Hank Smith: 00:00 Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 00:03 When I think about disruption, which I talk about frequently, this idea of personal disruption, I describe it when I’m in the workplace as a deliberate process of self innovation. So I’ll say that again. Disruption is a deliberate process of self innovation. You’re choosing to rewire your brain. You’re stepping back from who you are currently into who you can be, but if you really pull it down to its studs, what is that? That’s repentance.

Hank Smith: 00:35 Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my co-host, John Bytheway, who I will describe thus, with a cheerful heart and countenance, not with much laughter, this is a sin, but with a glad heart. So John, there’s part of that that is really accurate, a cheerful heart and countenance, not with much laughter for this is a sin. I think that means mocking people, John, and you don’t do that. You don’t do that.

John Bytheway: 01:04 We may need to talk about that part. Yeah, I think a lot of people might have a question about that part.

Hank Smith: 01:09 I hope that doesn’t come up at my judgment. John, we are joined today by our friend Whitney Johnson. Whitney, thank you for being here.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 01:17 Happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 01:18 We are excited to have you. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. John and I have known Whitney from our days speaking on the road a long time ago, but now we speak on the road, but we stay home. Kind of an odd thing that we do. John, section 58 and 59. We’re finally in Missouri. Tell me what you think of.

John Bytheway: 01:38 I know Hank, one of your favorite topics is expectations that are not met and they walk in, this is Zion! This is, this is Zion? This is the place, it’s kinda like in Salt Lake. That’s part of this whole backdrop is what were we expecting and what did we get?

Hank Smith: 01:56 You are right on there, John. The Lord knows because very first right out he says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s talk about what’s going to happen here. Yeah. Whitney, as you’ve prepared this, what do you want to do today? What are we going to learn?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 02:10 I really like the idea of picking up on the expectations. I want to share with you a framework around learning and growth that I think will be very useful in thinking about the experience that they had in Independence. I also want to share with you some thoughts that I have around repentance using personal disruption, so a framework of disruption and how I think about change in a secular environment, but then compare it to what we’ve got in terms of our spiritual sphere. I want to talk a little bit about the experience that Edward Partridge had, his calling and what, how he felt so deeply inadequate, and I want to talk a little bit about that experience and how that applies to us.

Hank Smith: 02:54 This is set up to be a perfect episode, and I love these two sections. Now, you and I both know Whitney, can you introduce her? We have quite a guest this week.

John Bytheway: 03:05 Yes, we do. Hank, I thought I knew Whitney and I saw the bio and went, wow. And then I got really excited because I thought I have to ask her about this. Whitney graduated from BYU in music and served a mission in Uruguay, and I just have to stop because my son Timothy is in Montevideo West Mission as we speak. You know.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 03:25 Oh, wonderful. Of course, when I was there, it was one mission. It was all of Uruguay.

John Bytheway: 03:31 Yeah.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 03:32 What a beautiful place.

John Bytheway: 03:33 Yeah. Recently just announced in General Conference a temple and was it Rivera?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 03:38 Yeah, in Rivera Uruguay.

John Bytheway: 03:40 Very exciting. Now there’s something else I’d love to talk to you about. Whitney is one of the leading management thinkers in the world. She’s the CEO and Co-founder of Disruption Advisors. She actually founded this disruption innovation fund with Clayton Christensen. Now, is that the same Clayton Christensen who wrote The Power of Everyday Missionaries?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 04:02 One and the same? I had the privilege of working with him for about 10 years.

John Bytheway: 04:08 Oh, it was really cool. The first time I saw Clayton Christensen, I went, wow. He looks a lot like Elliot Christensen, who was one of my young men’s leaders when I was a kid, and it’s his brother. This is too much fun. She has a Disrupt Yourself podcast. Her guests have included Simon Sinek and Brene Brown. She lives in Lexington, Virginia. Her husband is a professor at SVU and they serve in a YSA stake. They have two children in the process of launching. I love that phrase. They enjoy watching K Dramas. I saw your bio and I thought, what is a K drama?

Hank Smith: 04:48 John, you don’t know.

John Bytheway: 04:50 I don’t know.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 04:52 So during the Pandemic, because there was nothing to watch on television. My daughter said, Hey mom, let’s watch this Korean drama. We watched it. It turns out that we watched one and then we watched another one, and then we watched another one. There are just great stories, great character arc development. It’s what we do as a family. It’s not Hallmark. It’s better than Hallmark.

Hank Smith: 05:16 It is. It’s better than Hallmark. John, I can’t believe you haven’t heard this.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 05:19 You are missing out!

John Bytheway: 05:20 No, I didn’t know they were K Dramas. I did know there was this, yeah, this thing with these Korean dry, I didn’t know they were K Dramas and I drive a Hyundai. Okay, I gotta go on.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 05:30 There you go.

John Bytheway: 05:31 Now, my favorite part here is that her family loves growing raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and making homemade jam. When you get to the celestial kingdom, I hope to be there. They’re going to say, welcome. Here’s a bowl of raspberries. Because I think raspberries are just celestial fruit. They taste so good, don’t they?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 05:50 They do.

Hank Smith: 05:51 And you might as well throw a little ice cream on them. Right?

John Bytheway: 05:54 Oh, Whitney, thanks for being with us today.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 05:58 Happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 06:00 Aw, wonderful. Now I just have to throw in a quick personal note, Whitney, that you’re out there at SVU. That has a piece of my heart out there. You would think it would be called Buena Vista, Virginia. It is not. It is Buena Vista, Virginia It is one of my favorite places. I just need to do a shout out to the Knight family, Glade, Kathleen and Megan, who’s my age. We were pen pals when we were kids. I love SVU. There is a spirit of place that is unmatched really anywhere else.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 06:33 It really is. It’s a very special place. When you’re here. Almost everybody who’s here feels like they’ve been called to be here. Just like had a spiritual impression of I need to live in this city. I need to be affiliated with this university. And now we have President Cordon who was the former Young Women’s General President as the president of the university. It’s amazing.

Hank Smith: 06:52 When I think of it I often quote John Denver, he’s a general authority. John, I don’t know if you know Elder, Elder Denver.

John Bytheway: 06:59 Elder Denver.

Hank Smith: 07:00 Yeah, Elder Denver.

John Bytheway: 07:02 Where’s he from? Just kidding.

Hank Smith: 07:03 He said in one of his songs, he’s going home to a place he’d never been before and that honestly, I went out there, just graduated from high school. That’s how I would describe it, going home to a place I’d never been before.

John Bytheway: 07:17 When Matthew, my son Matthew, went on his mission to Charleston, West Virginia. My wife cranked the stereo in the Sequoia, driving to the MTC singing almost heaven, West Virginia at the top of our lungs on eighth North I was getting a little teary. I’m getting old, so I had a hard time singing along. That’s the Charleston West Virginia mission, but one of his areas was at SVU. Matthew served there and he would text me on P-day, Hey dad. We had lunch with Robert Millett today. We’re like, what? That’d be fun. I’d like to have lunch with Robert Millett.

Hank Smith: 07:52 Whitney. If you see Bob around there, tell him hi. He’s been on our show quite a few times.

John Bytheway: 07:57 He has.

Hank Smith: 07:57 Tell him we love him and miss him, please.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 07:59 I will do that. Yeah, absolutely.

Hank Smith: 08:01 I’m going to read from the Come, Follow Me manual. The lesson is called Anxiously Engaged in a Good Cause. When the elders of the church first saw the site of the city of Zion, Independence, Missouri, it was not what they expected. Some thought they would find a thriving industrious community with a strong group of saints. Instead, they found a sparsely populated outpost lacking the civilization they were used to and inhabited by rough frontier settlers rather than saints. It turned out that the Lord wasn’t asking them to just come to Zion. He wanted them to build Zion. When our expectations do not match reality, we can remember what the Lord told the saints in 1831. You cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time the design of your God and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. Yes, life is full of tribulation, even wickedness, but we can still bring to pass much righteousness for the power is in us. That’s wonderful. Now, Whitney, would it be okay before we turn it over to you if I quiz John a little bit? John, we are about halfway through the Doctrine and Covenants. We have asked almost every guest, how did we end up in Missouri? John, I have to see if you’ve been listening, give us the John Bytheway summary of how we got to Missouri and what leads to section 58.

John Bytheway: 09:31 It’s so fun to look big picture. One of the things you helped me see Hank was there’s a bunch of New York Saints. There’s Colesville, there’s Fayette, there’s Harmony. Then four missionaries are called to go to the borders of the Lamanites on the way. They stop in a little place called Kirtland, or I’ve heard it called Mentor. Parley Pratt says, I’ve got a friend here. I want to go visit him, and that friend is Sidney Rigdon. They sit down with Sidney Rigdon and he says, okay, I’ll take your book and I’ll see what claim it has upon my faith, and he decides to read the Book of Mormon. He is convinced of its truthfulness. About the number I remember is 127 Saints join the church. Because of persecution, some other things happening in Colesville and those other places. The Lord says, go to the Ohio. Well, they go to the Ohio. Now, here’s the part that always surprised me, Hank, when I learned church history. It doesn’t take very long after these people uproot everything and their lives and their stuff and go to Ohio and the Lord says, actually Zion is in Missouri.

Hank Smith: 10:37 Oh, you’re about a third of the way there. Not even that. You’re about a fourth of the way there.

John Bytheway: 10:42 There’s no email, there’s no roads, highways, freeways to get there. It’s a tough time because the church kind of has two headquarters as they’re trying to get started, and I think we’re going to talk about Edward Partridge today to go be a bishop over there in Independence, and as we start, they’re walking and going. I love the intro in the manual. It’s not a prebuilt Zion, you have to build it. How’d I do, Hank?

Hank Smith: 11:07 Excellent. I think Dr. Utt from last week. She would be very proud of you, so Emily, if you’re listening, you might need to shoot John a message and tell him congratulations. Whitney, thanks for putting up with that I think it’s something like 13 or 14 sets of missionaries have arrived in Missouri, in August. I can’t imagine this is what the Lord gives to them when they get there. Whitney, with that, how do you want to approach the text here?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 11:35 The way for me in terms of studying the scriptures is I like to read it, then see what experience I’m having with it. In particular, look at what do I know, what have I learned from a secular perspective that starts to intersect with the scripture so that I can liken the scripture to myself. What I thought might be useful to do as a starting point, as we think about this experience that they’re having, the expectations management piece is to share with you a framework that we typically share with the businesses that we consult with and advise on when they’re trying to manage through change. The framework is called the S-curve of learning. For those of you who are not familiar with this S-curve of learning, the S-curve itself is sometimes known as the adoption curve. It was originally popularized by a man named Everett Rogers back in the 1960s, and he used it to understand how quickly an innovation would be adopted.

12:28What we then did when I was working with Clayton Christensen at the Disruptive Innovation Fund is we would use the S-curve to understand, okay, how quickly will an innovation be adopted and does it make sense to buy this company as an investment or not? As we were applying this in investing, I had this insight, this aha, that we could use the S-curve to understand what growth looks like and what it feels like. What it does, it answers three questions. Number one is why is it so hard to start something new? Number two, why once you do start, does it become easy? And number three, why can you be really good at something and feel like you can no longer keep doing it? Here’s what’s going on in your brain when you’re doing something new like going to Independence, Missouri, your brain has this hypothesis of what is it going to take for me to get from the bottom of this curve to the top of the curve, and it’s running this predictive model.

13:26When you are at the first part of the curve, what we call the launch point, you’re running this predictive model. Most of your predictions are inaccurate about what it’s going to look like, so that expectations gap, because those predictions are inaccurate. Dopamine, which is a chemical messenger of delight, it drops. So the experience you have is you feel overwhelmed, you feel discouraged, you feel frustrated, you feel impatient. You can feel like an imposter. You can feel like, I thought this was a really good idea and now I’m not so sure. This is the experience that they were having. What’s fascinating though, about the launch point of the curve is that when you’re there, growth is actually happening very, very quickly. Mathematically, it’s happening at its fastest, but it’s not apparent. It’s not obvious, so you can’t see it, and the experience that you have is growth feels slow.

14:28Now, there’s two other parts of the curve. I’ll walk through those really quickly and then we’ll come back and focus on the launch point of the experience that we’re having. You’ve got that launch point where growth feels slow. Then at some point, if you stay with it and you say, yes, I am going to build Zion here, you’re going to hit a tipping point. We heard Malcolm Gladwell years ago popularize the concept of a tipping point where you move into the sleek, steep of the curve. What happens here is growth is now not only fast, it feels fast. What’s happening with the dopamine is because you’re having upside surprises, emotional upside surprises, the dopamine spikes because your expectations are starting to get beat because your predictive model is working increasingly, you know what to expect. You know how to build the community. You know where the streets are.

15:15You know everybody in the community. So it starts to feel really comfortable. Okay, this is home. That’s, you have the launch point where growth feels slow. You’ve got the sweet spot where growth is fast and it feels fast, and then you get to this place called mastery, which is a very interesting place because what’s happening here is that you figure things out. Your predictive model, it now works. It’s like a computer program that you’ve debugged, it works, but you’re no longer learning at this point, the dopamine, you’re not getting very much of it. You now have a dilemma because on the one hand, you really like being at the top of that S-curve, master of all you survey, so you really like being on your mission, but you’ve now been there for 23 months. You really like being an expert in university, but now you’re a senior.

16:07You like being an expert, but because your brain needs more dopamine, it needs to continue learning. You have a dilemma. Do you stay here and stop learning or do you jump to a new curve? One metaphor that I like to use is to think about mountain climbing. I’ve never climbed a mountain, but I think this metaphor is very apt. A mountain climber will tell you that any altitude above 28,000 feet is known as the death zone. You’re so high up your brain and your body will start to die. When you are at the top of an S-curve, you’re no longer learning. Your brain and your body literally start to die, and so you need to jump to the bottom of a new S-curve, and that’s what the cycle of growth looks like. Now, as you think about it, you’re probably seeing some parallels. What happens in the church? Every time you start to feel like, I’m really good at being a young men’s teacher.

Hank Smith: 17:02 I got this.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 17:04 I’ve got this. I’m a great primary teacher. Ah, I’m so good at playing the piano in Young Women’s great. Let’s disrupt you. Let’s go give you a brand new calling. For me, when I think about the S-curve, now, this is obviously not what I teach in a secular setting, but the inside baseball for me is that this is a way to think about eternal progression. We grow and then we plateau, and then we grow some more, and then we plateau, and then we grow some more. That’s a framework that I use to help me think through when I’m doing something new, when it feels uncomfortable, when it feels awkward when I’m in a new city like Independence, and I don’t know what it looks like. I’m at the launch point of the curve and it normalizes the experience. It’s very, very helpful.

17:53Back to your question about expectations at the launch point, there’s a super big gap between what is and what you thought it was going to be. Moving along an S curve is a dopamine management exercise. The launch point, your expectations are too high, and the sweet spot, they’re kind of in an equilibrium and mastery, they’re too low, so sometimes God gives you a new calling, says, go to a new city, go to Independence, because we need you to learn something new. Let me pause there for just a second and see if you have any quick observations or comments before I continue.

Hank Smith: 18:32 Whitney, as I heard you explain the S-curve model, I thought of a quote that I rarely get to use, but I love it. This is Edmund Hiller, first man to summit Mount Everest, and this is what he said. While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the Great Peak Makalu, I think that’s its name, and mentally worked out a route and how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 19:09 Bingo.

Hank Smith: 19:09 Isn’t that great? Like I got up there and I’m here.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 19:13 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 19:13 Okay. What’s next?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 19:14 Yeah, and it’s beautiful because growth is our default setting. Heavenly Father wired us to grow. We talk about the growth mindset, which we all have until we don’t have it, but if you understand this model, it helps you do the thing that you know you’re wired to do and just get through some of those places that feel a little bit bumpy.

John Bytheway: 19:35 Just yesterday, I was talking to my kids about this pattern on my mission. As soon as I felt comfortable in an area, I’d get transferred and there would be a new challenge or a new calling that would go with it. You have articulated that that’s what the Lord does on purpose. Hank once again, you’ve found exactly the right person to talk about this. This disruption is here’s an expectation, not so fast my friend. You’re disrupted, and it’s part of a growth process. I love this.

Hank Smith: 20:05 Yeah. Whitney, can I ask you a question then about their expectation? When John gave us history, he’s right on that. They had some pretty high expectations for what this was going to look like, and the Lord seems to, I don’t think he’s trying to discourage them, but maybe guys come back to me here. If you read verse three, you cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which will come hereafter, and the glory which follows. Yeah, good things are coming after much tribulation. Was that the Lord trying to set expectations for them?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 20:43 That’s a great question. Their timeframe was different, right? They were saying, so, God, you promised us something and we got here and I want it in the next minute. And he’s saying, no, you’re going to get it but I’ll give you your toy in an hour. There was a big mismatch. We’re so young. In addition to thinking about this basic model, the church at that time was basically a startup organization, like a startup company, but they had this grand audacious idea. It’s anchored in heavenly visitations. You’ve had this disruptive invocation with Joseph Smith, and I think about what must that feel like for us, and I was trying to think of like a modern day Whitney example, and I think it might be something like, I’ve gone to the Richmond Temple because that’s our temple. Even though we really want one here, Heavenly Father, I’m feeling the Spirit and then I’m on the way home.

21:33I get in an accident, I get a speeding ticket, and to top it all off, when I get home, there’s dishes in the sink. It’s just hard. In addition to, which I think they probably had PTSD. Leman Copley has this vast acreage, he invites them onto their land and then he kicks them out. Now, okay, let’s put this for what does that feel like for us? Imagine that Hank, you’ve invited John over to your home. Come to our home. We’re going to feed you, and in the middle of the night you wake up his family, you throw him out of your house, probably uttering some sort of curse words, or you’ve got a job where a boss says, we want you to work for me. Then they fire you. They had PTSD, so not only did they have this, it wasn’t what they expected and the timing that they expected.

22:24They’d had a lot of missteps or setbacks and they had PTSD. So I find myself feeling a tremendous amount of compassion for them of the experience they were having and questioning. So they get there and they say, wait, wait, wait, wait. What? You told us to be here now this feels terrible. And I was rereading Elder Packer’s, Candle of the Lord. Here’s the quote that he says. The spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that it is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual. And I want to tie this back to the S-curve. When you’re at the launch point of a curve, you are going to feel uncomfortable. So you can start to say, this isn’t feeling very good. Hmm, did God really tell me to be here? because this is, this is feeling really uncomfortable. Maybe I shouldn’t be on a mission. This feels bad. But one of the things that we have to end up sorting out is this is where our faith comes in. This is where Elder Hollands Cast Not Away Therefore Thy Confidence comes in is to be able to say, okay, you told me to be here. You said it’s going to look like this. It feels bad right now. So the S-curve helps you with that, but I’m going to have the faith, like you said, that eventually my eyes can’t see it, but eventually it’s going to be what I want it to be.

Hank Smith: 23:47 How often has that happened in life? By the way, John, I’m going to invite you over soon just to see if you can experience this.

John Bytheway: 23:54 Let’s try that. Yeah, let’s, yeah, let’s act that out.

Hank Smith: 23:56 But how often does that happen in life? This is going to be great. Then I hit a lot of difficulty. You want to think I’m going to be faithful. I’m going to see it all the way through. But you’re right. All those thoughts come in. Maybe this was never right in the first place.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 24:11 Should I have really taken that job? Should I have moved to that new city? Should I have really married that person? We had that spiritual confirmation. Then it gets really rough or it’s not turning out the way we want, and we start to question. This framework allows you to tap into the emotional piece that’s happening, the neurological piece, so that you can tease out or disentangle the emotional with the spiritual piece.

Hank Smith: 24:35 That’s great.

John Bytheway: 24:36 I remember four years ago, we started with Doctrine and Covenants. You can read a verse of scripture many times and not have it grab you, and then one time you read it and it grabs you and verse three, it just grabbed me. I think this is such a great verse, you cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time. God has designed this. I love that God has a design concerning those things, which shall come hereafter. When we talked Old Testament, what does Joseph say when his brothers, he says, God meant it for good. God had a design the whole time. That’s a verse that says the same thing. I look at all of the beatitudes that just sounded like Jesus was in opposite land. Here’s all these people that come to hear, well, actually it’s not the well off and the rich and the independent actually blessed are the poor in spirit. They’re like, what? Yeah, blessed are the meek. Wait, what is he talking about when Jesus said, blessed are that’s the present time for they shall be. That is the hereafter. Here’s a present reality, here’s a future possibility. That verse capsulises those three things. Verse three has become one of my favorites in the Doctrine and Covenants because yeah, me too. You get disrupted, then what do you do?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 25:52 Yeah, and you know. It’s interesting. I was thinking about what you just described of the design, your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and then Elder Rasbands talk recently about by divine design. I thought I would share a personal experience that happened not too long ago. It’s been very interesting for me because in my patriarchal blessing I was, I’ve always been taught to guard against both discouragement and disappointment. The one that I really had already always focused in on was discouragement. I was in Arizona visiting my mother. She’s quite old and frail, and her life is going to end in the not too distant future. I found myself contemplating in talking to her my own mortality, which I think you do, especially with your parents. I had gone to the temple and as I was sitting in the temple, I had this thought because I think sometimes when your life is about over, you can go to this place of what might have been if this had happened, if I’d lived here. If, if that had happened then things might have been different. I had this thought, I think it was obviously a prompting from the Spirit, which is that disappointment is a temptation just as much as discouragement is. When you think about the idea of appointment, so you are appointed to something, you’re appointed to go somewhere, you’re appointed to do something.

27:07When you disappointed or you talk about how things should have been, then you’re almost saying you’re not trusting God. I have a wonderful favorite quote, Stevie Wonder, because I have to quote Stevie Wonder who said that you can bet your life in that and twice its double that God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed. I found myself as I was contemplating these verses and this experience that they were having to be willing to say, I’m not over there, but where I am is right here. I’m on the launch point of the S-curve in Independence, and that in its own way to use a bad pun is very liberating.

Hank Smith: 27:49 We have an interesting perspective here that obviously the saints then don’t have. As we’re reading this, we know the next eight years for these people is going to be time after time, after time of difficulty, trial, pain, disappointment. As we’re reading this, we’re going, guys, are you hearing him? There’s going to be much tribulation. I find it interesting that we almost have the point of view of the Lord here knowing the future.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 28:21 Mm-hmm. Which is so in some ways cavalier of us, isn’t it?

John Bytheway: 28:24 They’re in the middle of it. It’s rough.

Hank Smith: 28:28 If you were to talk to them right then, they’d say, well, no, this is going to be great. You almost want to cover your eyes. No, this is going to be really hard. John and Whitney, this is a lifelong question. Give me whatever you got here. I occasionally get asked. I’m sure you do too. Why does it have to be so hard? Why so much? And the Lord seems to explain the glory which shall follow after much tribulation for after tribulation come the blessings and he gives a list of all the great things that are going to happen. Anything come to mind when, when a young person, especially as we get older, we get a little more, you know what? I can see the blessings that have come from hard things. I’ve spoken of this family before John, but I know a young couple with little children, little daughter who has leukemia and here they are trying their best to live the gospel and raise a family, and they have this happening to them. You know, they’re faithful as can be these two, but I can see that sometimes they would think, why does this have to be so hard?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 29:30 I don’t have a good answer. I think about some people that I’m close to in my family because it is so hard. It is very difficult for them to have faith because they feel like God doesn’t care. This is where your faith really has to anchor you and you have to make a decision. We used to live in Belmont in Massachusetts and there was a family there, so we’re sitting inside Sunday school and this man said his name is Greg Sorenson. He said, I choose to believe I choose it. When it comes to these situations, it is so hard. I think the only thing that we can come back to is that we get to this place where we’re going to choose because we’ve had enough witnesses that God is there, that he does care, that there is a plan. We hang onto that with every piece of ourselves that we can, but it’s still really hard.

John Bytheway: 30:25 I’m wondering if there was a little boy named Jacob who had a brother named Nephi who may have said, dad, Lehi, why does this have to be so hard? And out came second Nephi chapter two, one of the greatest chapters in the Book of Mormon. Well, son, let me explain opposition in all things. Let me explain how God created things, both that act and things that are acted upon and how we can act when life acts upon us. Let me share that all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things and man is that he might have joy. You’re not 24/7. There’s opposition in that. Joy will come, but man, that is one of the great eternal questions and I think Joseph Smith’s going to ask it in Liberty Jail in Section 121 and 22 and 23 too.

Hank Smith: 31:17 One of my heroes, and John, I know she’s one of yours as well, is our producer Shannon Sorensen. When her husband Steve passed away, he’s the one that is our founder. We talk about him often. Shannon and I were talking, and of course she is just devastated by this and through tears. She would tell me over and over, I trust the plan. I trust the plan. I am heartbroken. I am hurting. I will not turn on my God. What does Nephi say, John, I know in whom I have trusted.

John Bytheway: 31:53 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 31:55 Whitney, we have people listening who, oh, the stories we get. A woman told us, I was listening to your show when the police called, told me that my daughter had been killed in a car accident. I was listening to your show because my dad took his own life and you’re going, how do we help?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 32:13 My younger brother, he took his life 10 years ago, a decade ago, always believed in the resurrection. I’d always believed that there was life after death. I remember talking to his friends, most of whom are not people of faith, and this has happened on many occasions of talking to people and just looking at them and saying, I know that you don’t believe that there’s life after death, but I can tell you with every part of my soul that I believe that you’ll see them again. So if you don’t believe it right now, just hang on to what I believe. That’s what I would say to the people who are listening is if they’re not believing, if you’re not feeling it right now, hang on to our feeling and our belief, because God is there.

Hank Smith: 32:59 I’m always inspired by the words of Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 33:07 Yeah. I’m not there yet.

Hank Smith: 33:10 Yeah.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 33:11 I aspire to be. Well, the next thing I thought would be interesting to talk about is verse 27 that says, Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free will and bring to pass much righteousness. I think we all love that verse, but I did find myself reflecting on this verse and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you. The first one is thinking about that word, anxious. I came across an article not long ago in a wonderful magazine called Wayfare Magazine. Have you seen that magazine?

Hank Smith: 33:42 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 33:43 Oh, it’s splendid. There was an article by a man by the name of Stan Benfell, who is a professor at BYU and he talked about anxiety, how it can be crippling when you’re anxious, and I’ll kind of paraphrase him here. He says, when you’re struggling with anxiety, it’s, it’s like a fly, right? It’s always there. It’s hovering. It’s a thorn in the flesh. He said, when you’re experiencing anxiety, you can sometimes feel like you’re a coward and a narcissist because whenever you think about doing something new, your mind starts to think about all the bad things that can happen. You’re afraid, and sometimes you feel like you’re a narcissist because you have such a hard time getting out of your head that you can’t think about anything else. But then he made this really interesting observation that was powerful and comforting to me. He said that the very best way to carry the cross of anxiety is to be a member of the church, to be an engaged member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

34:34And he said part of that is because in the church you have callings like being a bishop. He was the bishop right after Matt Holland, who’s now Elder Holland, and he said, I’m sure many people were disappointed when I was called but I had a calling and I felt like that idea of cast not away therefore that confidence, God had called me to do this. I’m ministering to this sister, or I’m doing X, so I have a specific job to do that makes it easier for me to be anxiously engaged. Now, I know we’re supposed to do many things of our own righteousness, but I think this might fall into the category of commandments, not a few. Here’s what I want you to do, but then within that lane of your calling, then I need you to go out and be anxiously engaged. Then he also said, because of the anxiety, he often will rely more fully on the Lord.

35:23Because he gets into a situation, he’s like, I don’t know if I can do this. I certainly know how I have felt that way, as well as dealing with anxiety. I will rely on the Lord more than I might if like, I’ve got this. I’m really good at this. I will pray and pray and pray and ask him to help me. I wanted to talk a little bit about that word, anxious and anxiety, because I think a lot of people experience anxiety. I wanted to address that within this part of engaged. Then on the engaged part, you know, in the context of hiring people in our company, you want people who are going to surprise and delight. That’s anxiously engaged. People who show up and you’re like, wow, I didn’t expect that. Wow, I hadn’t thought of that. Wow, you did that. I think that that’s a beautiful example of what anxiously engaged looks like in the workplace, and we’ve all been in callings with people where they went above and beyond. Those were some of my reflections on this, and then back to what you said earlier, John, about this idea of we were made to act and not be acted upon. I believe in that firmly, the power of our agency. We oftentimes have so much learned helplessness, but the reality is that sometimes there’s anxiety. Harder to do than it sounds like it is on the face of it.

John Bytheway: 36:38 I got kind of excited when you talked about you have something to do, Hank, when you and I were in young men’s, we had to memorize a really long theme called Be Prepared, and that was it. And I struggled with that for about a month and a half. Finally got it. But I love the Aaronic priesthood quorum theme today. I am a beloved son of God and he has a work for me to do. Even if it were just that. It’s awesome. He has a work for me to do because in there you’ve got purpose, you’ve got value, you’ve got affirmation, so I like that. And being anxiously engaged, it made me think also of President Nelson defining it for us so simply. The greatest thing you could ever do to gather Israel. Anytime you do anything that helps anyone on either side of the veil take a step toward receiving essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel and it gives us something to do, and I love how simple he made that. Primary kids can understand that.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 37:46 It’s interesting hearing you say that because this idea of anything that helps someone move along the covenant path, I’ve thought frequently about the work that I do. Yes, I do work and I get paid to do it, but when I oftentimes at its depth, at its core, I feel like, and I have had spiritual impressions that really what I’m trying to do is preach the gospel in a way that people can hear it. It’s like meeting people where they are.

John Bytheway: 38:12 In a way that they can hear it. I like that. Yeah.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 38:15 You’re changing. You can make progress. I remember I had someone say to me a couple years ago when I was putting together the S-curve framework and thinking through this idea, a colleague said to me, Whitney, it’s interesting how you make these vast intuitive leaps. Then you try to find the research that will back it up, and I thought, yeah, I make vast intuitive leaps because heavenly Father gives me these little gifts. Here’s this idea. Here you go. I love you, and that’s one of my love languages.

Hank Smith: 38:48 On a side note, Whitney, when you talk about you speak mostly to secular audiences, I remember the first time I ever spoke for a business, a member of the church said, come speak for my business. I said, oh, I don’t do stuff like that. They would not like me. He said, no, no, no. This will work. Change a couple of things. You’ll be great. I was so nervous. I was so nervous. I don’t think I slept the night before. I stand up and I start teaching some of the things I learned in my doctorate program. They seem to be more receptive than the Latter-day Saint audiences I had spoken to. I went to the back and I was talking to some. One woman was crying. She said, you made me cry, I’m so sorry. I think you’re right. People yearn for these principles. You teach them in different settings. They’re principles that take people towards God. Towards truth.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 39:43 Mm-hmm. Because it’s a little bit of that thing of a fish doesn’t recognize the water because we swim in these eternal principles.

Hank Smith: 39:51 I think that’s what it is.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 39:53 It’s a pearl of great price. We don’t see all the things that we know and feel the orientation that we feel because of the gospel. We don’t always value it. Not in the way that someone who’s never heard it before.

Hank Smith: 40:06 Now when someone says, Hey, come speak for my business. Sure. They’re more thirsty for things like this. John, I don’t know where I got this. It might’ve been Alex Baugh, but he pointed to verse 26 and he talked about the word slothful. Do you remember what he said? He said, there can be only one good reason God made the sloth. To be an example. To be an example to us. because if you’ve ever held a sloth or watched a sloth, maybe if we ask the Lord, what does that mean? He would say, oh, I actually made one of these so you would know what not to be. Now there’s going to be someone who emails us and says, actually, sloths are the greatest, so sorry if I’m offending a sloth lover out there.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 40:52 I’m confident that you are. I think at one point my daughter bought a stuffed animal sloth, so just be prepared.

Hank Smith: 40:57 Yeah, and they are adorable. They are adorable.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 40:59 They are adorable. They have to be.

John Bytheway: 41:00 They, they hug you. They hold onto you.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 41:02 They wouldn’t survive evolutionarily if they weren’t adorable.

John Bytheway: 41:04 I know.

Hank Smith: 41:05 Right? Yeah. Someone’s just going to hold onto them and keep them safe. Slothful, slow. So slow. I can’t get you to do anything. It seems early on that the Lord is helping them along. Helping them along. Helping them along, but he wants them to start getting some momentum themselves. I loved what you said earlier, stay in your lane, stay in your stewardship, but move, move. The other word in here is engaged and the only reason I key on is because I work at BYU, and that’s a word we talk about quite a bit. I got engaged. I got engaged, right? I got engaged last weekend. I got engaged. The one thing I’ve noticed, maybe it’s this way everywhere, but especially at BYU, is that engaged people are obsessed with their engagement. It’s all they think about. It’s all they talk about. They can’t focus on anything else.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 42:00 And none of us did that of course. None of us did that.

Hank Smith: 42:03 I never, I never did that. I like those two comparisons.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 42:06 Yeah, that’s good.

Hank Smith: 42:06 Don’t be a sloth. Remember how you were when you were engaged. That’s what we want. That kind of passion. Whitney, before we move on from this point, you said learned helplessness. I’m not sure everyone at home would know what that is, but I think it’s an important point. Can we stop just for a second and you teach us about learned helplessness?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 42:27 I think learned helplessness happens where you’re in a situation. I think oftentimes it happens when you’re growing up or you’re in the workplace, you try to do something and you sort of get smashed down. No, you can’t do that. It doesn’t make sense. You’re too big for your britches, et cetera. You get to the point where you’re like, oh, I guess I can’t do it. You sort of stop trying. You give up. You think, oh, it isn’t possible for me to do it. You’ve learned to be helpless. We do see that a lot and that’s why surprise and delight in the workplace is so surprising because people will say, well, I’m not happy at work. Well do something about it. Oh, I don’t know if I can because my boss might not want me to. Or there’s not time and there’s all this helplessness where people have completely seeded their agency and it goes against everything that we know, and yet it happens a lot. Oftentimes it happens, or the root of it is because when we were very young, we had lots of situations where we tried to do something and we got somehow reprimanded or discouraged from doing it, and so we started to give up.

Hank Smith: 43:34 I feel like, I truly feel I can do nothing about this situation when actually the reality is you can do a lot.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 43:41 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 43:42 But I’ve convinced myself, I’ve learned that I have no power.

John Bytheway: 43:48 I came by my helplessness naturally. It was a gift that I just received.

Hank Smith: 43:55 You didn’t have to learn it.

John Bytheway: 43:56 No, I didn’t have to learn it. I teach it to others now. But

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 44:02 You have a PhD in learned helplessness.

John Bytheway: 44:04 That’s right. I teach it to others. I ask them to enroll and they just won’t do it. They said they don’t know how. Hank’s heard me talk about this before, but the day before I went to the MTC my dad was take the truck, go up to Kmart, get this many bags of manure, put it in the wheelbarrow, haul it into the backyard, and I was out there doing that for a good part of the day before I, no, shouldn’t we be out to Burger King or something? Celebrating or shouldn’t you be buying me neckties or something? No. Get out there and get to work. I don’t know if that was the design of my father. I so appreciate that work ethic. I really do, and it also made me think I could get to the MTC so I could get some rest.

Hank Smith: 44:57 That is so funny. Sometimes I felt like my dad just said, Hey, move that railroad tie. Why? I want it over there.

John Bytheway: 45:04 Just do it.

Hank Smith: 45:05 Yeah. Now I think he was making me too tired to sin. I think that’s what it was.

John Bytheway: 45:10 That’s it. Wear you out.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 45:11 It’s a good strategy. It’s a good strategy.

Hank Smith: 45:12 Thanks Whitney. Thanks for walking us through that. I think it’s an important thing that we might even see it in our own children in our efforts to protect them. We might teach them that they can’t act. They don’t have the power to act.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 45:28 What I’d love to do next is talk about Edward Partridge. Could you give a little bit of the background of like who he was, how he joined the church, what he’d been called to do, how he was struggling in his calling, including maybe even an excerpt from his letter to his wife Lydia.

John Bytheway: 45:45 I happen to know from previous experience that Hank loves Edward Partridge.

Hank Smith: 45:52 There’s people that are in the Spirit World that I’m best friends with, but they just don’t know it yet.

John Bytheway: 45:57 They don’t know it yet.

Hank Smith: 45:59 Edward Partridge is one of those. When I see him, I’m going to hug him and he’s going to say, who are you? What are you doing? Edward Partridge to me is not just amazing because of the individual he is to me. He represents a member of the church in this early period who is not as well known. He’s not Brigham Young, he’s not Joseph Smith. He’s not Emma Smith. He’s under that level, I guess that you might say, but he works and works and works and sacrifices and gives. So does his wife, Lydia, if Sherilyn Farnes were here, if she’s listening Sherilyn, she has done the work really on researching the Partridges. She wrote a great thesis on the family. It’s called Fact, Fiction and Family Tradition, the Life of Edward Partridge, the first bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Edward Partridge.

46:57We’ve covered this in other episodes, so I won’t go into it as much as I want to. He is one of those early converts in the Kirtland area. When the four missionaries come through on their way out west, he is basically elected by his community. He is that trustworthy to go meet Joseph Smith. They said, Edward, we trust you. Go meet him. Come back and tell us what you think. He’s baptized. He’s done really well in life through his own hard work as a hatter. I think he’s been a member for four months and he’s called the first bishop of the church. Every bishop out there just breathed the sigh of, oh, no manual. John, you’ve served as Bishop. He’s not only Bishop like Ward Bishop, he’s also presiding bishop. He’s all of them over the temporal affairs of the church. He’s part of these sets of missionaries that go to Independence.

47:51How would you guys like this? Everyone else gets to go home except for a few of you. You get to stay in Missouri. I think it was Maclane Heward, Dr. Heward, who told us that Edward and Joseph got in a pretty heated argument over Zion, and you can imagine Edward’s like, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And Joseph is saying, I think you think I chose this. And they go back and forth. It ends up being okay. They end up apologizing and forgiving one another and becoming better friends. Whitney, the letter you referred to is in Saints. There’s a link for it in the Come, Follow Me Manual. It’s a short excerpt. Oh, but I get emotional looking at it. He writes to his wife Lydia, who thought he was going to come back from Missouri, but she’s actually going to go there to live with him. He writes, I fear my station is above what I can perform to the acceptance of my Heavenly Father. Pray for me that I may not fall. Oh, he’s so good. I notice that the Lord tells him to repent of his sins. If the Lord is telling Edward Partridge to repent of his sins.

John Bytheway: 49:09 What would he say to me?

Hank Smith: 49:11 Oh man. Man, if I said, should I repent of my sins? He’d be like, we don’t, it does not look good, brother. Thanks for asking that, Whitney.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 49:20 Yeah, and that’s what I wanted to pick up on because I really wanted to give my reaction to that experience that he had. And it’s interesting because I’ve heard over the years, many people talk about getting new church callings and saying they feel like they’re not up to that calling. I don’t know that I’ve generally felt that way except for when I was on my mission. I probably felt like I wasn’t up to it. I’ve definitely had callings where I remember, called in the Stake Relief Society presidency and I was like, I can do it, but I don’t want to do it. So I had that experience. Also, I guess the reflection for me on this and hearing him talk about that is, so if we go back to Doctrine and Covenants section 29, verse 34 where the Lord says, all things are spiritual to God or to me.

50:01And thinking about, one of the things that I learned most from Clayton Christensen, people will say, what did you learn from him? And I learned many things obviously, but one thing that really stayed with me is he did not separate the secular from the spiritual. He took his secular life to church in terms of his academic prowess and but then he also wasn’t afraid to bring his spiritual life into the workplace. And that was really meaningful for me. I think I’m reacting to this right now on that letter in particular because I’m currently writing another book. I have felt very prompted to write this book, but as I look at the spiritual and personal growth that’s had to take place in order for me to get to the point where I have the POV that I need to write this book to write it in a way that I want, I feel like I am experiencing tribulation, tribulation in the sense of self-doubt.

50:54Can I really do this? Am I really up to this? So I found myself really connecting to and relating to what he said. Also, the idea is that maybe God doesn’t give us development opportunities through our church callings. Maybe it’s through our work, but if all things are spiritual unto God, it doesn’t matter. It just matters. He’s going to give you that development opportunity. All things are equal to him. Maybe it’s at church, maybe it’s at home, maybe it’s at work, but he is going to push us and stretch us. I think that if we don’t have those experiences where like, I don’t know if I can do this, we’re not going to be humble enough. And I remember someone said to me years ago, one of the reasons that life needs to be hard, which goes back to the question that you, you were asking or posing earlier, is that God loves us enough that he wants us to reach out to him.

51:47And if it’s not hard, we won’t. Some people are that humble, but most of us are not. So that was something that really stuck for me. And then also I wanted to talk about, go to repentance where like you said, you said to him, repent not of his sins, which are unbelief and blindness of heart. Let him take heed lest he fall. I wanted to focus on the idea of repentance for a minute. Again, back to secular versus spiritual, is when I think about disruption, which I talk about frequently, this idea of personal disruption. I describe it when I’m in the workplace as a deliberate process of self innovation. So I’ll say that again. Disruption is a deliberate process of self innovation. You’re choosing to rewire your brain, yet if you’re stepping back from who you are currently into who you can be. But if you really pull it down to its studs, what is that? That’s repentance. President Nelson calls it Metanoeo. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

Hank Smith: 52:45 You are, yeah.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 52:45 Okay. And where he says, when Jesus asks you and me to repent, he’s inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit, even the way we breathe. So I say this in a reverent way, but I really believe that God is a fan of disruption because what he’s really asking us to do when we’re venting is to disrupt ourselves so that we can come closer to him. I guess one other quick idea on this, it’s a little bit of a segue, but still I think it’s powerful for me, is I was thinking about the prophet Joseph as a leader. One of the things that we’re finding in our research is that people want to change, but they also crave stability. Like they crave stability at a ratio of 10 to one. So we want more of that because of our negativity bias.

53:32We tend to focus on what isn’t working. But one of the best ways to stabilize people is to bring them along, to communicate with them, here’s where we are right now. Here’s where we are on the S curve. Here’s why we’re doing this. So there’s all this purpose. But one of the things that the prophet Joseph did so beautifully, so generously was that he was continually willing to say, oh, Edward, you want to know what the Lord thinks? I’ll ask him. Sidney, you want to know what the Lord thinks? I’ll ask him. He was saying to them, come along on this journey with me. Here’s how God feels about you. Here’s what he wants you to know. So that they felt communicated with in a way that it felt stable enough and anchored enough that they could go on this grand audacious S-curve that was terrifying and thrilling all at the same time. I’ll pause there and see what thoughts are coming up for you all.

Hank Smith: 54:29 I’ve noticed Whitney, in my experiences with the Lord, he really likes repentance. It seems whenever he is in scripture, that’s his first topic, faith and repentance. And then when I ask questions, I would like to know this big answer and this big answer. I usually get something like this back. I love that question. Can we focus in on repentance for just a little while? If disruption is repentance, I’m right with you. The Lord is a fan. What was the definition again?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 55:02 It’s a deliberate process of self innovation.

Hank Smith: 55:06 Right? I’m in a comfortable place. Hey, I’m going to sit here for a little while and then no, let me reflect. Let me look in. What’s possible in me.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 55:16 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 55:17 What can I do differently?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 55:18 And God will tell you really gently, super gentle.

Hank Smith: 55:21 Yeah. Wow. And it’s both scary and wonderful.

John Bytheway: 55:26 And sometimes when the Lord is telling me I need to repent, no, he means repent. In a more, stop doing that. Stop thinking that way. But I still can’t get off the idea of why does life have to be so hard? And if you don’t mind, can I quote Elder Holland here?

Hank Smith: 55:46 It’s allowed on our show. It’s allowed on our show.

John Bytheway: 55:49 He expanded on something that Elder Maxwell had said. He said, with apologies to Elder Neal A. Maxwell for daring to modify and enlarge something he once said, I too suggest that one’s life cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. It simply will not work to glide naively through life saying, as we sip another glass of lemonade, Lord, give me all thy choices, virtues, but be certain not to give me grief nor sorrow nor pain, nor opposition. Please do not let anyone dislike me or betray me and above all do not ever let me feel forsaken by thee or those who I love. In fact, Lord, be careful to keep me from all the experiences that made thee divine. And then when the rough sledding by everyone else is over, please let me come and dwell with thee where I can boast about how similar our strengths and characters are as I float along on my cloud of comfortable Christianity.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 56:47 So good.

John Bytheway: 56:48 So that’s from a talk called Waiting on the Lord. Was that 2021 Hank? I think that was during COVID.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 56:54 I love that because I remember hearing him say that and thinking it was helpful because I think about, let’s go back to Emma Smith for a second. How would I feel if I were in the celestial kingdom, which I want to be, and she’s there and I hadn’t had experiences that tested me as much as possible. I think we would be embarrassed.

Hank Smith: 57:19 Mm-hmm.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 57:20 Like we shouldn’t be here.

Hank Smith: 57:22 Yeah. Wow. Whitney, can I ask you a disruption question?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 57:25 Sure.

Hank Smith: 57:27 Later, when the Lord speaks of repentance in verses 42 and 43, I wonder if I’m seeing some parallels with what you’ve been saying. Behold he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven and I the Lord remember them no more. I like that idea of disruption. Move forward. We don’t have to hang onto the past. Let’s move forward. Then this one, by this you may know if a man or woman repents of their sins, they will confess them and forsake them. In disruption, is it the idea of I finally confess, I finally see and acknowledge I can do better. I can be different. And then the bravery, I guess to leave the comfortable place and forsake it.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 58:06 It’s total bravery. If you want to go back to the idea of an S-curve, when you’re disrupting yourself, you’re basically at the top of an S-curve. because when we talk about an S-curve, I was talking about in the context of growth, but you can be on an S-curve where you’re super comfortable. It may not be a good S-curve, but you’re comfortable. So when you disrupt yourself, you are jumping to a bottom of a new S-curve in free fall. Yeah. That’s super uncomfortable for sure. Another thing that I find myself frequently saying is the price of a new and better self is your old self. Remembering that that old self served you, it served you and it’s who you are. Giving away that old self, jumping to a new S curve, that is scary. And it is painful to give up that old self to be a different person.

Hank Smith: 59:00 The price of a new self

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 59:03 Is your old self.

Hank Smith: 59:03 Is your old self.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 59:06 I like what you said too about confess. When I read confess, I was like, and I go tell everybody what I did. And sometimes that’s appropriate, but sometimes it’s not. I like how you describe that as confess may just be I see it.

John Bytheway: 59:19 I struggle too.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 59:20 I acknowledge it. I’m aware of, I accept that I’m in this place. Hmm. So good.

Hank Smith: 59:27 Coming up in part two of this episode.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 59:30 I’ll give a keynote. It’s like 45 or 50 minutes. And when I finish with the keynote or during the course of the keynote, I’ll talk about using I am statements to help people change. I’ll say this offhandedly, you know, it’s notable to me that Christ whose name was I am that those words have tremendous creative power. So when you say I am, you’re invoking this creative power.