Ben Sabourin has over 25 years of experience managing people in various industries in the for-profit and nonprofit business worlds and was most recently employed by the second-largest health information management company in the U.S. as Director of Accounts Receivable. Currently, he is a Certified Life Coach, a Real Colors Certified Facilitator, and is back earning his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from BYU-Idaho through the Pathways Program.
Ben has served as an assistant ward clerk, elders quorum president and counselor, and a ward mission leader. Ben served in the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo East Mission, where his love for the Spanish language, culture, and people was fostered. He is now a high counselor assigned to serve the Spanish Branch in the Green Bay, Wisconsin Stake. Ben and his wife Cindy have been married 23 years and have two children and three grandchildren.
Highlights
02:30 Introduction to Ben Sabourin and his backstory
13:50 Leadership opportunities Ben has had outside the church
14:30 After 14 years of inactivity Ben came back to the church. He talks about his path to come back.
21:30 Getting called as elders quorum president 6 months after reactivating. It forced him to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ faster.
24:00 Ben knows how to meet people where they are because he himself has been there
25:00 Starting out as elders quorum president and what Ben needed and learned
29:30 As elders quorum president, Ben noticed that the men were very guarded and it wasn’t easy to be vulnerable and talk to each other about their struggles. His goal was to create opportunities to fix that.
30:45 Service is the way that we build a bridge to unity. We have to be friends besides just the hour that we are at church.
32:00 Ben shares his ideas for socials for men and things that worked for him. Socials became a way that Ben was able to help create unity in his quorum.
36:25 Don’t wait for people to ask for a blessing. Ask them if they need one. People, especially men, have the tendency to say, “I’m fine.”
39:00 Love, share, invite. People don’t care unless they know how much you care. In order to teach and lead the people, you have to love the people.
41:50 What Ben has learned from his time on the high council serving in the Spanish ward
- You are there to love, share, and invite, not dictate
- Make yourself available and earn trust
- After you’ve earned trust, do what you say
- As a high councilman, stay out of their way and let them know what their resources are and that you are available to them
50:45 Ben’s final thoughts and what he has learned from being a leader
Links
“Love, Share, Invite” by Elder Gary E. Stevenson
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