Let's be honest. Few humans enjoy meetings and many feel trapped in meetings. As leaders, we don't want to burden those we lead, but meetings can seem to do that more often than not. We wanted to address the pain of meetings through the meetings with Saints library. Here we have 15 plus presentations dedicated to improving the meetings we run. We have experts in the field addressing topics like getting people involved in meetings, staying on task, dealing with conflict in meetings, and a ton more. We'd love you to explore the full meetings with Saints library over 14 days at no cost to you. You can do this by visiting leading saints.org/14. That's leading saints.org/14. We'll also give you access to all of our virtual libraries that educate about other leadership topics. It's really good stuff. So visit leading saints.org/14 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 the Leading Saints podcast. My name is Kurt Frankem, your host, and you're awesome. Did you know that? You are awesome. And especially those who are here for the first time, I'm glad you found Leading Saints. Maybe somebody recommended it to you. You know, the best thing to do to share this, and maybe this is how somebody shared it with you, is just drop a link in an email, send it to somebody in your your board or in your in your stake or whomever who you think would benefit from listening to Leading Saints. And so many people say they found Leading Saints because somebody shared it with them. Now if you're new to Leading Saints, we are a nonprofit organization where we're dedicated to the mission of helping Latter day Saints be better prepared to lead, whether that's at church, at home, in your community, wherever, we want you to be an awesome leader. So that's why we have these fantastic conversations. This interview is with Deanna Murphy. Now Deanna Murphy probably doesn't even need an introduction because, she's been on the Leading Saints podcast countless times. If you have not taken the time to go back and listen to Deanna Murphy talk about whatever it is, she is so good and so connected. And she'll just speak to your soul as you listen to her. And this episode is definitely one of those where we talk about meetings, how to engage people in meetings, how to bring the best out of people in meetings, what we should consider about all the perspectives in the room and why it's so important to hear everybody's perspective in the room and maybe sometimes how we can miss that. So Deanna Murphy is awesome. We're gonna link to, her website and the remarkable thing she does as she travels the world world and teaches various people about leadership she's one to follow. So here's my interview with Deanna Murphy from the Meetings with Saints virtual summit. Today, we have, one of our favorite presenters who've been on the podcast and other venues, and that is Deanna Murphy. How are you, Deanna? Kurt, thanks for letting me have a chance to be with you again today. I'm doing great and excited to be at this audience today. Good. Well, every time I put any type of content or event or conference together, I'm always thinking, how can we get Deanna involved here? And so I'm so glad that you said yes, and I know that you'll have a lot to share with us. So maybe just if people maybe are aren't as familiar with the other interviews we've done or the content you've put together through Leading Saints, give us your background and and put yourself into context here. Well, thank you for that. I wanna say 1st and foremost, Kurt, my deepest desire and longing my whole life has just been to be a great mom. And so my heart comes from that place first, and I believe that my best leadership training has come in that arena. We have 3 children, and our oldest son was mauled by a bear when he was 14, and we got to help him coach through his recovery at an LDS scout camp of all things. And our second daughter was born disabled, and she got to help me retrain my eyes from thinking about people from external focus to who are they on the inside seeing that first. And our youngest son came off a snowboarding jump and had a a back injury and traumatic brain injury that, changed his whole life and, got in his way of some of the big goals that he plans. So first and foremost, I'm a mom. In my professional world, I've spent 25 years in organizational development. I'm an executive coach. I deliver leadership development training with a focus on interdependent leadership, which, as Latter day Saints, we get that right. That is, that's the heart of John 17. It's about synergy. It's about how do we become 1. How do our hearts get knit together in unity and love? How do we appreciate and celebrate people who are different from us when they push our buttons, when we don't understand them? And we help leaders do that in the work world and lift businesses in that way. So that's probably enough background. There's lots more to say, but that's probably the important things. Yeah. And I'm trying to remember, is it you're in, are you in Minnesota or Minnesota. Yeah. That's right. Minneapolis, Twin Cities area. Nice. And we were first introduced from, Wendy Ulrich connected us originally, and that led to our, just looking up here, our first interview we did was released in October of 2016, and you talked about mentoring relief site of presidents through love. And you talked about your experience being a stake relief site of president and how you connected with those ward relief site presence. Really powerful interview, which touches on the topics that we'll discuss as well today. And then second interview we did was creating engagement through ministering interviews where you, again, highlighted the some of these principles of 1 to 1 interviews in the context of this new effort of of ministering interviews. And so having a summit all about meetings, I wanted to maybe touch on these things again, and then also just talk about how to draw you have a a special skill set that you're very effective at teaching others as far as drawing out others in a meeting setting or a classroom setting. But really, you know, you think of word council, it's it's really just another teaching setting. Right? And but maybe more formally a council, which I, you know, I think we hope all of our, Sunday school classes are more of a council than a than, you know, a teacher student relationship. So where should we begin with all this, more as far as understanding the one to one interview dynamic of the one to one interview meetings and also word council meetings and those dynamics. Where should we go? Well, I'll tell you, it's an interesting, question that you ask, and I would name that if there's actually a principle in your question. So let's actually point to the question in terms of what it is that we're trying to accomplish together. Oh, yeah. Great great leaders, the first thing that they're they're doing, it's not just what is it that's, what is it that we're trying to accomplish, but what's important about it? And one of the things that I often see is that when we start a meeting, whether it's, it's a 1 on 1 or whether it's a word council, what's the purpose? Why are we here? What is it that we really want to have happen? And to establish that at the very beginning creates power, whether it's a Sunday school class or award council or a one to one. Maybe to give an example of that, Kurt, just because a story is somewhat powerful. Right now, my current assignment is that I teach 13 14 year olds. They're a rowdy bunch by nature. Right? They're kind of fun loving. They're not too serious yet. They haven't quite yet got into the depths of the gospel. And yet I'm watching these 13 14 year olds. They come in the door. The moment they sit down, and we we will we'll share something like this. Today, we are here for a very very sacred and specific purpose. We're here because the savior wants to speak to you. He's gonna speak to you today, and He's gonna teach you and you're gonna hear it here in your heart and He's gonna prepare you to help you to positively influence other people. And we're gonna be practicing how to do that in this class today, starting right now. Now I am astounded at how 13 and 14 year olds who are giggling and laughing come into Sunday school and almost instantly their hearts start looking for the Holy Ghost. So your question is great, and it's what's our deeper why? And maybe I'd ask you a question in return Yep. Which, by the way, is one of the things great leaders do. And I'd ask you, Kurt, of all the things you're trying to accomplish in your summit, given the needs of the people who are listening to us right now, what's the most important thing that you'd hope they would learn and they're longing to hear? That's fantastic. I'd probably say, you know, the most important thing is I just hope that people walk away from the summit with a deeper a deeper ability and a deeper motivation to to run a meeting. Right? Oftentimes, we sort of get in this this rat race of, well, we're supposed to have a word council because that's what the handbook says. We're supposed to have, you know, regular one to one interviews because that's what the handbook says. But what if we saw these as tools that we can draw upon to create unity, connection, deeper purpose, and and vision. Right? And, but sometimes, I think on paper, we all think, yeah. Of course, I wanna do that, but we don't know how to get there, or we lack the ability to do that. Right? So, hopefully, they'll they'll gain something from these sessions that will will better prepare them to do that. So notice what you just did is that we went from, hey. This summit's all about how to hold a meeting to, wait a minute. What's the real reason we meet? Yeah. If I might add to what you've said. So I love the words unity. That was one of the words you used. We meet to unify. Yeah. We meet to connect. We meet because it multiplies our resources together so that exponentially we can accomplish more. The words that are coming up for me as I'm listening to you, Kurt, come from doctrine and covenants 43, 89. And it's interesting because that's where the savior says that when we meet together, we're supposed to instruct and edify one another. I believe sometimes we misunderstand and misrepresent that teaching to mean instruct means I am to stand and tell you. Yeah. And notice what we are already doing, Kurt, is a bit of a model of what leaders do as they're empowering others. It is to first ask what is truly important here? What's our deeper why for coming together? Instruct and edify implies that we each hold a piece. No one holds all the pieces. I get that bishops and stake presidents and stake relief society presidents get special and sweet inspiration, and I understand that mantle well, at least to the stake relief society mantle. I don't know the other side of the equation, obviously, but I recognize the sacred revelation that comes in that calling, but it's not 360 degrees. You get a piece. And if our callings and our chance to meet together is to grow one another, he's growing Zion in us, and it's to become a model of how to knit our hearts together in unity and love, then when we meet together, the idea is that we are sharing unique perspectives, validating one another, adding to one another's perspectives so that we all become edified. And what I find is that when we do that well, the holy ghost begins to instruct each of us in very unique ways in our assignments, and I might get different revelation as I release the site of person that you might get as a bishop. And that's part of the the the brilliance of it and the promises that are there that as we as we meet in this way where we lift each other, we ask questions together, we multiply together, we become sanctified. We have our hearts bound together, like I'm thinking of Mosiah 18, our hearts knit together in unity and love, and that we know how to act in, carrying out his will. And I I'm grateful from that because I don't know about you, Kurt, but many times as a church leader or as a parent, I would go, I have no idea how to act here. I'm in over my head. I don't know what to do with a kiddo who's got a brain injury, or I don't know what to do with a Relief Society president who tells me I stopped praying 3 months ago. I don't know what to do, but I'm pretty sure that as we stay in that place of openness and curiosity and really try to understand the hearts of people and we invite them to share their perspective, then the spirit begins to teach us all. And that's part of the beauty of it. Right? Yeah. So And I've always appreciated you you you really took a deep dive into this, concept when you came out to Salt Lake for one of our live events. As far as this, like, 33 160 degrees where when we walk into these meetings or scenarios, like, just realizing we don't see all the perspectives, and the the people in there each have a different view and and perspective. And so, and being and and going back to, like, being curious and open, like, what you're doing is you're recognizing, I don't see it all, but they see something I don't see, and I can learn from that. So I'm gonna be in this state of owning what I do see and bringing it to the group, but also being open to the other perspectives in the room. Kurt, you've just named something. If, if we, if we were together, I would, for our audience, I would actually have a stand back to back. And I'd ask you, how far can you see before your peripheral vision ends? So If you put your arm straight out, you'll start to notice it's about equal to your shoulders, and then it starts to end. But if we're back to back, what happens is our hands will touch. And I can see to a certain point, and then you can see what I can't. There is a lot of research behind what I just named. And to offer a perspective, if you if you consider the 360 degrees of perspective and you envision that each strength has a unique view almost as though we're posed with a problem. Kurt, some people on your ward council, when they're posed with a problem, the first thing they're gonna think of is how will this affect people. It's very relational. Other people will say, I wonder what the root cause is that we should be considering so that we make sure we're operating from the root cause analysis. Someone else would be saying or thinking, I wonder what the most efficient and fast way to execute in resolving this would be. Each of them, none of them wrong. All of them uniquely different. Someone else might be thinking, I wonder what resources we could combine together and marshal to serve and solve this problem. Literally 4 different domains of strength, each with its own unique perspective. And on award council, I've I've really learned that every single person is going to bring a perspective that is entirely unique. 20 ish years ago, Don Clifton and Marcus Buckingham, the foremost researchers and strengths, identified about 350 different patterns of talent. That's really remarkable. Documented it with 2,000,000 different people on the books. And then mathematically, they started doing this factor analysis or correlation to say, are there some that are similar? And indeed, they found that was true. That's how the 34 themes of the Clifton StrengthsFinder were created. Mhmm. And so it's very interesting because there are in these within strikes, there we've got some strengths that are diametrically opposed. Well, I recognize I remember being a state Relief Society president when I would sit 1 on 1 with my state president. We were utterly back to back. Like, literally, he was looking at the opposite side of the equation. And sometimes I'd be listening to him and I'm going, he's talking English, but I don't even know what he means. And I'd feel confused, and then I'd feel scared or stupid or all the things that we do when we're listening, but we don't understand. And I didn't know how to communicate to him sometimes at the very beginning. We were both called at the same time. And so both of us are learning, and I'm learning how to communicate with him and he's learning how to communicate with with me. It took us about 2 years before we figured it out. About that time, it was time for me to be released, by the way. But over time, we we had to learn that we both saw different things. His way wasn't right and my way wasn't wrong. It was together we got more complete, and it helped us as we counseled together about some of the needs to be respectful that the questions that he was asking me, they weren't wrong. They were great. It's just that he was looking in a different place, and sometimes the things I would bring to him, they were important, but he didn't he he always didn't know how to integrate what I was bringing to that equation and so we got to learn together. We bumped along and we were super kind to each other and very forgiving as we found our way through it and we learned a lot and we've just become dear friends. I'm very, very grateful for them and and I feel like we learn together. I think a lot of times when we get into those roles and we feel misunderstood, we get our feelings hurt and we might make up stories about other people and they're judging or not judging us. And I just think there's something for us about recognizing all of us see and we don't see and when we start to grant ourselves first grace I had to give myself grace and go, Deanna, it's okay you've never been a state religious type person before. It's okay if you don't understand what to ask or what to share or what he needs. And, to grant myself grace allowed me to grant him grace. When I was self conscious and fearful that I was failing him, I became maybe more defensive, and I believe that's a very normal thing. And I could track my own defensiveness right back to my own uncertainty. Right? It's so easy to impose our negative feelings onto other people, and re in reality, I was scared at times because I didn't know. And for me to give myself grace and allow the savior's mercy to hold that I didn't know, I I I really fell in love with ether 12, which we often quote. We quote ether 1227 all the time. You know, I give unto men weakness that they may be humble, as in heavenly father gives us weakness just like he gives us strength, and it's not bad. We often don't quote ether 1237 that says because you've seen your weakness, you'll be made strong. Wow. I don't know that it's that I'll be made strong as in suddenly that weakness becomes my strength. But you know what happened? I never became like my state president, but I learned willing into him, and I became strong in him, and he became stronger in me. And we were more unified in the savior when we learned to appreciate each other's differences and to hold each other with grace when we didn't know. Yeah. So and I appreciate you bringing up that example of, you know, a stake release site president with a stake president and sort of the the different dynamics you can be happening there at the moment. And and when we because sometimes we'll go in and we don't realize that we're back to back. We just think the state presidency the state president is when one galaxy and I'm in the other, and why can't he see it like me when in reality, you're just seeing different parts of the same issue. Right? And we can sort of sometimes, we can default to we recognize, okay, the state president has keys. He has authority. So maybe I just need to back up and just try and get into his galaxy, whatever it is. Right? But when you realize that, no, you're actually standing back to back and you're seeing things differently, it really broadens that experience. Because I I would say people either do 2 things, generally speaking. They either get submissive, and they're just like, okay, like, whatever you say, you know, you're the leader, you know, you wanna do that, and you're thinking, okay, this is the craziest idea I've ever seen. Right? Or you get defensive, like, no. President, why aren't you seeing this? Or or or you go home and grumble to your spouse that, he's just in a different galaxy. Right? And so and any ideas as far as better approaching the that dynamic that you haven't mentioned? I love that you named it. And as I as I consider your question, I'm very aware, Kurt, that where you're pointing us, and I feel grateful for it, it is equally applicable at home with your spouse. Yep. This is true in your presidency with your counselors. And it's true when I'm listening to 14 year olds who are coming from another galaxy, literally, in Sunday school that the principle is always true. So let's just let's talk pragmatics. Let's talk tools. So if we were sitting down together, Kurt, and we were trying to counsel best let's imagine we're on a word council about where to start. There is always the the question that we started with today, what is truly important here today? What is the why for meeting? We and and getting alignment together around it. By the way, sometimes the leader will tell, I believe asking is more effective. I think it's a great way to invite people to consider what's important about meeting here today. And once we identify what's important, it might be that there are some goals that are identified, but let's not forget how we're gonna be together as we do that. Number 1, that we wanna make sure that there's always room for the savior. Number 2, that we're recognizing that we see things different, and we're getting curious about what we don't understand rather than feel, stupid, But is what our and it's very easy in our LDS culture where it's really easy to look at other people who seem so perfect. Right? And we are so not. And I can't tell you how many times in my leadership experiences, and I'm sure I speak with others on behalf of others who who are not so different, where I would go, if you only knew what was going on in my life, you would never want me to be your leader. Like, this I don't belong here because I'm aware of all of my imperfections and I'm aware that the savior has lifted me to a place that I don't feel like I belong in. There's always gonna be a little bit of that for us when we literally are being asked to stand in his footsteps. That's a little scary. Let's just name that that that reality. Yeah. So always starting with why, getting clear about what our goals are is important. When we get in and we start to talk and you recognize that somebody is speaking Greek, it is actually important to rather than go along with it. I think, I'd love to name that there are there are 3 or 4 important questions, and these are the same questions that we use when we teach, but they always help create clarity. One is either it's an asking or a sharing I'm noticing something. It's either what are you noticing with my 14 year olds when we're teaching them a new concept, they re diverse together. The first question is always, what are you noticing? What observations do you make? What seems to be what's the learning that's coming up for you since we last visited or whatever that is? There's always a chance to reflect on what you're seeing or noticing. Also, as a leader, sometimes I'm going to just simply reflect. I'm noticing, Kurt, that as we start, you've got a really a lot of possibilities from which we could choose. And therefore then my next question becomes, going back to how we started earlier, what is most important here to start to clarify? The next question that I believe is important is what's important about that? So if we're starting with a topic and we're trying to get some understanding about it, here's what we're gonna go toward, what's important about this, and what does it mean is the third question. If we're gonna talk about compassionate service for a sister in our ward who has some disability, what is, when we talk about compassionate service it's kind of funny but we throw these terms around all the time, Kurt, and we believe we're all on the same page. And I think it's important to stop and think about what what what do we mean when we say compassionate service? What is it that we're actually wanting to have happen? What are what is it that we want to create? And to get alignment around where we're trying to go and instead of boring down into the details of how we're going to get there when we're not really even aligned on what it is that we're after. I just think it's it's in life, in our 1 on 1 conversations, in our meetings, a lot of times that we're using terminology that means one thing to 1 person and something to someone else, and we haven't stopped the line around what it is. Yeah. And it gets creates a lot of misconceptions. So getting clear on what do we mean by that. And then I think to be able to say, now what do we do about it? That's that's really the next thing. So it's why, what, and how. Always why, what, and how. What's important first? What is it that we're going for? How do we get there? I would say it might be one more thing. It's, let's let's go to the place. There's one more thing coming up for me, Kurt, going back to your question. Let's go to the place where we're in dialogue, and all of a sudden, I'm having a recognition that I'm not cracking. Have you ever been in a meeting when that when when that's happened before, Kurt? Yes. Many times. What what do you so what do you do? So let let's just let's just go there for a second because I'd be curious in part because it might help us think about how we speak to other people who might have that same problem. So when you're not tracking in a meeting, what do you do? Like, when I I usually stay quiet because it's almost like my my ego doesn't want to reveal to the room that I'm completely confused, or I've been so off track for so long that if I bring it up now, like, they'll look at me like, what what planet have you been on? Right? And so the ego gets in the way where I I'll just stay quiet. That's what first comes to mind. Yeah. I would expect that that's probably true for a lot of people. Yeah. Most of us, when we don't know, we stay quiet, which just accelerates the confusion. I'd love to offer a perspective, Kurt. I wonder if especially discerning leaders, leaders who have the spirit of discernment, which I believe a lot of Ephraimites do. Yeah. What if the confusion that you're experiencing is actually the spirit of discernment prompting you to notice that others in the room are also confused? Yeah. Right. And when you get out of me and we go, okay. Alright. I'm noticing that I'm experiencing some confusion and I'm noticing that it would help me. So I noticed my language curt. Notice that there's a way that we can tell on ourselves that doesn't make us dumb. I'm noticing that I might feel a little confused around what you mean when you say this And notice that that may actually be a reflection of what others in the room are feeling, and there may be other people around you who go, oh, thank you. Right. And I've been that person that said, oh, thank you many times. Right? I'm so glad they raised their hand because I'm exactly where they're at. Well, it's the point that you're making, Curtis, to back up at the beginning because oftentimes when we start a a meeting, we're talking about why we're here and what's important. There is a space that I've noticed in teams that seem to function best, and I don't I don't know that this wouldn't work for ward councils. I would would use this both with my Stake Relief Society presidency and in other presences I've been part of, both as a counselor and a president, asked for this. And, in my 1 on 1 meetings, it's something we do in coaching, and it's about designing the relationship. Now that might sound really formal in a very simple way of saying it's, let's just agree about how we're gonna be together. What are some of the things that will just help us be together so that we can all feel confident and and safe about sharing? Often, teams that have that conversation overtly, they mitigate a lot of the confusion that you're talking about, Kurt, and they get people who feel uncertain rather than holding back because we've discussed in agreement ahead of time how we're gonna be together, then then the judgment isn't there. There's an interesting thing to just speak to the business world for a moment. Google did a really interesting study to examine top performing teams, and their findings would be equally true for word councils because the number one thing that created high performing teams, cohesive, agile, able to make and execute decisions quickly, was psychological safety. Yeah. And just remember when we come in as Latter day Saints, and I'm just thinking about again, my own experiences, but over the years when we were navigating our challenges at home or, you know, our son's injury and he was struggling as he you know, depression and anxiety that was interfering with his ability to serve a mission and other things, and we're just thinking, I don't belong here. I'm not a model. What looks like at home doesn't look like a model of perfect perfectness or whatever the things that we've got going in the background, we actually create our own unsafe feelings. We bring them to the meeting. The beliefs I have about myself, I carry into the meeting, and it interferes. I will never forget, and I I would probably echo every sister who is listening to this. There is nothing more intimidating in all the universe than to be one of 3 sisters in the room with 15 brothers in their suits and white shirts and their priesthood keys and their amazingness, and and we're supposed to represent the fair gender and all the perspective of women. And I remember sitting next to the state primary president, state young women president, and all 3 of us are we're not sure who should hide behind whom. Right? Yeah. And I, you know, there's a little bit of that at the word level, but I do think that there's just a way that when we bring our fears and insecurities to a meeting, what happens is it interferes. Fear interferes with our ability to experience oneness. Yeah. And it's my opinion, so I'm gonna share a perspective about our covenants that relate to this. It's almost as though before we go to those situations, the law of sacrifice isn't just my time, talents, or means. It's will I put down my judgment? Will I put down my fear? Will I let go of my false beliefs about myself and other people and show up authentically in service? Now I think most of us want to say yes to that and I recognize that all of us, every single one of us, come with our fears and we bring those to the meeting and then that interferes then with our ability to experience unity. And so in many ways, one of the first things is to simply, as a leader when you name that, look, I recognize that for all of us we have our our feeling of confidence about being a leader and we also have our fears about being a leader and and here we're gonna trust that we've got each other and the saver's got what we don't have. And so whatever you say here is gonna be valued and no one's gonna judge it and will you all agree to that? So when I look at the teams that have the highest level of performance, they have a no judgment zone overtly spoken and invited, and people operate from it and allows for people to have more safety and sharing. Number 2, it is the the second agreement that I see high performing teams and relationships have. It is everybody bring your puzzle piece. It is I'm back to back with you, and if I don't share my puzzle piece with Kurt, there's a 180 degrees missing. In a room full of 10 or 12 people, each of us have one puzzle piece. The state president doesn't have more puzzle pieces than the rest of us. He's got one piece. And my sweet state president, Jeff Kerr, I just love him so much, and he knew how much he needed to invite other people in. And he worked really hard to invite people into the equation by asking really good questions, by hearing them, by repeating back what he heard. It sounds like you're saying this. It sounds like what's important about this is this, and allowing people to feel validated and heard. He was so good about that. It's so important. The last puzzle piece is what we call confident vulnerability, and it's exactly what we're describing. It's the confidence that God has empowered each of us with something unique and special. We can see it. He's also given all of us weakness just like he gave us strengths. And strengths don't make you good and weakness doesn't make you bad, make you human. And when I recognize that my weakness is someone else's gift to shine, to feel valuable, to feel like they matter, and I give them room, I speak up and say, I'm noticing that there's something here that is a little unclear to me. I wonder what the rest of you think about the meaning of this or how this relates, and you give people a space. And I've yet to have anybody walk away from that and go, well, you were such an idiot because you asked that. I was like, wow. Because people around you who have the chance to then give are lifted up because I was willing to show my hand. Yeah. And and I would imagine, like, just that you know, you talk about creating space and and and walking into a meeting. I think it's natural to feel like, okay, I have a perspective. I have a voice here. I wanted to be heard, and maybe I do feel safe, to to speak up and say it. But instead of saying, I have a perspective and I sort of wanna win people over to my perspective, walking in there and saying, we're all different pieces to the solution. So how can we work together to identify our piece, not so that we win and and shape everybody else's piece like mine, but so that we can start putting a a broader vision and purpose together? Wow, Kurt. That is that's a really loaded question. It's a great question. So I'm betting that there are other people out there wanting to go, what is my piece? First, let me give you I'll just give you a statistic for those who love numbers and understanding the answer to this. It actually validates why your question is so important, Kurt. So going back to this idea that there there are patterns of talent that you could mathematically identify. And over the years, I've I've spent 20 years, so over 2,000 hours of coaching and strengths coaching with people. And what I've discovered is that most people really play to about 8 to 10 strengths pretty solidly, and then they've got another 5 or 6 or 7 that they can pull from that are a little less. The chances, Kurt, that you have the same top ten strengths as anybody else on the planet in the same order. Are you ready for this? So this is based on 34 themes of talent. 1 in 476,000,000,000,000. And there's not there's not a trillion people on the on the planet. Right? Well what have they come? There's a 120,000,000,000 people born since Adam and Eve. So the thing that's important, though so just to validate the importance of your question, it's I don't know if you'll remember. Neil Anderson gave this really awesome conference talk about 2 or 3 years ago and there was a graphic, it's so beautiful, and I'm just I'm picturing it in my mind and it's the graphic of the world and every person was a puzzle piece and he said each of us are puzzle pieces and each of us help put other puzzle pieces in place. Now when I hold my puzzle piece back, Kurt, what it means is the person whose puzzle piece is adjacent to mine can't see where to lay their puzzle piece down. They don't know. Yeah. My holding back means that other people around me also feel inclined to hold back. Yeah. Now I'm not suggesting that putting my puzzle piece down needs to be about me and my vision because I believe when we start to lift ourselves out of our fear, our minds go from me to we. Yeah. And when we go to we, then sometimes my puzzle piece might be asking questions to help other people clarify the puzzle pieces that are around them. And what do I have to bring? Now let's go to to answering, how do I find out what my puzzle piece is? I think there there are a couple of things that Aportio can do. So here's the easy one. Here's the first one. First one is sit down with someone who cares about you, and you're gonna ask them to ask you some questions. And this is the question, which is the first question. Tell me about a time when you made a difference. When was it and what did you do? And by the way, I love to ask this question and I I and and then isolate it to a time period. Tell me about a time you made a difference when you were a little child. And I I think most people could probably find a time when something they did mattered. Tell me about a time you made a difference when you were a teenager. What was it and what did you do? Tell me about a time when you were a young adult that you made a difference and you start to go through the timeline of your life and you start to tell stories. And if someone's listening, writing it down, here's what I'll bet. I'll put money on it. You're gonna find that there's a pattern. There almost always is. That there's a pattern about how we make a difference and our pattern goes all the way back to our childhood because we spent 10000 years before we came here developing these talents and we brought them to earth with us. And as a little child, if you look back, I can look back, I was coaching my younger brothers and sisters, I'm the oldest of 10, when I was 7. My mom had some difficulty with bipolar disorder. I read her like a book when I was a child and I cared so much about her and my family that I pulled them together and I coached them into how we would mitigate that. I was a little tiny kid and we all have these gifts, and we've brought them with us. We've practiced them for years. And so when you start to tell stories over time, and you have someone who will simply listen and write down what you're saying and reflect back, it sounds like what you said is this, it sounds like what's important to do with this, And you start to tell 3 to 5 stories. By the time you get through 5 stories, you're gonna see some patterns. Now if you take StrengthsFinder 2.0, my favorite strengths assessment on the planet, what you're gonna find is that when you go and get your StrengthsFinder results, I'll put money on the fact that you can take your StrengthsFinder results and hold them up to your stories and go, oh, yeah. There's my strength called empathy right there. There's my strength called connectedness right there. And you could put the strength back into the story and go, oh, yeah. I've been using that since I was a little kid. Now I think a strengths assessment's lovely. When I've, I've done some work with the missionaries in the Ogden North Mission a few years back, and one of the things that, that I saw there was the use of their patriarchal blessing in the context of their strengths results. I believe that the next piece is once you've got stories, if you've got a formal assessment tool, and then if you've got as I'm thinking about your patriarchal blessing and you start to go, how do those things weave together? And then I could go, the spirit of discernment was true for me when I was a little girl. I could discern. I didn't know what I was doing, but that spirit of discernment was there. And when you start to give language, then you begin to realize when I come to a meeting, my particular contribution may not be that I'm going to offer brilliant solutions, but what I might offer is good questions. And I might help link these 2 disparate ideas together because I listen very carefully and help that person understand that that person is saying something completely different, but if you put them together, you've got the solution. And so I've learned that when I go into a room, I don't have to be at all all of it. I just have to be the little thing I was born to be, and my job is then to magnify other people's puzzle pieces so they can play well too. And then when you know it, then you just show up who you are and stop trying to be what you're not. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I I love this this whole analogy as far as the puzzle pieces because it the the, I mean, a puzzle piece implies that it's not complete. Right? And so oftentimes, as leaders, it's easy to sorta maybe you're, you know, you're called as a as a bishop, and you think, okay, it's my turn to present my vision and do it my way. And but when we see it, like, no, we only bring one piece just like everybody else brings one piece. It's never about this is about my vision, or this is what how I wanna see things done, and I'm in the chair now. Right? And so you bring that to the group, say and it just stimulates this perspective of curiosity, of of I wanna I wanna put these together. Let's see how they fit. Right? And that stimulates such a more effective meeting or culture in general. Right? Well, what you just said is really important and here's a perspective I'd I'd love to add to where you're looking because the idea of a puzzle piece to your what you're saying about puzzle piece is so important that if I can let go that I don't have to have everything, I just put my puzzle piece out knowing that it might stimulate someone else. I'm thinking again back to scripture and John 17 and the the the great intercessory prayer that they may be 1 is thou, Father, art of me, and I in thee. And then he goes on to say that they may become perfect in 1. And you think about the Greek meaning of the word as perfect as whole and complete. And it's okay that right now, you and I, we help each other become more whole through the savior. And, you know, again, it's, without speaking of sacred things outside of sacred places, but it's it's the experience that we have in the temple of feeling our ability to magnify one another, to strengthen each other, and living and honoring our covenants, and that it's okay that I am not all, and I don't know it all, and I'm not able to do it all, and it's so great that I've got a bishop or a state president or a young woman president who they're figuring out who they are through the work that they're doing with and that we're doing together. Yeah. If we can we can recognize that one of our purposes in meeting, it's not just to meet the the needs of the people out there, the ward, the state, the whomever, that our first purpose is that we lift one another. That we serve us so we can serve others, that when we come into that meeting with the mindset that we magnify one another just the way the savior magnifies us. And as we magnify each other, we find the solutions we need to serve those that we're called to serve. It's it's a different mindset because we we come into those meetings with a hunger to be able to serve those we've been called to serve, but we might want to remember that it's just like what Elder Holland said about missionaries. The first conversion is for the missionary. The first service is the missionary to their companion. We are no different than my first service if I'm in a 1 on 1 with my state president is to him. Yeah. It's to lift him. That when he leaves, he's stronger as a state president because we've met. Yeah. You know? And when we start to serve each other that way, everything's possible. Everything's possible. Yeah. And I love that just that perspective because there's so much empathy in that state of mind, right, when you because I mean, I and I get the like, I get the emails from people that think, you know, my leader is just a train wreck. You won't believe this guy or whatever it is. But when you realize, well, he's just sort of still discovering what his piece is. And I'm and maybe the the goal isn't to have a perfect leader in organizations, and maybe that's why we do have lay ministries, you know, lay leadership is because it stimulates more of an opportunity for that person to discover who they are. And so the best way I can serve him isn't to encourage him to, you know, come around and and get on board here, but instead be open to the process that that leader is going through even though it may end up that our board isn't a perfect reward in the long run, and that's okay. Right? It's part of the sanctifying process. Well, a couple of things that come up for me when you say that, Kurt, it feels super important to just say when we're back to back and you might even be making me crazy, by the way, for back to back because when you're speaking, I don't understand. I could feel triggered because I don't understand. We've mentioned that before. And yet there's this place that when I begin to get curious and not judgmental, unconditional curiosity is, by the way, the antidote to all judgment of self and others. And so when I go get curious about what you mean and what's important about what you're sharing and try to understand it, I begin to see God in you. Yeah. So when I understand my own strengths, our strengths are just pieces of our heavenly father and heavenly mother's DNA in us. When I begin to see them, I see him in me. Therefore, it's harder for me to be afraid because if he is in me, even though I don't know and even though I'm undeveloped, I know that he is part of what of this equation, this imperfect, and yet to not fully develop equation. When I see that in you, so when I get curious about what makes what's different and I begin to see God in you, something sacred happens. When I look at you with an appreciative lens instead of a fearful lens, something happens. And again, I I mentioned this earlier, I I believe the law of sacrifice asks us, what will I put down so that I can be fully available to love with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength? That's charity, that's consecration. And it isn't just time, talents, and money. Will I let go of my judgment? Will I let go of my belief that I'm not enough? Will I let go of my fear that somebody might judge me if I say I don't know what's going on or I don't understand? And I I believe that's the law of sacrifice, and I believe that the law of the gospel, that doctrine of Christ, that anchoring in with savior, eyes on him. D and C 6 that tells us, hey, I don't condemn you. You know, just go your way and sin no more, and whatever you sow, you'll also reap. Look unto me in every thought, not not figure out those important messages. Look. You don't know everything. It's okay that you don't know. In fact, D and C 6 is one of the most beautiful gifts to all of us because it's where the city reminds us you had a gift. It's sacred. It comes from above. It's important. Yeah. And that leads me to the question of, you know, as far as, like because you mentioned this earlier as far as, you know, stop bringing your fears and insecurities into some of these meeting dynamics. But, I mean, how do we even because that makes sense on paper, but what does that look like? Like, how do we do that when because fears and insecurities can be can just consume us. I mean, and identify us in ways. I mean, that's the adversary leverages those things. So every day, all day. Right? And so how do we begin to let go of those things? Like, what processes can we go to through to actually let go? You know, it's interesting because we paused at the doctrine of Christ, and you think about repentance is a change of mind. It's a fresh view of God or yourself or the world. That's what the Bible dictionary says. Direct quote. It comes from a Greek word that means a change of mind or fresh view of God or oneself or the world. And so I I'm gonna give you one of my very favorite coaching tools. Are you ready? So for those of you who are listening, you could write this down because I have worked with so many people and have found that when you start to ask these questions and you ask them in this order, it's like you you take a walk into the sacred chambers of someone's heart. And you go with them, and you love them while they go there, and they're able to identify and flip it around. And so the tool that I'm about to introduce to you, we call it the c shifter tool Okay. Because it can the way you see. Okay? So the first question is this, and I might name something, by the way. I think, we have to allow ourselves and tune in. Like, there's a way that we can begin to discern. The savior never uses fear as a tool to motivate. That is not his style. He uses love. And so our negative emotions are great feedback mechanisms to tell us that we're holding a belief that's a lie. When we're holding negative beliefs, the feeling will be, as DNC 9739 says, we'll feel confused. Mhmm. Okay? So using our negative emotions, when we stop and check-in, when I first started doing this with myself, I actually every time I would take a drink, I would use water as a reminder to stop and just do it scanned beyond where are you right now? Because we get trained to live in our fear, and we get really good at it. And you're right that I think, especially with latter day saints, Satan is an expert at using fear as a driving force in the way that we operate. So if we're gonna undo that, we have to become aware of when we're being driven by fear. So negative emotion is the indicator that you're holding a lie. Okay? So then the fastest way out of it is to ask yourself a series of questions, and here's what they are. Are you ready? Number 1. What's the story I'm telling myself right now? Now, to use an example so we can make this real, I was 23 years old when our little disabled daughter was placed in our arms. We were at BYU. We had no money. We had a 2 year old son, and they tell us, mister and missus Murphy, she's gonna be severely mentally retarded. She'll never walk. That was the words. And I, watched her suffer excruciatingly for the next 3 months in the hospital. And every time she suffered, I suffered with her. I began we wanted to have another child, and I began researching, what caused spina bifida so that we could eliminate it. And that led me to a conclusion that I had caused her disability, my ignorance. There were things that I didn't know that I could have avoided, things I could have done to prevent, and I didn't do any of it. And so I held a belief that led me to clinical depression for 8 years, and the belief was I have paused her suffering. And she will never have a normal life, and it's my fault. And so this by the way, this tool was born when she was 8 years old in the hospital where they had to break her legs and her hips and ankles and rotate her bone bones outward and reattach them because she can flip her feet all the way back around. Wow. She was suffering so excruciatingly, and I've been suffering for years with her. And the savior in his kindness asked me these questions. This is where it came from. Diana, what's the story you're telling yourself right now? I I'm causing this. For 3 days, I just held her in my arms because she cried every time she woke up. And I began to realize that I had been telling myself this story that this was my fault. I'd caused it. 2nd question is if you keep telling yourself this story, where will it lead you? Well, I knew the answer to that question because I had spent 8 years in clinical depression and had gone I'd had some counseling. I was actually almost suicidal at different times because I would get so depressed believing that my family was better off, without me talking about confident vulnerability, right, to share that here. And so you ask yourself, what's the what's the impact if I keep thinking like this? What's the end of the story? And then we'll ask this question, and this is where it begins to change. So what would the new ending look like if I were to write a new ending to this story? And I remember the spirit inviting me to consider, like, what if this is a gift? What if this wasn't an accident that you caused? What if there's a way that I intended to bring more joy than you could ever imagine into your life through this gift? And what would the new ending look like? And maybe for the first time in my life, instead of seeing the loss of her never marrying, never having children, not being able to go to school, not being able to make the kind of contributions that you want and envision and dream for your children, I began to imagine that she would be giving some of the gifts that were hard to show up. So that 3rd day, she looked up at my eyes and saw my pain, and she tried to make me laugh. She tried to ease my hurt. I was hurting because she was hurting, and she wanted to help me. And I began to wonder what would happen if she could take that compassion and give it to the world. Who could she bless? Whose life might be different? And all of a sudden, I saw what was happening with an appreciative lens. What's the new ending? The new ending is she could have a great life. She could still bring joy to people. She could still have an impact. And the thing that we ask next, so this isn't such a global thing, is, okay, what would be one step that you could take to move towards that new ending? And for me, the the step was simple. Every day, notice one thing that I could appreciate about her. So instead of looking at her through a deficit lens and go, this is my broken kiddo. I caused this. I could go, look at what she did today. Notice that she made this tiny little step and begin to appreciate it. Okay. So what is one commitment you will make to begin to move toward the new ending? And I I'm just gonna share with you that that simple cool, it not only flipped the story on its ear, it actually opened up the door to what I'm doing right now because I had a meeting not 3 months after that with the special ed director. It was the toughest meeting that we'd ever had with the school district, and I wasn't working. I had a master's degree in psychology, and I had a a 3 year old in preschool. And I I didn't wanna have a career because I had these kids with these needs. But, you know, I it was a tough meeting, and we came out of that meeting. And he said, Diana, I have been through 100 of these meetings. I've never seen what just happened. I can't believe how you came alongside us. You helped us to see what your needs are. You listened to us so well. Can you help other parents? Can you help them do what you did here today? And can you help us work with parents so that we can collaborate instead of fight with them? And that was my first job, and I don't believe I would have ever got it. And it ended up that Mandy and her disability created my career. And I I've been I work in 32 countries. I I mean, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people that have experienced more content, and it started with that tool. That's powerful. And so, so it begins with that that first question is, what's the story I'm telling myself? And then you said is did you say what's the better ending, or what's the second Yeah. Second question is if I keep telling myself this story, where will it take me? Like, it's letting yourself follow through and notice and not in a shameful way, but to just go, oh, you know, I'm kinda tired of doing clinical depression. I'm tired every day of hating my life and feeling like I'm failing as a parent. I don't think this is gonna get me anywhere good. And then the next question is, what's a new ending? It never occurred to me that I could change the ending to the story. I just thought the story was what it was. You see, here's one of the things we teach leaders, and it's equally applicable here. It's not what happens to us, Kurt, that informs how we feel, what we do, or what we get. It's how we choose to see. This is why repentance is so important. Repentance isn't just for sin. Repentance is teaching us how to align our view with the way the savior sees. And I did not understand until that moment that he sent her to me as one of his kindest gifts. He intended to bring me more joy than I would ever find if I would have had a healthy daughter. And, she she knows that, actually, and she takes great pride. She tells me that she's grateful for her disability. She knows every time that I fly off to the Philippines or somewhere that she's the reason I'm going to serve people on the other side of the world. She knows that, and I let her know all the time. I just think there's a way that when we understand the covenants that we have made to this degree, we realize that we can bury our own weapons of war and our deepest weapons are the ones who create ourselves through fear. When we bring fear into meanings, we interfere with our ability to edify and lift and find unity in the savior. Yeah. And we can't have our hearts knit together in unity and love when you have fear. You used the word empathy, Curt. Empathy is just another way for saying charity. Yeah. Charity is empathy. Empathy is charity. Yeah. That's powerful. And really, you know, just just recognize just I think the process of recognizing some of these fears and insecurities, and then just asking that first question, like, why am I telling these stories? Like, where does this come from? And just that exercise alone, I think, will will get them so far, you know, away from these fears and anxieties and really analyze, because they may be one they may have certain fears and anxieties at work that maybe never show up at church, and then they have certain fears and anxieties that show up at church when they're you've been called as a police society president, whatever it is. And so just looking at them and and sitting with them a while and and trying to understand them so that you can then figure out how to remove them. Right. What you just said is so important, and by the way, I've used this tool with Relief Society presidents in my 1 on ones. Mhmm. We all have fears, and this is a tool that you can use with yourself and take it to prayer even. It's, sometimes we have a hard time identifying the story. Maybe I'll be a little personal and share something with you as we are speaking about this because you're asking how do we let go of fears? And it is interesting that so, it was about a little over 10 years ago that I, would walk in the trees. Northern Minnesota is so beautiful. It's fall, the leaf coming down, and I'm noticing the dark the dark rich soil beneath my feet and the the great life that grew from it and found myself asking reached crying out, father, what needs to come down in my life so new life can come? And I will never forget the spirit's answer. It was Deanna. Give me your fear. Give me all of it because you cannot concentrate yourself fully to me when part of your heart is dedicated storing fear. You have not given your fear to me, Deanna. That part of your heart you've held back, And I've paid for everything that you're afraid of. I've paid for everything that's hurting inside there, and if you'll give it to me, I'll take you to places you've never been. And I went, I'm scared. I don't know I don't know how to give up my fear. And it was he was so kind because he be that's where he he really began to teach me because I started asking him. And I wanted to understand, how can I give up my fear so that I can bet be a better servant? And one of the things just I'll just share flat out that there was a time where he just canceled with me. Diana, write down the stories from your life and ask yourself the stories from your life where you have got pain, sadness that is not yet resolved. And with each of those stories, write down what you believed because of what happened. And I discovered, Kurt, I had a bunch of stories I wrote for pages and pages, but I discovered that all those stories all had the same three beliefs. And I'll never forget the day that I went to the temple with those beliefs, and he helped me sort through and cherish the lessons and give up the lies and walk away from those beliefs forever. And it was the beginning of turning over the storage containers in my heart because I had them and we all have them. And I didn't realize I he was teaching me, like, if you imagine your heart's like a court jar. Let's I I recognize it's not finite, but let's just use that for an example. Yeah. Imagine you've had a lot of pain or fear that you haven't resolved. It's kind of like if you think about that you're holding that as storage, it means that you're operating out of one very tiny percentage, and the rest of it is being held in storage. And when we give up the storage, then all of that is available energetically to love and serve people. And I he was teaching me that principle of why he's still holding all my fears. And teaching me, Dan, if you'll give me your fear, I will free up more room for you to love and find joy, and he is absolutely right. And I found that with each lie that I held and one of them I'll just give you an example because lots of us have it. My value equals my performance. As latter day saints, we have a version of that. My value equals the callings I get called to. My value equals if my sons go on missions and my children marry in the temple. My value equals my ability to live everything that the church teaches perfectly and have everybody believe that that's true. I I mean, on and on and on. Like, I'm I so it's so ridiculous when you say it out loud, but there's a way that in our heads because the world teaches us to equate our value outside of ourselves, and we do not I think we struggle to understand intrinsic value, value that's not related. Like, I don't get more value because I am a state release study present than I do as a Sunday school teacher. I can get a Sunday school teacher. It's way easier. I like that way better. Take that one anytime. But you you don't you don't get more value because you're you're living better or because your children do something better. And the world teaches us to think like that, and it gets in our way. And then we cut we compare our our value meter to somebody else's value meter, like like, it can go up and down like the slot mark and you create it creates fear. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, that that's a tangent. I didn't mean to go off on it, but I And I appreciate sort of this this, wormhole we've gone down a little bit because, you know, when people wanna learn about meetings, it's easy to, you know, default to the things like, well, here's a a cool agenda format you can use, and here's how to set up the chairs or whatever. But how many times do we walk into a word council or to a one one to one meeting or or any type of meeting and say, what are the stories that each individual walked in here with? And if I'm gonna create a a atmosphere that's that's safe where they can bring things up and bring it out, like, they first have to deal with those stories or else I mean, there's nothing there or there's nothing I can do. There's not cool some cool tactic that's gonna solve all that. Right? And so, creating that safety, you know, encouraging people to say, you know, what stories are you telling yourself, and and what can we do to help you figure out your your infinite value and the value that you bring to this meeting. Right? And I think that's just a dynamic we never take time to consider, and I'm glad we're doing it here. Well, it's interesting that you went there because you realize that this is directly tied to what we're up to in the doctrine of Christ. This is what the doctrine of Christ is about. It isn't just that we turn from our sin. It's we turn from our fear. We turn from our judgment because the fear and the judgment actually hold us back from consecration. And I would say it would be more like, sins of omission usually than sins of commission, but I do believe it's still, it still affects it still affects us. It feels a bit like there's a need for us to summarize because we've we've gone, a little bit in a roundabout conversational way, which is something I always love with you, but it feels important for our listeners to say, okay. What what are let's let's tie it up in a bow. So we've we've identified a couple of really important principles. Number 1, that when people are aligned around a shared purpose and they've had a chance to weigh in on the purpose, it actually helps them come more fully to the meeting. Having clear goals is important. That's obvious. The one thing that's less obvious is to stop and say, how are we gonna be together? In our Sunday school class, we've brought those three agreements that I named. We all agreed to have a no judgment zone. We all agree to bring your puzzle piece. We all agree to just know and not know. Confident vulnerability. Be confident about what you are, be okay with who you're not, and then we constantly validate each other. An example of how powerful that is right now, we've gotten our 76 class little girl. She's 14. Just moved to the United States from, the Honduras. She doesn't speak English very well, and I'm astounded both at her willingness to share. She speaks in Spanish. We have the, my fellow teacher is, speaks Spanish fluently. So she'll translate for her, and the rest of the class is so kind and encouraging of her, and it makes her feel welcome and willing, and these agreements have helped people play. I think there's something around making sure that we've got clear agreements around why, what, and how. I also believe that there is this element, where every time we've got an agenda that there's room for us to explore a gospel topic, and one gospel topic is we're we're talking about repentance here in a different way than most of us ever think about it. It's having a change of mind or fresh view of yourself. It's recognizing the lives that we believe that get in our way of fully finding joy and unity and being together. It's recognizing that individually, I can tackle that, but boy, you know what? As a leader, you can also invite it. I'll never forget a Sunday school class about 4 months ago where I invited them on a Post it note. Write down your biggest fear. Put it on a Post it note. And then I asked them to post it. So share with the whole class. So because we have a lot of safety, they were willing to do it. And each of them put their Post it note out there. You know what 60 60% of that class said? I don't think I'll ever be good enough to go home and live with my heavenly father again, and I'm really sad about that. Now I needed to know that. I really needed to know that because then as I go administer 1 on 1 with them and even though I'm just a Sunday school teacher, I don't wanna say just a Sunday school teacher because I feel really honored to be a Sunday school teacher. I go to their homes, and I do 1 on ones just like I did when I was a state relief society president with my relief society presidents. And I go sit with those kids, and I invite their parents to sit in on because some of these parents have never seen a one on one before. Yeah. Some of them don't know how to do it. Yeah. And so I have a one on one with their child and invite them to be present and help that young person recognize their gifts, recognize their testimony and their growth, and challenge them in very specific ways to grow themselves spiritually. And I'm having some of the most sacred experiences, including with a young man whose mother just died about 4 months ago, and his father's not a member of the church. And having one of the sweetest and most sacred ministry and experiences when I went to that young man's home, and I started off by asking his dad, what is something you love about your son, Eric? What is the quality or strength or characteristic you really value? And we started right there. And then turning to Eric and saying, Eric, what do you love about coming to Sunday school every week and starting off by sharing when have I felt the savior's love? And then to have Eric describe what it's like for him to think about and remember the savior's love. And then his dad's crying, and the spirit is so strong. And these opportunities that we have to be with one another and strengthen one another, they're so sacred. And the savior needs us to be magnifying each other and to not be afraid and to just show up with love. And I I believe, meetings are just another way of ministering, loving each other the way the savior would. And if we showed up at every meeting believing I've come to love everybody here, I'm gonna help love them. And, I didn't figure that out at the beginning of my being sickly sad because I figured out by the time I was released, but I really see it better now. Every meeting is just a chance for us to love each other. And when we do that, fear goes away, and there is no room for it in the room, and the spirit just fills up the space. Yeah. This is, so powerful. I love that. And, you know, speaking of 1 to 1 meetings, you know, because you early on in this, you talked about as far as, like, establishing the purpose, what's the why of meeting today? And I'm putting that in the context of 1 to 1 meetings. I think we oftentimes miss that because I would imagine, you know, you think about a ministering interview. I would guess, on average, the number one question that's asked first is, how are your families doing? Right? But imagine if we sat down together and said, what's the purpose of us meeting today? And and it's not at at most and, hopefully, they don't say, or if they do, you know, you have some work to do, they'll probably say, well, we're supposed to meet. That's just this is what we're we've been asked to do. Right? But, I mean, fine asking that question with no preconceived answer or that I'm gonna tell you why we're meeting, but just seeing how they respond. And, I mean, there's so much purpose and meaning and can come from just starting with that question of asking 1 to 1, why do you think we're meeting today? Yeah. You know, I had a really sweet experience. I was on the receiving end, a couple weeks ago of ministering interviews with our Relief Society presidency, and they set it up like tithing settlement. And they had all members of the Relief Society presidency in the corners of the gym running meetings at the same time. We all had to sign up for times, and I was blown away by the sweet counselor who sat across from me. And she said, we're here today because I wanna make sure that we're meeting your needs, that we're understanding the challenges that you're facing, and that we're able to just to do a better job of coming alongside side and support you. And we really care about you. How are you doing? How are you doing, Deanna? And I'm thinking, how many times have I asked someone else? It's the first time in years that anybody just asked me that. And I felt so loved in that moment. That just starting with that simple thing, she didn't ask me what I thought my purpose was, but she did share we're here today because we want to make sure we're loving you. Great. We'll talk about your families, but we're here today because we want to love you, and we want to understand what your needs are. And it was really special. Yeah. I think we don't I think a lot of us go through our lives and we give and give and give and give and we don't feel or know if it even matters. In that tiny little moment for 15 minutes as I sat with that counselor, I knew I was loved. And I knew that the work that I was doing with these sweet little ladies, which nobody ever sees, I don't know, matter to God, matter to her. Yeah. And I I just think that, again, the purpose of our meeting is to love each other. That's what it is. It's we stand we stand in the savior's stead, and we just love them for a moment with his hands and his eyes and his voice. And, boy, if we if we had that mindset every time we started a meeting, we would we wouldn't go very far along, and we sure wouldn't get caught in fear. Yeah. So, Deanna, as we wrap up, I just a few things that stood out to me. One was just that, you know, bringing that question to the one to one meetings, I think, is so powerful. And then, you know, your list of questions as far as what are you noticing, what's important about that, what does it mean, and what what are we gonna do about it? Is that or is that accurate? Yeah. I I love that first question as far as what are you noticing. And just from our interactions, I've used that several times, you know, in a teaching scenario, especially when a scripture is read or something, because I'm it's so easy to passive aggressively sort of guide the class to a certain place. But when that power that question of what did you notice about that, it, like, removes that preconceived or that the game of guess what the teachers thinking dynamic that isn't helpful. And it really just opens it up and say, no. I really wanna know what you noticed about it. Not what you think I noticed about it, but what you noticed about it. And and bringing that into a meeting context can really stimulate some great discussion rather than trying to figure out what the bishop is thinking, you know. I wanna say what the bishops think. It's a funny thing to say, Kurt, and I'll just I'll I'll echo something I said to you 4 years ago that a great meeting doesn't start when the meeting starts. The great meeting started, 6 days ago or 7 days ago when I read my scriptures in the morning before the day went, and I started mentally preparing. What I've learned is that great needs, especially conducted in a gospel perspective, begin in our scripture study. And I have I am astounded at how many times a need came up in a ministering conversation or a presidency meeting or a stake council meeting where the answer to the question was something that I studied in my scriptures earlier that week. And so when you when the scriptures become part of every meeting, then those questions become even more relevant because now we're discussing something. All of a sudden, it's like, oh, wait a minute. Let's flip open to DNC 4389. Let's read it together. Let's ask a question. What impressions come to your heart? What do you notice? A lot of times so with my 14 year olds, for example, since we're sort of weaving a little teaching into this, before we read a scripture, I always say now listen. The Holy Ghost wants to speak to you right now. You have to be listening. So as we read, we're gonna read it together as a class, and then we're gonna I'm gonna ask you to read it again, and I want you to listen for the Holy Ghost. When when you feel an idea or a word or phrase that jumps out at you, just share it with us. And when we when we prompt people to prepare for revelation, they do. Because most of the time, we don't hear because our minds are too busy. And when we slow down and we point people, look for and listen for what impressions come up. And when you feel them in our meeting today, please just share them because the Holy Ghost is gonna teach you different things than he's going to teach me if I'm leading this meeting. So you have full permission when you have an impression to please raise your hand. Even if you're confused, please raise your hand because you might be feeling something that someone else is experiencing and we need help here, so please bring what you have. And I've learned people will do people will do it if they design them. So designing people is really it's important and and helping people get clear about what their roles are, and they can show up with confidence. Yeah. I mean and I think generally we all agree that, like, I mean, questions are powerful, but when you have the right questions, it's amazing the difference. I mean, that's a 10 x difference that the right question can make just as far other than just asking questions in general. Right? Really drill down to what the right question is. So it's important. It feels important to me to add to what you're saying because we also get paralyzed by worrying about what the right question is. So a couple of guidelines to help you know what the right question is is just start a question with what or how or when. Don't use the why question and don't ask yes or no. So right questions are gonna be any what, how, or when question. When have you felt the spirit? What is your most important observation from the last week? Or when have you felt the savior's love most recently? That's my question we always start with. How does that feel when you experience that? What does that mean to you? I teach people also that if you let the person's answer drive your next question, you will go right into their heart. So they say, well, I felt the savior's love this last week when I was listening to this is one of my kids. He always says, my brother, my brother who's a missionary, I felt the spirit when we got to listen to him on Friday. And my next question is, what is important about that, Grace? And, well, what's important is that I can feel the spirit testifying to me that he's on he's on the Lord's work. And I can feel the spirit prompting me that I need to prepare. How do you need to prepare, Grayson? I need to be reading my scriptures more. It's so it's amazing. So you let the question drive the next the answer to the question drive the next question. And what happens is, Pete, you walk right into people's hearts, right where the holy ghost is, where the holy ghost starts to magnify what's happening. Beautiful. Yeah. I love that. Walk right into their hearts. So these these questions, it's it's it's true. Well, I have one more question for you, Deanna. But, if people want to get in touch with you or learn more about your business, I know you have a great book, that you've written. Where would you send people to, learn more about you? Yeah. The answer is www.peopleacuity.com, and acuity is a word that means seen with clarity. Right? So if you get your eyes tested, you're learning to see with acuity. So people acuity.com is our website. Also on LinkedIn. And to be honest, like, anytime I have a Latter day Saint who reaches out to me and says, hey. I'm struggling. You got 30 minutes. My answer is always yes. And, I just I feel really driven to we're here to grow people prepared to meet the savior. That's what president Nelson said in his last conference talk. We have sisters, and I just believe we have to live each other and help each other. So I'm I'm willing to talk to anybody. That's a scary thing to say because I know that there are lots of people that might be listening to this. But, if you're stuck, send me an email. It's dmurphy@peopleacuity.com. Dmurphy@peopleacuity.com. Send me an email. Kurt, we also have a children's book out, that I've authored with Dave Bowman called choose to see you. It's out on Desert Book and a neat little book about some of the things we're talking about. It's children how to dispel the doubts and fears that come into their minds and see themselves for who they truly are. And, we'll have another book coming out later in the year about interdependent leadership, so good things happening. Well, cool. Well, as we wrap up and just imagine being in front of the room full of bishops or leave site presidents and elders, all sorts of people that are tasked with holding meetings. What encouragement what final encouragement would you give to them as they, venture off into the world of meetings? That's an easy one, Kurt, is I would say to you and to them, you have been prepared 10000 years for the mission that you're on right now. And while you may have questions or concerns or worries about doing it right, your spirit knows and remembers. And when you turn to the savior and you let other people help you, the answers that you need will emerge and you'll have everything that you need. And, just be willing to lean into the spirit and lean into each other, and you've got what you need. You're valuable. You matter. You're important. And God needs you to bring your personal peace and to not be afraid. Give him your fears, and he'll help you. So I think that's what I'd say because we've got it, Kurt. We we were friends before we came here. We coveted to help him at this time and we've got to bring we've got to bring the people prepared for the savior ready ready for him. He needs to come back and I got a little disabled girl who's waiting to be healed and I can't wait for him to come back. So I'm gonna be in line. That concludes my interview with Deanna Murphy. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed that conversation. We'd love to hear from you about your questions or thoughts or comments. You can either leave a comment on the, post related to this episode at leading saints.org or go to leading saints.org/contact and send us your perspective or questions. If there's other episodes or topics you'd like to hear on the Leading Saints podcast, go to leading saints.org/contact and share with us the information there. And we would love for you to share this with any individual you think this would apply to, especially maybe individuals in your ward council or other leaders that you may know who would really appreciate the perspectives that we discussed. And that concludes this throwback episode of the Leading Saints podcast. Remember, solve the burden of meetings by visiting leading saints.org/14 and getting 14 days access to the Meetings with Saints virtual 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. And when the declaration was made concerning the own and 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.