Let's be honest. Few humans enjoy meetings, and
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We wanted to address the pain of meetings
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That's leadingsaints.org/1four.
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or click the link in the show notes.
The following episode is a throwback episode, one
that was published previously and was extremely popular.
To see the details of when this was
originally published, see the show notes. Enjoy this
throwback episode.
Welcome back to another episode of the Leading
Saints podcast. My name is Kurt Frankem, and
I will be your host. Now if you're
new to Leading Saints, we are a five
zero one c three nonprofit organization
with a mission to help Latter day Saints
be better prepared to lead and do that
through various ways, and one of those is
this podcast. So I hope that you subscribe.
Like a good podcaster, I should tell you
to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or
wherever you listen to this, and that helps
where people find this. But really the best
way for people to find this resource is
for you to drop a link into an
email and send it to someone you know
or share on social media is wherever it
is. So we're glad you're here. We're glad
you found us. However it is you you
found us,
what matters is that you're here. And in
this episode, we talk with Ryan Gofferson. And
Ryan is a good friend of mine who
I've actually met through the leading saints audience.
Years ago, he started writing articles and contributing
written content to the website, and you find
a lot of his articles
at leadingsaints.org,
which are phenomenal and,
so
inspiring and thought provoking
that your time would be well spent by
going to leadingsaints.org
and and finding some of those articles that
he's written. But speaking of writing, he's actually
written a new book called Success Mindset,
your keys to unlocking greater success in your
life, work, and leadership,
and I would add in your church experience
as well. Now Ryan is a PhD.
In fact, I'll just read his bio from
the book. It says, Ryan Godfersen, PhD, is
a mental success coach and cutting edge leadership
consultant, author, trainer, and researcher. He helps improve
organizations, leaders, teams, and employees by improving their
mindsets.
Ryan is currently
a leadership and management professor at the Mihaylo
College of Business and Economics at the California
State University, Fullerton. He holds a PhD in
organizational behavior and human resources from Indiana University
and a BA from Brigham Young University. He's
also a former consultant for Gallup Inc, where
he helped dozens of organizations improve engagement
of their employees,
As a respected authority and researcher on the
topic related to leadership, management, and organizational behavior,
Ryan has published over 15 articles in a
variety of journals.
His research has been cited over 1,700 times
since 02/2014,
and you can find him at ryangodfersen.com.
So this interview,
in his book, I read every word of
it. It's a phenomenal book. I'll do more
of an explanation as we start the interview
with Ryan, but such a key component of
leadership is mindsets,
And we're gonna discover why with Ryan Godfersen.
So here is my interview with Ryan Godfersen,
the author of Success Mindsets.
Welcome back to another session of the Meetings
with Saints virtual summit. This is, I don't
know what what I'm gonna call this, a
simulcast, whatever. We're gonna push this interview not
only on the virtual summit, but also on
the podcast because it's gonna be just that
good, folks. And that's because my guest is
Ryan Godfordsen. How are you, Ryan? Doing great.
You're putting the pressure on Kurt. Oh, that's
what I do best with you, Ryan. I
expect the highest from you, and you never
disappoint.
People may recognize your name. You've you've been
a contributor to Leading Saints for for years
now. It probably is. And you've written articles
and done other interviews on other summits and
podcast episodes, and we just keep having you
back because we have not squozing your brain
enough to get more knowledge out. So I'm
glad you're here, and you're here because
you just wrote a book. Right? I did.
Yeah. I I really appreciate
the opportunities you've given me to essentially trust
me to put my material in front of
your audience. It means a lot, and and
it's an audience that I love working with.
Well, it's, the the especially with these concepts,
your research, they're so applicable to the Latter
day Saint leadership experience, and so I can't
help but have you back. And and I
first wanna just congratulate you on writing this
book, which is called Success Mindset.
And, I know there's a lot of work
that goes into writing a book, and I
read it for various reasons. One, we're gonna
do this interview, and two, you're my friend,
and I wanna understand the research you're doing.
But, like,
removing my bias, this was a fantastic book.
Like, you did a phenomenal job with this
book, and it's a book that every leaders
especially
and really anybody would benefit from. So congratulations
on getting this out there and doing it.
This will I'm sure it was a labor
of love. It was a really great process,
and I'm really happy with the book. And
now that it's out, I'm starting to get
feedback from people really all over the world
that are commenting on it. And I'm I'm
really blessed to hear that it's been all
positive feedback. I think people who don't like
it, they're not gonna contact me, so I'm
surely giving you biased perspective.
But, I mean, I think one of the
reasons why I ultimately
wrote the book is I probably needed the
messages just as much as anybody else. Right.
Yeah. And my life has been changed because
of
the principles that we talk about in the
book, and I wanna help others do the
same. Yeah. And the thing is is, like,
the reason I loved it so much is,
you know, in a lay ministry in the
church,
and I get the chance to interact with
leaders across the world,
they a lot of times you're called as
a bishop or a real estate president. You're
like, you don't even know where to start.
Right? Yeah. We can talk about interviews. We
can talk about how to run a class,
whatever. But I would say, like, if there's
any place a person should start before you
can really have impact as a leader, you've
gotta get your mindset right. And so that's
why I appreciate by this resource is it
gives a leader a place to start, and
you can continue to to revisit these principles
as you continue leading. Yeah. Because what we
reveal is that mindsets are foundational to everything
that we do. And maybe let me give
you a an example from a real world
situation.
Yeah. So are are you much of a
football fan, Kurt? College football? I'm a season
ticket holder. Right? Oh, me too. I'm alright.
You. Go cougars.
But I'm gonna jump to the NFL. Okay.
So Tom Coughlin is the former head coach
of the New York Giants. He won two
Super Bowls when he was with the New
York Giants, so rather successful head coach. Well,
when he stepped down, he went over to
the Jacksonville Jaguars as the president of operations.
And I don't know how familiar you are
with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but historically, they've been
a pretty terrible team. Yeah. That's why I'm
not familiar with that.
So you've got to anticipate that here's the
successful head coach moving over to the Jacksonville
Jaguars. He's gotta be thinking, I wanna turn
this ship around, and I wanna leave a
lasting legacy for myself. And I think a
lot of times when we receive callings, particularly
leadership callings within the church, we're in a
similar position as Tom Coughlin. We wanna come
in and have a have a positive
influence
on the people that we're leading and serving.
But the thing here's the thing that's interesting
about Tom Coughlin, is he comes in, and
he's kinda known to be a disciplinarian.
In fact, he's almost Vince Lombardi esque because
he would say, if you're on time, you're
late. You're only on time if you're five
minutes early. And he would even put all
of the clocks five minutes fast in all
of their facilities.
And then there were some fines associated with
being late. So, you know, this gives you
some of the dynamics that were going on
when he was a leader there. Well, this
last football season, the NFL Players Association came
out with a report and they said, okay,
the Jacksonville Jaguars
represent 3% of the NFL in terms of
their players because there's 32 teams. But 25%
of all of the complaints that have come
into the Players Association
have come from the Jacksonville Jaguars.
So 3% is driving 25%
of the complaints, and it's all connected back
to Tom Coughlin and the policies that he
had implemented.
And the
players association came out and said,
publicly, we cannot recommend that any players play
for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Ouch. Like, so here's the situation where the
owner is now forced to fire Tom Coughlin
because he's created a situation
that has actually had a negative effect on
the organization.
So here's this unique situation. A leader is
coming in with all of the best intentions
in the world. I think we've got to
believe that. And at the end of the
day, he creates
a worse atmosphere
than when he set started out. Yeah. And
and so
when we dive into the ideas of mindsets,
what we're exploring is why is this? Why
is it somebody
can have the best intentions in the world,
yet still have negative effects? You know, we've
got to believe that Tom Coughlin was trying
the best that he could. Mhmm. And we've
got to believe that leaders in general are
trying the best that we can in terms
of, particularly, church leaders. But yet we see
statistics such as sixty percent of employees
say that their leaders damage their self esteem.
Like I don't think leaders go to work
saying, I want to damage my employees' self
esteem, just that sometimes the lenses that we're
using to view the world
prevents us from operating
as our ideal selves. Yeah. And I I
love that example because he has a proven,
like, a success track record. Like, he he's
won two Super Bowls. Right? Of course, you
you want him to come to your organization
and hopefully turn it around. But, again, it's
just these best intentions, and this happens a
lot in the church as well. Like, nobody
comes in, like, I'm gonna totally just, like,
shame everybody as a bishop, and I hope
I hope half the world go half the
ward goes inactive while I'm in like, nobody
does that. Right? We all come in like,
this is a great opportunity. I think I
can really make a difference. And this is
it reminds me of my, first leadership
calling as an elders quorum president in the
YSA ward where I met my wife, and
I walked into that thinking, wow. This is
this is gonna be great. I'm gonna try
really hard and really have an impact. And
I remember leaving it like, man, I I
feel everything all my statistics went down. Like,
there wasn't this big I moment. Like, nobody
probably remembers my name, and and it was
sort of discouraging. So the best intentions don't
always mean that you have the best mindset
in place or your the mindset's in a
place where you're gonna lead to success. Right?
Yep. Correct. So where where do we begin
with just understanding
laying a foundation
of mindsets? Because a lot of time, if
you walk up to a random person and
say, I wrote a book about mindset, it
could they could interpret that in a variety
of different ways. Right? Yeah. So our mindsets,
as we kinda just described them, are our
mental lenses that shape how we view the
world around us. So in terms of even
a neuropsychological
perspective,
is when we encounter a situation,
our senses are sending all sorts of stimuli
to our brain. And our brain can't process
all that information. So it relies upon our
mindsets to do two things, filter in specific
information
and then
interpret that information in unique ways. So it's
our mindsets that cause, let's just say, two
different leaders to see the same situation
but interpret it completely differently. And
most of the work that our mindsets do
in terms of its effects on our thinking,
learning, and behavior
occurs nonconsciously.
Like, we're not conscious
of the fact that we are seeing the
world in a certain way and that's different
from somebody else, and that has really important
implications.
But if we can awaken to our mindsets,
then we become empowered to see the world
in better ways. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Yeah. And and maybe what's an example that
comes to mind that that would help people
understand, like, an an anecdote that that we
could better explain that one? For sure. I'm
glad you asked. So
let me give you an example of seeing
somebody who is homeless.
And in fact, I just read a statistic.
I'm in Southern California. Half of The United
States Homeless population is in California. Wow. Which
I think is incredible. But what that means
for me is on almost a daily basis,
I come across a homeless person asking for
assistance.
And how do let's ask ourselves, how do
you see people who are asking for assistance
on a street corner? Do you see them
as not doing their best, or do you
see them as doing their best? Now this
has rather profound implications because if we don't
see them as doing their best, and I'll
be honest, I'm ashamed to admit this, for
most of my adult life, I would see
them as not doing their best.
And I would quickly become critical. I would
think, why are you asking me for my
hard earned money when you're just standing there
asking for assistance?
Why don't you do something more productive with
your time? Maybe go get a job.
Mhmm. Right? What's my likelihood
of navigating that situation effectively and navigating it
in a way that lives up to my
ideal self? Well, it's probably limited. But if
I see them as doing their best, it
leads me to ask the question, what in
the world has happened in their life that
has led them to believe that this is
the best way to live? Now I quickly
become empathetic,
and I'm much more likely to handle that
situation more successfully and live up to my
ideal self.
And so what this demonstrates is that how
we see
our world and how we see others shapes
how we think about them, how we behave
towards them, and how success successfully we navigate
those situations.
And so I think as a church leader,
a lot of times we have people that
are coming to us with problems and issues,
or
maybe conflict, something that they don't like.
How do we see them? Do we see
them as, oh, you're not doing your best
because we're gonna become critical of them? Or
do we explore the situation saying, what in
the world is going on in your life
that has led you to kinda believe or
act the way that you're you're acting?
And now that we explore that, we're able
to see them as people
and and better navigate that situation.
Yeah. And and it really goes back to
what like you said, what lenses are we
seeing the world through? And and I'm gonna
flip your example a little bit because oftentimes
the emails that I get at Leading Saints
are, Kurt, like, what can I do about
my leader, my bishop, my release I mean,
he's a mess? Like, he just doesn't get
it. Right? And so we often look at
our leaders and we can ask the question,
do we see them as doing their very
best and be like, no way. Like, I
can name five things that I know for
sure that they're just completely ignoring and they
should give more attention to, but they just
don't want to. They're lazy. They're right?
We sort of project our lens on other
people and to fill in the the gaps
when in reality, we have we have no
evidence that you could take into a court
of law and prove
some of these assumptions you make as an
individual. Right? So it really starts with understanding
what lens
are is it we're looking through. Yep. For
sure. And you're you're exactly right. It goes
both ways. Yep. So,
so as a leader, like and and the
thing is and you, go over this in
your book that we all like, there's nobody
that doesn't have lenses. Like, we all have
life experiences,
DNA,
you know, so many things that influence the
lenses that you know, I'm a certain leader
because of my childhood, because of my parents,
because of my career and what I do
day to day. And so we can't act
like, well, I have some lenses, but they're
not a big deal. Like, we all need
a that's the first step is recognizing what
the lens is and trying to understand how
it is how you're perceiving the world through
that lens. Yeah. And it's tricky because we
all tend to think that how we see
the world is the best way to see
the world. Yeah. And the reason why I
feel comfortable saying that is because if we
thought we could see the world better, we
would do so. Yeah. So we we are
biased towards our perspective of the world,
and we just may not recognize that how
we are seeing the world just isn't the
best way to see the world. And if
we can awaken to that, then we become
empowered
to change, to improve. And so that's what's
been so eye opening to me because as
I've gone about
my life
prior to learning about mindsets, is I kinda
thought my lenses are the best way to
see the world. And as I started to
learn about mindsets, I quickly realized, wow, I
don't have any of the positive mindsets
that research has found to be most optimal
for success.
Yeah. And that was a I mean, it
was a huge awakening. In fact, I've got
a guy right now who's a,
seminary teacher. He was texting me earlier today.
I'm gonna pull it up. And and he's
saying
he's reading my book, and he says, I
used to think that I was open minded.
Reading the chapters about open versus closed really
made me question that. It's hard to face.
It's professionally embarrassing.
Like,
I and I I respond back to him.
I said, welcome to the club, buddy. Like
Yeah. I've been there. Like, this sucks because
we think that we're doing a good job,
and we think that we're seeing the world
in the best way, but sometimes we're blind
to the fact that we're having negative effects
on others.
Yeah. And that's the thing is we have
best intentions, so we think that I can't
go wrong here. I mean, sure, I'll make
mistakes, and I won't be do it perfectly,
but I'm not gonna do any damage. But
in reality, there's a lot of damage you
could do with the best intentions as as
we've as we've talked about. And and I
just love that where I think you ask
any person,
you know, are you open minded? They'll generally
say, yeah. I'm pretty open minded. But just
starting, like, starting with the assumption even if
you don't believe it at first, starting with
the assumption that I'm more closed minded than
open minded, I think that begins, like, to
to open your mind to to see maybe
areas that you are closed minded and how
that's hurting your influence on others. Yeah. Yeah.
So
let's,
as far as, like, take attaching this to
to leadership, and and I'm gonna jump in
and out of the context of meetings since
where I'm gonna display this in the Meetings
with Saints virtual summit. Mindset is crucial when
you walk in, when you're when you're in
a culture of meetings,
regardless of what meeting is, but especially
when you're in a council meeting, right, where
decisions are being made, where you're where other
opinions are so crucial. And so that's why
I I wanna definitely focus on on on
this, but give us the example.
Let's go to the example you share in
the book about Lee Iacocca, who was the
CEO of Chrysler. Was it early nineties? Yeah.
And even a little bit before that. Yeah.
Okay.
So in well, I'll use him as an
example.
But let me give you four desires.
K? Okay. Perfect. And these are desires that
you can be walking into our to a
meeting with. A desire to look good,
a desire to be right, a desire to
avoid problems, and a desire to get ahead.
Like, are there is there anything wrong with
these desires?
Yeah. I mean, some of them maybe seem
more prideful than others, but I think we
all are striving to look good. That doesn't
mean that, you know, we'll go we'll do
anything to look good, but maybe some do.
Yeah. I mean, these are really justifiable
desires because who wants to look bad, be
wrong, have problems, and get passed up? Well,
nobody.
Right? But the problem is that these desires
are attached to the negative mindsets.
And
the reason why they're negative is because they
are self focused. When we have these negative
mindsets and these negative desires, we're in self
protection mode. And it's really easy for leaders
to get into self protection mode. Yeah. Because
there's a lot to live up to as
a leader. So we feel a lot of
pressure, and so we wanna feel we feel
like we need to look good, have all
the answers,
and within the church,
we're doing this for free. And so that
means I want to avoid problems, because the
more problems I have here, is the less
I have time for my family and my
work and all the other stuff that I
have going on. So naturally, I think leaders,
and particularly
leaders in the church,
are socially incentivized
to have negative desires.
And what we don't recognize is that there's
higher order desires to have associated with the
more positive mindsets.
So instead of wanting to look good, we
should want to learn and grow. Instead of
wanting to be right, we should wanna find
truth and think optimally. Instead of wanting to
avoid problems, we should seek to reach goals.
And instead of wanting to get ahead, we
should seek to lift others. Yeah. And and
as we make these shifts, we're moving from
self protection mode to organization
advanced mode. Does that make sense? Yeah. And
and I my mind goes to the example
of, you know, the mindset in in church
leadership. At the end of the day, we
just want to do what the Lord would
have us do. Right? And and that's not
necessarily a negative mindset, but then these social
influences
come because there's no way to, like, get
rid of them or just just by stating
that on paper, it makes sense. But then
we get into the then we get, you
know, angry people knocking on our door or
we get a conflict that that arises in
a meeting, then we think, okay. Let's let's
not make any waves. You know? Let's not,
you know, let's avoid any problems here. And
so let's get, you know,
you know, put this aside or whatever it
is. But it is by going through those
problems that we discover what the lord would
have us do. You know? It's by it's
by not looking good at times that we
discover what the lord would have us do.
So this is this is a great example
of how these social pressures can really influence
us. Yeah. For sure. And so die diving
back into this Lee Iacocca example is as
a leader,
he had these negative desires. He wanted to
look good, be right, avoid problems, and get
ahead. And so that influenced
how he led Chrysler.
And, essentially,
he was focused more
on looking good,
kind of having a positive image,
more than actually
building his organization
and improving the substance of his organization. So
while he was improving
kind of the looks of his cars, he
was doing nothing to improve the internal aspect
of these cars, like the engine and things
like that that would actually
lead the car to be successful moving forward.
Because at the end of the day, what
matters is whether or not I've got a
reliable car, not how good it looks. And
so that was essentially his his mindsets
just let him to see the world in
such a way that he was more focused
on on looking good as opposed to learning
and actually developing the organization.
Yeah. And and the interesting about a story
that you talk about is, like, when he
got put in as a CEO, he it
appeared that he turned that organization around. And
he said there there's research that was done
that shows that, well, actually, the the economy
and other so many other factors actually led
to Chrysler improving. And then it took a
dive, and he couldn't figure out how to
regain it because before, he was sort of
relying on what worked before, why isn't working
now, and and wasn't considering the mindset that
he was in. Right? Yep. For sure. And
that's a tricky thing about church leadership is
that you can you can see some success,
and we sort of connect
a result to a
to a practice or or or a plan
that we did, and we think that's why
it succeeded. So, you know, why doesn't it
just keep working? You know? You know, we
can give be be trapped in that mindset
because we thought it was working. Mhmm. And
this is as far as, like, mindset, like,
this led me as I was read reading
that Lee Iacocca, you know, example,
I'm always applying it to the church context.
And we have this dynamic in the church
as far as, like, being a keyholder or
having authority. Like, we are literally set apart
and sometimes ordained to lead in certain callings.
And so that alone can give us this
mindset of, okay. I am now endowed with
certain power to have the right answers, to
have the right lenses and perspective.
And, sure, that we could, like there's examples
in the church where maybe there
specific events happen because of that, but we
are limiting ourselves when we think I'm the
one with these the examples or or my
opinion counts more than others. And, again, these
are things we do subconsciously. I don't I
can't imagine any good bishop or or at
least at a present saying that, but we
kinda get in that
mode, and that closes us off to a
deeper
deeper revelation and answers. Right? Yeah. And so
what you're diving into is one of the
four sets that I of mindsets that I
focus on in the book. And I focus
on these four sets of mindsets
not because these are just kind of out
there, but literally there's been thirty plus years
of research backing on each of these sets
of mindsets. Okay. And so there are other
sets of mindsets that we can focus on.
For example, I've seen abundance and deficit mindsets.
I really like the principles associated with those.
Unfortunately, we just have zero research demonstrating
that those mindsets affect our thinking, learning, and
behavior. Now I think that they do,
but I don't have that backing. And so
in terms of the book,
I pulled together
different sets of mindsets
that have been studied in different fields of
study, like psychology, education, management, and marketing. And
they largely haven't been talking to each other,
and so I just put them together into
a single framework because
they've all been demonstrated
to drive our thinking, learning, and behavior. And
one of these sets of mindsets is you're,
alluding to is the difference between a closed
mindset
and an open mindset. And you're so right
in that everybody, if we ask them, are
you open minded?
Everybody's gonna say yes. But before we smugly
slap an open minded sticker on our forehead,
we should consider that
that the people that
can be the most damaging in the organization
are those who think that they're open minded
but are actually closed minded.
Yeah. And I will say even broader than
stepping into a leadership position where we naturally
feel like we need to have all the
right answers,
I think that and this is gonna be
maybe
a little challenging for some folks, but I
think our church culture actually incentivizes
more of a closed mindset.
How dare you, Ryan? I know.
Hey, Ben. But this is great to explore
because I I I agree with you. And
it's just these little innocent things that that
come up. But lead us into that discussion.
So when we have a closed mindset, we're
close to the ideas and suggestions of others.
We're not willing to take those in. Mhmm.
When we have an open mindset, we're open
to others' ideas and suggestions, and we're willing
to take them in. Not that we have
to run with them. We can always have
a Or agree with them or anything. Right?
Yeah. We can always have a stiff back
in terms of having our own principles. But
what's really important is having a soft front,
allowing ideas to come in. Now, I don't
think any of us like hanging out with
somebody who's close minded, right? When we're close
minded, we're rather unapproachable and off putting. Our
decision making
becomes stunted because we're not able to see
alternative perspectives.
So it leads me, it's led me to
wonder what leads somebody to be close minded?
And at the end of the day, what
leads somebody to be close minded is they
believe that what they know is right. And
when we believe that what we know is
right, we want to be seen as being
right. And so to compare this, like, let's
compare our mind to a bucket. And if
our bucket is full, meaning I what I
know is is right, what happens if we
pour something into a full bucket? Well, it
just runs off the side. We aren't able
to absorb any of it. And that's what
happens when we have this closed mindset and
we believe that what we know is right.
Because
when we believe that way, we want to
be seen as being the one with all
the answers. So we're not asking questions. This
means that we're maybe the leader in
the ward council meeting who's giving all of
the answers.
Like, they're the first one to speak, and
they're the first one to say, I think
this is what we should do. They're not
the ones asking questions.
They're
closed off to feedback and new perspectives, and
they'll see disagreement
as a threat.
And that's kind of a natural
way to operate if we believe that what
we know is best. And so in terms
of our overall church culture,
have you ever heard anybody say I know
in church?
A few times. A few times. A few
times. We're getting close to a sacred cow.
This is great.
So when we're saying I know and then
we could get add on beyond a shadow
of a doubt, What we're doing is we're
saying my bucket is full, and I have
no more space for the idea that I
could be wrong. Right. And, oh, and my
Let me let me clarify this because this
is such an important point is that you're
not saying we should never put knowledge and
or truth into a bucket. We're just saying,
like, being in a mindset where you feel
like there's always something more to put in.
There's always there's always extra room to put
more information or knowledge or perspective into that
bucket. Right? Precisely. So when we have this
open mindset, it's not that we can't be
an expert on the topic, it's just we're
leaving some room in that bucket for some
new things to be poured in. Because when
we leave that space, we no longer are
focused on being seen as right, we're focused
on finding truth and thinking optimally.
Instead of being the one answering the questions,
we're the ones asking the questions. We're inviting
feedback. We're inviting new perspectives, and we see
disagreements as opportunities
to learn. Yeah. And I don't know about
you, but and this is maybe a little
pet peeve of mine, is when I sit
down in elders quorum, I think oftentimes
it gets into a competition between who knows
best. Mhmm. And it what that does is
it
shuts down
the alternative
perspectives of other people. It shuts down conversations.
And the thing that's unique about this is
Google has done a massive study to find
out what makes their top performing teams top
performing. And they found one primary factor, and
it was psychological
safety. The belief that you could speak up
and take risk without fear of negative repercussions.
And that's only going to be possible
if those around us in that work environment
or that church environment
have open mindsets, that are willing to hear
new perspectives.
So there may be things that we don't
agree with
in the church, such as maybe same gender
attraction or homosexuality,
and it's it's not that we can't
take a stance on that topic, but are
you able to at least hear
from people that have an opposing point of
view? Just take in their ideas and explore
them. Again, not that we have to run
with them. Just try to understand
as opposed to
think my perspective is right and my perspective
is best. Right. Yeah. And let me let
another example is you've been talking
that came to mind that where you talk
about how our our religious culture can actually
stimulate a closed mindset than an open mindset,
which impacts our our leadership negatively, is, you
know, being a lay in a lay ministry,
let's say a new bishop gets called, and
maybe he hasn't had a ton of leadership
experience in the past. So so with the
best intentions, he wants to do a good
job. He doesn't wanna disappoint the stake president.
He doesn't wanna disappoint God, which is a
whole other podcast I've done. And,
you know, he just wants to do a
good job. And so what does he do
is he's like, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna
stick close to the handbook. Great. Awesome. Get
the handbook out. He's gonna read it pick
cover to cover, highlight, make some notes,
and constantly refer to that handbook. What happens
is that then the handbook, which again, I'm
in no way discouraging anybody from following the
handbook. Let me be clear. But what happens
is that as unique circumstances and perspectives
come into the discussion,
a lot of these things can't be found
in the handbook. Right? And so he
then be because it's risky to open the
mind a little bit to other ideas, he
then says, well, it's not in the handbook,
so therefore, it must not be important. So
therefore, I'm going to dismiss any ideas that
cannot be directly found in the handbook because
I just wanna do a good job. Right?
Suddenly, we're in a closed mindset
that it's hard to get out of because
you're constantly looking to the rules, the policies,
the procedures
for things that aren't even meant to be
explained there. Right? Yeah. And you're actually now
jumping into another set of mindsets.
Okay. And here. So it I'm dragging you
all over the place. Alright. No. This is
perfect. So this is a perfect segue because
what you're jumping into is the difference between
a prevention mindset and a promotion mindset. Right.
So when we have a prevent a prevention
mindset, our primary focus is on not losing.
When we have a promotion mindset, our primary
focus is on winning and gains. And to
explain the difference between these two mindsets,
I want us to imagine that we're a
ship captain in the middle of the ocean.
And if we're the ship captain and we
have a prevention mindset, our number one focus
is on not sinking.
Right. We don't want any problems to occur.
We just wanna maintain the status quo. In
other words, we don't wanna rock the boat.
We don't wanna take any risks.
So what happens when a storm comes on
the horizon and we're the ship captain
that's focused on not sinking? Well, we're gonna
run to a place of safety,
a port or a harbor
where we won't be, you might say, buffeted
by the winds and the storms in the
sea. And but we gotta ask ourselves,
is that the destination that we originally set
out for?
No. It's not.
Those who are have this prevention mindset, they
effectively become a life raft blown about by
the winds and the currents of the sea,
and they they end up in a destination
that they didn't decide because they're trying to
play it safe more than getting to a
destination.
And that's what a promotion mindset is, is
when we have a clear destination
and we're focused on making progress towards it.
Because when we have the storm come on
the horizon and we have this promotion mindset,
we ask ourselves,
does that storm stand between me and my
destination?
And if the answer is yes, then we
anticipate problems. We batten down the hatches, and
we become willing to take the risks to
brave the winds and the currents of the
sea in order to get to a destination
of our own proactive design.
Yeah. And so when we're focused on avoiding
problems,
we're kind of going the course of least
resistance, and we're not having the positive influence
that we can have. What truly our ideal
selves
want us to have.
We're not really making progress towards anything.
We're just avoiding problems, and the absence of
disease does not equal health.
Yeah. And I love you that you use
the term status quo because this is this
is something I I think about a lot
is the status quo where, like, this
most people would say, like, you think of
your that your word, wherever the word is,
and maybe you're in an outlier and it's,
you know, just out of this world successful
and you're breaking all sorts of records and
being written about in the end sign and
all these things. But if you think about
the stat what envision what the status quo
looks like in your ward, and oftentimes people
will say the status quo is not working,
but also
is not failing or it's also not creating
destruction. So maybe we're we'll just sort of
slowly inch our way out of the status
quo, but nobody inches their way out of
the status quo. So many times takes dynamic
vision
to push back on the status quo. And
this is going back to that handbook example
where we see the status quo is there,
but we're afraid to push on it because
that is risky. Right? What happens when I
push on it? What what are these social
desires are gonna be disrupted when I push
it? Maybe I'm gonna fail as a as
a leader. Maybe I'm gonna look wrong. Right?
And people will I'll lose trust with people,
or or maybe they'll just create more problems
when I push on the status quo. So
I'm just going to go with the flow.
Right? We're we're gonna make sure the church
is unlocked on on Sunday, and I call
this the, you know, the, all you do
as a leader is unlock the doors and
turn on the lights on Sunday, and that's
good. Right? So you just make sure you're
there every Sunday to do the status quo.
But then remarkable leadership happens when we push
back on the status quo, recognizing
there's some risk in doing that. And let's
I'm gonna touch on a little pet peeve
of mine within the church. And, I mean,
what is the typical sacrament meeting
talk topic?
General conference,
meetings. Right? Uh-huh. So essentially,
that's kinda become the norm. And is this
a prevention mindset, driven by a prevention mindset
or a promotion mindset?
Prevention. Right. It seems to me to be
a prevention because we're focused on if we're
talking about a general conference talk, we can't
go wrong. Yeah. It's it's safe. It's safe.
And our purpose by default becomes
essentially what's the purpose of our sacrament meeting?
To tell people what they should have listened
to in general conference. Like, what if we
were to,
as a leader, say what impact do we
want to have on our congregation
through our sacrament meetings?
And if we identify a destination,
feelings that we want to create, outcomes that
we want to create,
I imagine that selecting a general conference talk
is only one option of many options
that we can utilize
to create the positive outcomes that we want
to create with our sacrament.
Yeah. Does that make sense? Does that resonate?
Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it'd be such
a healthy exercise for every component of that
you experience in leadership. So it may be,
what are 10 risks we could take in
word council?
What are 10 risks that we could take
in sacrament meeting? And some people hear that.
In our conservative culture, they think, oh, like,
Ryan, I don't like where you're going with
this because this is where apostasy happens or
this is where, you know, false doctrine is
introduced. And, yeah, those are maybe some some
to me, okay, they're not risk.
We're cutting that out. I can't even believe
I brought that up. But but nonetheless, like,
that's where our our mind goes is like,
well, what if apostasy happens? Like, what if
we lead people astray? And so
to me to me, a lot of people
can't see
the potential
that could come from this. And let me
and to me, what the potential is is
that lives could be changed and brought into
Christ more effectively. And let me give you
an example of this.
We did a recording with Rob Ferrell, who
was a young single adult stake president,
and he talks about how he had all
these people come into his office. I mean,
all these people. I mean, a handful of
people over his time as stake president who
are in very, like had very
sketchy past. Like, when an individual had been
addicted to drugs, had been homeless, living on
the streets,
she had
gotten herself in involved with prostitution or to
sell I mean, just awful evil stuff. Right?
And
she she had this huge turnaround, came back
to the gospel, and she came to him
and said, I wanna serve a mission.
Now
that as a as a stake president, most
people would say,
I I love your desire. I appreciate it,
but it's just not gonna happen. I'm sorry.
Right? But instead, he took the approach of
pushing back on the status quo a little
bit,
and he's and there's some risk in that,
but he wrote up an exception
to the office of the first presidency, and
he said he got into a habit that
he was writing more exceptions for people than
just telling them no.
And what happened is through that exception, she
was granted the opportunity to serve a mission.
Right? And so you go back to, well,
I could have remained closed minded. I don't
wanna, like, I don't wanna be the guy
that's always writing letters to the first presidency
asking for exceptions. I don't wanna be the
guy that's pushing back on the handbook. It
clearly says in the handbook that these things
probably aren't a good idea. Right? But because
he did this, this individual
had a remarkable
experience.
So going back to and came, you know,
closer to Christ and sanctified and all these
things. So going back to the year of
sacrament example, like, what are some risks you
could take? Again, we're not saying, like, oh,
why don't we have
an atheist speak every other week? That'd be
risky. Like, no. There's some real ridiculous examples,
but what are some slight risks that we
could take that that are gonna push back
on the status quo? Because that is when
real leadership is demonstrated and lives are changed.
Right? Yeah. What we're talking about is the
difference between being comfort focused and being purpose
focused. Mhmm. And when we are purpose focused,
we just become intentional.
Right? So we're focused on creating
something,
whether that's certain feelings, certain experiences, whatever that
might be. We have a destination that we're
shooting for, and we become intentional
about getting there. When we don't have a
purpose,
when we don't have intentions, our default is
to just do
what is easy,
the status quo.
And now things get done, good things happen
there, but we've gotta ask ourselves, are we
having the positive
influence
that we want to have? And maybe even
at a deeper level, are we having the
positive influence
that God wants us to have while we're
in that position? Is
there's always this balance between
kind of, we've gotta stick to the handbook,
which again isn't a bad thing, but
but there's also the idea that God's empowering
us to do great things.
Like, Joseph Smith had to go out on
a limb
and try a wide variety of things before
he figured out what worked. Now we've got
a hundred you know, almost two hundred years
of experience
that we've figured out what works and what
doesn't, but at the same time, we've gotta
continually adapt. I think that's one of the
things that that we're seeing church leaders recognize.
President Nelson recognizes.
Look at all the change that has happened
or since he's became the prophet.
We he recognizes that
we've got to adapt if we wanna better
serve the spiritual,
emotional,
temporal needs of Latter day Saints. Yeah. And
and that's where I mean,
that's faith. Right? I mean, it's easy to
in our own personal lives to know that
God's gonna give us a situation where we're
gonna have to take some steps forward. There's
gonna be some risks. We're gonna have to
lean into that faith because that's how we
bless us. Like, that's the same thing in
our leadership experiences is we need to lean
into some of these risky behaviors.
Again, people can run with that, and I'll
get hate mail for it. But, hopefully, people
get the concept is we lean into that,
and that's where we find greater sanctification,
a deeper experience with the savior, a deeper
experience with the doctrines
of the gospel. And I'm glad that you
mentioned this term, like, purpose. Like, going back
to your being the captain of the ship,
like, you have to have, like,
a goal or
a vision in place of where we want
to land the ship.
Because if you don't, then it's harder to
have an open mind about because because you
don't know where you're going, so you might
as well just stay closed minded. Right? And
that's why I always harp so much on
creating and developing vision in organization. And that's
really in order to be if you wanna
be more open minded, set a dynamic vision,
and then that'll give you plenty of opportunity
to exercise
open mindedness so that we can figure out
how to get to that that place. Right?
Yeah. I think you're right. Yep. Awesome. And
I I wrote this down. I wanna highlight
it. We probably beat this horse enough, but
just this visual of a bucket. Right? And
realizing, like, how full is your bucket? And
it's so easy to take the bucket and
say, well, we have the handbook. You know,
we have authority and and,
we have life success and, you know, we
we have the scriptures and we can we're
good. Like, we don't need any anything more.
And we're just going to our buckets full.
We're going to continue forward. But figuring out
ways and again, to create space in the
bucket doesn't mean you have to remove the
handbook or remove the scriptures. You just have
to get a mindset where we have abundance
saying there's more room here to learn. And
what what can we what can we discover
there? Right? Yeah. I'm gonna draw upon,
some of my experience when I was a
Gallup consultant.
So if people aren't familiar with Gallup, Gallup
goes into organizations and assesses employee engagement and
works with those organizations to develop greater employee
engagement.
And the way that we define engagement
is
somebody who is emotionally connected to their job
or organization such that it's characterized by vigor,
dedication, and absorption.
So I think when in other words, we
want people converted.
We want people who are emotionally connected, that
are vigorous, dedicated, and absorbed. I think that
explains exactly
what we're hoping Latter day Saints to have
with their church experience.
And so I think one of the purposes
that we can focus on as church leaders
is creating
engagement
with Latter day Saints. Yeah. And now Gallup's
got this measure that's got 12 questions. It's
called the q 12. You can Google it.
And it identifies
different factors
that they found to drive engagement.
And I've known about these factors prior to
joining Gallup, but I always had the question,
okay. While I get these 12 are important,
are there certain
factors, maybe one or two, that are more
important than others for driving engagement?
And so as soon as I got my
hands on a decent amount of data, so
it's nine organizations, 60,000
employees,
I identified two factors
that are the most important for driving engagement.
So the number one factor
is an item that is my opinions count
at work. Now, if somebody could give a
five, meaning they strongly agreed to my opinions
count at work, or we could say my
opinions count at church,
95%
of them were engaged.
And this is in a database where only
30% of The US population is engaged.
So this is a slam dunk, if my
opinions count at church, I'm gonna be engaged.
The second factor is
an item that somebody at work, or we
could say at church, cares about me as
a person. And if somebody
couldn't strongly agree, meaning they gave a one
through four,
only 12%
of those people were engaged.
So what this means
that if we want members of our church
to be engaged, we've got to create
opportunities for their opinions to be heard, and
we've gotta make them feel like they are
loved and valued as a person.
Yeah. And I even even tweak the opinions
to, like, perspectives. Like, I just want when
I go to church, I want my perspective
to be considered and valued.
Yeah. And so one of the challenges that
I think that we have is now that
we've reduced down to a two hour church
windows, we now have less opportunities to have
our opinions heard and to be valued by
others. Yeah. And this is really problematic. So
historically,
I would say the typical approach
to,
let's just say, a Sunday school lesson or
a Relief Society or Elder's Quorum lesson is
I'm going to deliver you the information that
is in the manual or in this church
talk. Like, it's almost like I have the
flash drive of information, and I just wanna
plug it into you
so that you leave with this information.
But, unfortunately, that's just not
an engaging
situation for our church members because they don't
have the ability to have their opinions heard.
And it's really difficult for people who may
have, you might say, more liberal perspectives.
Is what happens if you have a perspective
that is different than the majority?
What is the likelihood that your voice is
going to be heard? And so if we're
a leader
and we want everybody
to come unto Christ to
be emotionally connected and converted to the gospel,
we as a leader have got to create
contexts and situations
in which that can occur.
Which, based upon research and these mindsets, we've
got to have an open mindset, open to
the ideas and suggestions of others, and we've
got to see others as people and value
them as such. And not as, you know,
objects that may get in our way because
they said something that may go against what
I personally believe.
Yeah. No. This I'm glad you brought up
this this concept of engagement because,
like, I mean, the statistics you share from
Gallup as far as, like, 30%
of the workforce
is engaged at work. Like, holy smokes. Imagine
what we could do as a country if
we were even half engaged. I mean, we're
seen as this powerhouse in in the world,
and there's so much more we could do
and draw upon. And then putting that into
church concept, it's easy as a leader to
sometimes get in this mode of, like, listen.
Like, the sacrament is the most important thing
for people to do when they come to
church, and I would agree with that. Right?
So we provide the sacrament. It's there.
And, great, they can come and do that.
But there's so many times I've even felt
this in my own church experience where I
sort of leave after the two hours, I
think, yeah. You know, I sat through Sunday
school, but I didn't give give an opportunity
to share. Or even if I was, I
didn't feel necessarily comfortable. Right? Psychological safety of
opening my mouth and saying anything. And so
I love this concept of by considering your
mindset, you can actually increase engagement
in your organization
by increasing people's voice and increasing their their
care. And, I mean, I just think of
a Sunday school presence sitting down, a Sunday
school presidency, and saying, okay. How can we
increase engagement? Alright. Listen to this crazy Ryan
guy, and he said it's through increasing their
voice and increasing how they that people feel
that they feel cared about. Yep. And so
how can we do that in Sunday school?
Wow. Let's talk with our teachers, and we're
we're gonna say no more lectures, no more
preparing all this stuff and, you know, dumping
it on on the class. What can you
do to stimulate relationships
in a Sunday school class? Do we need
to break up in rooms? Do we need
to have smaller classes? Do we need to
rotate who teaches more? Like, do we need
to have team teachers that teach together when
we like, there's so many, but these questions
are what stimulate the mind of creating engagement,
and it starts with that mindset. Right? Yep.
Awesome. Where are we going next? We've talked
about, the importance of purpose, engagements.
Anything else as far as, like I think
we've generally understood
mindsets and and really and maybe this is
another model. But as I read your book,
there's just this if I was to summarize
the mindset, it's like it's just the the
optimism versus pessimism or the the cup is
is half full, the bucket is half full,
and and there's an abundance mentality and just
maintaining positivity
and moving forward that way. Right? I mean,
that's the the general message.
Yeah. It's a general message, but it's a
little bit too oversimplified.
Like, I'm there with you. It it is
the general message, but here's what's really interesting.
So I have a personal mindset assessment. Anybody
could take it. It's on my website. It's
free. It's 20 questions,
and you can get your results of the
quality of your mindsets
across each of these four continuums
relative to about 10,000 other people who have
taken the assessment.
And what I found across this database is
a couple of things that I think are
really interesting. One
is that only five percent of all people
who have taken the assessment
are in the top quartile for all four
sets of these mindsets.
That means that most of us have work
to do with regards to our mindsets.
Even those of us who are trying our
best and think that our mindsets are really
good. Because, again, it's not you can't just
say, I'm gonna just have him maintain a
positive attitude because
because the best intentions don't mean that you're
open minded or that you're benefiting your organization.
Right? Yep. Exactly. The other thing that's really
interesting is
I expected there to be a correlation
across the positive mindset. So let's just say
if I'm more open minded, I'm gonna be
more likely to be growth minded.
And what we found is that it's actually
they're not very correlated.
That
it's almost equally likely to have somebody who
has a strong closed mindset to also have
a strong growth mindset
as opposed to somebody who's, you know, strong
growth and strong open.
And so what this means is that these
are very distinct and different lenses
that we are wearing.
And so when we say, you know, it's
cup is full versus cup is half empty,
it's more than just that because there's a
lot of complexity
across these mindsets that what we're bringing to
the table
is very unique to us, that truly our
mindsets are unique. And, again, it just doesn't
necessarily mean that they're the best. Gotcha. And
so my guess is if if we can
awaken to our mindsets so take the assessment,
awaken to our mindsets, We'll get some clarity
on where we can improve our mindsets to
have more of the positive influence that we
wanna have and become more of our ideal
selves. Yeah. That's great. Because because so going
back to that, that some may have a
closed mindset but a high growth
experience. So, like, you may have a bad
boss that's close minded,
but he's still really successful in this career.
Is that what you're talking about? Well, so
when we think about, like, let's just say
a growth mindset, this means that we believe
that we and others can improve our talents,
abilities, and intelligence.
Okay. And when we have that belief,
we look for opportunities
to learn and grow because we believe that
we can. And we don't see challenge and
failure as bad things.
So we can believe that we can learn
and grow,
but we can also still believe that what
I know is best.
Gotcha. And so so those are still the
same. Let me just talk about the fixed
mindset side. So if we don't believe that
we can learn and grow, we have a
tendency to think that people are who they
are and there's nothing we can do about
it. So we see the world in terms
of haves or have nots,
and we want to be seen as a
have. So when we have a fixed mindset,
when we encounter challenges, we're likely to back
away from them because we're afraid of failing.
And we see that if we fail, we're
gonna be seen as a have not.
And so those that with a fixed mindset,
their primary focus becomes on looking good
as opposed to actually learning and growing.
And this is really interesting because one of
the pieces of of research that has come
out from this that affects, I believe, church
leaders,
is that if we have a fixed mindset,
and roughly about half of the population has
a fixed mindset,
we are going to be less inclined
to develop
those that we work with. Whereas if we
have a growth mindset, we're gonna be more
inclined because we believe that they could change.
So as a leader, if we have a
fixed mindset,
we are going to unintentionally
avoid probably working with people that we deem
as have nots.
They're hopeless.
They're never going to change.
So we're gonna stop investing in them. Whereas
those with the growth mindset are gonna see,
these are people that I can work with
and develop. And so as you gave that
example of this woman who had, you know,
a checkered past, who then gained this
admission to go on a mission, it seems
pretty obviously
that this individual has more of a growth
mindset
because he believed that this person can change.
And, again, it's interesting because
50% of the population
tends to have more of a fixed mindset.
And I can see it, especially when you're
when you bring repentance into the mix.
If you have a a more of a
fixed mindset thinking people are as they are
and rarely do they ever change,
then you're not gonna bring much hope to
the conversation
even if you don't realize you're in that
state. Right? And even if you're yourself, if
I have a fixed mindset and I'm the
one who sinned,
like, I'm kinda stuck with this. Let me
give you another example of where I've seen
this play out in the church.
And this comes from when I was a
a sac or a Sunday school president.
And whenever we would have a gospel doctor
and teacher is gonna be out of town,
I would call up folks to ask to
sub the class.
And without fail, I had to talk to
at least
six people before I got a yes.
So I would call people up and say,
hey. I think you would do a great
job teaching in Sunday school. I think it
would be a great opportunity for you to
learn, but also contribute to the ward in
a way that you don't normally contribute.
And they would say, yeah, I'm just not
very comfortable
getting up in front of the Sunday school.
I just don't feel confident in myself.
And what is taking over in these situations
is a fixed mindset.
Because in those moments, these individuals
are more focused on how they are going
to look
than how much they are going to learn
and grow.
They're afraid that if they
get up there because they're not the expert
or
they don't have as much experience
I mean, this is a challenge for them.
And if we have a fixed mindset, we're
gonna back away from this challenge because we're
afraid of looking bad. Whereas those people that
have a growth mindset,
they're the ones that, yeah, I'll take it
on. I don't know what the heck I'm
doing, but I'll take it on because I
know that I will learn and grow as
a part of the process.
And so, you know, if you're listening to
this, which one are you? If you're invited
to do something,
are you the one that kind of, yeah,
I'm
a little leery. I'm not gonna I don't
feel comfortable doing this because it may make
me look bad. Or are you somebody that
says, bring it on
because this is a unique opportunity to stretch
myself?
And at play, I mean, both we ask
these two individuals who respond very differently,
are you doing the best that you can?
And I think both of them say yes.
But the reality is is that one is
going to learn, grow, and develop, and become
a better disciple of Jesus Christ
than the other because
they're less reluctant
to stretch themselves and put themselves out there
in a way that will help them to
learn and grow. Yeah. And then there's so
much, to dissect there, but it it's true
that, you know and, again, it's just sort
of being open to getting out of your
comfort zone because that's where the growth happens.
But in a doctrinal context, that's where the
sanctification
happens. That's where we actually
become more become more like our father in
heaven when we're when we're in these,
when we get out of our fixed mindset
saying, I'm not the person that does that.
I'm not I'm not a public speaker. You
know, I it's just not me, so I'd
rather not do that. And maybe it is
like, if someone was to throw me in
a van and take me to an airport
and say you're gonna skydive today, I'd probably
be like, no. Like, really, I'm not gonna
do that. And so it's really, like, as
a leader sort of finding that balance, like,
okay. Listen. You don't need to speak in
sacraman, but would you be open to teaching
the sun beams? Can we start there? Right?
And we wanna give you opportunities for growth.
Right? And so you're sure sort of trying
to find where to push enough, but not
too much where it just completely shuts them
off and and makes them retreat.
Yeah. Kurt, I don't know about your experience,
but here's the question that's popping in my
head as you're saying this. When does the
spirit kick in to help us out?
Does it kick in when we are confident
and comfortable
in doing what we're doing, Or does it
kick in when we're not confident and when
we're not comfortable?
That we get elevated by the spirit when
we put ourselves in those situations. And so
even let's go back to these four desires
on the negative side and versus the positive.
Desire to look good, be right,
avoid problems,
and get ahead. Do you think the spirit
is there when we have those desires?
I don't think so. I think the spirit
is there when we're focused on learning and
growing,
finding truth, reaching goals, and lifting others.
Yeah. And so at the end of the
day,
I think our mindsets
actually dictate
the degree to which we have interactions with
the spirit,
that we we get
uplifted
and strengthened and comforted
is when we are operating with these more
positive mindsets and have these more positive desires.
Yeah. And, again, I mean, you really wrote
a book about faith here, Ryan. I don't
know if you realize that. But, I mean,
just look at the grander scheme of things.
When we're done with this life and we
go back and meet our maker, and he
he says, you never leaned in anything. You
know, you never got out of that comfort
zone, and you haven't really changed much. You
know? And and
so, yeah, this is, you know, doctrines found
in all truth, obviously. And so there's so
much value in really analyzing,
one, on a personal level, how where's are
we of a fixed am am I of
a fixed mindset?
Or even on an organizational level, are we
of a fixed mindset or an open mindset
with with how we do things in the
world, or do we always play it safe?
Do I always have the activity that we've
done for years because that's just how we've
always done it. Right? And, but there's so
much growth could be happening as we push
against the status quo and and challenge ourselves
as individuals and as organizations.
Mhmm. Awesome.
So I wanted to, maybe we'll go here
at this point. As far like,
what do we do with the leader that
we we have that bishop that is so
close minded, I can barely show up to
church on Sunday. Like, I get these emails.
Right? So what do we do when we're
part of organization where the leadership isn't as
open minded as we or it doesn't have
the mindset
that we'd like them to have?
Yeah. Well, you give them one of my
books.
Okay. Perfect.
But
no. I think
this is something where one, you you mentioned
earlier. We've got to approach
them with the right mindset. We've got to
recognize that
they believe that what they're doing is best,
and that leads us to ask what is
going on in their life that is leading
them to believe that this is the best
way to live. Right? So if they are
being closed minded, they're feeling pressure
to be seen as right.
If they are
kind of comfort focused,
they may be receiving pressure
to want to avoid problems. They may have
a lot of demands outside of their current
leadership position that's causing them to have more
of this negative mindset.
So, one, we need to recognize that. And
then, two, once we can kinda recognize where
we're coming from, then it helps us identify
how do we
help them feel
greater safety
with regards to what they're experiencing.
And
and and if we can just approach them
with, okay.
I see where their negative mindset is. Let
me address
some of the issues that is causing that.
Let me dive into that, or let me
maybe present
some ideas in a way that
isn't going to rub that person in the
wrong way. So if they think that they're
right, or we've gotta stick by the handbook
and we don't necessarily agree that that's exactly
what the handbook says,
you know,
maybe push back on
why
just ask
what what's going on that's leading you to
just push back on this so firmly? I
wanna better understand where you're coming from.
And and, you know, I wanna be sensitive.
I think that you're doing a really great
thing here.
And so once we kinda just
acknowledge
their shoes
and where they're coming from, they will do
a better job of opening up to us.
Mhmm. Yeah. In fact, let me just recommend
a a quick book if if people are
interested in this. There's a book that's called
I hear you. It's written by Michael Sorensen,
and it's only $5 on Audible, so there's
really no reason for us not to get
it. And I will say it is the
book that has done more to improve my
emotional intelligence than any other book. Wow. And
it's just about how do you validate
other people's ideas? And essentially, this is what
we've been talking about with an open mindset.
How do you just take in ideas
without necessarily having to run with them or
even agree with them? Yeah. Because once people
feel heard,
that's what matters,
not that we run with their ideas.
And so the book is great about giving
us tools and ideas about how to help
other people to feel heard. Man, that's great.
Especially in a, like, a word council setting
or a council meeting setting, like because we
we wanna do that, but sometimes we don't
have the skill or ability to do that.
Right? Yep. So going back to question, the
more I thought about it, you know, throughout
reading this book, and I get these emails
sometimes, like and, again, I don't
I don't wanna shame these people by any
means. But if you are in a position
or if you are in a state of
mind
where you're asking themselves
that my leader is so close minded that
I am limited as an individual,
you are actually the person that's that's experiencing
a closed mindset. Right? And I get this
question all the time, like, you know, like
I mentioned, but and I have to remind
people, like,
do do you realize you actually don't need
a calling to do the vast majority of
things in your ward. I mean, if if
we get in this mindset of thinking, well,
if I was in charge or if if
I was the elders corp president, then I
do it differently. Why don't you just go
ahead and do it differently? Right? Who says
you can't make visits, or who says you
can't do a variety of different things to
reach out and make a difference in your
ward? When we get in this mindset that
only the leader can have an influence on
the ward, that's a very close mindset, and
you're limiting yourself from growth. Right? That's a
you're you're fixed in your mindset, and you're
you're limiting yourself from experiencing more. Right? Yeah.
I think so.
Cool.
What are we missing, Ryan, as we wrap
up here?
So
we've talked about these four different sets of
mindsets. We've talked about how we we range
on this continuum. These these different sets of
mindsets represent a continuum. So fixed to growth,
that's a continuum. We fall somewhere along that
range. It's unlikely that we're gonna be way
on the negative side or way on the
positive side. But then the question becomes,
okay, we identify
where we are, and we identify we have
room for improvement.
How do we go about making improvement? Then
becomes a question.
And what we've got to recognize
is that our mindsets really are neural connections
in our prefrontal cortex.
So we all have a closed mindset neural
connection, and we all have an open mindset
neural connection.
Which one we rely upon is the one
that is stronger
or more recently activated?
Because that'll fire louder
and quicker.
But the other neural connection that's softer
or not as strong is gonna be softer
and slower. Mhmm. And so when we think
about shifting our mindsets, what we've gotta do
is we've gotta activate and strengthen our more
positive mindset neuro connections.
And there's different things that we could do
for each of these
more positive mindsets, but they generally involve just
learning more about them. That's gonna activate them.
We can engage in
watching
short videos
or doing short journaling exercises. In fact, I've
got a book right by me here, it's
called The Five Minute Journal.
And I credit this book from helping me
shift from a prevention mindset to a promotion
mindset. Because every day, it invites me to
answer three questions in the morning. What are
three things that I'm grateful for? What are
three things that would make today great? And
fill in a couple of daily affirmations. So
I am fill in the blank. And as
I started to do this, particularly
the what would make today great, I was
exercising my promotion mindset neuroconnection.
Because what is the destination that I want
to arrive at, as opposed to what are
the problems I want to avoid? And as
I started to do this on a daily
basis, I kinda got into a competition with
myself. How do I make today better than
yesterday?
How do I make this week better than
last week? How do I make this month
better than last month? So that's just an
example
of an exercise that we can engage in
to help us to shift
to have more positive mindsets.
And so if we if we can be
more intentional
about this, and and if people take my
mindset assessment or read my book, they're gonna
get a whole host of recommendations
on different tools that they can utilize.
But just know that it is research suggests
that it's fairly easy to change our mindsets.
Research finds that watching a three minute video
will shift our mindsets for up to two
weeks. Now if we could stack these interventions
on top of each other, then we could
shift our mindsets to be more positive on
a more positive basis.
Yeah. And so what this means that's
some information for us personally as leaders or
really as disciples of Christ.
But if we're a leader of an organization,
what that means is we need to create
these positive interventions
for those that we lead.
How do we help them do a better
job of seeking truth
as opposed to
wanting to be seen as right? How do
we help people
focus on reaching goals, creating
positive outcomes as opposed to avoiding problems?
And I think we as leaders
are in a unique position to positively influence
people in those ways.
Yeah. My mind goes to, like, to increase
to improve your mindset, you have to improve
your mindfulness. Right? I mean, these these tactics
you describe are are meditative in principle. Right?
And I did an interview. I don't know
if you've read the book yet from a
desert book called The Power of Stillness, but
it's a it was a life changing book
for me, and this would play into that.
And I interviewed the authors. I don't know
if that'll be released before or after this,
but
just the the act of, like, slowing things
down. Right? And and take it back to
a a meeting context, like,
how can we slow that process down? It's
so easy to get into a room and
do the round robin or, oh, great. Who's
got the opening prayer? Alright. You shared the
spiritual thought. Alright. What's the first matter of
business? But just stopping
and slowing the process down, creating space
for our mind to process where our mindset
is and then getting there. And you talk
about these questions. I own one of those
journals as well. It's a powerful thing.
But questions finding right questions to start any
meeting or to start
any experience
anchors our mind and connects it with the
spirit or with our spirit, our soul,
and helps us move forward with a better
with the mindset which we ideally want to
act from. Right? And so I'm such powerful
such powerful
tools and tactics. So awesome. Well, so give
us just a a rundown. Sometimes I worry,
especially
when I talk to guys like you that
we get so far into the weeds. People
think like, well, that was a really good
episode, but I'm not sure why. I don't
know what to do next. So as we
wrap up, like, if what would you tell
someone who just wants to take the first
steps of being more mindful of their mind
mindset?
Yeah. I think the first step is really
I mean, it's an easy one. Go to
my website, take this mindset assessment. It's 20
questions. It's five minutes. It produces a really
comprehensive and individualized
report about your mindsets.
And it just is it's a self awakening
moment because, I think I mentioned this earlier,
90% of our thinking, feeling, judging, and acting
is driven by our nonconscious automatic processes.
And these nonconscious automatic processes are driven by
our mindsets.
And most of us just aren't conscious of
our mindsets, and we don't have labels for
these mindsets. So when we don't have labels,
we don't have anything to focus on. But
so let me just tell you a little
bit about my personal experience in terms of
my self development journey
as a disciple of Christ is
for most of my adult life, when I
would focus on becoming a better disciple of
Christ, I would primarily focus on behaviors.
What are things that I should do, or
what are things that I should not do
and avoid? But here's the problem, is if
we're focusing on behaviors trying to move those
forward, but our mindsets
stay the same, our mindsets will continually resist
the changes in behaviors that we're trying to
make.
But if we could push forward our mindsets,
naturally,
our thinking,
our learning, and our behavior will follow. It's
a more natural way of developing ourselves. And
if we think about this as a leader
who is ministering to others,
if we want them to improve their lives
in some ways,
rather than focus on here's all the things
that you need to do or not do,
what if we were to focus on mindsets
and get them to change their lenses?
Then they will naturally think, learn, and behave
better. So I think that we can be
more effective ourselves at becoming,
better disciples of Christ and helping others do
the same if we focus more on mindsets
and less on the do's and don'ts associated
with the gospel. Wow. That's powerful. And and
it's so I mean, there's so many examples
come to mind, but even, you know, when
we think about repentance, like, when we shift
the mindset from you've done something wrong and
you should feel really bad about this and
we gotta get this fixed to, oh, you
did something wrong in your learning. Like, what'd
you learn? Like, that's fantastic. How how did
you how did you develop as a disciple
of Christ? That's that's remarkable. You know, there's
and there's so much more there that we
can learn as we reflect on that. Well,
what does the Bible dictionary say repentances?
It's a change of mind and heart. Oh
my goodness. What is that? It's a mindset
shift. Yeah. We're just improving the lenses in
which we see the world, and that's repentance.
And because our mindsets are really foundational to
everything that we do, that's the heart
of change, personal,
organizational,
and that's really what repentance is, is changing
our mindsets.
Awesome. Well, Ryan, any any other principle that
you wanted to hit on before we wrap
up? No. I think we covered all of
them. That's like what I guess we didn't
get baptism in the holy ghost. Right. We
did. We did. We'll leave that for next
time. Cool. Well, this is, been so good.
And, you've mentioned your website a few times,
ryangodfordson.com,
that people can go to and take the
assessment there. Obviously, your book's available.
And and And if they go to my
website,
they can get, at least right now, and
this will change once the physical copy comes
out. But they could either buy the ebook
or the physical copy and then get the
audio version for free. And there's some other
webinars and resources. So if you go to
my website, you could get some a bunch
of freebies. So Yeah. I just try to
make it easy on people to to digest
the material. Yeah. And I just think, like,
what a fun activity and a revealing activity
to take the first part of word council
and say, we're all gonna take this mindset
analysis and see what we learn. Right? And,
man, what a great way to set your
word council off in the right direction. Alright.
Last question I have here, Ryan, is as
you have considered mindsets
and researched and analyzed and and reflected on
your own mindsets,
how has this process made you a better
follower of Jesus Christ?
I think we've touched a lot on that.
For me, it's really just changed, I think,
my
connection with God
and the spirit,
because as I'm focused more
on learning and growing,
finding truth, reaching goals, and lifting others,
I feel like I'm a better person, a
better disciple of Christ. I'm more of my
ideal self.
And I'm living less in fear,
and I'm living more in opportunity.
And so my hope, and I think that
that's the beauty of the gospel, is that
we free ourselves from our fears, our self
restraints. I think that's the purpose of the
atonement,
and and empowering us to become
really what God has meant us to become,
which is a great individual.
And I think a focus on mindsets has
really helped me
make a significant
transition to becoming more of what my Heavenly
Father wants me to be.
That concludes my interview with Ryan Godfreyson.
Please go check out this book. Pass around
your ward and your your friends do a
book club with success mindsets. It's such a
valuable information, and you really don't even have
to be a leader. Right? Like, whether you're
a parent, a husband, a wife, like, there's
so many applications to this book would fit
in because it's just about being a human
and having a brain and, dealing with the
the brain's
natural tendencies and overcoming those things that are
more negative. But such a phenomenal research book,
and I can't recommend it enough. I actually,
already left left a five star review on
Amazon, and I hope you'll do the same
once you, check it out. But I hope
you benefited from this conversation that I had
with Ryan.
And, again,
these are so they're kinda tricky at times
because I don't wanna come across saying that,
oh, yeah. You should go rogue and, you
know, stop looking at the handbook or don't
read your scriptures or do your own thing
or whatever. But, again, it's just leadership is
the
the routine of
finding the status quo and pushing back on
it, which is risky, but you'll like I
said, you'll discover deeper inspiration, revelation,
a deeper experience of and level of engagement
for those in your organization. So, anyways, I
hope it
it came we were clear in in what
we were stating and so forth, but really
a phenomenal book.
Go check it out. And that concludes this
throwback episode of the Leading Saints podcast.
Remember,
solve the burden of meetings by visiting leadingsaints.org/14
and getting fourteen days access to the Meetings
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library.
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.
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.