Dr. Jeffery A. Thompson is an author, speaker and professor who knows the secret to finding one’s calling in life. He learned from his own winding and twisting experience that life is a bewildering journey, and those who succeed at discovering their talents and gifts are those who persist through the uncertainty and anxiety to a better place. His and a colleague’s study of “work as a calling” among zookeepers led them to write “The Zookeeper’s Secret,” a book that applies research, personal experience and gospel truths to help readers discover their true calling in life.
Email Dr. Thompson: sorensencenter@byu.edu
BYU Devotional
Deseret Book
Amazon
Dr. Jeffery A. Thompson is an author, speaker and professor who knows the secret to finding one’s calling in life. He learned from his own winding and twisting experience that life is a bewildering journey, and those who succeed at discovering their talents and gifts are those who persist through the uncertainty and anxiety to a better place. His and a colleague’s study of “work as a calling” among zookeepers led them to write “The Zookeeper’s Secret,” a book that applies research, personal experience and gospel truths to help readers discover their true calling in life.
Email Dr. Thompson: sorensencenter@byu.edu
BYU Devotional
Deseret Book
Amazon
Dr. Jeffery A. Thompson
Connie: 00:00 Welcome back I'm Connie Sokol, your host. And today we have a fantastic guest. He is going to talk to us all about finding and developing our calling in life. Dr. Jeffery A. Thompson, thanks for being here with us today.
Jeffery: 00:14 Thank you, Connie. My pleasure.
Connie: 00:16 It's such a joy. I have watched and rewatched your BYU devotional. And if you, out there, are listening and have not seen it, run, don't walk. It is called “What is Your Calling in Life?” And it is fantastic.
Connie: 00:28 I have used it over and over in things I've taught and in my own life. And it is easily applicable in life to really develop and figure out what your calling is. And I'm going to give you the official bio, but I do have to say we just had the pleasure of having Dr. Thompson speak at our BYU Moral and Ethical [Leadership] Conference recently, and just gave beautiful insights into this information as well. If you have an ability to get that link, check that out as well.
Connie: 00:54 Meanwhile, I'll give you the official introduction. Dr. Thompson is the director of the Sorenson Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership and is a professor at BYU university's Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics.
Connie: 01:07 He earned a PhD in organizational behavior and holds a BA in Japanese. [Connie speaks in Japanese] That's my nod to 30 years ago mission in Japan. And he also has a study on the work as a calling among zookeepers, which resulted in his authoring the book, “The Zookeepers Secret” with coauthor Stuart Gunderson, and is the Latter-day Saint Guide to Discover One's Calling in Life.
Connie: 01:32 And it is fantastic. I promise I won't be giving shameless plugs the entire time, but it's just such good stuff. Dr. Thompson teaches courses in organizational behavior and business ethics in the Marriott School of Business at BYU. And he has also led graduate students on several study abroad programs to Ghana to learn from and provide training to NGO leaders.
Connie: 01:53 He and his wife, Aimee are the parents of four children and one grandson who I'm sure is happily spoiled. Thank you so much. So that's your official introduction, but I want to jump into…you speak so passionately and eloquently about this whole concept. And it reminds me a lot of Brené Brown vulnerability where people probably were like, you know, you get paid to talk about this kind of a feel, but this calling in life, this is fundamental. It's core.
Connie: 02:19 You started out kind of on your journey, I remember you sharing that you weren't quite sure. You were going to be maybe a seminary teacher, all these different things. How was that journey for you, and what did you learn that made you say, I really want to teach this to other people?
Jeffery: 02:35 That journey was bewildering for me. I think like many people, by my mid to late twenties I thought I must have missed the path because things weren't taking shape the way that I wanted them to, or I thought they would. And so my journey was lots of twists and turns and a lot of confusion, which left me feeling very anxious.
Jeffery: 02:54 And so I'm one of those lucky people who gets to do research on something I lived. And I think in many ways, my research career is therapeutic in sort of understanding my history. But in studying how people find a calling, I've learned that this torturous, winding path is really the norm, not the exception.
Jeffery: 03:17 And I've come to think of finding a calling, not really as a destination but a journey of ever-narrowing understanding of your focus and what gifts you have to bring. And so I feel like I found my calling, but it certainly wasn't a linear experience. And as I study people who find their calling, I find great inspiration in the fact that they persist through that period of uncertainty and anxiety.
Connie: 03:46 I love that. And it seems like what you're saying is that path gets deeper and wider as you go further and further into it in that discovery process and staying in that state of discovery and not thinking it has to be–I've got to do A plus B equals C because it's more like a quadratic equation, right?
Connie: 04:03 I love that. What are some of the things that you've seen–as you've gone through and you've been teaching people about this–what are some of the obstacles to being able to figure out this challenge and this calling? Because I think about different people that I know and different experiences I've had, and it was such a challenge to be at peace with finding it with the discovery process. So do you have any tips or tools in making that process maybe a little easier, smoother, or more understandable?
Jeffery: 04:33 Absolutely. You know, when you talk about obstacles, I think the biggest obstacle is fear. Fear is paralyzing. And I actually don't worry about my students or the people that I consult with if they don't know yet what their calling in life is.
Jeffery: 04:47 I worry about them when they stop experimenting or when they passively wait for it to become obvious to them. So, with my students in particular, I'm always encouraging them: If you don't know what's next or where you ought to go, take a step. And when we take a step, when we put our car in drive, we can receive direction. We can receive guidance.
Jeffery: 05:11 But if we sit in neutral and wait for something to happen, we're not going to receive the guidance that we might need. So, I think, being courageous enough to try something out of your comfort zone, and if it doesn't work, then you've learned something. But you might be surprised that that sort of daring step opens doors you didn't expect to have open. That's the first thing, I think.
Connie: 05:34 You are so right. It makes me think of, I think it was Elder Lynn G. Robbins that said, If you want to take a trip from California to Utah, how long did it take you to get there in neutral? And the idea is you're not ever going to get there, you're a neutral. So it sounds to me what you're saying is just shift the gear, just do something to start the ball rolling, and you'll get it in the doing.
Jeffery: 05:53 It can cause a lot of anxiety to say, Oh, I want to find my calling and I better get it right. If I make a mistake, then I'm off the path and I'll never get back onto it.
Jeffery: 06:03 But the thing is, the paths of life are so intersecting that we really don't lock ourselves into a destiny with most choices that we make or most things that we try, rather we're opening doors that might lead to doors we didn't expect. So I try to encourage people to move, to do something, and you'll learn so much about what you're capable of.
Connie: 06:25 That is so beautiful. And I know in one of your talks, you were saying that the doors will open. And it seems to me that it does take that process where you're sort of Velcroing one thing to the next, to the next. And it's becoming as you're doing, almost like putting a recipe together or something, but it's in each of those steps that they're a vital piece of what that outcome is developing to be.
Jeffery: 06:48 Exactly. So that's kind of the forward-looking answer I'd give. And one other thing that I think is really important. It's the doctrine of spiritual gifts, that each of us are pre-packaged with an infinite [00:07:00] variety of abilities, strengths, interests that make us entirely unique and all the world. Bruce R. McConkie said that spiritual gifts are endless in variety, infinite in number.
Jeffery: 07:10 That being the case, our particular profile is really unique in all the world. So, kind of the looking backward piece–and I saw this really clearly in my research on zookeepers–they're able to look at their childhood to make sense of what is unique about them. And so I'm constantly challenging people to think about how they played as a child when they were just their pure organic self. No one was telling them what to do.
Jeffery: 07:36 Those gifts, those inclinations show up really early in life. And usually, when I go through that exercise, light bulbs go on and people recognize, Oh, I've been this kind of person since I was three or five or seven. And you can draw a line, and that gives you so much more confidence that you're living with authenticity because you're bringing out that inner natural child into the work and activities you're doing today.
Connie: 08:02 Oh and your soul has known for so long what you're like. Did you find anything about yourself? What did you like to do when you were a child?
Jeffery: 08:11 Oh, that's funny because I resisted being a teacher for many years. My dad was a high school teacher and I just, you know, you don't want to replicate your parents. But I look back and I played classroom with my brothers, and I was sort of always in that presentational, storytelling mode. So I should have known…
Connie: 08:35 Don't resist it, people, just lean into it. I think that's fantastic. And what an easy thing, especially for our listeners, being able to look back. And I would bet, just like when you said that it made me smile to think about what I love to do as a child, and I bet it would do that same thing for them. There's a real element of play and delight when we think back to what we did without having to make it a forced thing or a compelled thing.
Jeffery: 08:58 Right. And so anything you can do to provide coherence with that child. And you might think, Oh, well, all I did was I played with Legos. Well, that probably says something about your abilities with spatial manipulation and putting things together. I mean, I think there's so many ways that we can bring our unique gifts to whatever job we have and make it our own. We call that ‘job crafting' in my field. And there's the capacity to craft what we do to reflect the best in ourselves.
Connie: 09:27 That's so beautiful. And you do say, if you haven't technically quote, unquote, figured out what your calling is in life, then look at where you're at right now and what gifts you can bring to it, just like you were alluding to. So if someone was listening and thinking, Well, how do I unpack that? How do I see that in myself?
Connie: 09:43 What are some tips that you have for that? Because I think that's one of the hardest things is the day to day, eight to five, punching the clock, being able to dig deep and see a deeper meaning and bring more of yourself to the table that you may not have realized.
Jeffery: 09:58 Yeah, it takes time and thought. You can't just sort of get this in the bustle of day-to-day life. So the last chapter, the appendix, of the book that you showed provides an activity and exercise that really forces you to reflect on a lot of tough questions. And it's really worth the time to do that. We often think, well, I don't have time to just sit and be thoughtful.
Jeffery: 10:22 Asking yourself, those questions, or having someone ask you those questions and engaging. Someone said, How do I know what I think until I hear what I say? And the process of thinking and verbalizing and/or writing…this is what I do with my students and the people I train. And it can be transformational to create space to just really take time to reconnect with those fundamental questions. There's really no substitute for that.
Connie: 10:48 That is so perfectly put because we often are chasing and chasing, but we don't stop and stand still and feel Him helping us to see what that purpose is. And you made me think of President Nelson, where he was asked a question in a training that said, What's the most important thing for us to teach people to be able to stay on the path, and I'm paraphrasing.
Connie: 11:08 And he said two things. He said, purpose and identity. And that makes sense because everything comes back to this. So when you know you're calling in life, then it becomes meaningful, even doing emails and your job or other things that may seem mundane. They now become more meaningful because you know this is part of your calling.
Connie: 11:26 Have you seen that with you knowing what your calling is? Have you found yourself giving more into what you're doing and being more all in with it?
Jeffery: 11:33 Absolutely. You know, I've always loved being in the classroom, and I've taught at a couple of universities and I found meaning in that because the students are right in front of me, I'm trying to help them, I know who I'm serving.
Jeffery: 11:43 But then when I came here to BYU, there was another level because of the unique mission that we have to build testimonies, to build the faith, to build leaders who are going to gather Israel. And I can't say every moment in my job is bliss.
Jeffery: 11:59 I still have to grade papers and it's brutal. But there is a level of understanding of my ‘why’ that helps me in every aspect of my job. I'm less inclined to burn out. I'm more inclined to sacrifice and to do so joyfully, because of how much meaning I find in the work that I do. I don't want to imply that you have to work at BYU to find that either.
Jeffery: 12:23 And that's one of the things that I really try to focus on in my book and in my teaching is that we can always peel back another layer of the onion to look for the deeper and deeper ‘why’. When it comes down to it, any form of work that serves another person can be a calling. Martin Luther taught that centuries ago, right?
Jeffery: 12:47 When we get down to the ‘why', the fact that what I'm doing is participating with God and blessing His children in whatever way I'm doing, then that work becomes sanctified. It becomes meaningful beyond any incentive someone could offer you. When we adopt that lens, I believe, and I have seen, that people can find that level of conviction in almost any work, as long as you're helping and not hurting people.
Connie: 13:14 So true. And I think you share a quote in that same vein that when we are making shoes, we are shoeing God's children. This is all meaningful work. And, like you said, when we have that perspective. I want to go back to that heresy of it only happens if you work at BYU. You have several heresies that you talk about in “The Zookeeper’s Secret”.
Connie: 13:37 And one of them was the bliss, one you just talked about, that it all has to be bliss, right? That it isn't and that there's purpose in that. With these heresies that you've named, do you see one or another that's the more damaging than any of them? Or is there one that is a particular favorite of yours that you're like this one you've got to watch out for?
Jeffery: 13:56 Well, there are a few, but I think the one that most comes to mind is… So, because I studied ‘calling', I think a lot about what that word means. And the contemporary, worldly perspective of calling is a dream job. And I feel like one of the damaging narratives we have, one of the heresies, is that if you find your calling, you're going to have fun every day.
Jeffery: 14:18 It's going to be a blast and it's going to feel like you're playing. And I worry that we're setting up our young people with an expectation that if they're not having a blast at their job, then somehow they're not doing the right thing.
Jeffery: 14:33 I researched zookeepers. This was kind of where I learned about what ‘calling’ means. They taught me. And when zookeepers talk about their work: tremendous passion, they don't make any money, they get very little recognition. I mean, it's a terrible job from every worldly perspective. It smells, it’s dangerous, you're up in the middle of the night. But for them, it's a calling and it's not a calling because it's fun.
Jeffery: 14:57 It's a calling because it's worth sacrificing for, it's worth bleeding, sweating, crying for. It's worth being there to watch your animals die because they have a shorter life span than human beings do. There's heartbreak, but there's also joy. So, for them, it's the opposition in all things. The joy and the hardship has to come together.
Jeffery: 15:20 And that was one of the most important things I learned from zookeepers. It's not a calling in spite of it being hard. It's a calling because it's hard. And I think we have to overcome that contemporary heresy that meaningful work is fun. Meaningful work is meaningful because it's worth sacrificing for, and that's what makes it noble. And I think that's what gives us long-term fulfillment. I mean, if your job was fun every day, then you're in the garden of Eden and you can't grow. You can’t experience growth.
Connie: 15:49 You are spot on. I think about the different works, and no dis at all to Tim Ferriss, but for our work week and all these different ideas of shortening it and doing less. and, absolutely, being efficient as a beautiful thing.
Connie: 16:01 But I love what you're saying. It’s in the opposition. Once you are in that, it's that opposite and all things that provide that fulfillment, that hard work, and then the rest. Elder Christofferson said the same thing. It's that leisure and worker are companions.
Connie: 16:17 And I love that you bring up that we can discover that as we go. There's this developing timeline, not this expectation of we're going to have a great chef at work, or we're going to have a fridge full of goodies endlessly provided, right? That there's this when you get there, when you're doing your work, there is a satisfaction in doing a job well done, and that you're developing yourself in the process.
Connie: 16:39 So for people out there listening, and they're like, I am at the dead-end job of all dead-end jobs, what kind of advice do you have for them in being able to…you mentioned those questions and start asking those questions, which I think is fundamental. Because that will just popcorn all kinds of ideas in their soul. What do they do next when they're like, Okay, I think I can see a glimmer of a spiritual gift. What do they do next?
Jeffery: 17:03 Yeah. I'm going to give an answer that might be surprising to some people. And it's something that I learned in retrospect in the really terrible job that I had when I was younger.
Jeffery: 17:13 I was in a corporate environment that was really pretty toxic. And I did what people normally do, which was kind of pull into my shell. Sort of put up the walls, all the barriers, and kind of wait for the next thing to happen. If I could go back to myself at that time, I would have given myself very different advice.
Jeffery: 17:35 So what I should have done in that moment is say, Okay, let's face it, I'm not happy here, this is not a good place. There are probably other people here who are suffering as well. As long as I'm here, what can I do to make it better? How can I serve? How can I amplify what I'm doing for good, even though it's painful to be here every day?
Jeffery: 17:59 Something would have happened to me. And it's not necessarily that I would have suddenly learned to love my job. What would have happened to me is I would have more quickly discovered what my gifts were, by enacting them. Because it's when we're thinking about others and serving them that our spiritual gifts are most easily manifest.
Jeffery: 18:18 So, on the one hand, I would have had more to offer whoever came along next to offer me a job. Secondly, other people in that organization or outside of the organization would more clearly see what value I bring. And I think the opportunity to change, for a new door to open, is much more likely to happen when I'm at my best, then when I'm putting up barriers and caving in on myself.
Jeffery: 18:44 And that's hard advice because I know what it's like to be in a kind of brutal work environment. But I really think that that is the most resonant way to pursue a calling is to bring your best wherever you are and trust that those gifts will shine through when you're focused on serving.
Connie: 19:08 That's so beautiful. And it sounds to me like when you're talking about that, that as you allow yourself to bloom where you're planted and just provide whatever goodness you can, that you're going to end up connecting with other people's spiritual gifts and sparking their spiritual gifts. So now there's this multiply and replenish attitude, and this one plus one equals 642 kind of result.
Connie: 19:30 I just think that's a perfect recipe for change in any environment. So that kind of begs the question of shaking up the ‘calling’ snow globe. If you're feeling stuck or feeling stagnant, and shaking that up. That kind of brings me to the point of, you have this beautiful quote that says, “We usually can't predict exactly where our gifts will lead us. But in retrospect, we will see the hand of the Lord leading us from door to door and opportunity to opportunity as we exercise and hone our spiritual gifts.”
Connie: 20:00 So, you had some unexpected paths in developing your calling. Things that probably people wouldn't even anticipate with maybe acting or in your research, some unorthodox kind of things that you've experienced. Can you enlighten us on that and how that's blessed you with your calling?
Jeffery: 20:16 I've done a few unorthodox things. So let me kind of give the genesis of that, because one of the things I teach my students is a concept. And here's a book recommendation: Carol Dweck is a brilliant social scientist who wrote a book called “Mindset[: the New Psychology of Success]” based on her research that shows we act in very different ways based on our beliefs about our talents and our intelligence.
Jeffery: 20:40 If you believe that you can get smarter by working toward getting smarter. If you believe that you can become a smarter person, it dramatically affects, oh, so many aspects of your personality. So I'd been teaching this, and I realized about 10 years ago, I was being a big hypocrite. Because there were pieces of myself that I'd always wanted to express, but I was afraid of them.
Jeffery: 21:04 So this might seem goofy, but I always wanted to be a singer, but I didn't like my voice. And I love theater. I absolutely have been just completely enraptured by watching people on stage tell a story in real-time. But I just thought there was no way I could do anything like that. And one day I'm teaching my students and kind of caught myself and thought I've gotta, you know, I've gotta be authentic here.
Jeffery: 21:26 And so I sort of committed to my students. Okay, I'm going to take voice lessons. I'm going to audition for a play. And I thought that would be the end of that. So 10 years later I've been in about 20 productions. I started with a tiny little wonderful community theater. Now I perform fairly regularly here along the Wasatch Front and both of the Hale Theaters and have had some really fun, exciting roles.
Jeffery: 21:51 And I just, I can't believe that I'm doing…it is so unexpected. But it was that courageous step to try something that I felt in my soul I ought to do and discovered, oh, there's some spiritual gifts there. But I think the most surprising aspect of that was–that felt at the time like a detour or like sort of like a side hobby–it is woven into my academic life in ways I didn't expect.
Jeffery: 22:18 I'm a different teacher because of how I tell stories in class and how I have kind of learned to be present and a better listener. It's amazed me how much I've learned. It shaped my research as well. I'm currently working on a project where I'm studying historical interpreters, who are people who are basically actor-historians, who engage with the public to bring them into a historic site.
Jeffery: 22:42 And I'm learning a lot of leadership lessons from them. I never would have predicted that something that felt sort of like a sidebar expression of a gift would really fold itself into everything I do. So I like to challenge my students and others, if you have that inkling you ought to try something but you're afraid, read “Growth Mindset'' and go give it a try. You may be surprised at what’s in store.
Connie: 23:08 That is fantastic. This theatrical version of Indiana Jones, by day professor by night Hale Center Theater person, an actor on stage. But it's beautiful. And I can see what you're saying, how this would just weave right into the way that you interact with your students and make it richer and fuller.
Connie: 23:28 I want to bookend all the way back to the beginning where you talked about fear, fear being one of the biggest obstacles to us digging deep and bringing forth those spiritual gifts that are already wired within us. That parable of the talents where we in essence bury them if we're not trying something. That doesn't mean we have to go try everything.
Connie: 23:49 But maybe for listeners right now, if there's something that's kind of weighing on their heart or something that's coming over just saying, Ah, I would love to, I wish I could, paying attention to that. And maybe like you said, taking that next step, make a phone call, find out, write something down, connect with someone who does it. I think that's just a beautiful everyday way of discovering those spiritual gifts and bringing it down to a very earthly way of approaching it instead of making it bigger than life.
Connie: 24:16 I know that we talk on here a lot about what is the intersection for you personally of this faith and creativity and professional skill. Have you seen your faith in this very spiritually based topic of ‘calling’ in life? You're walking this line of doing it for a job in professional realms and living it on a spiritual level. I'm sure it's going into your callings in the church and things like that. How have you navigated this intersection of this for yourself?
Jeffery: 24:48 That's such a great question, Connie. So I think probably the biggest leaping-off point of my career–and this was unexpected too–was when I gave the devotional that you mentioned. I had spent years studying zookeepers and framing that for an academic audience and making sure empirically I could substantiate the claims we were making.
Jeffery: 25:11 It was very academic and intellectual and I loved it and it was fun to do that. And then I was asked to give the devotional, and when you're asked to give a devotional you're not given a topic. And I just thought, oh my goodness, what do I know that I could share in a spiritual realm?
Jeffery: 25:27 And then I thought about my research, and I started framing it in terms of the spiritual components and started studying ‘calling’ from a restored gospel perspective. Articulating that in a devotional changed the course of my career. Absolutely. My research started to mean something more because I saw the spiritual significance, but it also introduced new questions that I wouldn't have thought to ask if I was only looking at it from an academic standpoint of what am I going to publish?
Jeffery: 26:02 And it sort of marks a turning point in my career when I allowed that intersection to happen. So I'm really grateful I was asked to give that talk because I wasn't going there on my own.
Jeffery: 26:14 I was busy. I was trying to get tenure. I was getting published. And I was forced in that moment to stop and see the resonance, the connection. And nothing has been the same since. The book that I wrote, I never, I didn't mean to be an author, but Stuart and I, we had to write that book because we started seeing that this intellectual pursuit had so much more significance than we originally thought.
Jeffery: 26:47 So I guess my advice to people would be to allow yourself to make those connections between the professional and the spiritual. It's shot through the Book of Mormon, right? We pray over our flocks. Kings and prophets were also working in the fields with people.
Jeffery: 27:04 Labor and profession is part of a spiritual life. It's part of developing ourselves to be children of God. It's not just something we do to get by so that we can pay the bills. And we do need to pay the bills. And for some people that is just almost all you can think about, but there's always more, there's always spiritual significance. All things are spiritual to the Lord. And I'm so glad that I was forced to discover that in a way that was really career and life-changing for me.
Connie: 27:39 Oh, that's beautiful. I mean, compelled, right? Absolutely gorgeous. And that's for every single person. And I feel that as you're sharing that, that is what God wants for us, to have that deeper meaning. We're not just here to punch a clock.
Connie: 27:53 And as you've mentioned before, just give over to something eight to five that has no meaning in our lives. There's no way that that's possibly the truth. So I love this in one of the quotes that you had too is, “If you exercise faith in the Lord, follow His Spirit, and seek to amplify your gifts, you will be led gradually to a place where you are well equipped to serve.”
Connie: 28:14 It's perfectly aligned with what you're saying. We go step-by-step, choice by choice, with that mindset of, He has a deeper meaning for me, and I'm open to discovering what that is and developing it as I go. He'll give it to me in the doing. Absolutely beautiful!
Connie: 28:27 As our last thing as we wrap up, is there anything, one last thing, that hasn't been discussed that you really would like to leave with our listeners about them finding and developing their calling in life?
Jeffery: 28:40 So, yeah, and this isn't what I expected to say, but you know, when I talk about these concepts it can sound very high-minded. And one of the pushbacks I've gotten from my research is it sounds like you're talking to people of privilege, right?
Jeffery: 28:54 It sounds like you're talking to people who are lucky enough to have lots of opportunities and that's not the lot of everyone in life. And so I kind of want to address that because of a recognition that some people are scraping by. Now, many of us are put in a position where we come from a disadvantage and it feels like all you can manage just to put food on the table and to make a life.
Jeffery: 29:22 And I wanna honor the fact that some of the noblest stories I know are people who had to give up things they really wanted to do in order to support their family. So let's recognize that there's nobility in work that simply requires you to sacrifice for others even if you don't enjoy that work.
Jeffery: 29:46 That being said, I've been very humbled and instructed. You mentioned that I've traveled to Ghana, I've had the chance to work in some developing nations. And I actually have a colleague who's working on what it means to have a sense of ‘calling’ if you're in poverty. And we've heard some of the general authorities talk about the African Saints.
Jeffery: 30:05 But it's not just the Saints. There is a cultural aspect of gratitude that I experience when I'm in Ghana that I don't think we see in the U.S. because people, even though many folks are really struggling to get by, they, on the one hand, experience a lot of gratitude for what they do have, and they're very community-focused.
Jeffery: 30:29 They're very oriented toward building one another up, to greeting people on the street, reaching out. I think many times it's in the deprivation, perhaps, that we learned how much we need to reach out to other people. So I just like to say, if you're listening to this and thinking, Well, that's good for the professor to say.
Jeffery: 30:53 I have seen these elements, this developing and sharing spiritual gifts, really elevate work in almost any social strata. So I believe that the principles are there for anyone who's willing to take that journey.
Connie: 31:09 I love that. And I love that you brought that up. It made me think of a gentleman that I know, he's a temper recorder at one of the temples.
Connie: 31:17 And he was for a time there in Africa with his wife. And I just remember him saying how grateful those Saints were and how it changed him to be more grateful for the gifts that he was given and the things that he was given and want to give more.
Connie: 31:31 And he said he had, just very quickly, but it was Christmas time, believe, and they were getting ready to go. And he had these Ghirardelli squares, you know, that come in an individual package. And he said, We had like two left. And he said there were a couple of ladies that worked in the laundry. Anyway, when they went to leave, he gave them both just one little square.
Connie: 31:51 And the next day, I think, they were leaving, and he asked one of the ladies, Did you enjoy that chocolate? because she'd never had it before, she'd never had chocolate. And she said, Yes. She had seven children and they all had a little bite of that Ghirardelli square. And she was so grateful.
Connie: 32:09 And it makes me think, as you've opened up to developing your spiritual gifts, it's opened your heart, your soul to so much more than just, Gee, how can I make a better living? It's being a better person and being bigger in heart and soul, and that's connected with people in Ghana. And now the graduate students that you've worked with, that you've taken there, and now that ripple effect will happen in their lives.
Connie: 32:32 So this concept goes beyond just, Gee, what kind of work do I want in my future? This really is who I am as a calling in life. And I love that you bring up the point, It doesn't matter your socioeconomic status at any station of that journey. That it's about being the best we can be in this moment and giving what we can to become more.
Connie: 32:55 Absolutely have loved this today. My heart has been touched. I've learned so much. Those that are listening, are thinking, I'm sure, the same thing. If they want to know more and connect with you, what's the best way to do that?
Jeffery: 33:06 So I'd love to have people reach out if they have questions or thoughts. Probably the best way to reach me is at sorensencenter@byu.edu. That's my new ‘calling’ journey is developing The Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership where we're really trying to develop our students to be prepared to build Zion after they leave BYU. So you can reach me there, and happy to hear stories and share thoughts.
Connie: 33:33 I literally wish we had another half an hour. There's so many things I want to talk to you about and ask you about. This is fantastic. We'll probably have to have you back for part two. This is wonderful. Thank you so much, and we wish you every success at the Sorenson Center.
Connie: 33:45 And for those that are listening, I invite you to take the challenge as he's talked about today of just take a step, that next step. Maybe it's answering the questions in the back of his book, “The Zookeeper’s Secret”, or maybe it's just taking some quiet time and thinking, What would be my favorite next step if I did really want to know what my calling in life is? And just sit with it and see what happens because this podcast is all about utilizing what we're talking about and making the change.
Connie: 34:09 Thank you so much, Dr. Thompson, for being with us today.
Jeffery: 34:12 Thank you, Connie. My pleasure.
Connie: 34:14 It's been a joy. And as always, if you like this interview, then please go below, rate, review and subscribe and get more of these. We have lots more to come. And as always, we support you and encourage you in your journey to navigate your intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill.