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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, 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, 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, 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.
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.
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
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 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. 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
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, 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 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 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? 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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,
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 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 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 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.
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 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? 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 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
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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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, 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.
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, 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
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? 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 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.
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. 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 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.
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. 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. 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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. 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 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 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? 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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.
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 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 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? 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,
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 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 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 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, 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? 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 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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 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, and to which we must face up with boldness and courage and ability.