Welcome to Learned in Primary, where we discuss that everything we know we learned in primary. This podcast focuses on the things that we are learning as adults that remind us of what we learned as children growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Join hosts Jethro Jones and Tom Bay as they discuss the current hot topics in thought leadership and how they relate to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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In this episode we discuss “Love Leadership” by John Hope Bryant. This podcast is not affiliated with the author of the book or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jethro’s Takeaways

1. Loss Creates Leaders - “The storms of life offer an opportunity to respond in one of three ways to personal tragedy or loss: 1. You can give up. 2 You can try to cope using whatever dulls the pain most… 3. You can grow and create something useful out of your experience of loss. Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail pleads for relief from his afflictions. This is just one time he was persecuted, and the Lord’s response is so comforting:  

My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes. D&C 121:7–8

1. Fear Fails - “I’ve had a front-row seat for witnessing how fear destroys a community.” p 5. I looked up the phrase “fear not” in the Gospel Library app and found that that phrase was used 441 times. 249 times in the Old Testament, 85 times in the Book of Mormon, 76 times in the New Testament, 27 times in the Doctrine and Covenants, and 4 times in the Pearl of Great Price, so how about we don’t fear.

2. Love Makes Money - “For a teenager, I was making a lot of money, and I got loud and overly confident about my newfound success. Over time, I have always found this combination to be a warning sign of impending failure.” p. 76 The Pride Cycle on LDS.org

   Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity. Helaman 12:2

3. Vulnerability is Power - “Delivering bad news and admitting mistakes as soon as you become aware of them is one of the most powerful ways to show vulnerability…I find that bad news only gets worse if it’s left to drift on its own.” p 125 - #miracleofforgiveness

4. Giving is Getting - “If you want to have a prosperous, sustainable life, you’ll find it cheaper, smarter, and easier to do the work of love leadership. You will be better off in the long term if you inspire people, get them to believe in your vision, invest in them so they trust you, reward good behavior, build relationships. People will do the work they’re inspired to do rather than the work you force them to do.” p 157 - Why does our church not have paid ministers and still grow and be successful? Because we have a vision that is eternal and powerful.

Tom’s Takeaways

1. What is Love “Love, in the context of love leadership, is not the same as love for your life partner, love for your children, or even love for a big dish of chocolate ice cream. No, I refer to the agape definition of love found so frequently in the Bible: love meaning unconditional love for your neighbor, a love as powerful as humankind’s love for God. It means treating others as you want to be treated.” Matthew 7:12— Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
2. Christ Will Not Reject You “What is it that people fear? People fear themselves. You have to love yourself and know that God loves you as you are. And what is it that most of us fear? Most of us fear rejection. We fear the emptiness and anxiety in our lives, and so we’re always looking for affirmation, understanding, acceptance from others.” Religion frequently fails people here ^, but the true doctrine of Christ teaches this same thing. “I believe that the whole purpose of life is to become comfortable in your own skin.”
3. I Care About You By asking the other person about his or her family and children (and who doesn’t like talking about their children?) you send a message: I care about you, and I am interested in something beyond what I might get. From there I inquire about the person’s hobbies and interests beyond work, and ask my favorite question, “What are you passionate about?” Home Teaching; Ministering “Home Teaching: Stop Saying these Words”
4. Leaders Build Ladders “True leaders are ladder builders; they’re not ladder climbers,” he told me recently. “The ladder builder is always saying, ‘What can I do to help you? How would I make you successful?’ If you make your team successful, your team’s going to make you successful.”
5. Keep On Caring John C. Mellott, the former longtime publisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, we are living through a “crisis of virtues.” Our habits of moral goodness have eroded. And we are all to blame. After the riots of 1992 in Los Angeles, I ran into a wall of indifference that is at the heart of this crisis of virtues. The long-term response to this tragedy was not, as I had hoped, an increased effort in healing and building community; instead, we witnessed a growing collection of private gated communities, private schools, private cars, and private jets. Everyone went back to his or her life of instant gratification and the day-to-day business of “getting” and asking “What’s in it for me?” As a friend said to me, “indifference is the death knell of the soul.” Dallin H Oaks: “The gospel of Jesus Christ and the covenants we have made inevitably cast us as combatants in the eternal contest between truth and error. There is no middle ground in that contest.”

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Next month’s book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown