October 9, 2024 • 49 mins
Jay Timms is an organizational psychologist who blends over two decades of professional speaking experience with extensive hands-on executive leadership experience. Jay has provided leadership training, consulted for, and been a keynote speaker for Fortune 500 companies and improved the performance of businesses, teams, and individuals in a wide range of industries. He is an expert in engaging learners at all levels, leading them to become better leaders. Jay has served in multiple church leadership callings and currently is a bishop in Langley, British Columbia.
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Highlights
This discussion centers around the complexities of motivating individuals within both organizational and church settings, particularly in volunteer-based environments where traditional incentives are absent. Jay shares his background in psychology and leadership, emphasizing the importance of understanding the values and motivations of individuals to foster engagement and productivity. He highlights the necessity of clear communication regarding organizational vision and the significance of personalizing leadership approaches to meet individuals where they are in their spiritual and personal journeys.
Throughout the conversation, Jay offers practical strategies for leaders, such as conducting regular one-on-one check-ins with members to understand their goals and how to support them. He stresses the importance of creating buy-in by involving members in decision-making processes, thereby enhancing their commitment to shared objectives. Jay also addresses the challenge of balancing church traditions with the core principles of the gospel, advocating for a focus on love and personal growth rather than guilt or comparison.
04:57 - Jay Timms' Background and Leadership Experience
06:37 - Understanding Motivation in Leadership
10:33 - Key Factors Affecting Employee Motivation
13:31 - Steps to Discover What Drives People
15:45 - Meeting People Where They're At
18:44 - The Importance of Personalization in Leadership
22:13 - Engaging Ward Members in Vision and Mission
25:27 - The Role of Tradition vs. Gospel
29:11 - Practical Applications of Leadership Principles
32:40 - The Importance of Not Having All the Answers
39:12 - Self-Awareness in Leadership
43:44 - Utilizing Feedback for Personal Growth
The Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org.
Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, Kirby Heyborne, Taysom Hill and many more in over 700 episodes.
Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Have you ever tried to help youth with
their mental health? Wowza.
That's a tricky road to travel.
I have to tell you about an inspiring
presentation we recorded with the one and only
Jodie Moore. Yes. That life coaching Jody Moore.
A few years ago, she recorded a fantastic
presentation
covering topics like normalizing
tough feelings with youth, a more positive understanding
(00:27):
of stress, how to minimize shame,
and mastering the skill set of empathy
and better understanding anxiety.
I want you to see this presentation as
soon as you finish this podcast episode. You
can go to leading saints dotorg/14
and this will get you access to the
entire video library at no cost for 14
days.
(00:47):
Jody's presentation is in the Mentally Healthy Saints
library and you'll be a better leader or
parent when you finish it. Again, go to
leading saints.org/14
or check out the show notes for the
link.
(01:25):
So my name is Curt Frankem, and I
am the founder and executive director of Leading
Saints and obviously the host of the Leading
Saints podcast. Now I started Leading Saints back
in
2010. It was just a hobby blog
and it grew from there. By the time,
2014
came around, we started the podcast and that's
really when it got some,
(01:46):
traction and took off, 2016.
We became a 501c3
nonprofit organization, and we've been growing ever since.
And now I get the opportunity
of interviewing and talking with remarkable people all
over the world. Now this is a segment
we do on the Leading Saints podcast called
How I Lead, and we reach out to
everyday leaders. They're not experts, gurus, authors,
(02:08):
PhDs. They're just everyday leaders who've been asked
to serve in a specific leadership calling, and
we simply ask them, how is it that
you lead? And they go through some remarkable
principles that should be in a book, that
should be behind a PhD. They're usually that
good, and, we just talk about, sharing what
the other guy is doing. And I remember
being a leader just simply wanting to know,
(02:28):
k. I know what I'm trying to do,
but what's the other guy doing? What's working
for him? And so that's why every Wednesday
or so, we publish these how I lead
segments
to share.
(03:06):
Welcome back to the podcast. Today is a
how I lead episode, and I'm inviting in
Jay Tims
from Vancouver, British Columbia up there in Canada.
Always love to get a Canadian perspective as
the church is just thriving in that country.
And Jay is a leadership,
consultant, a leadership guy. I love talking with
these guys who are in the field of
research. He's, also has a background in psychology.
(03:29):
And so he has a lot to say
when it comes to leadership, especially about my
one of my favorite leadership topics, which is
motivation.
What is it? How does it work? Should
we use it? Or how do we use
it? Right? And this is a email I
get a lot. It's just how do I
motivate my people? How do I get individuals
in my ward, core, and relief society to
actually do
(03:49):
what is expected of them? And so we
jump into the concept of motivation that he
consults with many companies and also uses as
a Bishop if his ward.
And I think you'll appreciate it.
And then he has some phenomenal,
perspectives when it comes to,
feeling like the leader that doesn't have all
the answers, right. And where to, where to
(04:10):
find those answers, that revelation that will, you
can keep going and actually see progress in
your organization. So let's jump into it. Another,
how I lead interview with, Jay Tims.
(04:50):
Alright. We're welcoming in one of our, brothers
from the North, Canada with Jay Timbs. How
are you? I'm fantastic. How are you? Good.
Are you born and raised in Canada? Yeah.
So I was born in Calgary, Alberta.
Spent most of my life up here in
Canada, but, you know, came down to school
for, to Rick's. Did my mission down in
the US, and I've worked out in the
(05:10):
US. So, you know, lived there for about
8 or 9 years, but most of it's
been in in Canada for sure. Yep. That's
cool. Back at home and never never planned
to leave, I guess. Right?
Well Maybe? Yeah. I don't know. I mean,
I we we love Canada. We absolutely love
Canada. The area that we live in right
now is,
it's it's getting,
(05:32):
I sound old.
It's getting overpopulated,
and so we've got a
property kinda set back in the in the
bushes that we're looking at at going to,
but it's still in Canada. So, yeah, love
it. Love it. And you're you're currently just
finishing your 2nd year as Bishop. Is that
right? I am. Yeah. Just hit my 2nd
anniversary this past weekend.
Awesome. And then when people ask you what
(05:54):
you do for work, how do you respond?
Yeah.
I I'm an organizational psychologist. And so, really,
what I do I mean, if my my
32nd elevator speech
is I help leaders to, build leadership skills,
and become more compassionate leaders. And then I
also help organizations
(06:14):
create and maintain cultures of engagement,
motivation, and productivity. So, I mean, like I
said, that that's a real kind of
practiced elevator speech, but at the end of
the day, my my job is to is
to help companies
really maximize their their employee potential.
Wow. And so psychologists, I assume that is
that event an advanced degree then or PhD?
(06:36):
Or Yeah.
So,
no. It's it's 2 master's degrees. So I
have a master's in counseling psychology,
and a master's
in industrial and organizational psychology. So,
it's a dual master's that, that I've got.
So, yeah, not not the doctorate. I think
if I went back to get the doctorate,
my wife would probably make me sleep on
(06:57):
the couch for the whole few years I
was doing it. But,
yeah, I've been in school for a long
time. Yeah. And so when you were kinda
finishing school there with those degrees, did you
did you see yourself going into the leadership
world or consulting world? You know, it's interesting.
So,
I've been
most of my life has been in leadership.
You know, I mean, it it started with
(07:17):
the mission. And then just from there, I've
been in leadership roles for my entire career,
and it's I've really spent a lot of
time
learning how to build my own leadership skills.
And so I was able to transfer that
to a lot of other people and
I spent some time I there was a
moment in my life where I was working
in the restaurant industry, you know,
(07:39):
16, 17 hours a day, 6 days a
week. And, the woman I was gonna marry
said, look. I'm not gonna be a,
a single mom, so grow up and get
a real job.
So went back to school for a few
years. I got my first master's degree
and, did counseling psychology
for for quite a while.
Worked as a consultant for the Canadian government
(08:00):
on, mental health,
and and really enjoyed that. But a friend
of mine,
said, hey. I know you know how to
read people and and kind of look at
body language and stuff. Can you come teach
my salespeople how to be better? And so
I went and did that, and it just
kinda spiraled from there and just started doing
more and more and more consulting,
and ended up taking over Western Canada for
(08:23):
Chipotle and Mexican Grill Restaurants when they were
coming in.
And so at that point,
decided, you know, I do this stuff all
the time. Maybe I should make sure that
I'm actually doing it right. So that's when
I went back and got my second degree
in industrial and organizational psychology.
You know, just really,
really enjoyed that that aspect. But again, off
(08:44):
the side of my table, people kept saying,
hey, can you come do this for me?
Can you come consult with this? And so
a couple of years ago, I just, I
I said goodbye to Chipotle and,
had been doing this now full time for
for a couple of years. So it's been
it's been a it's been a great
(09:05):
I was gonna say it's been a great
experience. It's been a tough experience, but it's
been a really good experience doing this for
sure.
Yeah. Now I interact with a lot of,
you know, leadership consulting guys. And,
what do you feel like, you know, with
your psychology background?
What does that bring to the table like
when you you walk into your organization? Do
you assess things differently? Do you read the
(09:26):
room differently? How do you
Yeah. I think for for me, what ends
up happening is is that because I have
the executive business experience and I've been in
executive leadership roles for so long.
Plus, I also have the background in psychology.
What it allows me to do is is
create kind of a hybrid situation where
I know what makes business work. I I
know how to analyze things. I know how
(09:47):
to create organizational development, strategic plans, etcetera.
But at the same time, my my love
and passion really is for people, and it's
it's the psychology behind people.
So a lot of what I do is
really around motivation and helping helping leaders understand
how to motivate their employees,
how to communicate more effectively. As I said,
(10:07):
be more compassionate with their employees,
and create systems that really focus on the
subconscious and what's going on behind the scenes,
and really activate the ability of their employees
to
bring their best to to the workplace every
single day. And that's I think that's probably
one of the things that that makes me
a little bit different is is that I've
(10:28):
got the business stuff, but I also know
what's going on behind the scenes in the
brain too.
Yeah. So the motivation
dynamic is really interesting. I definitely like, from
all the emails I receive at Leading Saints,
a good chunk of them go back to
basically, the core question is, how do I
motivate people? You know, especially in a in
a organization nobody's getting paid, lay leadership, you
(10:50):
know.
We know we know the lay of the
land. Right? So
just from, like, your your
consulting standpoint, when you walk into or organization
and they're, like, really struggling with motivation, like,
what are what are the big ideas that
you're articulating or the big problems you're seeing,
or what comes to mind?
I think
(11:11):
most often, motivation or lack thereof comes from
a a few different things. Number 1, it
comes from
employees not really understanding the vision of what's
trying to to be done. You know, every
single one of us has values that are
embedded in us, and it's through the experiences
we've had,
the traumas we've had, the culture that we've
grown up, and, you know, at being members
(11:31):
of the church, that adds a different dynamic
to things as well. And so we all
have
values that are embedded inside of us. And
a lot of times what companies try to
do is they put this vision statement up
on the wall
and get their employees to look at it
and go, isn't this exciting? And the employee
is like,
fantastic.
(11:51):
You know? And and they really don't connect
to it. And that really is is one
of the the challenges that a lot of
large organizations,
you know,
these Fortune 500 companies that I've consulted for,
that are really, really good at employee engagement,
they get that the vision on the wall
is,
(12:13):
it should be the north star.
But to get everybody pointing towards that north
star, you really have to understand
what's going on inside the person. What are
the things that they value? What drives them?
And if you can take that and connect
what they value to what you're trying to
accomplish in your organization and and even in
your ward, in as a bishop, as a
(12:33):
religious society president,
even as a Sunday school teacher.
If you understand what's going on for the
people,
under your stewardship, and your stewardship,
you can really help them to create this
energy and this drive
to want to succeed and want to excel
more. I mean, there's always gonna be people
that wake up in the morning and go,
(12:54):
Yeah, I don't care.
And that's fine. But
the vast majority of people
don't wake up in the morning like that.
There's only about, statistically speaking, between 15 to
20% of the the population wake up that
way in the morning.
Most of the people wake up going,
I'm not sure how I'm gonna interact with
this world. And so it's learning what drives
(13:17):
them, and then just pressing that button over
and over and over and over for them.
And people create just incredible things when they
know where they're going,
and they're connected to what they're doing every
day. So then what's the next step with,
like or or some big ideas? And I
know I'm asking you to build Roam in
in, like, 10 minutes here, but, like, what
(13:39):
are the next steps of really getting to
the core of what what drives people so
that they are actually motivated?
Yeah. I think
one of the most difficult things for for
me, throughout my life is is that I'm
I'm one of those guys who wakes up
in the morning and I'm just like I'm
like, I gotta get this done. I don't
know. You know, I'm just this the a
type personality of
(14:01):
I I have a vision, I wanna accomplish
it, and nothing's gonna stand in my way.
I wasn't always that way, but I've become
that way. And,
so as as a leader in an organization,
you're right. It's it's really easy because somebody's
not meeting the expectations. You do everything you
can to help them. You support them. You
coach them. You challenge them. You train them,
(14:22):
and and they still don't make a move.
Yeah. Okay. Fire them.
But at the same time, you know, in
the in the church, and and I have
some amazing counselors who remind me of this
on occasion.
Jay, you can't run the
the the church the way you run your
companies, which is true
to a certain degree.
(14:44):
When you look at motivating people, so, you
know, one of the the goals that that
we set as
well, I set as a bishop when I
got called was there was there was 2
goals. Number 1 is is that I wanted
the members of our ward to clearly, clearly
understand
how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love
them. Like, that's that's it. If if I
(15:06):
accomplish that,
good. Fine.
The second thing that I wanted to do
was is that I wanted to help members
of our ward make and keep sacred covenants.
So that's the second goal.
So when you look at
at making and keeping covenants,
there's an onus that's that's on us
as as individuals
(15:27):
to move forward, to keep those covenants, to
seek out that next covenant, whether it be
baptism, whether it be endowment, whether it be
merit, whatever it may be. There's an the
onus is a lot on us.
And
one of the things that I've realized is
is
that people's timelines
don't have to be my timelines.
You know, it's really important to meet people
(15:50):
where they're at because not everybody is going
to, again, wake up in the morning and
go, k, I really wanna do this, I
wanna accomplish this, I wanna feel heavenly father's
spirit, I wanna talk to him on a
regular
not everybody does that.
And so for my role as a bishop,
the the the number one thing in motivating
people is meet them where they're at. Don't
expect them to,
(16:11):
you know,
move to the the the celestial kingdom overnight.
It's meet them where they're at.
And it's that personalization.
It's those one on one meetings. It's those
opportunities that we as leaders can take to
sit down with our people
and just ask a really simple there's 2
(16:31):
simple questions that that I suggest that leaders
ask.
Question number 1 is, how's it going?
Actually, technically, there's 3. How's it going?
Number 2, what do you want to accomplish?
Where are you going? What are your goals?
What are your
(16:51):
things that you want to do?
And question number 3 is, what can I
do to help?
And sometimes, like I just, I had a
a an interview this past Sunday with a
young woman who's preparing to go on her
mission,
and and I asked that question of what
can I do to help?
Well, floodgates open and a whole bunch of
(17:13):
stuff happens, you know, and and we talk
about a whole bunch of different things.
Oftentimes,
when I ask that question, it'll be, I
don't think anything right now.
But because I have asked that question,
and I continue to ask that question, what
can I do to help?
When they need help,
(17:34):
it's kinda like marketing, it's top of mind.
When they need help, they know
I'm here, and I'm ready to help them.
So that really, when you look at it
through the context of of the church or
through a professional organization,
it really comes down to meeting with your
people as often as you possibly can. In
a corporate world, I say you should never
(17:56):
ever ever go more than 2 weeks
without having a one on one with your
employees.
Now if you've got a 100 employees or,
you know, 750
like I did, that's kinda hard to do.
So it's, you know, picking those key individuals
and doing those, what I called shoulder touches,
which is as they're in the trenches, you
(18:17):
know, washing the dishes or rolling a burrito
or whatever,
Stand next to them and have that conversation.
How's it going? What's happening in your life?
Do you need anything?
And and really, that can be a 3
minute conversation,
or it can be a 30 minute or
even an hour conversation.
Yeah.
Yeah. So just,
finding those opportunities to touch base. Right? Totally.
(18:38):
And connecting and and making sure they know
that you're you're in it with them. Totally.
And another thought that came to mind is,
you know, you talk about the vision statement
usually.
You know, secular organizations have their vision statement.
Maybe they'll put it on the wall. Maybe
they'll, you know, give you a candy bar
if you memorize it or whatever. Yeah.
And in our faith tradition, it's sort of
(18:59):
we sort of default to, well, you know,
we're bringing people
under Christ. And the interesting about motivation,
it can turn to manipulation really quickly.
Right? And so it's sort of we we
like, we're bringing people to Jesus Christ. What?
You're not on board? Like, don't you want
to do ministering? I mean, we're bringing people
under Christ. Like, you don't wanna go to
the temple? I mean, come on. We're bringing
(19:19):
people into Christ. Right? And so,
we we you can really get lost in
that that vision statement. Right? Yep. Yep. Yep.
I remember,
and,
their their family members are are are still
good, good friends of mine. So,
Paul and Aaron, I apologize about talking about
your dad here.
There was a guy when I was growing
up. His name is Gert Christiansen. And Gert
(19:41):
was this, very, very short man,
always had gray hair. I mean, like, from
the day that I I remember him, he's
always had gray hair.
And every time that Gert,
stood up to bear his testimony
or to talk,
it was always
he was always talking about a missionary moment
that he had had. And not not because
he was bragging or anything like that, but
(20:02):
this guy, like, I mean, he was 60,
70, 80 years old. He carried a book
of of Mormon with him everywhere he went,
and it was his goal to hand out
as many book of Mormons as possible. And
every time he stood up, like, we as
teenagers would look at each other and go,
oh, geez. It's another one of Gertz,
missionary moments.
Yeah. And and so, yeah, you're right. There
(20:24):
there are those things where it can feel
like like guilt.
But what I've also realized is is that,
when
when you look at your life and you
recognize what you're not doing in your life,
you are going to feel guilt.
And there's a lot of opportunities in the
church to realize
(20:44):
what we're not doing right.
And I think one of the challenges that
we have as leaders
is to not always focus on what we're
not doing right.
Again, for instance, this past Sunday, I I
took an opportunity to speak to the sisters
in our ward as a over the pulpit.
And I said, you know, there's this bar
that I think women tried to put themselves
(21:05):
and and compare themselves to.
And I'm like,
it's okay.
You guys are already awesome. Like, just keep
going. And as a leader,
that that is something that's that's critically important
too, is
being able to recognize and and going back
to what I was saying before, meeting people
where they're at. Not everybody
(21:26):
is ready to walk into the celestial kingdom,
and that's okay, because frankly, neither am I.
That's okay.
But if we can move them or help
them feel the spirit
to move them just
an inch forward,
and then maybe another inch forward,
Isn't that kind of what
(21:46):
what our role and responsibility in leadership is?
It's to find and help,
people become
what they're what they're destined to become.
Yeah. Yeah. Just helping them, you know, you
know, find that acceptance and and move just
move a little bit further. Right? For sure.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Anything else as far as, like,
(22:07):
casting that vision in the ward context? Like,
anything you do specifically, or what comes to
mind?
So it's interesting you say this because we've
been working on,
on on getting award mission leader on award.
And and, you know, previously,
it was the counselor in the elders quorum
presidency.
And we just you know, I had a
(22:27):
meeting with the mission president and our stake
president, and we just
not enough was happening in our ward,
to really
engage people in missionary work. And and so
we made the decision to call a ward
mission leader.
And,
in doing that, my our mandate to him
was we want you to create a
(22:49):
award mission plan.
And and he did. And what he did
was he came, and he had these, like,
this massive list of we're gonna do this,
this, this, this, this, and this, and this.
Well,
okay. But at the same time, when you
have that big of a list, you never
know where to start.
And so I said to him, what I
want you to do is I want you
(23:09):
to pair it down to
3 to 5 things that we're going to
do.
And,
and so what we did was he he
did that, and then we took a 5th
Sunday, and we talked about it, with the
ward. And we said, what do you think?
And the ward members came back and said,
well, you know, we believe this. This could
probably work better, etcetera.
(23:31):
When you're trying to get people to do
something,
have them create the buy in themselves by
coming up with what they're going to do.
You know, when I was a kid,
I lost a ton of jackets
because I'm an idiot.
But
when I bought my first jacket, like, I
remember buying the jacket, I can tell you
(23:53):
I never ever ever lost that thing because
I was invested in it. It was my
money, time, and energy that went into it.
And so as you're creating award mission plans,
award,
family,
temple and family history plans,
get your ward members involved in it. Ask
them what they would like to do. Where
would they like to go with this?
(24:13):
And then set up programs, set up moments
throughout the month,
every month
to allow that to be brought back to
their attention.
One of my counselors,
really runs the sacrament meeting program and and
and assigns talks and everything like that. And
one of the things he's really good at
doing is is that every month, there's at
(24:33):
least one talk on temple
and one talk on missionary work every month.
And it could be, you know, the 5
minute speaker or it could be the concluding
speaker. And it really doesn't matter. It's just
talk about it. And,
the more you talk about it, as long
as they have bought into it because they've
created
it, the more you talk about it, the
(24:55):
more they'll realize, yeah. Actually, I could probably
do that.
Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that buying concept
because, especially in a church tradition, I think
every organization has this, but, you know, there's
so many
it feels like programs. Right? We got the
come, follow me thing. We got the ministering
program. We got all these things, and and
so sometimes we don't take that step of
(25:15):
stimulating buy in because it's like, hey. Listen.
This is the program. You know, this came
from
inspired individuals, and so we just need to
get on board and and get it done
without creating that buy in. Anything else that
comes to mind with when it comes to
buy in? Yeah. I probably am gonna get
in trouble here. Perfect. I love doing that
on my podcast.
I think,
(25:35):
you know, you you used a word there,
tradition.
There's a massive difference between the gospel of
Jesus Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter day Saints. They are 2 separate
things.
And I think a lot of times what
happens is that people
misunderstand
that the traditions
(25:56):
should be held onto
as tightly
as the gospel itself. When you break down
the gospel, it really comes down to 2
things. Number 1, love God. Number 2, love
your neighbor. That's it. That literally is the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
And when you talk about all these different
programs, you know, as leaders,
you can get really overwhelmed because your bishop's
(26:17):
talking to you about,
hey. How's the ministering going? How's the, activity
day program? How's this going? How are we
doing here?
And it could be like, what do I
focus on?
Mhmm. Recognize that
your role as a leader is to take
in all of the information,
get on your knees and pray, and ask
(26:38):
heavenly father which are the most important ones
for the people
that I am serving?
What are the programs? What are the systems?
What are the things that we need to
focus on
to accomplish that? You know, in Bishop's Council,
we've got amazing
bishops in our stake, and an amazing stake
presidency.
And these men, they come in and they
(26:59):
talk about all of the things that they're
doing in their ward, and I'm just like,
yeah. I'm not doing very much.
I know the feeling. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Exactly.
I think I think most of us know
that feeling as members of the church. We
look around and we see the perfect, you
know, the the perfect Smith family who are
sitting on the front row with their 5
kids, all dressed perfectly and the wife is
(27:20):
beautiful and the husband's like amazingly
chiseled and everything. And there's so religious and
everything. And we like, oh, you know,
and we try to go, how are we?
We're never going to be able to accomplish
that. Well, no, you're not.
You're not, because that's not you, and that's
okay. Heavenly father does not need us to
be a perfect
(27:40):
whatever.
He doesn't need us to fit into a
mold. What he needs us to do is
he needs us to recognize our shortcomings,
and do everything we can to overcome those
shortcomings.
But he's not asking you to do it
today.
He's not telling you you have to throw
everything down your throat right now, like fire
hose, crank it open, and put it against
(28:01):
your face. He's not saying that.
What he's saying is,
come unto me.
That's it.
Come closer to me. Every single day, come
closer.
Try to be better.
Be where you're at, and try to be
better.
And as leaders,
that's
and and I'm not even talking about the
(28:22):
church here, I'm talking about leaders, period.
That, our job as leaders
is to recognize
where are the people that we serve? Where
are they at in their progression?
And then work with them to come up
with a plan
to move forward. Whatever that looks like in
their mind, not in my mind, in their
mind.
(28:43):
And then when we do that, what that
does is it it really allows them to
take charge and and,
to use lack of a better word, to
engage in the process
of becoming and coming closer to our father
in heaven. Sorry. I get ramped up by
this stuff. No. That's good. That's good. Any
like, take us to the application level of
(29:04):
that and whether you use hypotheticals or others
other things. Like, what does that look like
in real life?
Sure. We have an individual in our ward
who,
has received their mission call.
And,
their their their families are are are good
good friends of mine as well.
And,
I remember going up for dinner with with
(29:26):
this individual's parents a few years ago, and
they're like,
what the heck is going on with this
kid? You know, just,
as as parents, sometimes we do.
And,
when when I got called into the bishopric,
and and this by the way, I am
not taking credit for this. This is heavenly
(29:47):
father's doing. I just happen to be a
witness to this.
What ended up happening is is that we
started to recognize that that she needed to
be put into leadership roles within the young
women's organizations.
And so what we did was and it
wasn't class president. It it wasn't, you know,
the lowest class president or or anything like
that. It was, look,
(30:08):
we need you to
focus on this one individual.
This girl is really struggling with x, y,
and z. Can you kinda connect with her
and help her and, you know, support her?
And she jumped all over that. And then
we'd say, okay, we've got this activity coming
up. Can you help us with this? Again,
she jumped all over it. And what happened
(30:29):
was is that as she
we we saw the vision for her, not
necessarily mission, because at that point she wasn't
talking about a mission. But we saw the
vision for her, who she the potential that
heavenly father had for her.
And we sat down with her and gave
her opportunities
to expand, to become
more, and to do more.
(30:51):
And there was a moment, and I don't
know what it was, when it was, what
happened,
but there was a moment where it just
clicked.
And all of a sudden, this young woman
I mean,
she's she has the opportunity. She'll be going
to Sydney, Australia here in a in a
few months.
And Sydney, watch out because, man,
(31:13):
this is this woman,
she's amazing. She's fantastic.
And so really, again, it's
it's not me getting in her face saying,
hey, you need to plan to go on
a mission, you need to become more spiritually,
close to your heavenly father, you need to
prepare for it it wasn't any of that,
and it wasn't her parents doing that either.
(31:34):
It was,
I can see where she can do this.
And so what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna put her into situations
where it stretches her, not to the point
where she's gonna break, but it stretches her
to the point where she recognizes her potential
and really gets comfortable
with this stuff. And I think that's really,
(31:55):
you know, as leaders, that's what ward council
is all about. That's what
those bishops interviews are all about. It's it's
those sitting down with the parents and going,
hey, what can we do to support your
kids? Again, going back to that question, what
can I do to help?
Here's your goal. What can I do to
help? So that that's a bit of a
practical application from the church perspective. Yeah. That's
(32:17):
awesome. That's awesome. And and really just in
those in those touch points like you brought
up earlier, right, where you're engaging on that
level, helping her,
reach that next step or expand or, you
know, see a deeper vision of herself. Right?
Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Tell me
about the concept you wrote in one of
the principles
as far as you don't have to have
all the answers as a leader. What does
that look like in your ministry?
(32:40):
Oh, man.
You know,
I like to think of myself as fairly
intelligent,
but boy, am I dumb?
There are sometimes when I'm dumb.
I remember so when I got called as
a bishop,
it it was it was an interesting moment.
So what had happened was is that
(33:01):
previously
I was,
I hate to admit this, but I said
to Heavenly Father,
Heavenly Father, look,
I am busy.
I'm overwhelmed with work. I'm overwhelmed with what's
going on in my family. I'm overwhelmed
with school. I'm all these projects. I am
overwhelmed.
(33:22):
I need to take a break. Here's what
I'm gonna do. And I I remember having
this conversation with Heavenly Father. And I said
to him, I'm going to take 2 years,
and I'm going to go to church,
but I'm not going to engage with church.
I'm going to, you know, be the example,
do what I need to do, and and
and, you know, fulfill my priesthood responsibilities, but
I'm not going to take a call on.
(33:43):
I'm not going to take on ministering assignments.
I'm just too busy.
And as I look back at that, that
was a
that was
some of the hardest years of my life,
those 2 years.
It was it was really, really tough.
And. After 2 years, I said again, I
(34:04):
got down on my knees and I said,
alright, heavenly father, I'm yours. Let's go. What
do you need me to do?
Within a week, I got a phone call
from stake president,
and he said,
he called me to be
a counselor in the YSA branch
branch presidency.
And I was like, fantastic. Great. Lots of
fun.
(34:25):
4 months later, I get a call from
another stake president because the the YSA in
our area covers 2 stakes.
And the stake that I'm living in, was
different than the stake that was kind of
supervising the YSA. So I was called by
the first
stake president. Got a call from the other
stake president who just happens to be my
dad's business partner.
(34:45):
And he said, hey. Are you and Robin,
my wife, gonna be at this meeting for
Just Served? She's a Just Served representative for
our region. And we said, yep. We'll be
there. And he said, great. I just wanted
to chat with you.
And we sit down and we're talking, and
he goes, so I'm assuming you have a
temple recommend. Right? I'm like,
yeah.
(35:06):
And he started asking me questions,
and then he dropped the bomb.
You know, we'd like to call you as
the bishop. I've been in the branch presidency
for 4 months at this point.
We we wanna call you as the bishop
for the Brookswood Ward. And I remember just
this
just this overwhelming feeling of,
(35:28):
it wasn't it wasn't dread.
It was,
I'm I'm I'm not worthy of it. Like,
you're calling the wrong guy here.
And my wife walked out and as all
good wives do, she's like, yeah, I knew
that was coming.
And I remember for the 2 weeks up
(35:48):
until I was actually sustained,
I just read and I read and I
read
conference talks,
the handbook, everything I could get my hands
on, I read. I remember a talk, and
I think it was, president Uchtdorf, Elder Uchtdorf,
when he was called into the 1st presidency,
and he was talking.
And he read the scripture,
(36:08):
he quoted the scripture, Moses 139.
This is my work and my glory to
bring to pass the immortality and eternal life
of man. As I read that,
it was like, heavenly father just went
and just smacked me upside the head. And
he goes, I want you to reread that.
And so I read it again,
and he said,
This is my work and my glory,
(36:31):
not yours.
Your job is to go in and do
what I tell you to do.
And if you listen to what I say,
I'll take care of everything else.
And I think a lot of times as
leaders, we think that we have to have
all of the answers.
But, you know, we've got a
litany
of resources
(36:52):
available to us. 1st and foremost, heavenly father,
obviously, 1st and foremost.
But
it's also recognizing
that
when you receive inspiration as a bishop to
call somebody to a calling,
especially in leadership,
heavenly father is saying,
this person's going to help you.
(37:12):
That person is going to help you.
And so the worst thing that we can
do as leaders is to think that we
have to have all of the answers, because
we don't.
We absolutely don't.
I had an old state president that when
I was on the
state council,
He said, you know, I'm not very good
(37:32):
at coming up with really good ideas,
but I'm really good
at spending time with people who have good
ideas
and recognizing them when they come up. And
it was the truth. I mean,
Neil is and was a fantastic leader, and
and that's what I try to do is
is I try to recognize that
I don't have all of the answers. Yes,
I've got experiences. Yes, I've got
(37:55):
a whole bunch of of blessings in my
life, but I certainly don't have all of
the answers.
So it's really about
leaning on heavenly father, and leaning on those
people who have been called
to serve in positions,
and humbling yourself
to recognize that it's okay to say, I
have no clue. Anybody got any ideas here?
(38:16):
Yeah.
Yeah. Then it kinda becomes fun. You know,
leadership becomes fun at that point where you're
almost in that scavenger hunt of, like, okay.
Is it in this council meeting, or do
I need to be more prayerful about it
and ponder over it? And then, you know,
those answers come maybe sometimes not as quickly
as we would hope, but,
yeah, it's it's a beautiful experience to to
rely on god and and his his models
(38:37):
that he's that he's given us. Right? I
love what you just said, the scavenger hunt.
I've never thought of it that way. I
I really, really like that because you're right.
It is.
Digging and and and, you know, the science
nerd in me is is going nuts here,
like digging and
experimenting and trying to find all of the,
nuances to come up with the right answer.
That's yeah. I'm gonna use that one. Thank
(38:58):
you. I'm stealing that. Awesome.
Cool. Well, any other, point principle concept that
seems to come up in your in your
leadership
church experience? Or
I think
if I was to,
to say any other thing
about being a leader,
it's
(39:19):
some of the most effective leaders that I've
ever spent my time with. And I was
doing research
and with
Bellevue University in Nebraska. And we were looking
at
what are the top the characteristics
of really top performing
executives.
And and the number one characteristic
(39:40):
of top performing executives
was self awareness.
So this ability
to
spend time and really dig into why you
do what you do,
because
when you understand
why you do what you do,
it also informs you as to how you
are interacting with the world. You know, part
(40:00):
of the reason that I went into psychology
was not just because I love helping people,
but
I was messed up. Like, I wanted to
figure out why the heck I thought the
way I did.
And so, you know, that's part of the
reason why I'm in psychology is to better
understand myself.
And so every second that you as a
leader can spend
focusing on learning why you do what you
(40:22):
do, your hidden perceptions, your subconscious reactions to
things,
that is every second
is going to pay you back,
in in multiple.
So that would be the only other thing
I would say is get to know yourself,
and and your life will become a lot
better no matter what you're doing in your
(40:42):
life.
Yeah. Let's definitely have a list of,
5 five reasons for negative church culture, and
one of them is a lack of self
awareness. When leaders don't get in this this
rhythm or this habit of being like, you
know,
how do people perceive me? I I don't
I only am have one side of my
eyeballs covered here. What what's the other side
look like? You know? And, is there anything
(41:03):
you do to
to to, like,
to stimulate or make sure you're staying in
that always curious about, you know, with your
self awareness? Yeah. For sure. I mean, every
one of us looks in the mirror and
and and sees all of the warts and
all of the bald spots and all of
the everything.
But we go out as soon as we,
like, we look in the mirror
(41:25):
to try to to try to hide those
things, you know,
putting on makeup or doing whatever we do
to to hide those those negative things.
I think as soon as we walk out
of that bathroom, we need to carry that
with us,
that we do have faults, that we do
have things
that are not
good,
and and that we can become better at.
(41:47):
And just that constant
listening for feedback, asking for feedback. And by
the way, if you get feedback and somebody
tells you, no, you're doing a great job,
you're not getting feedback, you're getting fluff.
So, like, don't don't listen to that kind
of feedback.
Always look for feedback
about what can you do better.
(42:07):
And, you know, I've got
I've got a group of people who really,
really know me and are willing to to
kick me in the butt without without hesitation.
And those are the people that I'm constantly
going, how do you see me showing up?
And it's not because I'm like, oh, what
am I doing wrong?
Freaking out like that. It's I want to
become better.
(42:28):
Like every single day, if if I become
better as a person,
I get to go out and help other
people more effectively.
And so
whatever your role is in life, whether it's,
you know, serving other people, whether it I
mean, whatever your job is or or role,
if you become a better individual, you will
be more successful and more capable
(42:50):
to accomplish the goals that you have in
your life.
So
and I understand traumas.
I get all of that.
You know, a lot of times we don't
like looking at nobody likes looking in the
mirror. Nobody likes that.
But it's only when we do
and we ask for other to others to
share with us their thoughts that we can
(43:10):
become better. Don't be afraid of your faults.
You've got them. Get over it. Like, yeah,
just get over it. You've got those faults.
Accept it and then try to figure out
how to make them better.
That would be kind of my suggestion on
how to do that. Awesome.
Yeah. Really helpful. Good stuff. Well, anything else?
(43:31):
Even just more on the more practical level,
any, like, apps that your bishopric uses or
word council uses? Any cool activities your words
done? Or what what comes to mind? Just
some of those unique aspects or experiences you've
had. Yeah. One of the blessings that we
have in our in our area,
and a lot of we've we've had a
lot of visitors,
lately from,
(43:52):
church head office. So, you know, general authorities,
area seventies, spending a lot of time in
our our area recently.
One of the things that they're telling us
is that we have one of the most
diverse
populations
out of just about any stake in the
world, which, you know, it's it's fantastic
to to be here.
And so one of the the really cool
(44:14):
things that we do is is we tap
into that. You know,
we've got a group in our ward that
we affectionately call the Filipino mafia.
It's like they call themselves that. Yeah. Yeah.
It's just it's this it's this amazing group
of
of brothers and sisters and children who are
just
just amazing. And so, you know, tapping into
(44:35):
that, tapping into the diversity,
looking at understanding how they view things,
making sure that they get put into leadership
positions because they're amazing,
people.
You know, that's one of the things that
we're doing. We use,
I mean,
really, we use kind of the standards. We
use Trello for, you know, callings and, and
(44:57):
assignments and and things like that.
We use actually one of the things that
we do a lot with our youth
is we have these open mic nights where
it's
ask the bishop any question. And what we
do is we use Slido, and so the
kids can get on their phones and they
can ask anonymous questions.
And so and we've we've had some really,
(45:20):
really cool discussions that have come from that.
So that's you know, those are those are
a couple of things that that we're doing
in our area that have really, really been
amazing for us.
Awesome. And the last question I have for
you as you reflect on your time as
a church leader, as a bishop, how has
being a a leader helped you become a
better follower of Jesus Christ?
(45:43):
I think,
especially my role as a bishop,
it's
it's really, really unique
to sit there
on the stand every Sunday
and have a conversation with heavenly father and
just say,
who do I need to work with? Who
(46:04):
do I need to focus on?
And, you know,
exercising a priesthood by giving people blessings or
whatever that may
be, feeling the love that heavenly father has
for each and every one of us.
It's an amazing thing. And what that does
is that as I feel the love that
(46:26):
he has for other people,
and I get to share that by serving
them and spending time with them,
It reminds me of how much he loves
me
and it's
overwhelming.
It's humbling. It's
awe inspiring, like pick any superlative that you
want to. It's it's incredible
(46:47):
how much he loves us.
And so, as a leader,
it's just
those moments where I get to serve in
his name.
It's,
it's incredible.
(47:10):
And that concludes this How I Lead interview.
I hope you enjoyed it. And, I would
ask you, could you take a minute and
drop this link in an email, on social
media, in a text, wherever it makes the
most sense, and share it with somebody who
could relate to this this experience. And this
is how we how we develop as leaders,
just hearing what the other guys doing, trying
some things out, testing, adjusting
(47:32):
for your area. And,
that's, that's where great leadership's discovered. Right? So
we would love to have you, share this
with, somebody in this calling or a related
calling, and that would be great. And, also,
if you know somebody,
any type of leader who would be a
fantastic guest on the How I Lead segment,
reach out to us. Go to leading saints.org/contact.
(47:53):
Maybe send this in individual an email letting
them know that you're going to be suggesting
their name for this interview. We'll reach out
to them and,
see if we can line them up. So
again, go to leading saints.org/contact,
and there you can submit all the information
and let us know. And maybe they will
be on a future How I Lead segment
on the Leading Saints podcast.
Remember, the Jodie Moore presentation about youth and
(48:15):
mental health is waiting for you at leading
saints.org/14.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought forth
(48:36):
a restoration
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And when the declaration
was made concerning the
only true and living Church upon the face
of the earth,
we were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
(48:58):
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.
Have you ever tried to help youth with
their mental health? Wowza.
That's a tricky road to travel.
I have to tell you about an inspiring
presentation we recorded with the one and only
Jodie Moore. Yes. That life coaching Jody Moore.
A few years ago, she recorded a fantastic
presentation
covering topics like normalizing
tough feelings with youth, a more positive understanding
(00:27):
of stress, how to minimize shame,
and mastering the skill set of empathy
and better understanding anxiety.
I want you to see this presentation as
soon as you finish this podcast episode. You
can go to leading saints dotorg/14
and this will get you access to the
entire video library at no cost for 14
days.
(00:47):
Jody's presentation is in the Mentally Healthy Saints
library and you'll be a better leader or
parent when you finish it. Again, go to
leading saints.org/14
or check out the show notes for the
link.
(01:25):
So my name is Curt Frankem, and I
am the founder and executive director of Leading
Saints and obviously the host of the Leading
Saints podcast. Now I started Leading Saints back
in
2010. It was just a hobby blog
and it grew from there. By the time,
2014
came around, we started the podcast and that's
really when it got some,
(01:46):
traction and took off, 2016.
We became a 501c3
nonprofit organization, and we've been growing ever since.
And now I get the opportunity
of interviewing and talking with remarkable people all
over the world. Now this is a segment
we do on the Leading Saints podcast called
How I Lead, and we reach out to
everyday leaders. They're not experts, gurus, authors,
(02:08):
PhDs. They're just everyday leaders who've been asked
to serve in a specific leadership calling, and
we simply ask them, how is it that
you lead? And they go through some remarkable
principles that should be in a book, that
should be behind a PhD. They're usually that
good, and, we just talk about, sharing what
the other guy is doing. And I remember
being a leader just simply wanting to know,
(02:28):
k. I know what I'm trying to do,
but what's the other guy doing? What's working
for him? And so that's why every Wednesday
or so, we publish these how I lead
segments
to share.
(03:06):
Welcome back to the podcast. Today is a
how I lead episode, and I'm inviting in
Jay Tims
from Vancouver, British Columbia up there in Canada.
Always love to get a Canadian perspective as
the church is just thriving in that country.
And Jay is a leadership,
consultant, a leadership guy. I love talking with
these guys who are in the field of
research. He's, also has a background in psychology.
(03:29):
And so he has a lot to say
when it comes to leadership, especially about my
one of my favorite leadership topics, which is
motivation.
What is it? How does it work? Should
we use it? Or how do we use
it? Right? And this is a email I
get a lot. It's just how do I
motivate my people? How do I get individuals
in my ward, core, and relief society to
actually do
(03:49):
what is expected of them? And so we
jump into the concept of motivation that he
consults with many companies and also uses as
a Bishop if his ward.
And I think you'll appreciate it.
And then he has some phenomenal,
perspectives when it comes to,
feeling like the leader that doesn't have all
the answers, right. And where to, where to
(04:10):
find those answers, that revelation that will, you
can keep going and actually see progress in
your organization. So let's jump into it. Another,
how I lead interview with, Jay Tims.
(04:50):
Alright. We're welcoming in one of our, brothers
from the North, Canada with Jay Timbs. How
are you? I'm fantastic. How are you? Good.
Are you born and raised in Canada? Yeah.
So I was born in Calgary, Alberta.
Spent most of my life up here in
Canada, but, you know, came down to school
for, to Rick's. Did my mission down in
the US, and I've worked out in the
(05:10):
US. So, you know, lived there for about
8 or 9 years, but most of it's
been in in Canada for sure. Yep. That's
cool. Back at home and never never planned
to leave, I guess. Right?
Well Maybe? Yeah. I don't know. I mean,
I we we love Canada. We absolutely love
Canada. The area that we live in right
now is,
it's it's getting,
(05:32):
I sound old.
It's getting overpopulated,
and so we've got a
property kinda set back in the in the
bushes that we're looking at at going to,
but it's still in Canada. So, yeah, love
it. Love it. And you're you're currently just
finishing your 2nd year as Bishop. Is that
right? I am. Yeah. Just hit my 2nd
anniversary this past weekend.
Awesome. And then when people ask you what
(05:54):
you do for work, how do you respond?
Yeah.
I I'm an organizational psychologist. And so, really,
what I do I mean, if my my
32nd elevator speech
is I help leaders to, build leadership skills,
and become more compassionate leaders. And then I
also help organizations
(06:14):
create and maintain cultures of engagement,
motivation, and productivity. So, I mean, like I
said, that that's a real kind of
practiced elevator speech, but at the end of
the day, my my job is to is
to help companies
really maximize their their employee potential.
Wow. And so psychologists, I assume that is
that event an advanced degree then or PhD?
(06:36):
Or Yeah.
So,
no. It's it's 2 master's degrees. So I
have a master's in counseling psychology,
and a master's
in industrial and organizational psychology. So,
it's a dual master's that, that I've got.
So, yeah, not not the doctorate. I think
if I went back to get the doctorate,
my wife would probably make me sleep on
(06:57):
the couch for the whole few years I
was doing it. But,
yeah, I've been in school for a long
time. Yeah. And so when you were kinda
finishing school there with those degrees, did you
did you see yourself going into the leadership
world or consulting world? You know, it's interesting.
So,
I've been
most of my life has been in leadership.
You know, I mean, it it started with
(07:17):
the mission. And then just from there, I've
been in leadership roles for my entire career,
and it's I've really spent a lot of
time
learning how to build my own leadership skills.
And so I was able to transfer that
to a lot of other people and
I spent some time I there was a
moment in my life where I was working
in the restaurant industry, you know,
(07:39):
16, 17 hours a day, 6 days a
week. And, the woman I was gonna marry
said, look. I'm not gonna be a,
a single mom, so grow up and get
a real job.
So went back to school for a few
years. I got my first master's degree
and, did counseling psychology
for for quite a while.
Worked as a consultant for the Canadian government
(08:00):
on, mental health,
and and really enjoyed that. But a friend
of mine,
said, hey. I know you know how to
read people and and kind of look at
body language and stuff. Can you come teach
my salespeople how to be better? And so
I went and did that, and it just
kinda spiraled from there and just started doing
more and more and more consulting,
and ended up taking over Western Canada for
(08:23):
Chipotle and Mexican Grill Restaurants when they were
coming in.
And so at that point,
decided, you know, I do this stuff all
the time. Maybe I should make sure that
I'm actually doing it right. So that's when
I went back and got my second degree
in industrial and organizational psychology.
You know, just really,
really enjoyed that that aspect. But again, off
(08:44):
the side of my table, people kept saying,
hey, can you come do this for me?
Can you come consult with this? And so
a couple of years ago, I just, I
I said goodbye to Chipotle and,
had been doing this now full time for
for a couple of years. So it's been
it's been a it's been a great
(09:05):
I was gonna say it's been a great
experience. It's been a tough experience, but it's
been a really good experience doing this for
sure.
Yeah. Now I interact with a lot of,
you know, leadership consulting guys. And,
what do you feel like, you know, with
your psychology background?
What does that bring to the table like
when you you walk into your organization? Do
you assess things differently? Do you read the
(09:26):
room differently? How do you
Yeah. I think for for me, what ends
up happening is is that because I have
the executive business experience and I've been in
executive leadership roles for so long.
Plus, I also have the background in psychology.
What it allows me to do is is
create kind of a hybrid situation where
I know what makes business work. I I
know how to analyze things. I know how
(09:47):
to create organizational development, strategic plans, etcetera.
But at the same time, my my love
and passion really is for people, and it's
it's the psychology behind people.
So a lot of what I do is
really around motivation and helping helping leaders understand
how to motivate their employees,
how to communicate more effectively. As I said,
(10:07):
be more compassionate with their employees,
and create systems that really focus on the
subconscious and what's going on behind the scenes,
and really activate the ability of their employees
to
bring their best to to the workplace every
single day. And that's I think that's probably
one of the things that that makes me
a little bit different is is that I've
(10:28):
got the business stuff, but I also know
what's going on behind the scenes in the
brain too.
Yeah. So the motivation
dynamic is really interesting. I definitely like, from
all the emails I receive at Leading Saints,
a good chunk of them go back to
basically, the core question is, how do I
motivate people? You know, especially in a in
a organization nobody's getting paid, lay leadership, you
(10:50):
know.
We know we know the lay of the
land. Right? So
just from, like, your your
consulting standpoint, when you walk into or organization
and they're, like, really struggling with motivation, like,
what are what are the big ideas that
you're articulating or the big problems you're seeing,
or what comes to mind?
I think
(11:11):
most often, motivation or lack thereof comes from
a a few different things. Number 1, it
comes from
employees not really understanding the vision of what's
trying to to be done. You know, every
single one of us has values that are
embedded in us, and it's through the experiences
we've had,
the traumas we've had, the culture that we've
grown up, and, you know, at being members
(11:31):
of the church, that adds a different dynamic
to things as well. And so we all
have
values that are embedded inside of us. And
a lot of times what companies try to
do is they put this vision statement up
on the wall
and get their employees to look at it
and go, isn't this exciting? And the employee
is like,
fantastic.
(11:51):
You know? And and they really don't connect
to it. And that really is is one
of the the challenges that a lot of
large organizations,
you know,
these Fortune 500 companies that I've consulted for,
that are really, really good at employee engagement,
they get that the vision on the wall
is,
(12:13):
it should be the north star.
But to get everybody pointing towards that north
star, you really have to understand
what's going on inside the person. What are
the things that they value? What drives them?
And if you can take that and connect
what they value to what you're trying to
accomplish in your organization and and even in
your ward, in as a bishop, as a
(12:33):
religious society president,
even as a Sunday school teacher.
If you understand what's going on for the
people,
under your stewardship, and your stewardship,
you can really help them to create this
energy and this drive
to want to succeed and want to excel
more. I mean, there's always gonna be people
that wake up in the morning and go,
(12:54):
Yeah, I don't care.
And that's fine. But
the vast majority of people
don't wake up in the morning like that.
There's only about, statistically speaking, between 15 to
20% of the the population wake up that
way in the morning.
Most of the people wake up going,
I'm not sure how I'm gonna interact with
this world. And so it's learning what drives
(13:17):
them, and then just pressing that button over
and over and over and over for them.
And people create just incredible things when they
know where they're going,
and they're connected to what they're doing every
day. So then what's the next step with,
like or or some big ideas? And I
know I'm asking you to build Roam in
in, like, 10 minutes here, but, like, what
(13:39):
are the next steps of really getting to
the core of what what drives people so
that they are actually motivated?
Yeah. I think
one of the most difficult things for for
me, throughout my life is is that I'm
I'm one of those guys who wakes up
in the morning and I'm just like I'm
like, I gotta get this done. I don't
know. You know, I'm just this the a
type personality of
(14:01):
I I have a vision, I wanna accomplish
it, and nothing's gonna stand in my way.
I wasn't always that way, but I've become
that way. And,
so as as a leader in an organization,
you're right. It's it's really easy because somebody's
not meeting the expectations. You do everything you
can to help them. You support them. You
coach them. You challenge them. You train them,
(14:22):
and and they still don't make a move.
Yeah. Okay. Fire them.
But at the same time, you know, in
the in the church, and and I have
some amazing counselors who remind me of this
on occasion.
Jay, you can't run the
the the church the way you run your
companies, which is true
to a certain degree.
(14:44):
When you look at motivating people, so, you
know, one of the the goals that that
we set as
well, I set as a bishop when I
got called was there was there was 2
goals. Number 1 is is that I wanted
the members of our ward to clearly, clearly
understand
how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love
them. Like, that's that's it. If if I
(15:06):
accomplish that,
good. Fine.
The second thing that I wanted to do
was is that I wanted to help members
of our ward make and keep sacred covenants.
So that's the second goal.
So when you look at
at making and keeping covenants,
there's an onus that's that's on us
as as individuals
(15:27):
to move forward, to keep those covenants, to
seek out that next covenant, whether it be
baptism, whether it be endowment, whether it be
merit, whatever it may be. There's an the
onus is a lot on us.
And
one of the things that I've realized is
is
that people's timelines
don't have to be my timelines.
You know, it's really important to meet people
(15:50):
where they're at because not everybody is going
to, again, wake up in the morning and
go, k, I really wanna do this, I
wanna accomplish this, I wanna feel heavenly father's
spirit, I wanna talk to him on a
regular
not everybody does that.
And so for my role as a bishop,
the the the number one thing in motivating
people is meet them where they're at. Don't
expect them to,
(16:11):
you know,
move to the the the celestial kingdom overnight.
It's meet them where they're at.
And it's that personalization.
It's those one on one meetings. It's those
opportunities that we as leaders can take to
sit down with our people
and just ask a really simple there's 2
(16:31):
simple questions that that I suggest that leaders
ask.
Question number 1 is, how's it going?
Actually, technically, there's 3. How's it going?
Number 2, what do you want to accomplish?
Where are you going? What are your goals?
What are your
(16:51):
things that you want to do?
And question number 3 is, what can I
do to help?
And sometimes, like I just, I had a
a an interview this past Sunday with a
young woman who's preparing to go on her
mission,
and and I asked that question of what
can I do to help?
Well, floodgates open and a whole bunch of
(17:13):
stuff happens, you know, and and we talk
about a whole bunch of different things.
Oftentimes,
when I ask that question, it'll be, I
don't think anything right now.
But because I have asked that question,
and I continue to ask that question, what
can I do to help?
When they need help,
(17:34):
it's kinda like marketing, it's top of mind.
When they need help, they know
I'm here, and I'm ready to help them.
So that really, when you look at it
through the context of of the church or
through a professional organization,
it really comes down to meeting with your
people as often as you possibly can. In
a corporate world, I say you should never
(17:56):
ever ever go more than 2 weeks
without having a one on one with your
employees.
Now if you've got a 100 employees or,
you know, 750
like I did, that's kinda hard to do.
So it's, you know, picking those key individuals
and doing those, what I called shoulder touches,
which is as they're in the trenches, you
(18:17):
know, washing the dishes or rolling a burrito
or whatever,
Stand next to them and have that conversation.
How's it going? What's happening in your life?
Do you need anything?
And and really, that can be a 3
minute conversation,
or it can be a 30 minute or
even an hour conversation.
Yeah.
Yeah. So just,
finding those opportunities to touch base. Right? Totally.
(18:38):
And connecting and and making sure they know
that you're you're in it with them. Totally.
And another thought that came to mind is,
you know, you talk about the vision statement
usually.
You know, secular organizations have their vision statement.
Maybe they'll put it on the wall. Maybe
they'll, you know, give you a candy bar
if you memorize it or whatever. Yeah.
And in our faith tradition, it's sort of
(18:59):
we sort of default to, well, you know,
we're bringing people
under Christ. And the interesting about motivation,
it can turn to manipulation really quickly.
Right? And so it's sort of we we
like, we're bringing people to Jesus Christ. What?
You're not on board? Like, don't you want
to do ministering? I mean, we're bringing people
under Christ. Like, you don't wanna go to
the temple? I mean, come on. We're bringing
(19:19):
people into Christ. Right? And so,
we we you can really get lost in
that that vision statement. Right? Yep. Yep. Yep.
I remember,
and,
their their family members are are are still
good, good friends of mine. So,
Paul and Aaron, I apologize about talking about
your dad here.
There was a guy when I was growing
up. His name is Gert Christiansen. And Gert
(19:41):
was this, very, very short man,
always had gray hair. I mean, like, from
the day that I I remember him, he's
always had gray hair.
And every time that Gert,
stood up to bear his testimony
or to talk,
it was always
he was always talking about a missionary moment
that he had had. And not not because
he was bragging or anything like that, but
(20:02):
this guy, like, I mean, he was 60,
70, 80 years old. He carried a book
of of Mormon with him everywhere he went,
and it was his goal to hand out
as many book of Mormons as possible. And
every time he stood up, like, we as
teenagers would look at each other and go,
oh, geez. It's another one of Gertz,
missionary moments.
Yeah. And and so, yeah, you're right. There
(20:24):
there are those things where it can feel
like like guilt.
But what I've also realized is is that,
when
when you look at your life and you
recognize what you're not doing in your life,
you are going to feel guilt.
And there's a lot of opportunities in the
church to realize
(20:44):
what we're not doing right.
And I think one of the challenges that
we have as leaders
is to not always focus on what we're
not doing right.
Again, for instance, this past Sunday, I I
took an opportunity to speak to the sisters
in our ward as a over the pulpit.
And I said, you know, there's this bar
that I think women tried to put themselves
(21:05):
and and compare themselves to.
And I'm like,
it's okay.
You guys are already awesome. Like, just keep
going. And as a leader,
that that is something that's that's critically important
too, is
being able to recognize and and going back
to what I was saying before, meeting people
where they're at. Not everybody
(21:26):
is ready to walk into the celestial kingdom,
and that's okay, because frankly, neither am I.
That's okay.
But if we can move them or help
them feel the spirit
to move them just
an inch forward,
and then maybe another inch forward,
Isn't that kind of what
(21:46):
what our role and responsibility in leadership is?
It's to find and help,
people become
what they're what they're destined to become.
Yeah. Yeah. Just helping them, you know, you
know, find that acceptance and and move just
move a little bit further. Right? For sure.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Anything else as far as, like,
(22:07):
casting that vision in the ward context? Like,
anything you do specifically, or what comes to
mind?
So it's interesting you say this because we've
been working on,
on on getting award mission leader on award.
And and, you know, previously,
it was the counselor in the elders quorum
presidency.
And we just you know, I had a
(22:27):
meeting with the mission president and our stake
president, and we just
not enough was happening in our ward,
to really
engage people in missionary work. And and so
we made the decision to call a ward
mission leader.
And,
in doing that, my our mandate to him
was we want you to create a
(22:49):
award mission plan.
And and he did. And what he did
was he came, and he had these, like,
this massive list of we're gonna do this,
this, this, this, this, and this, and this.
Well,
okay. But at the same time, when you
have that big of a list, you never
know where to start.
And so I said to him, what I
want you to do is I want you
(23:09):
to pair it down to
3 to 5 things that we're going to
do.
And,
and so what we did was he he
did that, and then we took a 5th
Sunday, and we talked about it, with the
ward. And we said, what do you think?
And the ward members came back and said,
well, you know, we believe this. This could
probably work better, etcetera.
(23:31):
When you're trying to get people to do
something,
have them create the buy in themselves by
coming up with what they're going to do.
You know, when I was a kid,
I lost a ton of jackets
because I'm an idiot.
But
when I bought my first jacket, like, I
remember buying the jacket, I can tell you
(23:53):
I never ever ever lost that thing because
I was invested in it. It was my
money, time, and energy that went into it.
And so as you're creating award mission plans,
award,
family,
temple and family history plans,
get your ward members involved in it. Ask
them what they would like to do. Where
would they like to go with this?
(24:13):
And then set up programs, set up moments
throughout the month,
every month
to allow that to be brought back to
their attention.
One of my counselors,
really runs the sacrament meeting program and and
and assigns talks and everything like that. And
one of the things he's really good at
doing is is that every month, there's at
(24:33):
least one talk on temple
and one talk on missionary work every month.
And it could be, you know, the 5
minute speaker or it could be the concluding
speaker. And it really doesn't matter. It's just
talk about it. And,
the more you talk about it, as long
as they have bought into it because they've
created
it, the more you talk about it, the
(24:55):
more they'll realize, yeah. Actually, I could probably
do that.
Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that buying concept
because, especially in a church tradition, I think
every organization has this, but, you know, there's
so many
it feels like programs. Right? We got the
come, follow me thing. We got the ministering
program. We got all these things, and and
so sometimes we don't take that step of
(25:15):
stimulating buy in because it's like, hey. Listen.
This is the program. You know, this came
from
inspired individuals, and so we just need to
get on board and and get it done
without creating that buy in. Anything else that
comes to mind with when it comes to
buy in? Yeah. I probably am gonna get
in trouble here. Perfect. I love doing that
on my podcast.
I think,
(25:35):
you know, you you used a word there,
tradition.
There's a massive difference between the gospel of
Jesus Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter day Saints. They are 2 separate
things.
And I think a lot of times what
happens is that people
misunderstand
that the traditions
(25:56):
should be held onto
as tightly
as the gospel itself. When you break down
the gospel, it really comes down to 2
things. Number 1, love God. Number 2, love
your neighbor. That's it. That literally is the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
And when you talk about all these different
programs, you know, as leaders,
you can get really overwhelmed because your bishop's
(26:17):
talking to you about,
hey. How's the ministering going? How's the, activity
day program? How's this going? How are we
doing here?
And it could be like, what do I
focus on?
Mhmm. Recognize that
your role as a leader is to take
in all of the information,
get on your knees and pray, and ask
(26:38):
heavenly father which are the most important ones
for the people
that I am serving?
What are the programs? What are the systems?
What are the things that we need to
focus on
to accomplish that? You know, in Bishop's Council,
we've got amazing
bishops in our stake, and an amazing stake
presidency.
And these men, they come in and they
(26:59):
talk about all of the things that they're
doing in their ward, and I'm just like,
yeah. I'm not doing very much.
I know the feeling. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Exactly.
I think I think most of us know
that feeling as members of the church. We
look around and we see the perfect, you
know, the the perfect Smith family who are
sitting on the front row with their 5
kids, all dressed perfectly and the wife is
(27:20):
beautiful and the husband's like amazingly
chiseled and everything. And there's so religious and
everything. And we like, oh, you know,
and we try to go, how are we?
We're never going to be able to accomplish
that. Well, no, you're not.
You're not, because that's not you, and that's
okay. Heavenly father does not need us to
be a perfect
(27:40):
whatever.
He doesn't need us to fit into a
mold. What he needs us to do is
he needs us to recognize our shortcomings,
and do everything we can to overcome those
shortcomings.
But he's not asking you to do it
today.
He's not telling you you have to throw
everything down your throat right now, like fire
hose, crank it open, and put it against
(28:01):
your face. He's not saying that.
What he's saying is,
come unto me.
That's it.
Come closer to me. Every single day, come
closer.
Try to be better.
Be where you're at, and try to be
better.
And as leaders,
that's
and and I'm not even talking about the
(28:22):
church here, I'm talking about leaders, period.
That, our job as leaders
is to recognize
where are the people that we serve? Where
are they at in their progression?
And then work with them to come up
with a plan
to move forward. Whatever that looks like in
their mind, not in my mind, in their
mind.
(28:43):
And then when we do that, what that
does is it it really allows them to
take charge and and,
to use lack of a better word, to
engage in the process
of becoming and coming closer to our father
in heaven. Sorry. I get ramped up by
this stuff. No. That's good. That's good. Any
like, take us to the application level of
(29:04):
that and whether you use hypotheticals or others
other things. Like, what does that look like
in real life?
Sure. We have an individual in our ward
who,
has received their mission call.
And,
their their their families are are are good
good friends of mine as well.
And,
I remember going up for dinner with with
(29:26):
this individual's parents a few years ago, and
they're like,
what the heck is going on with this
kid? You know, just,
as as parents, sometimes we do.
And,
when when I got called into the bishopric,
and and this by the way, I am
not taking credit for this. This is heavenly
(29:47):
father's doing. I just happen to be a
witness to this.
What ended up happening is is that we
started to recognize that that she needed to
be put into leadership roles within the young
women's organizations.
And so what we did was and it
wasn't class president. It it wasn't, you know,
the lowest class president or or anything like
that. It was, look,
(30:08):
we need you to
focus on this one individual.
This girl is really struggling with x, y,
and z. Can you kinda connect with her
and help her and, you know, support her?
And she jumped all over that. And then
we'd say, okay, we've got this activity coming
up. Can you help us with this? Again,
she jumped all over it. And what happened
(30:29):
was is that as she
we we saw the vision for her, not
necessarily mission, because at that point she wasn't
talking about a mission. But we saw the
vision for her, who she the potential that
heavenly father had for her.
And we sat down with her and gave
her opportunities
to expand, to become
more, and to do more.
(30:51):
And there was a moment, and I don't
know what it was, when it was, what
happened,
but there was a moment where it just
clicked.
And all of a sudden, this young woman
I mean,
she's she has the opportunity. She'll be going
to Sydney, Australia here in a in a
few months.
And Sydney, watch out because, man,
(31:13):
this is this woman,
she's amazing. She's fantastic.
And so really, again, it's
it's not me getting in her face saying,
hey, you need to plan to go on
a mission, you need to become more spiritually,
close to your heavenly father, you need to
prepare for it it wasn't any of that,
and it wasn't her parents doing that either.
(31:34):
It was,
I can see where she can do this.
And so what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna put her into situations
where it stretches her, not to the point
where she's gonna break, but it stretches her
to the point where she recognizes her potential
and really gets comfortable
with this stuff. And I think that's really,
(31:55):
you know, as leaders, that's what ward council
is all about. That's what
those bishops interviews are all about. It's it's
those sitting down with the parents and going,
hey, what can we do to support your
kids? Again, going back to that question, what
can I do to help?
Here's your goal. What can I do to
help? So that that's a bit of a
practical application from the church perspective. Yeah. That's
(32:17):
awesome. That's awesome. And and really just in
those in those touch points like you brought
up earlier, right, where you're engaging on that
level, helping her,
reach that next step or expand or, you
know, see a deeper vision of herself. Right?
Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Tell me
about the concept you wrote in one of
the principles
as far as you don't have to have
all the answers as a leader. What does
that look like in your ministry?
(32:40):
Oh, man.
You know,
I like to think of myself as fairly
intelligent,
but boy, am I dumb?
There are sometimes when I'm dumb.
I remember so when I got called as
a bishop,
it it was it was an interesting moment.
So what had happened was is that
(33:01):
previously
I was,
I hate to admit this, but I said
to Heavenly Father,
Heavenly Father, look,
I am busy.
I'm overwhelmed with work. I'm overwhelmed with what's
going on in my family. I'm overwhelmed
with school. I'm all these projects. I am
overwhelmed.
(33:22):
I need to take a break. Here's what
I'm gonna do. And I I remember having
this conversation with Heavenly Father. And I said
to him, I'm going to take 2 years,
and I'm going to go to church,
but I'm not going to engage with church.
I'm going to, you know, be the example,
do what I need to do, and and
and, you know, fulfill my priesthood responsibilities, but
I'm not going to take a call on.
(33:43):
I'm not going to take on ministering assignments.
I'm just too busy.
And as I look back at that, that
was a
that was
some of the hardest years of my life,
those 2 years.
It was it was really, really tough.
And. After 2 years, I said again, I
(34:04):
got down on my knees and I said,
alright, heavenly father, I'm yours. Let's go. What
do you need me to do?
Within a week, I got a phone call
from stake president,
and he said,
he called me to be
a counselor in the YSA branch
branch presidency.
And I was like, fantastic. Great. Lots of
fun.
(34:25):
4 months later, I get a call from
another stake president because the the YSA in
our area covers 2 stakes.
And the stake that I'm living in, was
different than the stake that was kind of
supervising the YSA. So I was called by
the first
stake president. Got a call from the other
stake president who just happens to be my
dad's business partner.
(34:45):
And he said, hey. Are you and Robin,
my wife, gonna be at this meeting for
Just Served? She's a Just Served representative for
our region. And we said, yep. We'll be
there. And he said, great. I just wanted
to chat with you.
And we sit down and we're talking, and
he goes, so I'm assuming you have a
temple recommend. Right? I'm like,
yeah.
(35:06):
And he started asking me questions,
and then he dropped the bomb.
You know, we'd like to call you as
the bishop. I've been in the branch presidency
for 4 months at this point.
We we wanna call you as the bishop
for the Brookswood Ward. And I remember just
this
just this overwhelming feeling of,
(35:28):
it wasn't it wasn't dread.
It was,
I'm I'm I'm not worthy of it. Like,
you're calling the wrong guy here.
And my wife walked out and as all
good wives do, she's like, yeah, I knew
that was coming.
And I remember for the 2 weeks up
(35:48):
until I was actually sustained,
I just read and I read and I
read
conference talks,
the handbook, everything I could get my hands
on, I read. I remember a talk, and
I think it was, president Uchtdorf, Elder Uchtdorf,
when he was called into the 1st presidency,
and he was talking.
And he read the scripture,
(36:08):
he quoted the scripture, Moses 139.
This is my work and my glory to
bring to pass the immortality and eternal life
of man. As I read that,
it was like, heavenly father just went
and just smacked me upside the head. And
he goes, I want you to reread that.
And so I read it again,
and he said,
This is my work and my glory,
(36:31):
not yours.
Your job is to go in and do
what I tell you to do.
And if you listen to what I say,
I'll take care of everything else.
And I think a lot of times as
leaders, we think that we have to have
all of the answers.
But, you know, we've got a
litany
of resources
(36:52):
available to us. 1st and foremost, heavenly father,
obviously, 1st and foremost.
But
it's also recognizing
that
when you receive inspiration as a bishop to
call somebody to a calling,
especially in leadership,
heavenly father is saying,
this person's going to help you.
(37:12):
That person is going to help you.
And so the worst thing that we can
do as leaders is to think that we
have to have all of the answers, because
we don't.
We absolutely don't.
I had an old state president that when
I was on the
state council,
He said, you know, I'm not very good
(37:32):
at coming up with really good ideas,
but I'm really good
at spending time with people who have good
ideas
and recognizing them when they come up. And
it was the truth. I mean,
Neil is and was a fantastic leader, and
and that's what I try to do is
is I try to recognize that
I don't have all of the answers. Yes,
I've got experiences. Yes, I've got
(37:55):
a whole bunch of of blessings in my
life, but I certainly don't have all of
the answers.
So it's really about
leaning on heavenly father, and leaning on those
people who have been called
to serve in positions,
and humbling yourself
to recognize that it's okay to say, I
have no clue. Anybody got any ideas here?
(38:16):
Yeah.
Yeah. Then it kinda becomes fun. You know,
leadership becomes fun at that point where you're
almost in that scavenger hunt of, like, okay.
Is it in this council meeting, or do
I need to be more prayerful about it
and ponder over it? And then, you know,
those answers come maybe sometimes not as quickly
as we would hope, but,
yeah, it's it's a beautiful experience to to
rely on god and and his his models
(38:37):
that he's that he's given us. Right? I
love what you just said, the scavenger hunt.
I've never thought of it that way. I
I really, really like that because you're right.
It is.
Digging and and and, you know, the science
nerd in me is is going nuts here,
like digging and
experimenting and trying to find all of the,
nuances to come up with the right answer.
That's yeah. I'm gonna use that one. Thank
(38:58):
you. I'm stealing that. Awesome.
Cool. Well, any other, point principle concept that
seems to come up in your in your
leadership
church experience? Or
I think
if I was to,
to say any other thing
about being a leader,
it's
(39:19):
some of the most effective leaders that I've
ever spent my time with. And I was
doing research
and with
Bellevue University in Nebraska. And we were looking
at
what are the top the characteristics
of really top performing
executives.
And and the number one characteristic
(39:40):
of top performing executives
was self awareness.
So this ability
to
spend time and really dig into why you
do what you do,
because
when you understand
why you do what you do,
it also informs you as to how you
are interacting with the world. You know, part
(40:00):
of the reason that I went into psychology
was not just because I love helping people,
but
I was messed up. Like, I wanted to
figure out why the heck I thought the
way I did.
And so, you know, that's part of the
reason why I'm in psychology is to better
understand myself.
And so every second that you as a
leader can spend
focusing on learning why you do what you
(40:22):
do, your hidden perceptions, your subconscious reactions to
things,
that is every second
is going to pay you back,
in in multiple.
So that would be the only other thing
I would say is get to know yourself,
and and your life will become a lot
better no matter what you're doing in your
(40:42):
life.
Yeah. Let's definitely have a list of,
5 five reasons for negative church culture, and
one of them is a lack of self
awareness. When leaders don't get in this this
rhythm or this habit of being like, you
know,
how do people perceive me? I I don't
I only am have one side of my
eyeballs covered here. What what's the other side
look like? You know? And, is there anything
(41:03):
you do to
to to, like,
to stimulate or make sure you're staying in
that always curious about, you know, with your
self awareness? Yeah. For sure. I mean, every
one of us looks in the mirror and
and and sees all of the warts and
all of the bald spots and all of
the everything.
But we go out as soon as we,
like, we look in the mirror
(41:25):
to try to to try to hide those
things, you know,
putting on makeup or doing whatever we do
to to hide those those negative things.
I think as soon as we walk out
of that bathroom, we need to carry that
with us,
that we do have faults, that we do
have things
that are not
good,
and and that we can become better at.
(41:47):
And just that constant
listening for feedback, asking for feedback. And by
the way, if you get feedback and somebody
tells you, no, you're doing a great job,
you're not getting feedback, you're getting fluff.
So, like, don't don't listen to that kind
of feedback.
Always look for feedback
about what can you do better.
(42:07):
And, you know, I've got
I've got a group of people who really,
really know me and are willing to to
kick me in the butt without without hesitation.
And those are the people that I'm constantly
going, how do you see me showing up?
And it's not because I'm like, oh, what
am I doing wrong?
Freaking out like that. It's I want to
become better.
(42:28):
Like every single day, if if I become
better as a person,
I get to go out and help other
people more effectively.
And so
whatever your role is in life, whether it's,
you know, serving other people, whether it I
mean, whatever your job is or or role,
if you become a better individual, you will
be more successful and more capable
(42:50):
to accomplish the goals that you have in
your life.
So
and I understand traumas.
I get all of that.
You know, a lot of times we don't
like looking at nobody likes looking in the
mirror. Nobody likes that.
But it's only when we do
and we ask for other to others to
share with us their thoughts that we can
(43:10):
become better. Don't be afraid of your faults.
You've got them. Get over it. Like, yeah,
just get over it. You've got those faults.
Accept it and then try to figure out
how to make them better.
That would be kind of my suggestion on
how to do that. Awesome.
Yeah. Really helpful. Good stuff. Well, anything else?
(43:31):
Even just more on the more practical level,
any, like, apps that your bishopric uses or
word council uses? Any cool activities your words
done? Or what what comes to mind? Just
some of those unique aspects or experiences you've
had. Yeah. One of the blessings that we
have in our in our area,
and a lot of we've we've had a
lot of visitors,
lately from,
(43:52):
church head office. So, you know, general authorities,
area seventies, spending a lot of time in
our our area recently.
One of the things that they're telling us
is that we have one of the most
diverse
populations
out of just about any stake in the
world, which, you know, it's it's fantastic
to to be here.
And so one of the the really cool
(44:14):
things that we do is is we tap
into that. You know,
we've got a group in our ward that
we affectionately call the Filipino mafia.
It's like they call themselves that. Yeah. Yeah.
It's just it's this it's this amazing group
of
of brothers and sisters and children who are
just
just amazing. And so, you know, tapping into
(44:35):
that, tapping into the diversity,
looking at understanding how they view things,
making sure that they get put into leadership
positions because they're amazing,
people.
You know, that's one of the things that
we're doing. We use,
I mean,
really, we use kind of the standards. We
use Trello for, you know, callings and, and
(44:57):
assignments and and things like that.
We use actually one of the things that
we do a lot with our youth
is we have these open mic nights where
it's
ask the bishop any question. And what we
do is we use Slido, and so the
kids can get on their phones and they
can ask anonymous questions.
And so and we've we've had some really,
(45:20):
really cool discussions that have come from that.
So that's you know, those are those are
a couple of things that that we're doing
in our area that have really, really been
amazing for us.
Awesome. And the last question I have for
you as you reflect on your time as
a church leader, as a bishop, how has
being a a leader helped you become a
better follower of Jesus Christ?
(45:43):
I think,
especially my role as a bishop,
it's
it's really, really unique
to sit there
on the stand every Sunday
and have a conversation with heavenly father and
just say,
who do I need to work with? Who
(46:04):
do I need to focus on?
And, you know,
exercising a priesthood by giving people blessings or
whatever that may
be, feeling the love that heavenly father has
for each and every one of us.
It's an amazing thing. And what that does
is that as I feel the love that
(46:26):
he has for other people,
and I get to share that by serving
them and spending time with them,
It reminds me of how much he loves
me
and it's
overwhelming.
It's humbling. It's
awe inspiring, like pick any superlative that you
want to. It's it's incredible
(46:47):
how much he loves us.
And so, as a leader,
it's just
those moments where I get to serve in
his name.
It's,
it's incredible.
(47:10):
And that concludes this How I Lead interview.
I hope you enjoyed it. And, I would
ask you, could you take a minute and
drop this link in an email, on social
media, in a text, wherever it makes the
most sense, and share it with somebody who
could relate to this this experience. And this
is how we how we develop as leaders,
just hearing what the other guys doing, trying
some things out, testing, adjusting
(47:32):
for your area. And,
that's, that's where great leadership's discovered. Right? So
we would love to have you, share this
with, somebody in this calling or a related
calling, and that would be great. And, also,
if you know somebody,
any type of leader who would be a
fantastic guest on the How I Lead segment,
reach out to us. Go to leading saints.org/contact.
(47:53):
Maybe send this in individual an email letting
them know that you're going to be suggesting
their name for this interview. We'll reach out
to them and,
see if we can line them up. So
again, go to leading saints.org/contact,
and there you can submit all the information
and let us know. And maybe they will
be on a future How I Lead segment
on the Leading Saints podcast.
Remember, the Jodie Moore presentation about youth and
(48:15):
mental health is waiting for you at leading
saints.org/14.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought forth
(48:36):
a restoration
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And when the declaration
was made concerning the
only true and living Church upon the face
of the earth,
we were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
(48:58):
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.
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