And so you can go to Amazon, you can go to Barnes and Noble Books, a million anywhere that you buy online books, you can get it in Kindle format, you can get it in hard copy.
Speaker B:Also in the next, I think the next week or so, you'll be also be able to get each of the books as a audiobook.
Speaker B:And so if you are a person that says, hey, I don't sit down and read books, I like to read on the go, you'll be able to get the audio book as well.
Speaker B:Hard Conversations.
Speaker B:Book one is called Book One, Breadcrumbs to the Past, the one that came out and just came out.
Speaker B:It's Hard Conversations, Book two, Over and Over.
Speaker B:There is also a song.
Speaker B:So for each of my books that I release, I always release a song inspired by the book.
Speaker B:And so I have a song called over and over featuring a Christian rapper named Mahogany Jones, very famous Christian rapper named Mahogany Jones.
Speaker B:And it's a worship song called over and over that we come to give God worship for who he is.
Speaker B:Over and over again.
Speaker B:And so that has a lyric video that's out everywhere, the everywhere the music is available.
Speaker B:You can stream it, you can purchase it everywhere music is available as well.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker A:Will you pray for us today?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Father, we thank you for today.
Speaker B:We thank you for this time with my friend Aaron.
Speaker B:God, we thank you for all of those that are listening.
Speaker B:Father, we thank you that even in the midst of maybe fear of having hard conversations, we thank you for touching.
Speaker B:We thank you for revealing.
Speaker B:We thank you for delivering.
Speaker B:We thank you for inspiring them, God, to know that no matter what they have faced in life, it was not for nothing, Lord.
Speaker B:And that, Lord, we thank you, Lord, that your word declares that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb in the word of our testimony.
Speaker B:And so, God, I thank you for courage for each of the people that I ever hear this, that will ever see this, to have the hard conversation so that they might be healed and so that they might move forward better, more effective, more powerful, more engaging, more Lord productive in their lives.
Speaker B:Thank you, Lord, for giving those that they will have the hard conversation with ears to hear and hearts to retain.
Speaker B:Thank you for the meaning of relationships.
Speaker B:Thank you for the meaning of marriages.
Speaker B:Thank you for the meaning of families.
Speaker B:Lord.
Speaker B:Lord, thank you for us becoming better as the people of God, that we may show the world that our Christ has the ability to do all things but fail.
Speaker B:God, we love you and we thank you for this time.
Speaker B:We honor you and we cherish you in Jesus name.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker C:Sam.
