Dan Clark is an award winning motivational speaker and best selling author. He has traveled to 59 countries in the world motivating the masses to create a life of significance. He has also served as a Young Single Adult (YSA) bishop (twice). I first came across Dan’s speaking ability when I listened to his BYU Devotional. It inspired me to be a better leader in the Church and it inspired me to get him on the podcast as soon as possible. After a few miraculous encounters, I was able to meet Dan and he willingly agreed to sit down with me for an interview.
This is definitely one of the top 3 interviews I have done on Leading Saints and I am excited to share it with you. We discuss his young football career at the University of Utah, how he became a motivational speaker, his time teaching public speaking at BYU, how he was called as a YSA bishop, what he learned from that calling, how to run a linger-longer, how to increase the rate of marriage in a YSA ward, how to increase the quality of teaching in a ward, the power of stories and how to record them, and other basic guidance for public speaking in church.
I first came across Bishop Bumbaugh’s name when I read his article called, What Happened When I Quit Home Teaching. I thought it was a fantastic story and I was pleased to see he was serving as a bishop in Huntsville, Texas. I reached out to Bishop Bumbaugh and he agreed to do an interview with me and talk about how he leads.
In this episode we discuss his conversion to the Church and what guided him to a career teaching high school German. He’s shares with us how he was called to be the bishop and how accepting the call was a very difficult decision to make.
He also shares how he has led best by serving, thinking outside the box, and focusing on the little things.
Scott Hall lives in Taylorsville, Utah and was recently released as bishop after a call to serve in a stake presidency (with my brother). He is a successful real estate agent and is supported by a wonderful wife and 6 children. We talked about his few years serving as bishop and most importantly, how to stay awake in church when everyone is watching you.
He talks highly of the examples he has had in his life and the many leadership lessons they have taught him.
5 Leadership Principles:
Stop Trying to Fix It
Personal Worthiness
Example (Father, Husband)
Learning the Names of Members
My Wife
Links:
How to Remember Names
Interview with Chad Francom
LDSCallings.com
Local LDS leaders are always striving to help single members of the Church feel comfortable in their wards. Each individuals situation is so different that it is difficult to know exactly how to support them.
I wanted to gather a group of single LDS members in a room and discuss their experience with being single in their ward. We talk about the stigma of eternal marriage, the doctrine of sealings, the impact children face, how leaders can help them maintain worthiness, and how to show support when they decide to start dating again.
The individuals on this panel interviews include Liz, Brooks, and Brian and Laura Hales.
In this episode we hear from Trent Lee in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has rich experience as an instructor, teaching Gospel Doctrine, early morning seminary, ward mission leader, and currently serves on his stake’s high council.
We start off the interview by sharing both of our personal experiences of with Elder Oaks and how that influenced us as leaders.
Trent’s Leadership Principles:
What I learned from Elder Nash
Presidency meetings
Monthly home teaching PPI’s
How and what to report for home teaching numbers
Family mission plan
Brigham Rupp is a full-time seminary teacher in Gilbert, Arizona. He’s served as elders quorum counselor, executive secretary, stake Sunday School, and currently serves as bishop. He served a mission in Chicago, Illinois and share many of his scriptural thoughts at The Silver Grey.
In this episode we discuss how he decided to become a seminary teacher and how he was later called as bishop. We also talk about how he handles spiritual thoughts in ward council, being reactive verse proactive, and how to improve one’s ability to teach.
Neylan McBaine was born and raised in New York, New York. She is the founder of the Mormon Women Project and the author of the book Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact.
In this episode we discuss the ways local leaders in the Church can consider ways to bring more purpose to women in their wards and branches. It’s a fascinating discussion and it will bless the lives of all leaders that listen.
Eric Shuster is the author of 3 books, (1) Catholic Roots, Mormon Harvest (2) The Biblical Roots of Mormonism (3) Where Are the Christians? He currently serves as bishops in a small farming community in Taylor, Texas. He was raised devout Catholics, married a former nun, and joined the LDS Church 26 years ago.
In this episode Bishop Shuster briefly shares his conversion story and what inspired him to write books.
He also shares what his experience was like as a young elders quorum president and his progression through church leadership. He has a remarkable perspective of home teaching and how to organize assignments for your quorum.
We also discuss, bishop’s calendar organization, ward assignments, Family History Olympics, and avoiding the “same ten people”.
Every six months stake conference is a symbolic mile marker for most stake presidencies. When one ends the next one is ready to be planned for. Having the experience of going through my first stake conference as a member of the stake presidency, I realized what a hectic time it is for stake presidencies as they plan each detail. Not to mention we had a visiting authority that makes you feel like you are being graded each step of the way.
With so many items to consider when planning a stake conference, stake leaders can be left holding their breath when the weekend arrives, hoping that people actually show up.
I’d like to share with you a strategy we used to assure that people showed up to stake conference. It’s hard to say what works and what doesn’t, but we were very pleased by the results and we calculated that we had about 20% more people in attendance then prior stake conferences.
In this interview I sit down again with Liz Wiseman who has been such a wonderful resource for Leading Saints and I truly consider her a great friend and mentor.
Liz recently spoke at a BYU Forum and spoke wonderfully about the power of rookie smarts and how what one knows can be a disadvantage to a growing leader. She discusses how learning how to learn is more important than the content of what one is learning.
She also shares some rich stories of what she learned from Lee Perry (Dean of BYU School of Business, and son of L. Tom Perry), when she was a student at BYU, why her husband was recently called to a bishopric, and how to focus on being a hungry, and humble leader.
There’s a lot of information here and it is definitely worth a thorough listen.
