Episode 285 - Love and (Dis)respect at Home and at Work with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs and special guest host Mike Sharrow join the show to take a candid look at how entrepreneurs can overcome the challenges they face in their personal and professional relationships.

Dr. Eggerichs is a renowned counselor and author, as well as the founder of Love and Respect, a ministry that grew from the success of his best-selling marriage book of the same name and has expanded to include teachings and resources on business, leadership, and communication in addition to marriage and family concerns.

In this conversation, he breaks down practical insights for bringing love and respect to all relationships.

We can motivate and influence others by meeting their deepest core needs with love and respect.
It is important to apologize and seek forgiveness when we come across as unloving or disrespectful.
Trust and obedience are key in applying these principles over time.
In marriage, it is important to communicate in a way that resonates with your spouse's natural language.

Find more about Dr. Eggerichs’ ministry at https://www.loveandrespect.com/

Get the book https://www.loveandrespect.com/product/love-respect-book

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.

Episode Transcript

Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.

Joseph Honescko: You walk into the office feeling uneasy. There's been a bit of tension between you and your employees, but you can't quite place what it is you feel. You've been clear with your expectations. You pay them well. You're not mean or difficult, but something still feels off. Maybe turnover is high or morale is low. The culture just doesn't feel right and it's affecting you too. So you find yourself being more passive aggressive or caring less for the people around you. You build up this wall and unsurprisingly, it doesn't help. If this has ever happened to you, you might have entered what today's guest, Doctor Emerson Eggerichs, calls the crazy cycle. And in this episode, he's going to tell you how to get out of it. Doctor Eggerichs is a counselor, author, and leader of a ministry called Love and Respect, which he grew from the success of his bestselling marriage book of the same name. Today, the ministry has expanded to include teachings and resources on business leadership, communication and marriage, and family concerns. He joins us on the show to talk about the unique challenges entrepreneurs face to offer love and respect, both in their marriages and in their businesses. I'm Joey Honescko, and you're listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Let's get into it.

Joseph Honescko: Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. My name is Joey Honescko and I'm excited for the conversation today with Doctor Emerson Eggerichs. And I'm also excited because we've been doing this thing where we rotate co-host to show various voices from around the faith driven movement. And today I'll be joined by Mike Sharrow of an awesome ministry called C12, and we love the work they're doing to bring together and coach Christian business leaders and group settings. He's a longtime friend and partner in this movement, and it's great to have Mike on the show, particularly because of his unique connection to the work of doctor Eggerichs. So, Mike, maybe just introduce yourself for a second talk about C12, and then I'd love for you to hit on just how love and respect has impacted you as a leader and your organization.

Mike Sharrow: Absolutely, Joey. This is gonna be so much fun. This is like the collision of major parts of my world in one conversation. So my day job, I get to be the CEO of this amazing platform called C12 Business Forums, where we run these groups all around the world for about 4000 business leaders and CEOs on like four continents. We get 200 full time chairs. They're out running those forums for us. And Robert's idea of great business, great a purpose business as a ministry, but also whole life stewardship. And so marriage comes up a ton into the human side. Like my wife and I are about to have our 22nd marriage anniversary in a few weeks, in probably the single greatest book in content that is impact of that is love and respect to that we have. I think we've read it, taught it, led groups on it maybe 20 times. We taught it in different countries. I've watched you grow me as a husband, as a father, vitality, my marriage. But even I have, I could tell you, I could drive down the road to two engineers at a company who tore up their divorce papers at work because their boss played a love and respect DVD at lunch. Wow. And I could tell you, we probably purchased like, 500 copies of books. I think we show them to get a commission on book sales. And all I to say, love business, ministry, life integration. And I think some stuff that gods use you, Emerson, to unpack for people is just so powerful for business. I can't wait for us to talk about it. Powerful, powerful.

Emerson Eggerichs: Thank you.

Joseph Honescko: Yeah, that's very powerful. And marriage is such a key part for entrepreneurs because there's all these extra financial pressures. It's hard for everyone, right? Just like as a floor. But I think with entrepreneurs, we've done episodes where we talk about the mental health challenges, the financial challenges, all these different pressures and it all that can add up and interfere with our marriages, our families. We're going to get into that. And so let's introduce our guest, Doctor Emerson Eggerichs. Emerson. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.

Emerson Eggerichs: Oh thank you Joey and Mike. Thank you. Yes.

Mike Sharrow: So part of I want to dive in is this is such a big issue. In fact, a few years ago we partnered with a national research group to study marriages of our leaders, our chairs. And so our members just try to figure out where we can help encourage them. And the researchers came back and said, oh, wow, you didn't think of this high net worth. Christians, particularly entrepreneurs, are tied with pastors for having some of the worst marriage profiles. And, it blew me away. But they it made so much sense. They said there's this high financial stability. They're not fighting about money or how to survive. So there's comfort. And there was a high spirituality, like a moral condition. We got to do the right thing. And those were so extraordinarily high it actually masked, tolerated and created what they call artificial buoyancy for all other areas of marital vitality, and that they are actually often miserable in areas of communication and intimacy and all these other factors. But with the mask of [...], they got a big house. They're doing good things and they're getting big money away. So life's all good. And we just found out it's this illusion of flourishing. And I was curious. Emerson, you've been walking in couples for so long. Are you surprised by that? And why do you think we end up in the spot of being great Christians, doing great things and having miserable marriages?

Emerson Eggerichs: No, I think that was profound research and very intriguing to hear your comments. I think, again, as you even referenced earlier, the two gentlemen, I think it was it tore up their divorce papers upon hearing, I think, a little of this information. I think oftentimes it's an honest misunderstanding in between the husband and the wife. I mean, you can have great skill as a brain surgeon, so to speak, but you don't have the emotional wisdom to know how to engage your wife, who may be criticizing or complaining because it sounds like contempt when really it's driven by her desire to, you know, make the relationship better because she cares. So she is caring as she confronts, but she comes across as contemptuous because no one talks to the brain surgeon this way. So be easy for him to, you know, just kind of put up the shield here and get frustrated with this. And then she gets hurt because she's moving toward him to resolve some of these concerns. And so it comes back to honest misunderstandings. And that's been part of my campaign that we can have great, abilities on so many fronts. But when it comes to this husband wife relationship, it oftentimes is an honest misunderstanding. And we would think that we understand because we feel that we're normal and we feel that we're right. And so we try to communicate to them that they're wrong, not because we're mean spirited, but we just think they are wrong. And actually they may be a little abnormal. And once we posture that way, we're, entering what I call the crazy cycle, and it gets insane and people are frustrated and feel very impotent, and then they just end up living as roommates, and they she doesn't divorce him because she can't remarry somebody else with that kind of money. And he didn't want to divorce her because he didn't want to split his assets. I mean, I overstated that, but yeah.

Mike Sharrow: No. Yeah. No, I love it that what I find on the, you know, practical side. And you walk through and you address a well, maybe this is like a quick thumbnail sketch of this. Crazy cycles is like, no one's happy. So the frustrating things you get two people who are both like, I'm working really hard. In fact, I'm exhausted trying to do the right best thing and I'm a brain surgeon, or I'm out for another and I'm successful everywhere else and not here. So it's not like lack of effort typically. And at the end of your why? Like, why do we end up here?

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, because, we have all heard the definition of craziness. And as we keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same ill effects, and the crazy cycle is based on Ephesians 5:33, where the apostle Paul instructs husbands to love their wives with agape love. The Greek word there's agape, and no wife is commanded to agape love her husband. It's not there because he's put it within her nature to nurture women, love to love it. The love of intimacy. You really have to close her up before she'll say, I don't love you. She wants to love. And she's moving toward that to express her love and to receive that love. So it's very telling that Paul then tells her to put on respect toward her husband. So the husband is to love, the wife is to respect. And I always point out that she needs respect. Peter tells her husband to honor his wife, and in Titus two, the older woman and encourage young women to love their husbands. But that's phileo. Be more friendly in though she becomes unfriendly, so the end result is that both need love and respect equally. But we've asked 7000 people this question. When you're in conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved at that moment or disrespected? And Joey, in my 83% of the men said they feel disrespected and 72% of the women say they feel unloved. So again, there's exception to everything, but this is statistically significant. This is off the charts. This is as different as night is from day is pink is from blue. And people don't understand this, for any number of reasons. But then I saw this correlation or connection. I thought when Sarah, my wife and we've been married 50 years, when Sarah feels unloved, how does she react? I'll bet she reacts in disrespectful way. She doesn't intend to be disrespectful. But that's how she appears to me that because there's a negativity there, women there default when they're feeling insecure and upset, and I know they will react negatively and move aggressively toward the man, you know, to try to resolve this. But she does it in a way that no one else does toward her husband, usually. So he just feels like, well, I know you love me, but better if you like me right now and I don't deserve this disrespect. And she said, well, you haven't earned the respect. And so now that becomes a real misunderstanding on the other side, when he feels disrespected, he'll do what every man does. If you and I, Mike, we're the best of buddies. And we got into heated argument, a certain point, it's a drop. But forget it. Because today research has revealed our heartbeats get to 99 beats per minute during this provocation. So we have to withdraw and calm down physiologically. So the man just says, drop it. Forget it's not that big of an issue. He tries to de-escalate it, but let's just kind of move on. Well, that threatens her to no end because that feels hugely unloving. So here he feels disrespectful. He's trying to do the honorable thing only to be labeled as unloving. And then she then reacts in a more disrespectful way, and then he pulls back even more. And this thing gets crazy without love. She reacts without respect. Without respect. He reacts without love, without love. She reacts with our respect, with our respect. And I always say when the issue isn't the issue, this is the issue. And when you see the spirit of your spouse to play or get provoked, you've entered the crazy cycle. And Mike, it is at this point that many people, as competent as they are and is skilled as they are and as knowledgeable they are on so many fronts. If they don't have a little knowledge on this and a little skill on this to know how to jump off that crazy cycle, it moves into insanity. They keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same ill effects. He's feeling disrespected. He's defensively reacting without respect. Defensively he reacts offensively without love, without love. Defensively she reacts offensively without respect. And they don't see that their defensive reactions continue to step on. The air hose of the other person. And so it gets ugly. And the only thing they know to do is to pull away from each other until the next fight.

Joseph Honescko: So I'm thinking about me on my worst days, right? And I think our listeners might resonate with some of this, because I can think that, like, I'm working hard for my family. I'm out here doing good things for God, paying our bills. My wife should respect me, or even entrepreneur. My team should respect me. I'm owed that respect. And I could almost see someone being like, yeah, that's right. You know, if my wife gave me more respect then I would love her. Well, so how might we redirect that thinking even now for our listeners who might be feeling this, like, yeah, I haven't gotten enough respect, and that's the problem.

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, I think we begin with this self-awareness, particularly men, because we've been told as men you shouldn't feel disrespected. You're narcissistic, and so many men end up, you know, sidestepping what's really going on because they don't know how to put a voice vocabulary this. And then she will also say we haven't earned it. And so this becomes problematic. But I begin first with the awareness of the crazy cycle. We need to have a vocabulary that allows us to identify. I mean, to your point earlier, Mike, I've said what I just said in five minutes to I don't know how many men. And they said, you just put a voice and vocabulary to everything I've been experiencing for 30 years, but I didn't have a way of even understanding it. So we want to first of all, start with the understanding. Now, given that everybody kind of oh, I get it. That's crazy. Now you're bringing up Joey. The question well, am I going to be justified to assign blame? Hey, I wouldn't be unloving if my wife was respectful. That's exactly the problem, Emerson. She's triggering the crazy cycle. And if a woman's out there. Well, that's exactly right. I'm disrespectful because he's so unloving. So now we're in a stalemate logjam as to what we do. But that's another topic. And that is a very important topic. How do we jump off the crazy cycle without saying that the other person is always causing us to get on the crazy cycle? One way is for me as a husband. When Sarah is reacting to me negatively, I say, honey, and I wrote the book, but you're coming across in a way that feels disrespectful. Did I say or do something earlier that felt unloving to you? Or your husband is reacting unloving shuts down. Honey, this feels very unloving. I'm threatened by this, but did I say or do something earlier that sounded disrespectful to you? That was my intent, but that would help me coach me. Now this becomes a delicate issue because the other person might be dismissive. You're always doing that. That's exactly right. So we're so afraid of that criticism, which is odd, maybe because most of these people would die for Jesus Christ, but they can't handle a little social ostracism, you know what I mean? But we're all in it. But we are very vulnerable this. But the solution is to give your spouse the benefit of the doubt by using that script and that kind of language. And if you stay on message over a period of time, it's very disarming. And usually the other person will soften. Why? Because we're getting in tune of their core need. And most people who have goodwill are going to appreciate that. Now, if they're having an affair, all bets are off because you're going to be the enemy. But if there's basic goodwill there, they will eventually soften. They react a little bit initially because this is too good to be true. But you stay on message and watch what happens.

Mike Sharrow: Okay. So our audience are often doers. These are CEOs, people building stuff. And we like to win. We like to build stuff we're good at and we do hard things. But you are things with a payback, whether it's financial or applause and marriage [...] For you to maybe get the wins as easy in that you feel like you're just stuck in that crazy cycle. So I would love that. Let's see the conversation a little different. A few years ago, speaking at Texas A&M University to a bunch of aspiring leaders, and this young lady walked up to me and she said, my dad is one of those people that your organization's impacted. I grew up, he was immensely successful, gave away tons of money, did lots of things, and she said, I always the other one said, you must be so proud your dad is changing the world. But at home, my mom and I used to wonder. I wish we were in the frame of the world he was trying to change. It feels like all of his success is outside the home, and we were never part of the world. He was trying to change. And then that change when people started hold him accountable to the idea of like marriage matters and how your love, your wife matters, and that created generational change refer, which is cruel. But part of what the data we see is a lot of entrepreneurs just kind of settle and accepts, okay, that's where it's at. I'm not being horrible, not beating my wife or she's not abusive. Her husband. And I'm doing all this for the kingdom. I'm making money. I'm solving problems. How would you challenge leaders to not settle for just a not dead marriage?

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, the larger issue, and I just spoke to 2300 entrepreneurs, husbands and wives on this idea that almost every crisis following couple believes what Jesus said that God joined us together. I mean, in Matthew 19, Jesus is very clear that our Heavenly Father joined us together. And this sense of being joined together for a bigger purpose, a kingdom purpose, is in the hearts of almost every husband and wife who love the Lord. And they get married. They sense there's going to be this satisfaction in the relationship, but they sense a bigger call. And I'm writing a book called The Win Win Marriage, based on first Corinthians seven, where Paul addresses mutuality, goes back and forth in a barley, back and forth, back and forth between two believers who are married with each other. He interweaves celibacy, singleness, married to an unbeliever. But when you pull the verses out that deal with husband and wife, who are both Christ's followers, it's just powerful. But in that text he says nine times that were called. It's not just to the believing spouses, but also the unbeliever, the believer, married unbeliever, also the widowed singles, etc. but it applies very clearly to the husband and wife who love the Lord and marry together. So we believed early on that we were joined together. We believe that God called us, but we get derailed and I believe it's because of the crazy cycle. And now we're looking in that rearview mirror at that calling. It's a light that's in the past. Individually, we are seeking Christ. And this is what's always interesting. We're being use of the Lord individually, but we're not being used as a team. And we are to represent Christ in the church. And there should be a melody coming out of our lives that those who look at us say, give me the lyrics, give me the words to the melody, I want to know more. And there was that sense of vision and purpose early on. But now there's this undercurrent of resentment. And this is the challenge, then, that we extend to, let's say, the CEO, if it's a man in this case, what does he do in this situation? Do you just kind of settle now and kind of do this dance as best you know how until death? Or is there a skill and knowledge you can have to kind of make this a little bit better. One thing is that the reason that you've shut down is you feel that you're getting disrespect you don't deserve. So the question is, how do you give voice to your deeper need without her dismissing that as narcissistic and egotistical, that there is a way that you can have this conversation, but there's also a set of landmines that you've got to avoid. You can't just say that, you know, you're so unlovable. It's hard for me to love you and I pull away from you. You're so disrespectful and I'm sick and tired. You go, you start using that kind of language and you're sabotaging the whole process. So I wrote the book to give you the skill and to the love and respect. Well, to be able to enter into that in a way that your needs as a man for this need to be honored for who you are, apart from your performance that your wife would feel about you the way Jesus feels about you. I mean, the Lord knows you're not always honorable or respectable, but he who called you, you know, he who began that good work in you, perfected until the day of Christ Jesus. And you have the sense that the Lord favors you more than your wife does. And so you given up on this, or is there a way that you can maybe present this and she will be all in? It's not that she's unwilling. She just doesn't understand.

Mike Sharrow: Part of what you've been tapping into here isn't just me as a CEO of a wife, Jackie, or a female entrepreneur to her husband, this is male female stuff. So could you maybe begin a bridge into. If I had this issue at home with my spouse, where might I be getting into crazy cycles at work that are also full of male female dynamics? What does that look like for me at work?

Emerson Eggerichs: All right. And right now, media had me make a presentation on the crazy cycle in the workplace because it's true. I mean, Jesus said in Matthew 19, have you not read? He made them from the beginning, made them male and female? He didn't say, Sarah says at a conference in Magus husband and wife. You made us male and female. And that distinction is a difference. And there is an important point here, then, that there's going to be a pink and blue perspective in the work arena. Now we become a culture that says because we're equal, therefore we're the same. We become a culture that's very apprehensive about stereotypic thinking. And I get all that. So my point, though, is you can have a woman got great leadership gifts and so on, so forth. But if you don't understand how she has a sensitivity, a caring instinct, how she's going to read in to uncaring remarks, and if we don't, then maybe pull back and say, wait a minute, that came across way too harsh. Can I have a redo on that? If we aren't doing that, we're just barging forward and they should just get the content and do well. You can be right, but wrong at the top of your voice. That I had a fellow come to me and said, you know, I can't believe it. We're in this big organization, in my department. I've got 100 women. There's another department, a guy overseas, he's got 100 women. Those women over there never quit. I've got women quitting on me, but I provide better medical coverage. I do better this, I do better that. And he says, I am completely baffled why these women are quitting on me. But they're staying over. Are there when he doesn't even offer some of the bonuses that I do. I said just one question. Does he ask Sally about how her 16 year old boy is doing in school? Yeah, he's doing that all the time. I said, let's just think about that for a moment. Now you have to make sure you don't cross lines that are inappropriate. But the fact is, when you care for those things, she's working there, perhaps in this as a blue collar person, and she's got pictures of her family there. She's doing this to bring in the extra money so that they can do x, Y, z for the family. And when that employer understands that and is in tune with that, there is something that women just feel. They just appreciate that so deeply. Now you can manipulate. There's a fine line between motivation and manipulation. If you use this information to gain for yourself, they'll sense that soon enough. You got to be genuine in that. But when you are, this is where that dynamic plays out so powerfully in the work arena.

Joseph Honescko: One thing that you're hitting on here is that there are habits and kind of long term effects of this stuff. What would be a way to identify if you're in the midst of the crazy cycle, or if you're just having a bad week at work, like where, where are these things kind of becoming permanent problems versus natural up and down relational dynamics at work?

Emerson Eggerichs: Yeah, if I'm taking up a fence because I feel that my boss is uncaring, and then I'm coming across in a way that appears disrespectful and negative and contemptuous, you're doing yourself no long term favor there. You can't use unholy means to achieve a worthy end. He's not going to awaken to that. So that's why there needs to be a different approach. It may be saying, sir, you know, how can I honor you better? Sometimes I feel like, you know, I don't have value in the organization because the way you react, I'm probably misreading that. So I probably have contributed to that. Can you help me better understand that and better honor you and your request to me? I have found that when we begin to introduce that kind of language, so the bosses are still the same as everybody else, but not toward her anymore. It's an amazing thing. And so to the man you know is in the board meeting and she's having a bad hair day, I had a woman come to me. She was on the upper team. She was up to the top, and there were all men on this thing. She was the only female. And she claimed that they ousted her because of the glass ceiling. When she heard me talking. And she said, one day I just had a bad moment, and I just ripped into the CEO with I just went after him like I did my husband, because I felt we were all friends, and I could almost see some of the guys around that table white knuckling it. And soon enough, I was out. And the problem I realized, I thought it's because I was female, but I undermined it. Trust. Based on what you're saying. He felt like he could no longer trust me. And I said, that's exactly right. So you need to go back to him on a private thing and say, look, I need to seek your forgiveness. I dishonored you that day. I was not having a good day. I see how that's undermined the trust. I hope you will forgive me. I'm not bringing this up to be reposition, but I realize I was wrong on that front. And I've also apologized to the other men around that table. I was just out of line. I wanted you just to know that and then turn around and exit. Those situations get redeemed quite quickly, because one of the strengths that men have is if you honor them on the heels of dishonoring them, particularly if you say, I didn't intend to do that, men are very forgiving. This is the thing that's so powerful about men on this front. And this is why many ladies need, though, to understand that there's a language you need to use. Now, having said that same thing, if you're a man dishonoring a man, you got a problem. If you're a female who's coming across in a very ugly, uncaring way toward the female, you're going to have a problem. And then you add to that if you're being uncaring disrespect, I mean, it's just you can see these are core virtues in core concepts. We're not talking about a thousand different things here. We're talking about asking this question is that which I'm about to say, going to sound caring and loving to my team and respectful to my team, or are they going to feel that I'm really not respecting them and I really don't care about it? If your team senses that you don't respect them and that you don't care about them, you have put yourself behind significantly. And the only reason they're staying there is because of the incentives, or they don't have other options. But given there's a better opportunity, they are not loyal to you and they will exit quickly. And that's my challenge. You cannot violate these core qualities and expect to be a success long term. Or put it this way, if they stay with you for 30 years, they're not coming to your funeral. They don't care you. You shut them off.

Mike Sharrow: So I love the fact that you can build a crazy cycle for days, months, weeks, years and it doesn't mean you're stuck there. So I'd love to hear your encouragement around some of those. Like minute I hear all this, but I've been doing this for 20 years a different way. Hello. I suddenly you leave because I'm stuck.

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, why should you? Well, yeah, you could say you're stuck, but sometimes the responses. Why should I change? It's working for me. I mean, I'm a success. Yeah. We're not divorcing. We're living our independent life, you know? I mean, I'm 80% of the way there. I don't really have an interest in doing the 20%, particularly if, you know, I guess this whole idea of, you know, I, I'm more familiar with the chaos and I'm more comfortable with that than risking the possibility of peace in this uncertainty blowing up in my face. And so people will come to a point where I don't want to risk changing. And furthermore, if I'm a successful person, I'm not convinced that I'm all that wrong. And furthermore, I'm not convinced that the people out there aren't really the culprits here. And there could be. True that you referenced earlier about the mother and the daughter in the home, and he was very successful outside the home, and she came up to you, and it could very well be that they were tender, loving people. But if they negatively reacted on an ongoing basis and contemptuous and disrespectful ways and had emotional meltdowns with the hope that he would rescue them, he's a deer in the headlights. He does not know what to do in that. So there's a contributing factor over there that I understand. But that's where you regardless, if the man is the victim here or he is the victimizer, he can diffuse that if he wants to with just a little knowledge, little skill, and it's actually going to bring a lot more meaning into his life. It's well worth it. It is not a situation where you have to say, well, I guess, you know, I have to say I'm wrong and everything. I know you done very well. We're just talking about and proving. I mean, even Pat Riley talked about just improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the basketball game. Just a little percent. And he had that mathematical formula where we're not talking about major changes, we're talking about just incremental changes at a very fractional kind of length here. And over time it'll improve. And so my appeal to that CEO, you know, and here's the deal. If you're a male, you're going to fear being dishonored in this. And so again it that just reinforces what I'm saying. But you've got to be willing to move forward on this if you want more. And if you do then that's why I wrote the book Love and Respect. It'll give you the script honestly stated to soften the heart of your wife and your adult daughter. If she's still in the home, it's just worth it. And you don't lose space in the process because I will help you then be able to communicate to them how it will be helpful to you for them to word themselves a bit differently. And can we create a win win here? Can we create reciprocity here and explore and experiment with this over the next several weeks, and the joy that comes to people because they think, I never thought this was even possible. So it's well worth the effort. Yes.

Mike Sharrow: One last thing. You addressed an interesting dilemma in your boast, and I want to enter it here for whether I'm a spouse. I'm not very good man. I've been stuck for years with my partner. We're just coping. We're surviving or at work. I'm in this feel disrespected, dishonored by my staff. And it's their fault, right? Well, if I'm the one feeling like I'm the victim here, I'm owed. So what would be your advice in the dilemma of who should act first?

Emerson Eggerichs: Right. And that's one of the most common questions that are conference who moves first. They get us off the crazy cycle, for instance. And my response is the one who sees himself or herself as the most mature, most first. And we do see ourselves as the most mature because we see the people around us. It's childish. It's about it's really a statement to corner us, but it also is a statement that you have the power to make a change if you want to. You can't control the outcomes in another person. You can only control your actions and reactions to that person. But the Lord has allowed us to motivate people, to influence people, to energize people. And he does so by saying, look, they're going to probably respond to you if you meet their deepest core need. It's really got to be a bad dude or bad. Do this for them not to respond to you. When you attempt to be loving or respectful toward their core need. And you can begin by saying, did I come across as unloving or disrespectful? You don't even have to be proactive in this. You can just be apologetic for perhaps stepping on their arrows, and that's using their mother tongue. Speaking to my tongue. That in of itself, if you say to your wife, you know, I think I came across and loving you here again, watch something just release from her body almost instantaneously. And if you say to your husband, I think I really dishonored you here, you die for me if I don't kill you first. But I think I dishonored you here, and I need to really seek your forgiveness. Watch what happens, watch what happens. But see, you can't do this with the idea that the marriage is going to become perfect because everybody's going to have a bad day. But it's a process. And these are principles, Sarah and I. I mean, Sarah chased me around the house with my love and respect book one day saying, what would you say to a husband who has been treating his wife the way you're treating me right now? And I said, I'm not going to answer that. I just wrote the book. I don't do this stuff. So, I mean, we all have our moments, and so no one's going to be perfect on this. But the challenge for us is to believe that if we stay on message, it's just going to work. And why should we do it? Well, what man wants to continue to be disrespected and dishonored and in you're not going to be motivating her to show you respect by treating her and lovingly. That's that unholy means to achieve a worthy end. You can't say I want to teach her. No you won't. You're just going to close her off. So in order for you to achieve, ultimately your deepest need, you're going to have to put a voice and vocabulary to what you're feeling. So she understands it. But you've got to do it in a way that doesn't appear unloving to her. And so to a wife out there saying, I really do want him to love me more, but you can't communicate to him that he's inadequate and you don't respect him as a way to awaken him. He's not a woman. He hasn't got to say, oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know. Please forgive me. What can I do to change? Every girlfriend you have is going to do that. Men don't operate that way. So you cannot be negative to motivate him to be positive. So you have to use his mother tongue to get through to him. And it's not a vocabulary that you naturally speak, which is why you're under divine command to respect. And it's not natural for a man to be loving. That's why we're under divine command to act. It's not within our nature to do this, particularly when we feel unloved or disrespected. So it becomes an issue of trust and obedience and believing. As we apply this over a period of time, the Lord's not mocking us. He's simply not mocking us. Instead, he's saying, why don't you trust me here and just keep on message and watch what happens?

Joseph Honescko: I love these practical steps, both in marriage and in the teams. I love that idea of experimenting, like just giving it a shot and committing to it. As we come to a close here, we always love to end every episode asking our guests what the Lord is teaching you through His Word recently, and it could be something that happened today, could be this week, or just a passing thought that's been on your heart. So what have you heard from the Lord recently through His word?

Emerson Eggerichs: Well, in fact, that was interviewed on a radio program yesterday and the same question was asked and I went to James one five, which, you know, I've known through the years of any of you lacks wisdom. Let him ask of God who gives to him and generously and without reproach. And I think it's so important as I communicate with people even in this situation. And this is so rich to me, when I landed on that without reproach, I mean, there are many times I acted foolishly, particularly during trials, and didn't really listen to the way the Lord wanted me to move. I didn't even pray you had not because you asked not. James later says, I didn't think about the Lord, didn't even ask him for wisdom. Now I made a mess of things, and then you kind of come back sheepishly and you think he's going to slap you from heaven. Early in my Christian life, that was the feeling, you know? And God, he's a cosmic killjoy who's going to whack me because my dad had rage issues. And so there was a projection there a little bit. But then that passage, generously and without reproach, I'm thinking, wow, without reproach. It's not like, well, fine, how do you do? You turn to me now when you made a mess of things? Do you want my wisdom to get you out of the mess? And so he reproaches us. That's the way we think he's going to do it. But he won't reproaches. And not only does he not reproaches, he says, not only am I going to give you what you need, I'm going to give you a little bit more. So I think the message to the man or woman out there listening who said, you know, I think I've really made a mess of this. I've been on the crazy cycle unnecessarily for 20 years. I don't even know if I have the wisdom or the strength to be able to move forward. And let's just begin by saying, Lord, give me wisdom and how I need to take the next natural step. I'm going to believe you want to give this to me generously, and I'm going to believe that you're not going to reproach me because of the mistakes I've made in the past.

Joseph Honescko: What a beautiful way. Then you mentioned God doesn't make you. God isn't trying to slap you down. God is loving us generously and lavishly. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today. We'll leave all the resources, the books, things like that, that we mentioned. We'll leave those in the show notes so listeners can check those out. And then be sure to follow review, share the show if you found it helpful, and we'll chat more next week. Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be. We've got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There's no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at FaithDrivenEntrepreneur.org.

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