Episode 309 - Handling Criticism with Lecrae Moore
For every 1000 people you influence, you have 100 critics. Rick Warren
Join Grammy-nominated artist Lecrae Moore, along with Faith Driven Movement co-founders Justin Forman and Henry Kaestner, as they delve into the challenging yet crucial topic of handling criticism. In this insightful episode, our guests share:
Lecrae's personal experiences with criticism in the music industry
Biblical perspectives on receiving and processing feedback
Strategies for distinguishing between constructive criticism and unproductive negativity
The importance of knowing your true audience and purpose
How to use criticism as a tool for growth and refining your entrepreneurial vision
Whether you're a seasoned business leader or just starting your entrepreneurial journey, this conversation offers valuable wisdom on turning criticism into a catalyst for personal and professional development. Tune in to learn how faith can guide you through the challenges of leadership and innovation.
If you'd like to hear more about the Faith Driven Entrepreneur community groups, go to faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/groups.
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.
Joey Honescko You're listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. A show dedicated to the movement of founders and leaders around the world who are using their businesses for the glory of God and the good of others. Let's get into it.
Justin Forman Are you West Coast, East Coast. For everybody listening.
Henry Kaestner Where I am, back on the West Coast, our first full week actually in California for the entire summer. But bunch of things going on. Drop the younger two off at college. The oldest one going back is on the course. It's on three boys at college. This is not a great year for cash flow, but it's a great year to celebrate launching kids.
Justin Forman Indeed. Indeed. A new chapter for you and Kimberly.
Henry Kaestner It is. It's actually a big deal. It is also a time of year where two other things happen. One is that Nikki and Pepper will go through the lessons from the good and bad kings of Judah. One of my favorite things is Phaedra, not us. Going back to these any biographies, if you will, of the Good Kings of Judas. Fascinating. Maybe. Definitely my favorite part of the Old Testament. But the other part is that this is the season where we're just coming along toward the conference, right?
Justin Forman Indeed it is. We coincided with the start of college football, so we try to make sure that we get in there just at the same time as college football. So, you know, as people are returning, you know, to traditions, to routines. Pick up your college football and then pick up the fifth through an entrepreneur conference. So, yeah, it's an exciting time. So now we're getting ready for that here, just in a couple of weeks of September 20th for those of you guys are gonna be taking it live and over probably 220 different locations around the world. It is one of the most exciting days for our team because we get to see and experience the impact and get to be with entrepreneurs and so many different places. I know it's such an encouragement to our crew just to get out there and to be with everybody. And it's fun to hear all the stories, whether it's friends gathering in a living room or people packing out room in a church. It's just fun to see the different ways that we're all gathering it is.
Henry Kaestner So today we've got a really important topic and we've never addressed criticism. I think, I don't know, 350 episodes of the podcast. And yet criticism is such a part of our lives. We give it out, we take it as entrepreneurs, we get a lot of it, and the Bible's got a lot to say about criticism. We can unpack that a little bit. But one of our favorite partners on the content side for Fate Driven Entrepreneur and then featuring on Tomorrow for students is Lecrae right?
Justin Forman Indeed, yeah. Look, it's great to spend some time together as we're filming for students and for this conference and so excited for people to see a glimpse into his story at the conference. We're going to be debuting this new story that we filmed with him and Ben and just the story of Rich Records and one that I think is really similar to a lot of people's entrepreneurial venture, that one faithful step that leads to another, that leads to another. And you're looking back at a pattern of long obedience and a similar direction. It's just fun to capture that story and see both ourselves in that where we are today, but also for our kids to see themselves in that story. And so, yeah, we're really looking forward to sharing that and debuting at the conference. And today we filmed something special, something extra of a little bit behind the scenes of some of the talks that he gave. And he riffed on some of these topics. And as Henry mentioned, criticism. It's something so practical and it faces us most days. And so we wanted to start off by sharing a little bit of this excerpt from that, and then we'll pick up the conversation afterwards. So let's go ahead and play that clip.
Lecrae Moore The problem with bridges is that they get walked on from both sides. Now, I experienced this most when I released my album, Rehab. Secular critics didn't understand it because it felt so Christian, and many of my core Christian fans didn't understand it because they were used to me playing the pastor rapper role. Still, I was certain that I was moving in a direction and God was calling me. And this album felt like a new beginning.
Lecrae Moore Rehab caught the attention of some mainstream influencers, and I was invited to participate in the B.E.T. Cipher And this is an event in conjunction with the BET Hip Hop Awards with some of the best young rappers gather to rap 16 bars and show off their talent. Those familiar with this cipher know this can make or break an artist. This was a watershed moment, so I knew I couldn't just spit out a few lyrical bars like everyone else. Sure, I wanted to have a good delivery, but I also wanted to show everyone that you can be excellent at your craft and true to your faith. At the same time, I eventually just decided to rap what I felt.
Lecrae Moore You probably watching like I never heard of him. A murder him. The nerve of him. Rock n with premiere. That's so absurd of him. Wait until he split a couple verbs at them. If you really want to hate. Wait, he got the word when I heard him holler. Jesus. The Notorious. No. The most glorious homie.
Lecrae Moore Some Christians who saw it weren't happy with me using the Notorious B.I.G. Reference to talk about Jesus. It didn't like me giving a nod to DJ Premier, whose produced for most of mainstream hip hop elite. But I had just taken the same approach as Paul in Acts chapter 17. Look it up and I think you'll see what I mean.
Lecrae Moore Our situations weren't that much different. I remember talking with Pastor Rick Warren afterwards. I told him of how I was struggling with the fallout. He said, for every 1000 people you influence, you have 100 critics. And many of them will be Christian. That just comes with the territory.
Lecrae Moore What I came to realize is that critics always have a lot of fury, but they rarely have a lot of facts. Still, critics can make a lot of noise in our heads and hearts and that can be a difficult thing to navigate whether you're a musician or an entrepreneur, because as much as we want to act like the opinion of other people, doesn't matter. It does. Why?
Lecrae Moore As entrepreneurs, we're building, innovating and creating in an effort to make sense of a broken world. We see a problem we can solve or a gap we can feel in Our expression of that is something the whole world sees. Of course, we want our creation to be accepted because in a way it makes us feel accepted. But we're grasping for acceptance from a broken world we're trying to make sense of. If we can step back for a moment, we see how impossible this is.
Lecrae Moore Even Jesus experienced the ups and downs of physical acceptance. As Pastor Rick said, even the 12 Christ followers who supposedly knew Jesus best were full of criticism. Here's my encouragement to you. If you get this now, it'll help you immensely. As creators, builders and leaders. We're stepping out into the unknown. We're connecting dots in new and unique ways, and that can be difficult for some people to accept. What did Jesus do? He would escape the crowds to be with God. He would look to God for acceptance. And when he felt most beaten down, Jesus would ask his Father in heaven for strength and guidance.
Lecrae Moore Criticism is going to come for us as entrepreneurs. Especially as we disrupt the status quo. How we handle it is something we take with us through life, a career, and certainly if we're called to lead. Leadership is lonely. It's tough. It can change the world. It can impact people's lives around us. Good. Challenging and everything in between. Leadership can come at a great cost to us. Handling criticism with grace and humility is a skill to develop and work through. Becoming secure in our identity, knowing where we are and in the end, where we're going. This internal mindset can give us the confidence we need to step into the arena with a superpower that is uncommon for me.
Henry Kaestner So, Justin, you and I have the occasion to interact with people in LinkedIn and in different circles. And of course there's our loyal podcast crowd that'll come in with encouragement, which is awesome, but also some criticism. But what we get, of course, pales in comparison to somebody that's been nominated for Grammys. And what I love, what Lecrae did right there was he unpacked something we all deal with as entrepreneurs, we all deal with as leaders and really kind of laid out a framework that I think is really helpful for how I think about criticism, both in how I perceive it and also maybe even in terms of how I give it. How about you?
Justin Forman Yeah. And just powerful stuff. I think like, as you said, entrepreneurs were disrupting or breaking mold. Yeah. And I think there's few times when you think about the church, when you think about entrepreneurs, that when you're going to turn things upside down, when you're going to change things, when you're going to change and go against the grain, which is so much of what entrepreneurship is, that you're going to get that feedback, You're going to get some people that are going to praise you and think it's the greatest thing in the world. And some people that that are going to be pretty loud about what they don't like. And you know, one of the things I love about what he's talking about is I think maybe it's in other places where Lecrae said this is, you know, if you live for their acceptance, you'll die from their rejection. And I think one of the most fundamental things here that like where he starts us off is just this idea of like, what is our audience? You know, we talk about this all the time in entrepreneurship where we can, you know, slide into different things, slide into different audiences. Who is it that we are really trying to reach? And you can talk about that from a marketing perspective, but it's really easy to talk about that from this perspective when you talk about criticism is like, who is it that your audience is? Who is it that you're playing for? And I think if we're honest, so many of us slide into an audience that we're seeking the acceptance of the world. We're seeking the praise of the world, we're seeking the praise of peers, We're seeking that more than we're seeking from the perspective and, you know, appreciation from our Heavenly Father. And in his trite is that my sound, I think we slide into that a whole lot more than we realize.
Henry Kaestner There's no doubt about it. I think you bring up something there. It's really important. It's about who is our audience. And I think that there's so much here. I think on one hand, I'm tempted to just think just about what Teddy Roosevelt had to say, which is that the credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who heirs who come short again and again because there's no effort without error and shortcoming by who actually strives to do the deeds, who knows the great enthusiasms, etc.. And I think about that. And part of me thinks that, gosh, we should just really shut down criticism because you're not in the arena and we should play for an audience of one. And yet, as we understand who our audience is, the counterpoint in the Bible would be that whoever he's life giving correction will be at home among the wise. The question is how do we look to get great feedback with iron sharpening iron from those that we want to serve, those that we want to lead to make our products and services that much more effective. So we can't shut it down to say, okay, they're not in the arena, we're not going to listen to them, although I love Teddy Roosevelt, but how do we thoughtfully kick in the right type of criticism? I think maybe what you're suggesting is it starts with knowing who are audiences and it be able to listen for that criticism from them rather than just being deflated by all criticism from audiences.
Justin Forman Yeah, I think you can easily conflate criticism like, you know, maybe the proverbial through taking criticism from inside the church or from something outside the church. And we're talking about people that are in the arena or outside the arena. I mean, it's easy to go back to like John 15 or it talks about like if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as your own as it is. You do not belong to the world. But I have chosen you out of the world. This is why the world hates you. And so when you hear some of that and you can see that the criticism that we're going to get from those people that don't understand or why they don't understand our perspective, they don't understand our frame, it's really easy for people to give you no criticism when they don't understand where you're coming from. I think if we separate, that is what you're kind of getting at and saying, okay, that's promised, that is guaranteed. We need to figure out how to deal with that and be winsome in how we share story and respond to that. But then we've got to separate the other side of things to say, okay, what is it about the person in the arena that is giving you that feedback? And I know what you're hearing, but like there is something that when you get criticism and you get feedback from a fellow believer that in the trenches it's maybe on a similar entrepreneurial venture, there's probably a unique way that we listen to that a little bit different. Not necessarily saying it better, but like we listen to it differently because there's our respect and understanding. You feel like you're kind of coming from some similar wise. But I think the first step I think, is important, as you're saying, to separate the two audiences and to know what kind of criticism that is we're receiving.
Henry Kaestner Yeah. Just as a mash up with so many different things, because I also think about considered pure joy, my brothers and sisters when you go through trials. So I think that may be a framework because I love frameworks. Maybe another illustration that we've all heard might be helpful here, and that is how we think about and take on prophecy. Where we're to go ahead and to listen to it and then to carefully go back to Scripture and find out where whatever the prophet says is consistent with God's word. In this case, knowing that taking on board criticisms important, especially from those in our audience. And if we do so and do well, it will be iron sharpening iron and we will be counted among the wise, as we just learned from Proverbs 1531 there. Maybe we take it on and then we bring to the Lord said, Lord number one, allow me only to hear the type of criticism that it's helpful for me to achieve your purposes through me, under your power, for your glory. Because, Lord, gosh, I didn't get sucked into this being about my glory and my glory gets really offended if people don't like me. So Lord, please help me to mark that. But Lord, help me to see maybe through something from Godly counsel or through your word or through this prayer right now that will help me to understand what just came on board. That will help me to come up with a better product or service and it be better.
Justin Forman Yeah. And I love what you're hitting on there because Lecrae did the same thing when he talked about looking at the patterns of his of life. And we look at the rhythms of what he's going through with that. And, you know, I love his language. Ruiz is talking about Pastor Rick when talking about the analogy or the breakdown of like for every, you know, thousand praises you get, you have 100 critics. But then he went on to talk about this idea of that as Jesus encountered criticism because he certainly did that he had a pattern of dealing with it. And that's exactly what you're mentioning, of withdrawing to having a moment to reflect, to pray, to ask for discernment in that, to handle that criticism with grace and humility and to walk through it. And so I think there's a moment that our flesh and our heart, when we hear that criticism, that's where our most vulnerable. That's when we like using our football language for the season that we're in. You're you're in danger of being drawn offsides. But if you have that moment to pull away, to reflect the process with your counselors, your friends, your people that can speak and help you see those blind spots. That is the first step because so often times, what are some of the criticism that ends up worse and ends up in the news cycle? It's the people that responded quick. It's the people that responded fast. It's that like it was tit for tat and it just went on and on and on. And then before you know it, you don't even really know what the arguments about what the criticism is about where it all began. And I think you're hitting on something so important is what does it look like, the pause? What does it mean to step back and absorb it?
Henry Kaestner Yeah. And, you know, it makes me reflect on something else that entrepreneurs, or at least I struggle with too, and that is pride. And I said at the outset of the program that I'm going through it. There are good and bad kings of dude. I'm in Second Chronicles. I love it. And I think about some of the good kings like Isaiah and Hezekiah, who were, you know, after God's own heart and they were doing great things, and yet pride crept in. So criticism provides us this kind of like barometer with how we're doing on Pride, because without it's kind of hard. I mean, if we've got godly counsel and people can speak the truth in our lives, yeah, it's there. But when criticism comes on board, it's this moment to say, okay, this is hard for me to hear. Why? And to what extent is it my pride that is obfuscating the real opportunity to get barrier or is this on its merits or what does that look like? And so I like that part of it for me, which is it's like, okay, this makes me feel uncomfortable. Is my pride wounded? And if that's it, if it's my pride being wounded, I probably have the pride problem.
Justin Forman Yeah, it's such a good thing. I think it's funny, isn't it? I mean, like, you can hear a thousand praises and then it's a handful of criticisms that seem to linger. Like, I don't know what it is about that, that we I mean, we know that we're all full and we know that we're broke and we know that there's pride. We know that there's all those things. But like, isn't it strange how the words of a critic can sometimes linger on and hold on and dig roots a lot longer than other things? Some praise can kind of go in one ear, out the other, some encouragement, whatever it might be. But yeah, I think that's a good challenge to search our souls to like, why does that criticism hit? Why are we wrestling of that? Why does it stick with us? Is it because we're trying to carry some perception that. We're ultimately going to fall short of. There's just something to that ratio that just it's so true and it's so real, but it doesn't make sense. The math clearly doesn't add up.
Henry Kaestner Yeah. Well, great topic. I think this is one we can go into much deeper over time and maybe we'll have some other great gold examples of people like Lecrae they're really wrestling with. And I think that also it just helps us to understand that we should probably have more content talking about pride, and we'd love to hear from you, the audience too, about what are the different topics you're wrestling with. Maybe where do we get it right on this episode? And encouragement is always great. And then maybe hear one of the critics and that we will be wiser. You'll love on us. And a Proverbs 1531 way for us taking on board your feedback and your input about how to serve you. The future of natural our better.
Justin Forman Yeah, indeed. I'm excited about this. I'm excited about everybody getting a chance to hear from Lecrae at the conference in the event what a great opportunity is. I'm thrilled that the dad of three that conversations like this are going to happen with them at a young age. Because I love what Lucrezia talked about there at the end is if you get a hold of this early and I think we hear this in Jeremy Lin story as well, when we film, that is if you can get a hold and you can center and just understand your identity in Christ every day and understand who it is that you serve, man, what an opportunity. So really looking forward to that. Stay tuned for the student series is coming out later this fall in November. But for those of you that are listening, my biggest encouragement is not to walk this journey alone. Lock arms with fellow travelers on this journey and be a part of one of these faith through and entrepreneur groups and watch parties that are meeting up. So if you get a chance, check it out at the Faith of an Entrepreneur conference.org website or at the feature an entrepreneur website and find a location in your area. And if there isn't one and take a step closer to a conversation, will be excited to see where that goes. You'll be excited how you can be just a ripple and just a chain reaction of so many people being encouraged. It's been ridiculously encouraging for Henry and I over the past six seven years to hear those stories of how one person's faith wants to start. A group led to dozens and dozens and dozens of people thinking differently about how they see their work. So if you haven't checked that out and.
Henry Kaestner I want to know before we sign off, I want to note that this year we are encouraging and those of you many of you are entrepreneurs at scale and there's just stuff going on during the workweek to make this hard. But you're a leader in your community and you can, in partnership with your pastor, say, we're going to put in a bulletin announcement. We're going to do it on a Saturday morning, and you both can draw people in because sometimes we just want to acknowledge, sometimes it's hard to get away. But while it's September 20th, we're all seeing a lot of watch parties are going to be meeting after work hours. So there's more flexibility in what we're doing this year with the conference than we've ever had in the past. And if you say, you know what, September's lousy for any one of a number of different reasons, but this is something I'd love to do on the first weekend of October, talk to our team, come inbound, let us know how we can serve you as you in turn, serve others.
Justin Forman Amen. Great to be with you and.
Joey Honescko 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 faith driven entrepreneur.org.