Candor-Charles Causey

Is there a tough conversation you know you need to have but you're afraid? True candor in my mind is putting love first, love for the other person to benefit everyone else and at an appropriate time. Whereas candor on social media is anytime benefiting myself unloving.

So it's almost the complete opposite. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, Chaplain and author Charles Causey says you can learn how to speak the truth and have hard conversations if you can do it with love.

That's the operative word but how do you achieve that? We'll find out today and if you go to the website fivelovelanguages.com you'll see our featured resource Chaplain Causey's book, Candor, The Secrets of Succeeding at Tough Conversations. Again, you can find it at fivelovelanguages.com. Gary, I can't tell you how important this topic is to me personally because this is a real struggle I think not only for me, the family, but in the culture wanting to tell the truth but at the same time not wanting to needlessly offend. Well, I think you're right, Chris. I don't think any of us want to intentionally offend people at the same time. If we don't speak honestly and openly with people, the relationship's not authentic and we're really not loving them. I mean love seeks to speak the truth but it's speaking the truth not to get something off my chest but speaking the truth because I believe this would be helpful to the other person. So a lot has to do with attitude but I'm excited about our conversation today.

I am too. Let's meet Chaplain Charles Causey. He is a recipient of the Bronze Star for his military service in Iraq, the author of several books including Words and Deeds and Unbreakable, Forging a Marriage of Contentment and Delight. He and his wife Laurie have four children, two who serve in the military. He's a graduate of the University of Colorado.

He holds several advanced degrees. He formerly served at the Pentagon as a senior army chaplain for the chief of chaplains in Washington DC and he is currently serving as a command chaplain in Honolulu, Hawaii where he joins us from today. His book is Candor and it's our featured resource at fivelovelanguages.com. Well Chaplain Causey, welcome to Building Relationships.

Oh thank you so much. I want to start out and just say thank you for having me on your show. I think a lot of you and your books and have used them in ministry so much and it's really an honor to be here. Well we are delighted to have you. Give us a flyover of your life and how you became a chaplain in the first place in the military.

Sure. My wife and I were in full-time ministry. We were serving with crew on a university campus and then I became an associate pastor in a church in rural America and ended up, because I hadn't gone to a great school like Moody Bible, I felt like a good salesman should know his pots and pans. So I found myself in seminary and it was there that I came across an army chaplain recruiter who said, hey why don't you sign up and join the military as a as a chaplain and so I gave it some thought and took him up on it. So I became an army reserve chaplain and after seminary I was a church planter. Meanwhile Lori and I were having kids and and trying to hold life together and everything but it worked out pretty well until you know the Iraqi war and then the surge and then they just they needed chaplains were going two or three times and I felt like wow this is going to happen to me and sure enough I got deployed over to Iraq and then came back and felt the call to go full-time. So I've been an active duty chaplain since 2006. Well that's exciting. I'm sure you've had many many experiences in several different places during that time.

Yes sir, it has been exciting. We told the kids, we left kind of the family farm in Minnesota where we were church planting and we told them we're going to see the world and we ended up just seeing the I-95 corridor for the most part you know up and down the east coast and as soon as the last child graduated from high school we got this Honolulu, Hawaii assignment so they weren't too happy about that. Chris mentioned that two of your children are serving in the military.

How do you feel about that? Well at first blush we're very honored, very excited to have children that serve the country, the United States and the military but it's a little petrifying to be honest. You know when you serve yourself you feel like well you can kind of control aspects of you know being in danger or your assignment or things but when you have your kids you feel like you don't have as much control and you can't if they were to go to war or this or that and it's to be perfectly honest and having candor it's a little terrifying but but it is it's humbling because we know they're not you know they're God's children and God has no grandkids and we're just stewards of them for a few years. Yeah and you know that they know Christ and they're walking with him, the ultimate whatever happens there in God's hands. Absolutely and we have to trust him for everything we do every day so that's but that's just something that pulls at your heart as you know with kids.

Yeah absolutely. The book we're talking about today is entitled candor. First define that term for us. Well the word candor the Latin derivative of that word root is candere and it's where the word candle comes from. So the original meaning of candor is to bring light on a situation. Mine is to bring light on a situation. My definition is forthright honesty and truth so it's it's really emphasizing the truth part and honesty and in olden times it used to mean being a gift for somebody that you were giving them a part of yourself or a gift a good gift when you were honest with them and we've kind of lost that in today's society.

Now the word sometimes means you know bullying being pushy unfortunately. Yeah well where did you personally get the idea of of the importance of candor and writing a book on the topic? Well in the military the word I believe is used more frequently than it is in regular society because I've had commanders who have told me Kazi you owe me candor and what they mean is you know we want the bottom line up front what's really happening here and there's kind of an expectation of that and so it sometimes when I gave them candor they didn't like it they said don't ever say stuff like that again. Well it's like well you know you asked me to have candor with you but as I thought about you know my military career and my life as a pastor beforehand I'd served for close to 10 years as a as a minister before going in the military I I really believe that it's an important topic that we shy away from some we maybe hide our true emotions and feelings and I just one morning I was I was driving to my dad's and just having kind of a quiet time in the car and I just I just felt like wow this this would be a really interesting topic to to write a paper on or a book on or an article on and as I was writing I kind of drew out some things and I thought wow this is this is a little more than I thought I think I could maybe write a whole book and that's how that came up.

Yeah it's always amazing to me how ideas come to writers and and then you know they flesh out as you reflect upon the topic so forth. You know part of this whole issue of speaking the truth to another person is sometimes what we perceive to be truth there's not necessarily truth to everybody else. Now I'm thinking right now about the social media okay people you know they they speak their mind and and there's candor in terms of you know speaking what they believe to be truth but other people don't think that is truth and then they speak the truth where does all that fit in? Well I I make a distinction make a distinction in my book between societal candor and true and healthy candor and so societal candor with its you know bullying brashness arrogance it's I say that your candor is either going to be tied to your character or to your ego.

I make that distinction I think it's really important because a lot of times what we see on social media is kind of a bullying or a you know this is this is the smartest position to take why wouldn't anybody have this position and I don't really think that's candor. I think there's other words for it because true candor in my mind is putting love first that's that's such an important part of candor is to do it with a loving attitude love for the other person to benefit everyone else and at an appropriate time whereas candor on social media is is anytime you know benefiting myself unloving so it's almost the complete opposite of what I believe true candor is. Yeah I fully agree with that I think you know so much of what we see going on today is just selfishness and I'm right and everybody else is wrong and let me do anything I can to hurt the other person that with whom I disagree we're not talking about that we're talking about personal relationships and what I hear you saying is that when we speak with candor we are sharing the truth at least as we perceive it because we love the person and we believe it's going to be helpful to them right? Yes and that that's the hard part is when you do it you know so my four keys of candor is speak the unspoken truth with love when needed to benefit others but it's that with love part that we really have to be circumspect and say are we doing this with a loving attitude and a lot of times I know in my own life I'm not I just want to get the truth across so even in my marriage is it more important for me to be right or to protect the relationship and of course the relationship is is penultimate so it's not important for me to be right. Today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman we're talking with author and chaplain Charles Causey our featured resource is the book candor the secrets to succeeding at tough conversations you can find out more at fivelovelanguages.com that's fivelovelanguages.com Chaplain Causey just before the break you were talking about in marriage do I keep the relationship or do I tell the truth and the struggle of that I don't want to hurt my spouse's feelings but at the same time I want to have candor can you can you flesh that what does that look like in a marriage? Well it's it obviously it's so important to be honest with your spouse it's the most important relationship in our life we've pledged our love and life to them and in a way we've pledged our true self to them but sometimes we try to hide our emotions or our feelings or our true opinions to our spouse and I've been caught in a trap in that. You know Lori and I've been married for 28 years and we've seen ups and downs and you know separations where I've been in combat and you know gone for 14 months at a time or gone for a few months for military training and it's not easy you know when you come back the family has changed they're different people than when you left and whereas I've kind of had groundhog day you know for a long time and just just trying to get to the root of the matter and because there are sometimes I know in Lori's life and my own some of our feelings are very deep and it stirs up things maybe from our childhood and we're just we don't even have the word sometimes to say it and I just believe it it takes a lot of patience and kindness I think is so important when a friend and I co-authored a marriage book we were so surprised at how little things that seemed so obvious were really big impacts on marriages and for instance kindness and we found honesty was the same way that just so many people lie to their spouse every day and don't tell them the truth and it's it's really sad because you think that's the relationship that's supposed to be nourishing instead of hiding and wearing masks with each other does that make sense I think it does you know I think another part of that seems to me is having a plan on how you can speak the truth to each other because sometimes we hold all this stuff inside that might be irritating us and then we just you know spout it all out at one time and it turns out to be negative I found and you can tell me if you agree with this or not that if I ask for input from my wife it makes it easier for her to give me input for example if I say to her honey I'm feeling really good this week and I'm open to a suggestion of anything that you would like for me not to do that I'm doing or something you'd like for me to do that I'm not doing that would make life better for you well now I've also got myself ready to hear the truth and I've given her permission to speak the truth so I don't know whether you found that helpful or how that sounds to you no that's that's great we I think if you are want to give candor and be honest with someone the flip side of that is important at the same time the second leg of that is that you have to be willing to receive candor and honesty and truth in your own life and what what you said Dr Chapman is so important posturing yourself in a position to listen to someone is just key here and I have we have a technique in the book candor that for especially for marriage we call it cam communication accelerator method and it's really just allowing your spouse to speak you know repeating back to them having them fully share their entire heart and you just repeating back not not challenging not arguing but just repeating back to them everything they said so they feel listened to and you can just see your wife your spouse's face just light up when they really feel heard yeah it's very special to them you know the other thing I think that we're struggling with is the idea that the ideal marriage is one that has no conflict and has no tension and if we go through struggle then and we're not happy then we get out of it because the the point is to be happy and to not have struggle when the the real change that comes on the inside is when you work through those things and you grow closer together through the struggle do you agree with that chaplain causey absolutely I think conflict isn't a bad thing I think it should be the goal of every premarital counselor I think and and Dr Chapman can agree or disagree with this and I'd love to hear his opinion but I think every premarital counselor should try to get a couple arguing or or try to enter them into some conflict you know have them play Monopoly together you know or be on the same team together playing you because that's what's going to happen in real life is how are you going to negotiate you know planning a wedding it's it's hard I have two daughters getting married next week I can speak with some experience here I mean it's it's hard but it's fun you know you're you still got this just excitement of love and you know uh just thrilled to be with the other person but but actually being married it's a little more challenging when the bathroom's a mess or the kitchen is dirty all the time or you know how do you negotiate that so yeah I I think that and and candor I think is a great tool to help you know with sharing our real self to somebody how do you how do you feel about that this is where my position is it's just doing it in a loving attitude in a way is what the key is yeah you mentioned the the power of listening to your spouse how does that apply with the the parent-child relationship and the importance of a parent listening to the child especially to the teenager that's I bring that out in the book that a lot of times we presume to know what our kids are thinking or feeling we've lived a lifetime of experiences and we can see how they're you know shading the truth or not being reasonable or rational in the way they talk and our first instinct at least for my wife and I is to cut them off or to correct them but we've noticed with our children when that happens I mean they start shutting down it's like a flower not blooming as much closing down and not sharing that so it's really been important for us to just even though they're irrational sometimes just to keep getting them talking and listening to them and so I think listening is crucial with children because they're not going to talk to you all the time like when you want to talk to them they don't maybe feel it but when they do want to talk you got to stop everything and really listen yeah and for me and my my teenage son it was usually 11 o'clock at night that he wanted to talk right it's not ideal yeah I'll never forget however the time my son's my grand my son said to me as a teenager he said dad I'm going to do what you say I just want you to hear me and that was a wake-up call for me you know I knew he was not being heard he was respecting my authority as a as his father you know but he wanted to be heard and I think that's true of every human however whatever age and whatever relationship we want to be heard and then we're open to you know to hear what the other person has to say absolutely that is uh that is is just so important and it goes back to those tools and just really you know we say in the marriage conferences sit knee to knee with your spouse and look them in the eyes so you're not distracted some people try to have a communication while they've got their hand on their phone my wife has busted me on that and it's just not as a man who already suffers with a little bit listening issues that's it's just really important for me to be looking in her eyes and seeing her face while she's talking to me yeah let's take us to the boardroom where you once shared something that was truth and uh to some really powerful people people more powerful than you in terms of position tell us about that experience well that's how the book opens up is me saying I have a concern and then you know you feel all the eyes on you and the anxiety there and there were issues going on on the board that a lot of good people knew were happening they just weren't speaking up uh week after week month after month and I I should have spoken up on them myself I was just younger and didn't have the courage that I have today and I finally just through prayer and meditation scripture and just really believing these things were wrong and needed to be fixed I spoke up you know I wrote in the book that it created a cosmic discomfort it was like a record scratch moment and that I remember the board chairman saying out with a young buck you know kind of gruff and and I said I have a concern about one of the names going up for the board and he goes whose name and I said actually it's yours and boy it was like all the oxygen and air and what's going on most of the men they knew that what I was saying needed to be said was right so they just kind of looked down at their notes they didn't give me any support with eye contact and I stated I stated my case I said you know you're you're you're a great man and I love you but there are some things that have happened this last year that have been very challenging to the organization and and you know and he what was really cool was that he allowed me to state my case he didn't interrupt and argue with me because I I think he realized that the things I was saying were were pretty dead on about how decisions were made and things but it was his friend you know a lot of times power players and or you know the church boss or somebody will have somebody that enables them a very dominant person but they'll have kind of a I don't know if you call it a lackey or you know a co-pilot that but it was that person in the room he he jumped up to his feet cut me off and he made some unfounded accusations against other members on the board not me which was so surprising to me I thought I was the one speaking he gotta be ripping me apart but he stormed out of the room he just left the board meeting which was really shocking and terrifying and anyway I don't know if you want me to keep going but well you lost sleep over that and this brings up a really important point about candor you can't go on the response necessarily talk about the the the inner turmoil that you went through after that well I didn't sleep well for days and I it was hard to eat I usually take joy and sleeping and eating and you know being helped by family and nothing was joyful for me it was during the Christmas season I remember this was about mid-December early December and I just was not in a festive mood I felt like I was damaging the organization and we had to bring in a mediator from another city had to come in and work with the board and I just wasn't I felt in turmoil but yet at the same time I really felt like I had spoken the truth and I'd done it in a loving way to help the organization and so at the base of everything Chris I really felt like I was doing good and right I felt like the Lord was with me before that meeting during that meeting after the meeting but I just what I felt bad was the angst it wasn't resolved there wasn't reconciliation yet and that's what really because I felt like people in the room didn't understand fully my heart maybe and and didn't know how it was all gonna end yeah the suspense of our listeners you have to tell us how did it end yes well it the actually the board's chairman who I was questioning some things and and also his friend they self decided not to run for the board the next year to leave the board we brought in two new board members and I'll tell you it changed the meetings I think candor when you don't have candor in a meeting it slows down a meeting because you have to question what what are people saying here what do they really mean do they mean this you know and it just drags it and candor speeds up meetings so our board meetings got faster people were able to go home at night and tuck in their children and have some words with their son instead of getting home at 11 or 11 30 at night because of a long terrible board meeting and we planned a vision retreat for the first time in 10 years for this organization where we the leaders went off and dreamed and we got their spouses involved and there was it felt like new life and just it was exciting to go to board me because there was people that you trusted and you loved and were developing a relationship with instead of you know some of the other things that can happen as you know in unhealthy boards well I'm glad it turned out well okay and we have to be honest it doesn't always turn out well right right it doesn't and this one potentially could have turned out poorly I said I've had some experiences with military leaders that having candor has turned out poorly for me I've had somebody turn to me with a real gruff look he was I think two ranks ahead of me I think two ranks ahead of me and he said if you ever say anything like that again you're going to be fired and I was like okay that's a message I read loud and clear okay I realized that my candor was not welcome thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" you can find out more about your love language or our featured resource by going to fivelovelanguages.com you can listen to the stream or download the podcast right there and link to the book by author and chaplain Charles Causey his book is candor the secrets to succeeding at tough conversations find out more at fivelove languages.com again fivelovelanguages.com chaplain causey why do you think many people if not most people tend to draw back from doing what you said earlier you did in a board meeting what keeps people speaking what they believe to be the truth in a board meeting I think there's a lot of factors involved but I really think fear is the root cause of a lack of candor for many people and it's it's being afraid of saying the wrong thing of exposing myself who I really am being vulnerable I think there's maybe a lack of confidence that it could be mixed in there I think there can be cynicism mixed here like let's say you've spoken up before several times and it never changed it just hurt things so you have a healthy cynicism of you know why should I speak up and I think a lot of board meetings go that direction where you know people will leave a board meeting and say well that was a dumb decision we made in there and of course the next person say well why didn't you speak up and say anything well I've tried they never listen but you have iterations of that then people aren't hearing I think organizations pay huge money to get what's really happening there and getting a fresh look from the you know every aspect of the organization because people aren't honest about what's happening from the lower level all the way up to the CEO yeah and I think there's a lot of reasons why people hold back but fear is enemy number one of candor yeah I think you're right on that you talk about the myths of candor what do we get wrong about this topic this subject well a lot of people think having candor you have to be an extrovert or you have to be really outgoing and and and and that's not true I mentioned in the book that I think introverts are maybe better at candor in some ways because they're thinking through you know what they're going to say and how they're going to say it and they're able to do it you know maybe in a different way than somebody that speaks to hear them you speaks to hear them you know speaks to think instead of think to speak the other one is that you have to be brash and kind of argumentative to have candor and so these are all some of the myths of candor that and another one is that you only do it you know as infrequently as possible because you don't want to stir the pot and I say no I think more candor the better if you're doing it true having true candor then more of it is healthy more and more candors more healthy yeah so it's not just a matter of being honest with other people you're talking about the biblical concept of of speaking the truth but speaking the truth in love describe how that looks well as part of and you asked earlier about how I came up with the idea of candor and in Ephesians chapter four the apostle Paul it seems like talks about how to have conversation within a Christian community and I think including you know families and and with your kids but he there's three different times in Ephesians chapter four when he addresses this in verse 15 and verse 25 and in verse 29 and he says speak the truth in love he says lay aside falsehood and speak the truth each one of you with his neighbor and in verse 29 it says you know let no one wholesome word proceed from your mouth but such a word is good for edification according to the need of the moment that it may give grace to those who hear so wrapping those verses together is how I came up with the four keys it just seems like it came right out of Ephesians chapter Paul just keeps repeating himself in a way so I say you know the first key is speak the unspoken truth unspoken truth the second key is with love the third key is when needed and the fourth key is to benefit others which goes back to his giving grace to everyone in the room and I think with those keys you can't fail I really think if if you're honestly doing that and now there's not a zero defect way that we speak and there will be times when candor is not going to come across as well as other times but it's that with love that's just critically important to have and I think it brings a lot more success than failure yeah give those four things again I want our listeners to get that because these are really important the four keys to candor are speak the unspoken truth with love when needed to benefit others every one of those is a key idea let me ask you this personally was candor a part of your childhood growing up I don't think it was as far as me having candor I believe my parents and my I I'm the youngest of four kids so my my brothers and sisters were brutally honest with me all the time made me cry so there was healthy candor getting received from me and but my parents they spoke the truth to me and love it you know in a loving way but I believe that I didn't express a lot of candor when I grew up and I think about being in you know elementary school junior high high school and dealing with friends and teachers and I think I was a little more insecure and tried to hide the real me and maybe wear a mask and because I just I was a little bit afraid to be honest and that was a big part of wanting to be a people pleaser yeah sometimes the baby in the family gets cuddled and all of that but what I hear you saying is the older children sometimes are down on that young kid we're all great friends today we have a loving relationships but it was a little hard sometimes yeah are there some people in your life that kind of stands out in your memory who have exemplified candor for you yes that's I at the very end of the book and in the acknowledgments maybe I I said there was a couple that Laurie and I befriended they were probably in their 70s when we were just getting married so we're in our mid-20s and their names were Dale and Jean Quisenberry they have both passed away now but they just had a very healthy candor with each other and with us and for instance one time Jean told me uh because we had two little kids at the time and we we loved to spend time with them playing cards we did some road trips with them and they just were very good mentors and but she told me one time she goes Charles she goes you're a wonderful father but you're a terrible babysitter I was like wow what does that mean um but she would just drop truth bombs all the time you know truth fastballs and I I trusted her heart was in a in a loving place and Laurie and I would chuckle later you know at some of the things Jean had told us and a loving couple but very honest with us yeah if everybody had somebody like that in their life outside the family but who was close enough to observe their behavior and were willing to share those kind of things we'd all be helped right I think so yeah if they could do it with love for our good if they could do it with love for our good I think that would yeah well how do you do that though is it is it a tone of voice is it the look on your face is it the trust that you have with that other person because there's a difference in being in the boardroom and you know being in your marriage or in parenting or with a friend uh do you know it when you see it you know do you know it candor when you hear it I think that's a great way to put it I really do because it does have to do with all the things you just described is there a healthy trust that's been built and that's why with that new leadership team I thought it was important to you know take it out of the board room once sometimes we'd have meetings in people's living room drinking iced tea together and talking about the day and their families it just builds that trust before and you know some of us have had the small group ministries but when you have a meal ahead of time before the bible study it just breaks down those walls when you're looking at each other eyes and laughing about things and talking in a non-threatening way a non-confrontational way sometimes the boardroom setup is just designed for kind of combative rhetoric but yeah but yeah I think I think it's just everything what you said Chris and there's just a mixture of that but truly being loving and having trusting relationships is a huge part of that let's let's talk about how this works in a church setting what role does candor play what does it look like in a church setting that's a very interesting question because you know we're called as christians to be honest with each other and to speak truth with one another but there are sometimes where it's almost like we will treat other christians in a church setting like we would people on the street in a way where we would you know kind of hide what we're you know how you doing today oh i'm fine and and and and not really share some of the deeper things going on and maybe we think those people don't have enough time to to really hear everything or that they don't care about us but so i think what happens in society a lot of times unfortunately happens in church where you know we're a body we're a we're a family and we should be able to share most of what we would share with our family with with those brothers and sisters and friends in the church now i think there's a limit to that i don't think we need to be unnecessarily exposed things that are maybe maybe too heavy that don't involve other people but or you know it wouldn't wouldn't be um necessary to share with certain people but but i really believe there's sort of a there is a lack of candor sometimes in church settings and i don't know all the reasons for that but i think when it's there when when churches have a healthy candor there it's it's so refreshing and it deepens relationships and it it builds trust and they're able to get so much more done when people care about each other and trust them and love them but you have to spend time together and you have to truly care about each other and that's what's hard too what if you don't care about some other people how do you love them and speak the truth to them with love i'm guessing that there are a number of pastors who would say i think my people tell me too many things that are wrong with me too many things that are wrong with me you know or pastor you missed the main point on that second point of your sermon or pastor that it was too loud in the auditorium can't you tone down the drums or pastor okay yes and i've had that happen to me where you know after you feel like you've preached a pretty good sermon maybe but then somebody's leaving the church and has hands you a cassette tape and says hey listen to this preacher he does a good job you know and you're like well thanks well i just preached what are you trying to say here oh i think again it comes back does it not to the individual who's speaking these things is what is their intent is is i'm trying to get my way and have everything exactly my way or am i trying to really do i really think what i'm going to share is going to help the pastor and help the church and maybe the setting also you know uh sunday morning may not be the best time to share those kind of things with a pastor it might be better to make an appointment and come down sometime during the week and just have a good talk where you can both hear and reflect with each other right i i think so too i think you know as a pastor after the sunday morning and some some pastors are preaching multiple times uh i think they're exhausted and they're in a way i wouldn't say their guard is up but they're just they're maybe not themselves like you suggested if the one-on-one meeting maybe at at a coffee place the next day or two when you're looking at each other in the eyes and there's not there's not a lot of people coming by trying to shake hands and do things yeah a lot more healthy communication would take place yeah yeah this is Building Relationships with dr gary chapman author of the new york times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" chaplain and author charles cauzy is our guest and our featured resource is his practical book candor the secrets to succeeding at tough conversations find out more at five love languages.com again go to five love languages.com well chaplain cozy uh i'll ask this question what about difficult people i mean that's the general term you know difficult people uh how can candor build a positive relationship with someone who's a difficult person well i think that having difficult people in our life it isn't a weird thing it's a normal experience because we all have those opportunities to to be around people that we don't understand you know they'll maybe say things in a public setting that you would never say in a public setting or they'll put things a certain way that you would have never said it that way i i think that we're going to encounter difficult people at the workplace um and i i bring out in the book that there's perhaps sometimes i've been the difficult one in in relationships but i distinguish between somebody that you know messes up once or twice compared to somebody that is almost intentionally rude brash arrogant boastful and how do you deal with somebody like that and um my uh a trustee old farmer once told me that you know when there's a bull in the room like a bull in the china shop you just have to dehorn them i was like well how do you do that with a person you know yeah and he goes well it's going to be bloody you know meaning it's going to be messy that it's not going to go very well and uh in the book i have i kind of discovered four different types of difficult people and one of them are kind of the roosters who you know they're just they're out there they're just saying things they're boasting and saying hard difficult things out loud there's others that are the termites are doing things behind your back that's a very challenging type of person that won't say anything to your face or in a board meeting or meeting but they'll do it after the meeting and then um you know there's other people that are just in positions of leadership that aren't leading very well i call them the wolves and then there's the i call them curmudgeons the ones that are there to hold the the trust of the history or or whatever is important to them they won't want to change anything um kind of like a wet blanket they'll smother any good decision that happens in the meeting and it's important to know that and to do the four keys with them just like you would with anybody else is is to go ahead and speak up the unspoken truth and the reason is they're probably you have a great opportunity to succeed because they're likely just going in the same direction they're going in any way you're not going to make them worse but you have an opportunity to help them have a little more self-reflection on how they're talking others for instance so instead of having an emotional outburst i encourage readers to to say things in a loving way like do you realize how you're sounding to people in the room right now and you know avoid calling somebody a name like you're being a jerk right now instead of doing that saying um is this something a person of integrity would say or a person that you know is saying we need to have character is this something that they would say asking questions i think is really helpful instead of emotional outbursts um so there's kind of a way to deal with them but it's not easy i'll tell you that it's not easy yeah i do think again that it always works best if it's just the two of you rather than in a meeting you know where other people are around they may speak out in the meeting but if you the leader can take initiative to sit down with them afterwards and say really want to hear your heart on this i heard what you said i'm not sure i understood it you know and just the fact that you're respecting them to hear them out doesn't mean they'll always come around but i think if we do listen we talked about this earlier if we do listen to them and then they're more likely to hear our perspective you know whether they agree on it or not but they're more likely to hear us and say okay well i see what you're saying so that's been my experience at least through the years yes and i think that goes back to that loving you know and are we doing it with a love motivation do we really care for that person do we want the organization to succeed do we want that person to succeed and in the back of the book i have 22 strategies for effective candor and sir you nailed the very first one speak to people in private if possible especially if the subject matter is sensitive in nature and can be brokered without a group discussion because people you don't want to throw truth fastballs at people in public to hurt them or damage their reputation because it won't help what role does faith play in in your life and in the formation of this book well faith in my life is everything i feel like the lord is everything to me uh and my family and god is my number one audience and that's i i had written a chapter we tweaked it it was going to be candor in our prayer lives and we tweaked it to blistering honesty with self but my original thought there was just that if if we believe in an all-powerful all-living god who just cares for us deeply we would be more forthright and honest with him about everything going on in our life sometimes i got in the habit of just praying for other people for my kids for the work situation but i wouldn't go to the lord with some of the things that i was dealing with that day like some back pain and or some you know anxiousness about something coming up and i i realized that i need to just be have candor and forthright honesty with the lord every day he already knows it as as you know prayer is is so important in that so faith faith means everything to me and i think that writing this book it's it god is god is truth and jesus was the only one in john 114 he was full of grace and truth he was the only one that wasn't only human not wrapped around that you know the prongs of the dilemma of being too loving or too truthful he had it perfect and he's such a great great model inspiration what is it what does it mean to be candid with ourselves well that was the hardest chapter to write and it was actually it's now my favorite chapter i believe that we have the capacity to to lie to ourselves and not not it sometimes takes a form of not listening to ourselves like what's happening in our thoughts before we will say something or make a decision for instance if there's somebody in the room who you're trying to impress for some reason i just i i challenge the reader think to yourself why why are you trying to impress this person you know what is it about it in my life that i want to be affirmed by people that are more important than me or people that are are more popular than me you know do i not feel fully loved by our heavenly father or by my spouse or and just being comfortable in your own skin you know in your own shoes and and really understanding that you are fully loved and you don't have to wear a mask you don't have to i used to paint a very careful portrait of myself to show other people what i thought a pastor should have been or you know an army chaplain should be and i realize that a gift to them is just to be more honest and it's more vulnerable but people will resonate more with our who we truly are than with what we're trying to portray them if that makes sense yeah i fully agree with what you're saying on that one and i think as we understand ourselves better and are willing to be open with people about our flaws as well as our successes they're far more likely to listen to us well our time is gone this has been a wonderful conversation chaplain thank you for being with us today thank you for taking the time to write this book and i really want to encourage our listeners to get a copy because i believe all of us can profit by thinking through this topic of candor in our speech with others so again thanks for being with us today thank you dr chappin it was my my pleasure and privilege to be on your show what an encouragement i don't think there's any more practical conversation we could have that touches just about every aspect of your life chaplain charles cauzy has been our guest our featured resource at five love languages dot com is his book candor the secrets to succeeding at tough conversations find out more at five love languages dot com and next week just in time for july the fourth holiday it's our dear gary edition call and leave your question or comment now at one eight six six four two four gary a big thank you today to our production team steve wick and janice todd Building Relationships with dr gary chatman is a production of moody radio in association with moody publishers a ministry of moody bible institute thanks for listening