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.

Transcript is available below.

Links

Dan's 21st book, The Art of Significance

Dan's BYU Devotional Address

Book: The New Drug

DanClark.com

 

Interview Transcript:

Kurt Francom (LS): I had the opportunity to be be invited to Dan Clark's home and— how are you Dan?

Dan Clark (DC): I’m great Kurt. How are you, Bishop?

LS:Good. Well, you know I appreciate— you've been kind of on my bucket list of interviews for a while and I think my first initial introduction to you was when (remove the I)you gave a devotional address at BYU and I think I'd probably been familiar with some of your work before, but that was sort of one of those moments I was like, “Wait, that guy is Mormon?” [laughter] So— and I really enjoyed them and I thought, “I've got to track him down and see if I can interview him,” and we randomly ran into each other at an event and I said, “Hey! Would you mind if I interviewed you?” and you were so gracious to say, “Yeah, come on over and we'll do it,” so I appreciate that.

DC:Oh thanks, you just— your comment reminds me of my mentor, Zig Ziegler- he used to always say, “If somebody has to ask if you are a Christian, you must be doing something wrong,” so I apologize that you didn't know that I was a Mormon. [laughter]

LS: Obviously I didn't have too much experience with you to make a moral judgement on your background but ...

DC: On on funny note, I'm a public speaker so I'm usually on a huge stage. Most of my audiences are about four to ten thousand folks and there is always kind of like a follow spot . Back in the day I used to have the craziest comments. People would come up and go, “Are you a Mormon?” and I'd just look and them and smile, and I'd say something like, “Why, do I glow?” and they would say, “Oh no, I saw your garment mark on your suit pants,” and I'm like, “Are you serious?” That's just funny.

LS: Well, all the way from the top tier and they can pick you out?

DC: Oh yeah, that's funny, so— proud to be Mormon, proud to be a Latter-day Saint.

LS: Nice, now many people may know you as an author. You've written twenty one books, right?