In this episode, Curt opens up to Melody Edwards in a candid discussion about his journey through faith, spirituality, and their profound impact on his entrepreneurial life.

Curt opens up about his upbringing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, how it shaped his values and beliefs, and how his ongoing crisis of faith has led him to re-evaluate some of these principles.

He shares anecdotes about the misconceptions surrounding his faith, while also addressing deeper, often uncomfortable truths about the doctrines he grew up with. As they delve into the nuances of faith and business, Curt highlights the importance of authenticity, integrity, and the courage to question established norms, emphasizing that true growth comes from embracing one's own journey. This thoughtful exchange invites listeners to reflect on their own beliefs and the role they play in their personal and professional lives.

Takeaways:

• Curt Kempton shares his journey of faith and how it influences his entrepreneurial values and decisions.
• Explore the intersection of personal beliefs and business ethics, emphasizing authenticity and integrity.
• Melody and Curt discuss the change in how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is perceived and its evolving policies over time.
• Curt explains the significance of family and community in shaping one's spiritual journey and how it impacts business dynamics.
• The conversation highlights the importance of questioning beliefs and being open to new information for personal and professional growth.
• Curt reflects on the complexities of faith during his mission and how it shaped his understanding of spirituality and ethics.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor podcast.

I'm Kirk Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions and dilemmas that keep entrepreneurs up at night.

We love talking about the soul of your business, which means having tough conversations that challenge what we believe and push us to think deeper about business values and what really matters.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Welcome, everybody.

Today's everybody always says it's a special episode.

Well, this is one of our first podcasts, you know, Melody, this is our.

This is one of our very first that are getting to know who their hosts are.

So.

Yeah.

Well, I want to interview you today, Kurt.

I know this is going to come as a surprise, but today it's all about you.

And I have so many questions about you and your background.

And especially I think we're really focusing on how you came to your faith and your spiritual beliefs, because it really does affect the way that we view our businesses.

I think, I think we both agree, but I also want to make sure I'm saying the right language, because when we talk a couple times, I just say Mormon.

Should I be saying, well, what can I say?

Yeah, the Church of Mormon, the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.

Let's do this like this.

We're going to talk about the early days of how I kind of came to be.

I'm sure that's going to be a big part of the topic.

Back in those days, it was totally cool to call us Mormons.

In fact, people called us Mormons for years and years and years as an insult because of the book of scripture that we add to the Bible, which I know people are freaking out right now, and I don't know how deep we need to get into that, but it was an insult.

And then one day somebody, there's an extermination order against Mormons.

And so one guy came up with the gun to the head of some member of the church and says, hey, I heard you're a Mormon.

And he said, through and through.

True blue Mormon all the way through or something like that.

And it kind of, at that point, it just became this badge of honor.

The guy said, well, doggone if you're not the most honest person I ever met in my life.

He put his gun away and.

And rode his horse off.

So that's a true story.

I was told it.

I think it's true.

We could chat GPT it and find out, but the fact is, is that at that point we just kind of turned it from insult to badge of honor.

And so I grew up always thinking that that's a totally cool term lately.

The problem is that people think we worship someone named Mormon or that we are.

It would be like the book of Isaiah and calling you an Isaiah or the Book of John, you're a John.

I have never heard this before, ever.

I didn't know that it was an insult.

And I also didn't know that people would think Mormons would be worshiping Mormon.

Well, well, we did a whole campaign not even that long ago, like it was within the last 10 years is the I'm a Mormon campaign.

We had billboards and everything all over the world trying to get people to ask questions.

I'm a coach of a basketball team and a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm a Mormon.

And then when I was a kid, I always used to see the commercials and it would say, and they would be doing really nice things and I was like, I want to be like those people.

And then at the end it would say, the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.

Did you ever see these?

Oh, yeah, I did for sure.

So the problem was is that the leader of our church, the prophet, he came out and said that the name of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

And even just then when you said it, you actually left out Jesus Christ because it's so long.

You said the Church of Latter Day Saints.

So the problem is that the most important part of the name of our church is being left out.

So they said, all right, we're going to change the emphasis here.

We're going to no longer refer to ourselves as Mormons and we're going to start referring to ourselves as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The Mormons.

Oh, they don't even say the Mormons anymore?

No.

Oh, that was my favorite part.

See, that campaign worked wonders on my child brain.

I really.

And I must have been a teenager too.

I really thought Mormons were the best humans on earth.

I had like, really?

You haven't had enough Mormons yet?

But yeah, we're trying to be.

I have met enough Mormons.

And that's the other part of this.

Like, I don't know a lot about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but what I do know is I didn't recognize how many people were in our industry that were just kind of hidden Mormons.

And behavior wise, I never would have known that that's what their faith was.

Mostly at events that I would attend.

And so it was almost like this hidden thing.

And, and I guess, can I ask you, like in the home service world is the reason why people tend to get in those kinds of trades?

Because it's very flexible though you can minister or is that a thing or am I getting it wrong?

I don't know.

We leave on a two year mission.

I know that in the Jehovah's Witness faith.

I've met lots and lots of members of the Jehovah's Witness faith who by the way, I adore so many of them and I know they do because they have to fit ministering into their professional work life.

They have different like tiers.

So if you want to be like a pioneer, you're basically a part time minister for the church and then you work your work life in around that and you have strong commitments that you need to keep.

In our faith you commit to the two years and then you commit to talking about it whenever it can come up.

I know in the Jehovah's Witness faith, if you want to be a pioneer, if you and I were having a conversation about spiritual or religious, I would try to just kind of in my head, kind of log away the time that we talked so I could report that.

I actually don't think they reported anymore.

That actually is something that used to happen.

But my point is, is that we don't report any hours or anything.

We just try to always be open to conversation.

So I don't think that I would need to choose my.

I mean the reason I got into window cleaning and pressure washing originally was just strictly because being a professional mountain biker, which is what I was going to do.

So much money in that.

It'S not a good life for your family.

And I just read the book Millionaire Mind about how people who own, who do businesses that are under the radar, that people don't want to do junkyards and car washes, are kind of at the top, become millionaires.

And I thought, well, doggone if no one likes to wash windows, I'll just wash windows.

You know, I'm not above that.

I figured out how to do it and I started a company.

So anyway, yeah, that's all a long way of saying that it really wasn't spiritually motivated.

Okay.

I think that you.

That's something that I just learned is that I might sometimes confuse Mormons and Jehovah with Jehovah's because Jehovah Witnesses.

Jehovah's Witnesses, Jehovah's Witnesses.

And I Know that they're different.

Please know.

I know they're different, but I think sometimes merge the things that make it different than Christianity or Islam or Judaism.

Like I understand those religions more because I've been immersed in them in some ways over the years.

I've not really known too much about the other ones, so.

So that's a good description for me.

But I guess I would like to understand.

One of the things I had written down, by the way, is that I know that Mormons love milkshake bars because.

Because of me.

Because of you.

Yeah.

But what I do understand is Mormons don't drink, I think.

Is that right?

Yeah.

We do follow something health code referred to in our religion as the Word of Wisdom.

And the Word of Wisdom talks about drinking strong drink.

You know, it also talks about eating meat sparingly in times of famine is more when we would eat it.

And anyway, it talks about basically having a well balanced diet.

But in the interpretation of the Word of Wisdom, alcohol is something that we don't drink.

By the way, the early members of the church did until the Word of Wisdom was revealed.

I actually have had exactly one finger of Corona in my life.

I stuck my finger in the beer batter and oopsie.

I didn't know what it was.

Anyway, you missed nothing.

You're fine.

I was like, anyway, so we don't drink alcohol, we don't drink coffee.

I actually personally.

Now everyone can interpret the Word of Wisdom however they choose.

I personally don't take in caffeine at all.

No sort of caffeine.

And no other member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I'm not going to keep doing that to you.

I'm just going to say I'm going to go ahead and keep using Mormon.

Someone's going to thank you.

But no other Mormon does this.

But I just don't drink carbonation as a rule.

I just don't like the way it makes my nose feel.

Interesting.

And I also heard someone say, don't drink your calories.

And I thought that sounds like a wise idea.

It is a wise idea.

I feel like in Utah there's a lot of bespoke soda companies there.

Yeah.

It's a big thing, right?

They have like soda parties and stuff.

At least I've seen that on tv.

I don't know.

Yeah.

And.

And honestly, if the Word of Wisdom had said no sugar, I don't know if there'd be any members of the church left.

I mean, I love sugar.

I've been trying to moderate it And I. I do a workout every day, but just so I can have some from time to time.

But for the most part, the Word of Wisdom is really designed as a good, healthy way of living and the way of honoring the temple of God of our body.

And so we try to follow it.

So the milkshake thing originated when I would go to a trade show and people would always want to take me out for a beer.

Like, let's go talk over a beer.

And I'd say, I don't drink beer, but if you know a good milkshake bar, let's go hit that up.

And that just stuck.

Like, I think I did it twice.

And from that point forward, the milkshake guy.

The milkshake guy.

Everybody's saying it, and I'm like, I guess I'm not a milkshake guy.

The first time I met you or hung out with you was at.

In New Orleans, and we went.

You know, you probably don't even remember this, but we went to, like, a milkshake place.

And that's really did stick in my head.

I was like, he loves milkshakes.

I do, I do.

Yeah.

Well, can I go back to where it all began?

Because I.

Now that I kind of understand a little bit more about your faith or like, the.

Would it be the religion?

Let's talk about that for just a second, if that's okay.

Yeah.

The religion is the prescribed.

I'm going to go ahead and make some definitions here, and I'm making them up off the cuff, but I've thought a lot about this.

So the religion is the prescribed dogma, doctrines, and sort of cultural side of what I believe.

I want to distinguish that between my spirituality, where I think that if anyone is listening to this that isn't a member of my church, I. I think a lot would probably agree with me because, well, doggone it, I think all the right things.

But in seriousness, I feel that our religion is one of the few religions that can satisfy me doctrinally, but it is not.

I've gone through some pretty serious reflection, and I was not really satisfied culturally and spiritually in terms of some of the things we'll go over today and have really led me to here with you, to be honest.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

You and I have very different spiritual backgrounds or religious backgrounds, but I still think that our views on many things are very similar spiritually in a way.

And I think that having these conversations is so good because it allows other people to understand how many connection points there are.

Yeah.

So were you born like, do you have a huge history of being a part of the church from like your grandfather and your grandfather before that?

Is that the story?

So on my dad's side, my dad's great grandfather was the first member of the church on that side.

So let's just say that on my dad's side, even though I don't think in my dad's early years anyone would have accused him of being a super solid, crazy devout Mormon, I think that everyone would have seen him as a good member of the church.

Now on my mom's side, she grew up Lutheran and again, going back to some of the religious side of things, and I'm going to go ahead and use the term policy now, some of the policies of the church.

My mom ended up getting basically disowned when she married my dad.

She, she joined the church a year before marrying my dad.

And now they're both super devout.

And just to set a little bit of the stage here, my mom and dad are hook, line and sinker, fully invested in both the religious and spiritual side of the sort of religion.

And just this last Sunday night at family dinner, I had a pre conversation with him where I've just been over time helping them understand how I just don't buy everything.

And they're very loving about it, which I really appreciate.

We can talk about my siblings if you want at some point, but that's a little diverse as well.

And I think my parents, they are not willing to look past what they're supposed to see.

Whereas I'm a believer that truth fears no test.

And we can talk about how some of the doctrines really satiate my needs spiritually, which is why I'm still where I'm at even after a pretty strong crisis of faith.

But as far as my family goes, the roots are pretty deep.

My mom may be the first member on that side of the family, but like most converts to anything, very staunch, very deep, deep roots.

Yeah.

Do you feel like since your mom got married and kind of like the year before had converted, do you feel like in your early years with them that it was really, really they were strong in their faith or what was it like growing up in your household?

Very much the most Mormon you could be.

Is Nate Bargazzi one of my favorite media, the most Christian I was, yes.

Yeah.

So I also want to draw another distinction.

I know there are people who argue this point and say that I'm not a Christian.

And the reason they would probably say that is because I believe in ongoing revelation through a modern day Prophet.

And so that would maybe strike me out of some people's list.

The fact that I believe Jesus Christ, God the Father and the Holy Spirit are one in purpose, but three separate entities, some people would say that makes me not a Christian, which obviously I can't do anything except for respect that.

But I view myself as a Christian because I do believe in the Jesus in the New Testament.

I do believe that the Old Testament was all a prophecy of the coming Savior of the world.

I believe that he lived and died.

He lived for me, as an example, he died for me for my sins and for me to be able to be able to take part in resurrection and spiritual cleansing, to be able to put me back in the presence of the Father.

And I'm just kind of getting some of this stuff out of the way so people understand the Jesus I believe in, you may say is different and I will have to respect that.

But I believe that I'm a Christian because I believe in that Jesus.

Now, one of the common threads as we go through this and you ask me more questions is that I don't do well.

I'm a very.

I'm just an analytical person and so I don't do well with people explaining that they're all one, but separate and that one can talk from heaven and one can be in the water and the other can descend as a dove and they can explain that they're all one.

And look, I'm sorry, but as an analyst, and I'm going to be talking about this, about my own other doctrines as well.

Sorry, just not doing it.

I don't care what they decided at the Creed of Nice, the Nicene Creed.

Don't care, doesn't make sense to me.

It's not on my heart, not going to accept it.

Now you might say my parents taught me this.

And so of course you're just taking what you were given.

I guess you wouldn't be lying, but I have challenged it in my thought.

At the end of the day, as we go through this, one thing you're going to learn about me is that I don't care what answer I get.

I want it to be true and I don't have to be right.

How do you know when you found truth?

I think that that's too big of a question to answer in like in.

A 50 minute podcast.

Yeah, we're going to have to, we're going to have to like sort of break that all apart.

But just for the purposes of it.

Truth, fears, no test.

The truth is something that I am constantly questioning and it deserves it right now.

There's some truths that I don't question too much anymore.

If I throw a ping pong ball up in the air, I just really, I really don't feel like I gotta test it too much more.

It's gonna come down tomorrow.

I truly am planning on the sun coming up.

You know, I just.

Sure, we could test it some more.

I don't think that's a great use of my time.

But when it comes to spirituality and God, I do feel that for whatever reason, God has just really rendered himself quite difficult to pin down.

And I have to believe that's by design.

I mean, why else, if he's all powerful?

One of the things I've said before, and I'll just say it here now, is that why is the most powerful guy in the world such a terrible marketer?

Let's go.

And I know that my faith's response to that would be, that's because you have to have faith.

You know, he doesn't want people to work with perfect knowledge in this particular realm.

Okay, fine.

But if I have to work off of faith, I can't just take whatever was spoon fed to me and I have to challenge it all the time in order to increase my faith.

I'm sure we'll go over a bunch of that and when we get to my crisis of faith.

Yeah, hopefully you'll ask me about that.

I can.

Well, I'm going to.

Yeah.

The other thing about when you were growing up, so what did it look like to be in a household where, you know, they were very faithful and the most faithful.

What was that like for you and your siblings?

Man, you know what I should have done for this?

I should have prepared so that I could list it out.

There's a lot of things I'm going to take for granted that I'm going to skip right over and not even think anything of it that other people might freak out.

I'm just one thing that popped in my head is never seen a rated R movie, so.

Never had.

Never had alcohol.

But I mean, every morning we woke up, we had scripture study as a family for 30 to 45 minutes.

I had to get up 5:30am so that my dad could be off to work by six.

You know, we're all groggy around the table reading the Bible, the Book of Mormon, you know, the Latter Day Saint scriptures.

Is that Normal, like would you say that that's a normal part of it.

Should be by the church's sort of standard.

But I mean, you tell me, Melody, who, who's doing that with all their kids?

It's, it's pretty hard.

I'm going to say.

A lot of people strive for that.

My family was pretty hardcore.

So we did, we did not have in our house probably a lot of things other people have.

Like obviously no cigarettes, no smoking.

Like my grandpa, my mom's dad was a big time smoker.

He would come over and you'd have to go outside to smoke, obviously.

But you know, there's a lot of, lot of like kind of cultural stuff.

We keep the Sabbath day holy, so on Sundays we just read scriptures, hang out as a family, stay home, go to church, maybe have family dinners together.

But we, we weren't out riding our bikes, camping, going to the lake, you know, none of that stuff.

We would go on.

Wednesday nights was our youth activity night.

All the youth go down to the church.

This is where people who are trying to measure us against a culture might want to be interested.

So we did things by the book.

And so part of what some might consider from a high control group is that our Tuesday day, Wednesday nights were called for.

We had one night a week as youth activity.

We had one night.

Monday night is called family home evening.

We would have that every Monday night where we would talk about different spiritual matters or someone would give a lesson on honesty or, or kindness or faith or charity or, you know, you know, so one of the kids would teach, one of the parents would teach.

That was a money.

Would this be with the church, like your whole church or just your family?

Monday, Monday nights are family home.

Just, just our immediate family.

Now if you want to like call the neighbors over and have them come over, whether they're members or not, we were encouraged to, you know, have other people join our family for family home evening.

And we certainly would do that.

Have people.

And you always end with like some sort of treat.

It's the Mormon way.

Always have a little sugar at the end.

I guess.

Sundays were three hour church back then.

They're two hours now.

But we would have three hour services.

Plus on Sunday, if you're in any leadership role, even as a youth, I was like the president of my youth class.

So I would have an hour and a half of meetings.

Then we had scouts.

We were heavily involved in the Boy Scouts.

So that was part of the church actually at the time.

So we would plan our activities and we would learn, you Know, skills that.

And so a typical week in our life, you know, much of it I was in sports all growing up.

I, I did a lot of, you know, I was in wrestling and track and cross country, soccer and if the church needed something, that was first priority.

But once you take sports, which is already pretty all encompassing and then the church was all pretty all encompassing, it's pretty difficult to have a lot of friends outside of the church.

Not that it's not encouraged.

In fact, I think most people know that my faith is very much into mixing and mingling and, you know, sharing the word.

So as far as the bite model of, of cults goes, I mean I look back and, and certainly I can see a lot of people that leave the church will talk about how, you know, the church just so all encompassing that they don't want, they want to keep you so busy that you don't see anything outside of it.

And I've seen, I could see how people would get there.

I was never discouraged from having non member.

In fact, I was encouraged to have non member friends and I was encouraged.

But we do have, as I mentioned, the prophet of the church, the president of the church, he has two counselors and then there's 12 apostles.

And they believe in ongoing revelation and we believe in it.

And they were the mouthpiece for the church, not for your family, but for the church.

And so a lot of people, you know, constantly talk about following the prophet and listening to the prophet and some people.

Does each church have a prophet?

No, no, no, no.

The whole church is a whole.

The church got it as a whole.

How do you become the prophet?

Well, it's like everything else in the church, it's a calling.

So you're called to it now once you're in the apostleship.

So once you're One of the 12 apostles, the most senior of the 12 apostles will end up being the prophet when the prophet dies.

It's sort of a calling for life.

But someone calls you into their office and says, it's been revealed to us that you're the next whatever.

But don't worry, Melody, it's not going to happen to me.

I'm, I already, I've already done enough things in my life to make sure that that doesn't happen.

But anyway, yeah, so I wouldn't call them charismatic.

One of the typical things about a cult is that they're pretty charismatic.

I will say they're very accomplished.

Like the current prophet, President Nelson, he is a world renowned heart surgeon.

He pioneered open heart surgery.

They didn't choose dummies.

And that's one reason they wouldn't put me up there.

But I think that one of the things that you will find is that they can speak fine.

But like for example, this coming weekend is general conference.

Every six months they have general conference.

And I always look forward to general conference, but I also always fall asleep during general conference.

It's two days, it's two, two, two hour sessions on Saturday, two two hour sessions on Sunday.

And actually there is a two hour evening session on Saturday that I always skip.

But that's because I'm.

I've already done four hours of church.

I'm not going to do six.

I'll read the, read the article at the end if you listen to it.

They're smart, but they're dull.

Yeah.

Anyway, for those of you who are wondering, are you a member of a cult?

Well, you'll have to decide that.

But by most definition of a cult, if you are a member of a group of any organization and there is a leader of the organization and he's pretty intense and you know it, it's a pretty slippery slope.

You can, you can figure out what a cult is.

But if, if they do start asking you to drink stuff to go to heaven, they're, you know, that's when I would say, like, we better watch out.

Watch out.

So the fact that you're so hyper aware of whether you're in a cult or not, and you've done a lot of work, you have the language, like you've definitely done a lot of work on am I in a cult?

What, what does this mean?

And we'll get into that.

But that makes me believe that you're making choices of your own volition.

That for some people, Catholicism is a cult.

Right.

Like, it really is super flexible.

It's super flexible.

Like.

Yeah, well, I don't know.

I don't know, Melody.

I'm trying to run my business like a cult with the employees and then I know.

So.

So, you know, whether cult's a bad word to you or not.

When I grew up, it was super.

Like people would call me and say, I'm a member of a cult.

And I'd be, oh, no, that sounds really bad.

And people have died being in cult.

So yeah, they can be for sure.

In a way I don't think of more.

I've never really thought of your religion as being a cult because I don't want to say the, the long name.

Yeah, yeah, but the church.

Yeah, sure.

But I never understood because I didn't Pay attention to all the things.

Because the marketing was so good on the television, like I said.

So you guys have, like, really strong social networks because you talk about, you know, and you've told me about how at church, people get up and they tell their part of what.

What did you say?

It was like they kind of give.

Their talk, their testimony.

So we give talks.

We have talks every Sunday from a couple people.

And then one Sunday a month is called Fast Sunday, and anyone can just get up and bear what we would call their testimony, what they know to be true.

So, yeah, we hear a lot from the congregation, from the Pope.

Do you have, like, a strong affiliation within your congregation?

Like, do you.

Is it the kind of place where you just know everybody and everybody knows you?

Do you do things together, or is that not how it is?

I've gone through different stages, so I was one of the members of our bishopric in my last ward, so ward is another word for congregation in our faith.

And I was one of the three guys that sat at the front leading the congregation.

At that point, everybody knew who I was, and I pretty much knew who everybody was.

I knew the flock.

I'm using air quotes here.

I knew the flock really well.

And to this day, if I run into the grocery store, like, just such strong feelings, just hugs and love, and it's great.

And I.

And I moved about three, four years ago.

So I'm in a new ward that's adjacent to my old one.

Geographically, I'm in a different ward.

And I'm an introvert by nature, so if you don't put me in that position, which I haven't been, I mostly just teach young kid primary classes and Sunday school classes.

I try not to.

In fact, I go sit up at the very front, like, the third row, and I sit.

Try to sit in the middle row of the long, bent, long pew.

And I want to make it so only the back of my head is visible, and then that way no one will come up and talk to me before church starts.

And then when the first half of church is over and everyone's going back to Sunday school, that is when the chaos is going and I can kind of quickly get through everybody.

So, yes, I kind of know people, but I take friendship very seriously.

When someone stands up in front of a crowd and goes, hello, friends, my skin just crawls because I'm like, I'm not your friend.

You don't know me.

What's my favorite color?

What's my favorite.

What's my name?

Well, you're right.

I actually do like blue, even though.

Like, most people like blue, so.

But.

But you don't even know my name.

Don't call me friend.

Anyway, I take friendship very seriously, and it's exhausting for me to be a friend for someone because I take friendship so seriously.

So my answer to that is is that my wife is my best friend.

And then I've got Bobby Walker, and I've got you, and I've got my very close employees.

Whoa, Kurt.

Yeah, I mean, that's very.

That's a very, very tiny circle.

Yeah.

Very tiny.

My circle of what I would consider true friends.

Yeah.

Is maybe 40.

I bet you I could put 40 people in a room and say, I'm.

I'm good.

So when one more person wants to get in, it's really hard.

Like, someone shakes my hand, they're like, tell me, what do you do for.

Oh, no, no, no.

We're not doing this.

You get away from me.

Get the hints, Satan.

So, yes, we're tight, but only as tight as we want it to be.

I keep everything pretty cordial at church.

I've been.

I've been to people's house to help them with different things.

I show up, I put my gloves on, I do the thing, get my truck, and I drive off.

Have you always been like this?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And is it.

You think it's because, like, how did you even meet your wife?

If this is how introverted you are.

Right.

Because my mom and my dad.

Well, no, sorry, not my dad.

Sorry, dad.

You're not an extrovert.

Mom is an extrovert like no other.

When I got home from my mission.

We can talk about mission if you want, but when I got home the day I did, I hadn't dated for two years.

I haven't been alone with the A girl for two years.

I hadn't been away from a companion, a male companion, in two years.

I wasn't allowed to hug.

I wasn't allowed.

You know, I called home four times in two years.

Mother's Day and Christmas.

I was pretty messed up.

Like every other missionary, kind of.

Although nowadays they've done some stuff to, like, really change some policy to help.

But my mom had a calendar full of blind dates.

When I got home, Rachel was my fourth or fifth blind date.

I actually had tried to cancel it on her, but she's like, no, we can just do whatever, you know?

And anyway, I knew the moment I met Rachel that I was going to marry if she would let me.

I would marry her.

Like, truly, like, first date, came home, told my mom I met my wife tonight, and she's like, don't you dare say a word to anyone about that.

You're crazy.

Cancel all the blind dates, Mom.

I've met the one.

Well, actually, I did.

I did cancel most of them, but the ones I did go out on, I always found a way to stop by her house afterward to see if she needed help studying for school or what.

She was in college, so, yeah, I would drop girls off on a blind date.

I'd pick them up at 8, had them home by 9:30, and I was over at Rachel's house by 9:45.

Oh, that is devotion.

And it's been that way ever since.

Yeah, man, I. I won the wife lottery for sure.

Yes, you did.

I am thinking of your siblings.

I don't know all your siblings.

I think I know Jen.

Yeah, but who do I know?

Have I met any other.

Other siblings or is it just Jen?

Yeah.

So Jen, who has a pet.

Grooming.

Yes.

Who I've connected with.

I love Jen.

And then I have Rhonda, who is the one.

Next one down.

Rhonda.

So Jen is the oldest, then.

Rhonda.

Rhonda does hair.

She's a cosmetologist, works out of her house, and is incredibly talented.

Her husband's like.

Like outdoorsman.

Anyway, you've never met him because he wouldn't come to anything like that.

But then, then me, I'm the middle child, the one who is forgotten.

And then Megan, my younger sister, and then Austin, the last one is my younger brother.

So Jennifer left the church almost immediately upon going to college, and now she's back with a vengeance.

Like, she's like.

She's like, oh, wow, my mom Mormon.

Like, she is the, like, the hardest of core.

You know, she has questions like I do, but she's also very militantly Mormon.

Is maybe one way, but that's a pretty good saying.

What the.

Think about that one later on.

But Rhonda, very devoted to church, but also, you know, pretty laid.

Laid back.

My younger sister Megan left the church just about the time we moved into this house, actually.

It's a weird thing where she doesn't want to talk about it.

At least she hasn't talked about me, and I haven't brought it up.

But recently after the election, because she knows that my parents probably voted for Trump, which, face it, I don't think there's a way they didn't vote for Trump.

She just, with everything going on, she just said, you know, I can't ever come to family dinner.

I can't be untrigged when I'm around someone who I think voted for Trump.

So I haven't seen Megan in a long time.

And honestly, I've been trying to give her some space, but, you know, it's probably time to reach out.

But she.

She left the church and her husband left the church, and I think they probably had some pretty good reasons for it, but they don't want to really talk about it.

And then my youngest brother, Austin, is gay, and he has been out as gay since just shortly after high school.

And then he went to therapy.

Mormon, I mean, I call it Mormon therapy.

He went to some therapy to try and get rid of the gay.

Turns out, doesn't work.

Well, I guess there's people out there that say it can work, but in my experience, watching it, no, not really.

So poor Austin, he.

I think he feels the church really wronged him.

He also sees a lot of the things that I've seen through.

I. I choose to see some of it through eyes of faith that he hasn't.

It might be fair to say at this point that he's anti Mormon and, you know, certainly wouldn't blame him for it.

I had some real problem with how antagonist.

Agonistic he was towards my mom and dad about it afterward.

So I.

That kind of ruined my relationship with him there for a while.

But he.

He's been married and currently he's not married, but he has a really great.

Maybe I'll call him, I don't know.

Partner.

Partner.

Yeah, because.

Because it's not his boyfriend, it's his partner.

Yeah.

And, you know, I just love the relationship.

He's just such a good dude.

So that also has played into.

So, So I, I tell you, all those kind of situations, how fractured as a family we kind of are, all that played into my crisis of faith, where why do I believe this sort of thing?

And that's where we're at right now.

I want to quickly go back to your mission because I'm curious of what your mission was, what you were doing for two years, how that even works.

And then I want to talk about crisis of faith because I know that we can talk of these things for a long time, but let's, let's talk about that mission.

Well, the mission.

So the way it works is that when back in my day, it's 18 now, but back in my day, when you're 19, when you turn 19 as a young man, you are I'm going to use the word expected because anyone who says differently is lying to you.

But you're not like outcast if you don't go.

But you are expected if you're worthy and if you're able, you're expected to go serve a mission.

And what you do is you would go interview with your bishop, the, the leader of your congregation, and then you would meet with the stake president who is basically the leader of like six congregations.

And they kind of ask you questions to attest to your worthiness and make sure that you've done the physical things you need to do, saved up your money.

You need $10,000 to go on a mission, pay for it.

You need to when you're 18.

Well, I worked construction in the summers while I was a high school student.

But yeah, and your parents can help out, but they certainly don't want to see you walking up to the table with like, you know, $1,000 and be like, I'm, I'm all my skins in the game.

So now you're expected to save the money.

And then basically you need to get your wisdom teeth out and show that you're physically healthy and blah, blah, blah.

You have all that.

You turn that in.

And then the apostles and prophets, they.

Well, one of them, on whatever day your papers come in, they will look at your picture on the screen, where the need is, and they will direct where you're going to go.

My mission was in Canada.

I served in the Canada Calgary Mission, which is southern Alberta and a tiny bit of the southern and eastern side of British Columbia.

And so you buy a bunch of suits.

Well, a bunch.

You buy two suits and 12 shirts and a few ties.

You fit it all into two suitcases and you go, so in my case, I went to the mission training center.

I was there for about a two weeks, maybe it was three weeks.

Was that in Canada or were in Arizona?

No, that actually was in Provo, Utah.

Okay.

And then when you go to Canada, aren't there Mormons in Canada?

Oh, tons.

Yeah.

They actually specifically in the area I went, my first area.

So I got down the mission training center and then they shipped me off to Canada.

My first companion was in a town, little tiny town called McGrath, Alberta.

And I get there and we start knocking doors.

Melody.

Every single person who opened their door was a Mormon.

These people are way nice.

This is.

I get used to this.

Everybody invites us in, asks us if we want to have some food.

I'm like, when do we talk to the non Mormon people?

Well, not going to happen too much in this town.

There were like, it was like 75%, remember.

But can I ask a question about that?

Like, is the whole mission to just go and talk to people about your religion?

Yeah.

Like, is that what everybody does?

Or are there people who go off and work in orphanages?

Or are there, you know, like how missionaries.

That's changing.

That's changing.

What you're referring to is now called a service mission.

And my daughter's actually on one right now.

She's on a service mission.

My son is on a proselytizing mission, which is what I did.

Still a bit different now than the one I went on.

But regardless, it's close enough to call it that.

Yes.

Our purpose was to serve, find opportunities to serve.

We could serve for four hours a week in any capacity.

So I actually did a lot.

Depending on the area you're in, sometimes it be an old folks home, or sometimes it would be there was a Catholic school that needed help with their library and so we served there.

But gardening or helping someone reroof their house, I mean, I was up in a suit helping someone reroof their house.

The fact is, is that as you are on this mission, your hope is that you can just find someone with a soft heart who wants to be taught about God.

So I think that to say that we are there to teach is the most fair way of putting it.

Whether it was by looking for people to knock on the doors, like, we don't have anyone to teach right now.

I'm knocking your door between lessons.

Or whether it was someone referring me or someone I discovered in service.

Didn't matter if I was grocery shopping, if someone said, hey, I'm interested in going to church or I want to learn something.

My job was to begin teaching.

Can I comment on that?

Because I was at an event recently where this Mormon kid, he was 22, I think a year ago, he started a digital marketing agency and he's so good at sales that he was above a million dollars within a year and he'd already done his mission.

He goes to a Mormon school for college.

I've always kind of assumed or heard Mormons are really good at sales because they've knocked on doors they don't have.

They don't.

You know, you get used to hearing like, you get that knocked out of you.

The.

No, like I didn't have to do that.

So I still struggle with the selling.

Not as much, but.

Well, I, I think that it's less how I was brought up.

Even though it seems like it's how I was brought up.

But I took my religion, and I'm using the word religion very on purpose here.

I took it very personally.

And so when it never, for over two years, if someone said no to me, it hurt my feelings every time.

So a lot of people say, yes, Mormons go out and sell Jesus for two years straight, door to door.

They are the best salespeople.

And I think that in most cases, that's probably true.

Again, as people who listen to this podcast will get to know me over the years, I take the term selling Jesus.

That really kind of hurts my feelings.

Too, because, yeah, I wouldn't say it like that because I don't think.

It's not sales.

It's the fact that people are going to strangers homes, knocking on their door and then taking a risk.

Like, you have to steel yourself for whatever you're going to hear.

And I would imagine a lot of the time it's nothing good, but I don't know.

I've never done that before.

So to me, doing that for two years in a row, something would have to change.

It would probably always hurt me too.

And maybe it's just the way our hearts are.

But, yeah, I, I'm gonna.

I think I'm just gonna leave that one there.

That's basically how the mission went.

And, you know, two years of that.

I mean, we could do a whole podcast on the mission, Melody.

But just for the purposes of the spiritual side, I went on my mission knowing that I had all of the truth as restored on the earth today.

And I left the mission even amidst people who told me otherwise.

I left mission thinking God is using me as his mouthpiece.

I have all of the answers spiritually for the eternities, and I'm going to.

Teach that, like at 18 or 19.

Well, yeah, when I got done, I was 21.

So that's obviously kind of, you know, I look back on that, it's kind of sad.

But I knew that there was limitations.

I knew there were certain things that hadn't been revealed.

I knew that there were some things that just weren't.

There weren't answers for, and I was comfortable with that.

So, yeah, like, that's, that's an important piece of this, is to know that I went indoctrinated on my mission and I came indoctrinated on my mission.

I'm still indoctrinated, doctrinated.

I think anyone who says otherwise is probably just being a little bit.

I mean, we're all indoctrinated.

I. I think I have since realized the fallacy there.

I still think back when I got back from my mission, I was starting my window cleaning company.

I was in a window cleaning company, like Window Cleaning Resource Forum.

And somebody.

Yeah, yeah, you were.

Somebody found out that I was a member of the church and said, hey, I'm an ex Mormon.

If you ever want to learn the truth about what you really believe, feel free to hit me up.

And I remember someone saying that and thinking, I always pitied people who didn't have it all.

I feel like I might know who that was, but.

Oh, do you?

I think so.

I know exactly.

I remember very well.

But I never took him up on it.

And the reason was because I pitied him and I felt like he didn't want to know.

And now I look back on and I go, like, for example, my sister, like, I feel like if she and I sat down and really talked about where I'm at right now post faith crisis.

And I say post.

Let's just say.

Let's just say on the latter end of my faith crisis.

I think that those are the conversations that are actually the most important and interesting because again, truth fears, no test.

Agree.

Well, I'm excited to talk about this crisis of faith because I don't think I.

Well, I remember we had a conversation maybe a year or two ago where you referenced it.

Maybe you were in the midst of it.

How did this come about?

When did it start for you?

And what did that.

What have you gone through with that?

Yeah.

So Bobby Walker has kind of come to atheism through.

How did he.

Deconversion is what he called it.

And just for people in the audience, Bobby is your best friend or one.

Of your good friends?

Yeah, he's one.

He's my best friend.

Married to me.

Yeah.

But it's somebody who you met through the industry.

He's somebody who's really fun.

Very.

But.

But also like a deep thinker and probably he's gone through a lot of stuff, so.

Sure.

So those of you who don't know him, I hope you get to know him sometime.

But for those of you that do, Bobby kind of explained to me how he was know one of the brothers in the Pentecostal Church.

He was like big top dog.

Like, not like the second top dog kind of thing.

And like, just little doubts would come in a little this, little this, little this, little this.

And then one day he just realized, holy crap, I don't believe this anymore.

It just.

It snuck up on him.

And I really relate to that.

I feel like that Kind of happened to me.

It starts with somebody saying something at church that you're like whole earth flooded.

Literally.

There was more water on the earth covered all the land.

Where did that water go?

You know, really, we fit all the animals, two of every animal on one boat.

Yeah.

And all the food and everything.

Like, come on, come on.

It starts with that and you write it off because, well, obviously whatever God's plan was, this is the way he's telling the plan, you know, Know.

But then it gets more serious where it's like, like Pontus Pilate has, you know, Jesus brought out and like, should we take him or Barabbas, we're going to let someone go free.

So you got one that's a rebel against all of Rome, Rome Barabbas, who's a violent criminal.

And you got this peaceful still being viewed as a, an enemy to Rome because he's sort of this, this radical Jew Jesus.

And number one, was there ever a.

You know, they, we all pretend talk about how the scriptures say that there's a tradition where we let a prisoner go number one.

Did Rome have a tradition like that?

No, they did not.

Was Pilate just a really nice guy?

No, Pilate was like most vicious of vicious.

Like he was a total jerk.

We never even talk about that in church because we read the scriptures and we go, oh, everything in here is so true.

And, and we have this whole discussion about how the people would rather have Barabbas released than Jesus because they were so hard hearted.

And just the other day they were welcoming you in with palm fronds and it was this big wonderful thing.

And Dick, can I ask, did your crisis start towards the start of your Bobby Walker friendship or was it well before that?

I mean, meaning like as you came into.

Because like where are you getting your doubts?

Yeah, you know, I want to getting my doubts.

So the, let's just use the, the ark doubt.

The, like the very first one I shared that one might have happened like even like right after I got my mission like two decades ago.

Right.

Like this is why the sneaky part of it is that you just, you keep pushing stuff off.

So the crisis of my faith, I would argue has been going on for decades.

But like the Pontius Pilate, I'm watching a documentary that's talking about the last days of Jesus life.

And then the documentarians bring in some historians and they talk about how this isn't a thing and oh wow, well, why don't we talk about that at church?

And then you're at church and they're talking about things like that, and you're like, look how we're just going to skip over this.

Or we say something like, you know, people say, oh, Mormons wear special underwear.

And it's true.

Like, just like Jews wear yarmulke, you know, we do when we go to our temple, we receive the garment of the holy priesthood, which is something that, that we also hold sacred and, and, you know, spiritual clothing.

I find people who make fun of it to be very lacking and understanding of, like, how different people and religion, world religions work.

And it really shows ignorance on.

On their behalf.

Like, I don't.

It doesn't bother me at all.

Just I. I feel sad for them.

But anyway, these doubts that were popping up would get stronger and stronger, and I'd be sitting there and someone would bring up something fantastical.

You know, the city of Jericho, they went and blasted their trumpets and the walls fell down.

And you go, well, guys, like, we're just going to believe that.

Okay, okay.

Well, miracles happen all the time.

But when we talk about miracles in our day, it's a miracle that when someone cut you open and they stitched you back together, it worked like the other 10,000 that they did last year.

And obviously there are miraculous things that happen.

I'm not downplaying it.

My point is that parting the Red.

Sea, I think this is very literal.

I don't think I've taken the Bible that this is exactly what happened, because in my view, I think it's through the.

Well, I constantly am.

As a literal and analytical person, I constantly would say this is not literal.

But when we rename miracles, this is where the analytical part comes in.

We're renaming miracles.

Like today, I was looking for my glasses, and it was a miracle.

I found it under the couch cushion.

I never would have thought to look there, but Jesus prompted me to look there.

Like, oh, okay, that's a miracle.

Now, you know, like, you know, or something miraculous does happen, but it, like, still has a lot of good anyway.

So I can get into how I believe that the law of God is science, that science is truly God's law.

That's like, unbreakable.

But the deconversion process for Bobby Walker really resonated with me because I just one day realized if my wife ever found out the types of thoughts I'm having, she would divorce me.

She married someone different who committed something different to her.

And it.

And it broke me.

In fact, when it broke me, we had dropped off my daughter at college and we were getting on an airplane to Come home and I lifted up a bag to put it in.

And I'd been just wrestling with this for months, but my whole back just seized up and gave out.

And, like, I fell and broke a rib on a chair.

The flight almost miserable.

But I knew when that happened, I'm like, something's got to give here.

So I went and got counseling.

I didn't tell my wife why.

I just went and got counseling, and the guy found out that I was.

I'm not ready to give up my faith.

But, you know, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Saints, the Mormons, and I'm wrestling with some stuff.

And he said, well, you're a member of the wrong Christian faith, so obviously I'm not going to be able to help you.

I mean, if you're going to willingly stay.

So then I'm like, oh, crap.

So if my wife finds out who I am, this guy says I'm trash.

So it just got really bad there for a minute.

And then that was the wrong therapist.

Yeah, obviously the next therapist.

So I moved on from him.

And the next one I got was actually a Buddhist.

And he taught me about holding things lightly and meditation.

And he.

Honestly, he really put me back on the right track.

So the crisis of faith was basically sitting and deconstructing every word that would come out of every scripture, every.

Every lesson at church, and even my own wife's mouth.

Like, not only crass here, but, like, even in the bedroom.

Like, we would be enjoying our time together, and I would be like, we have rules that we have to follow to please God here.

And I would just be like, gosh, at what point do I get to think for myself?

It's pretty heavy.

This is extremely heavy.

I think one of the things I've struggled with.

I have kids, and when I.

And my whole life has been somewhat of a crisis of faith, but I've never felt like I could lead them if I'm in crisis.

Right.

Like, first of all, how did you talk to Rachel about this, but also your children?

Like, yeah.

So it started when we.

So we.

We still do scripture study every day.

And it got to a point where my wife would read something in the scriptures and we would all just assume it's all true.

And I would go, that's not been my experience.

And what do you mean?

And then I got to the point where I would say something like that, and my wife would, like, hurry and try and, like, finish scripture study.

Like, you know, we'd read something in the scriptures about how let a woman learn in silence or something?

And I'm like, bull crap.

That's just bull crap.

You all know that's bull crap, right?

And, and just again, for people who aren't a member of our church, we believe that our heavenly father, God.

We believe that we have a heavenly mother that is nowhere discussed.

But we believe that she's holy and she's spiritual, and we believe that he, the father and the mother, as we're told to be one with our spouse, we believe that he's one with his.

And we know that it's a point where people will make fun of our faith, but honestly, it's one of the most important pieces to me in belief that I have a father and a mother spiritually.

But anyway, Paul's so full of crap.

And then, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, hun, what are you doing?

Women are the pinnacle.

They are the crown jewel of God's creation, the final creation that God made.

You're telling me that she is, like, sure, she can be subject to her husband when there's a gang fight breaking out because God made guys stronger.

Okay, cool, fine.

We're protectors.

I'll buy that.

That's fine.

But to say that her brain isn't fully developed and that she can't ask questions.

No, that was God's last gift to humanity, was creating a woman.

So just bullcrap, you know, Paul just says stuff like he knows what he's talking about and he doesn't.

And my mom, okay, scripture stays over, kids, let's have prayers and go.

And my wife, like, at one point, she's like, something's up.

And I'm like, I can't.

I'm sorry.

I keep trying to hold it in every time we read the scriptures.

Every time we're reading about some old age and we're supposed to filter through what is old and doesn't apply and what is new and does.

But it's all true.

And our unchanging God just happens to change all the time.

And I, and I just kind of went and I told her, I'm like, I don't know what I believe anymore, hon.

And I know this is what you married.

And it was obviously full of tears, and I just felt like I was betraying her.

But I said, I have to.

I cannot continue to pretend.

And I know I've been doing a terrible job pretending even lately.

You deserve to know who you're married to.

And I'm a monster.

That must have been actually very scary for, for both of you.

I would Imagine.

Yeah, I told her, I said, you just want to focus on what you're told.

And what I want to focus on is this is what I'm told.

And then I want to look around and make sure that that's actually true.

And, you know, some would say that's a spiritual gift, that she has this gift of faith, this ability to sort of take it.

But I think what I have is a spiritual gift too, because I think that it helps me.

It binds my faith deeper.

So anyway, you know, when I first told her and I said that, I actually, I made a huge mistake.

My wife and I have never gotten a fight.

We never name called.

But I do believe I belittled her.

As I was going on, I was like, you just take everything at face value.

I can't do it that way.

And I said it in a way that was, I guess just belittling is probably the right word.

And I regret it.

I regret that I did it, but I was just so full of emotion.

And here I am telling the woman I don't want the divorce me, that she's the small one, right?

I just came out and I told her, and I said, I just want to do what God wants me to do.

How many other churches have you been to?

How many other religions have you studied?

How lucky were you to be born in the hometown of the best football team ever?

That's the thing.

I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, so our football team, I guess, is like the Cardinals, right?

So the Cardinals, like, wear all the Cardinals gear and everything, right?

Because they're the best team.

Well, what if I'd been born in Salt Lake?

What about Boston area?

Yeah, there you go.

There you go.

If I had been born in Boston, that's the Patriots, right?

Oh, yeah.

Tom Brady land.

Okay, so if I had been born there, what would I have chosen then?

And that's what I kind of was trying to get the point across.

Is that how lucky, an infinitesimally small, statistically speaking, were we able to be born into the.

The right doctrine of God?

And I've sort of graduated from there to the point of, like, you know, we cannot trivialize other people's spiritual experiences.

And we look at.

I know so many wonderful people in the industry and in my life and friends, deep friends, who I go, these people are amazing people.

And we're told that ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be given to you.

Right.

So are you telling me that all these people who say that they've knocked and been given an answer and Say they've asked and they've received their answer.

Are you telling me that they just asked wrong or knocked wrong or that they're stupid or that their experience is wrong?

Because I have met too many of them.

So I've kind of moved in my crisis of faith to the fact that I don't know.

I'll tell you a little bit about the church that I believe it, you know, some of the things that keep me where I'm at.

But I don't think God cares.

When I grew up as pre black and white, either you remember the church with all the truth or you remember the church with some of the truth.

And I thought God cared a lot about that.

But it turns out that now I don't think that.

I think that God is really obsessed with us showing who we really are.

Will we seek for him?

It's okay if you make it your whole life and don't find it, but just will you look for me?

Will you take time out of your life to look for me?

Will you, on your own volition, do the hard things that make you better?

And that could be nutrition, like the disgusting food that is good for you or the hard push ups that make you stronger.

But it also could be more along the spiritual side where it's like, will you do the work to nourish your spirit and care for it?

Even if, you know you do push ups your whole life and never get pecs, maybe you have spiritual experience or things your whole life and, and never really get some sort of clarity that you're looking for or the clarity you get different than someone else's clarity and you're not sure, will you do that work?

Because the doctrine of the Mormon Church is that we can progress eternally.

So this time, and we have a scripture that says this time is the time to prepare to meet God.

And in this time, as we're preparing, we have to do it all under the premise of faith.

And I have kind of come to the knowledge that God doesn't want to have people who are necessarily well studied because this life is an instant in the blip of eternity.

He wants to find people who are good at studying, people whose hearts, even when not forced, we can find out what they actually are.

So when you talk about the Buddhist therapist before and a lot of people who are Christians and as you've I guess, kind of explored the world a little bit more, you traveled to the Philippines not so long ago and what do you feel about people in the world?

Because it is a little suspicious that we all are born into the right place.

The fact that we're even born to begin with is pretty amazing.

Right?

And then that we're born into the right faith at the right time.

It just.

How have you kind of taken the view?

Like, can you encapsulate what it looks like?

Because I don't feel like I quite got it in what you were saying.

Yeah, I think that where I am now skip past everything that's keeping me where I am right this second.

I think that, well, it might be important for you to.

To hear my view of eternity.

Maybe that's important because I believe that God is trying to help us here in this life, find out who we really are.

And also for him to be able to verify, you know, he has faith in who are us as creations, but also to have faith in our spirit.

Will we have a spirit of curiosity and a spirit of goodness and kindness, or will we have one that's very inwardly focused and selfishness and maybe even depravity and whatnot?

And we certainly have seen in the world that every color in the spectrum and that we wouldn't even imagine that there's a kind of person like that.

So let me just talk about some things about the faith of eternity that I believe in.

You know, we're going to lose people here.

We're going to lose people here.

Well, I also want to make sure that we bring it around to how all of this has.

Has affected your experience in business as well.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So it's pretty simple.

I can't be an atheist because I look at the complexity of today's world.

Not today's world, sorry, just the world.

From a, from an atomic structure to a cellular structure to a solar system to a galaxy.

I see the fractals.

I see that this is definitely designed here.

Just can't see it any other way.

Bobby and I have had lots of discussions that he.

He truly believes that this is all happenstance, and I don't.

So with that, my view of eternity through.

Through the eyes of my doctrine, of my religion is that we have a heavenly Father and heavenly Mother who created us as spirits.

And we came here and got our bodies and we're learning to live on faith.

And we'd progressed as far as we could before we got here.

And now we are having a new progression where we are testing and not testing.

Like, here's your test.

What percent are you going to get on it?

Testing like, how many miles can these tires roll?

What kinds of terrain can these tires roll?

I'm testing them to make sure that we know what we've actually got here.

Right?

And there's Mormons that would tell you that we're trying to prove that we're the best tire, we're the best person and we're going to get the best reward.

But let me tell you, there's some things that keep me around the Mormon faith.

And I already talked about Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, but you know what else I love is our view of Heaven and Hell.

Our view is, is that there is a celestial kingdom, a terrestrial kingdom and a telestial kingdom, sun, moon, stars, glory.

And within each of those kingdoms is different levels of glory, and God is at the celestial highest degree of glory.

And a lot of people tell you that the Mormons are trying to all get there, but I don't think that's actually what our doctrine says at all.

I think our doctrine says that God needs all people.

Our cities, the fractal of family life tells us we need the deep thinkers and we need the people who are gregarious and funny and spontaneous, and we need the engineer minds, and we need the artistic minds, and we need the whatever, doctor, whatever.

We need all the different kinds of people.

Right?

We believe that in all those different kingdoms that you'll have different roles.

We also believe that the lowest degree you can get, aside from denying the Holy Ghost, we believe that if you could see the lowest degree of glory, you would kill yourself to get there.

It's that great.

Okay?

Now, Mormons all know that that's what we believe, yet they all insist that we're all trying to get to the highest degree.

And what I'm saying is that I actually believe we're all trying to find the best versions of ourselves.

And God is trying to find out through our proving of ourselves what we actually want to be.

And that this whole life is a measurement of who we are under pressure, who we are when no one's looking, who we are when everyone is looking, who we are when there's no pressure, who we are when our mind is free to think, who we are when we're told what to think.

All of those scenarios pop up.

And we will learn that about ourselves.

God will.

And maybe God doesn't need to learn it, but he will see it and verify it.

And we will never have to question who we are under the premise of faith.

So if that's true, the answer is, I don't really think it matters if you're a Buddhist seeking God.

When you get to the other end of this life.

Another thing that the Mormon faith believes in is that not only must you be baptized and must you do these things, they have to be done by the right authority.

We actually allow all that to be done in temples for the dead and during the millennial period, it'll all get done.

So if you're not on the covenant path is the term we use, if you haven't had all those things done, my belief is that you will have an opportunity to get it done.

It doesn't matter.

It matters only in terms of the paperwork gets signed and stamped by the people who approve it.

But at the end of the day, you accept it.

So, Melody, when you die, and this might freak you out a little bit, but when you die, your name is going to be in the genealogical records and the Mormons are going to pick it up and we're going to do your genealogy, and then someone's going to go to the temple and be baptized for you, and then they're going to get sealed to your husband on behalf of you, and they're going to do all these things.

And then you as a spirit being will have the right to accept or deny that ordinance.

And if you accept it, then you have it.

If you deny it, then that's fine, too.

That's your choice.

But you'll have the choice.

And to me, that's what a loving God does.

He says, if you live in an African junk jungle and your tribe doesn't know, it's all going to happen for you.

So this is the crisis of my faith is I just went and said, here are some things that are important to me.

A loving God that gives all people an equal chance, A God that expects something of his people, but not something that is impossible.

And even if it is going to be covered under the grace of Christ through his atonement and his crucifixion, all of these things can be accepted or rejected by our agency, which is the premise of us all being here.

And that all works for me.

And so now you asked me to bend it back to business.

My point in telling you all of that is that in business, I don't get to say I'm a different person when I'm working.

I don't get to say I'm a different person when I'm with my kids or when I'm angry or when I'm happy.

I. I am always that spiritual person having a physical experience.

And I am learning more about the different sides, facets of who I am.

And all of it, all of it proves at the end that I am who I think I am or want to be.

And if I'm willing to pour energy in.

So, yes, I do feel the motion of anger, and I do want to throw something through the wall, and I do want to stab somebody in the face.

I'm so mad.

Okay, cool.

Now we know that you felt that emotion.

Now, who are you?

Yeah, I don't like that, because right now I'm feeling mad, and so I accept it.

But it.

It's like you feel those feelings, and then it all comes back to you.

Like, who are you?

What are you going to.

What's your next move going to be?

And what.

What is your character?

But I don't want to have character.

I feel like it makes life so much harder.

Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot of.

A lot of Christians would say.

Kurt, you haven't addressed the whole problem with Mormonism is this whole works versus grace.

You know, you guys believe that you can do nice things and get to heaven, but we believe that Christ covers it and gets you to heaven.

Well, fact is, is that I believe in grace.

I believe that I'm going to make one mistake, it's all over.

I don't do works to get to heaven.

No, I do works.

The things I do are to prove myself to myself.

Do you believe what you say you believe?

Are you the person you want to be?

And if you're not the person you want to be, will you put your.

Will you do the work to get yourself to where you want to be?

And I actually think that every Christian believes that.

Why are people who are Christian trying to be wholesome and good?

You know, Like, I don't know.

I. I do agree that technically they're supposed to believe that.

I think, just like with anything, they can fall into the trap of just believing the thing or believing what works for them.

I don't know, Kurt.

I like this philosophy that you've come to.

It doesn't scare me at all, because I do know I'm gonna die, by the way.

We all seem to.

But, you know, I'm actually surprised by your spiritual journey, because sometimes I think of my spiritual journey as being the reason why I feel like I'm bad at certain aspects of business, like where I care too much or I've.

Like, there's all these things about me that hold me back from being the kind of successful I would want to be.

Maybe I think I would want to be.

And I've always thought, like, well, it's these morals and Values that I have that I'm stuck with.

Like, the things that make me think I'm a good person and.

Which is important to me.

The things that you struggle with in business, are they tied to your spiritual views?

Are they just.

Or is it more tied to who you are as a human?

Or is it.

I don't even know how to ask the question.

No, no.

I think I know where your question is, is pointed.

But let me just say it this way and see if this resonates with the definition I just gave you, is that I believe we are here.

I think we came here as spirits before we had the veil of forgetfulness put over our mind.

We're all enthusiastic.

We're gonna.

God, you can give us agency, but we're gonna do what you want.

We're gonna follow you, because we just couldn't imagine us not being that way.

And then we get here, and the veil, you know, sort of shows us differently.

There's a certain amount of bending our will to God that is very, I think, important.

Just like a child bending their will to the.

To the greater power of their parents, who has more experience and knows more.

I think that fractal is actually a really important fractal for us to have a visualization of our relationship with God.

The way I am at business and the things I struggle with, they're who I am.

They're the struggles I have.

You know, there's certain things in my life that I don't struggle with.

I was told if you're a Kempton, that's my last name, by the way.

If you're a Kempton, you're an alcoholic.

You can either drink and find out or you cannot drink enough.

I have uncles, my dad's brothers, that got into alcohol and found out they're alcoholics.

They found out.

I just don't know.

I just don't.

I haven't proved it yet, but I don't.

I'm not tempted.

Like, I don't know, the idea of drinking alcohol and losing a little bit of control and having something alter my mind, this just isn't tempting to me.

But I also struggle with other things.

I have a very addictive personality, which probably means I'm an alcoholic.

But I start getting into something, and I am so in.

Like, disturbingly in.

And, like, can't stop myself from doing it kind of thing.

So to answer your question, I think that the answer I would give is that if it's a desirable trait and I like it, make it brighter, and hopefully what I like in My view of eternity, hopefully I'm in alignment with what God wants, but I have my agency to do.

Yes or no?

It's my choice.

Well, has the way you've done business changed through your crisis of faith or as you've come through this as well?

Well, I guess the first question was more about like, do you think that this is.

Is it because of all of these beliefs that you have that you may struggle in certain areas?

Or.

And then the second question is, as you've gone through these, the crisis of faith, has that changed how you view your work in business or the approach that you have in business?

It's hard because Melody, it's so deeply wound into me.

That's one of the.

That's one of the crisis of faith is that you go, what's me?

And what's been doctrine indoctrinated into me.

Yeah, I don't know that I can fully truthfully answer like I think I could, but I think I'd probably be lying.

I'll just say this.

My crisis of faith has surprisingly not changed.

I've always tried to be the most authentic version of who I am, and it's quite surprising that this new God that I believe in just be a little bit silly and call it that.

This new God that I believe in, he is way more understanding than the version of the God that wanted me to try to conform.

And yes, you have agency, but you need to be the guy who goes to the top degree of the celestial kingdom.

And what I've actually learned is that if you would enjoy yourself at the top degree of the celestial kingdom, you're going to become the person that will be happy and live there and do.

You'll be the engineer mind.

But for those of you that are more artistically minded and maybe not so engineering minded, you know, what you'll actually like is the fourth degree of the terrestrial kingdom, because those people make sure that all the halls are decorated better and cooler and blah, blah, blah.

And believe it or not, gasp.

You might have sex outside of marriage before you get married.

You might have premarital sex.

Now, to say that to a Mormon is like, oh my gosh.

And God gave us this creative power.

We got to hold it sacredly.

Use it, certainly.

Yes, but not everyone does.

Where are they going?

They're going to go where they're.

Where they fit, where they're comfortable, where it's right.

God has a plan for them too.

And I say that because some of the listeners are thinking that's so benign.

The point I'm saying is that in business, I make decisions that are authentic to who I am, where I'm comfortable.

One of my company values is we only do deals that are good for both sides of the table.

So guess what?

If I find a deal that's good for me but bad for the other person on the other side of the table, I won't do it because that's where I'm comfortable.

And I don't know what that makes me.

Doesn't matter what it makes.

It's me.

Interesting.

I like this view because, as you know, I struggle with the idea of should I change who I am.

I overthink everything, Kurt, all of the things.

So I like hearing what your journey has been and how you've come to be where you are right now.

And we didn't even scratch the surface, but it's also been.

It's been a little while.

Yeah.

I think one of the things I would ask is like, how.

How has your faith influenced how you treat the people?

Or has your faith influenced how you treat, like the value just talked about?

You say that's an integral part of you is that you need to feel comfortable with the deals you do, but that's also like, as a side benefit, like you care about people.

You care about the people you're going to want work with and your employees.

I don't know.

I mean, I think there's really upstanding members of my religion that could give a rip if it's given the other person.

I think that the doctrines would tell them otherwise, but I don't know that.

I don't know if I could answer it.

I'll just say that I wouldn't care.

I don't care.

One thing I've learned in my crisis of faith is that, and this is what I told my parents at family dinner the other night.

And I know it probably hurt their feelings.

I said if I do something tomorrow that I'm totally cool with and I get excommunicated for it, I will lose no sleep over that.

And my mom.

What?

Yeah, I wouldn't care because it's a policy.

It's a policy.

You're excommunicated over a policy.

I am in good standing with the doctrine of what I believe.

And people would talk about the polygamy history of the Mormon Church.

People will talk about the term they use is blacks in the priesthood.

But anyone with dark skinned black skin could not hold the priesthood at the early days of the church.

Yet the church was one of the most liberal places.

We let people of all color come to the meetings and worship and there's a lot of forward thinking stuff, but at the same time, we still didn't let them hold the priesthood.

And they'll say, but those are your doctrines.

No, I disagree.

Anything that they change, the moment the church changes something, it is no longer doctrine.

That that's a policy.

And if it's changeable, it's a policy.

The doctrines, the things that haven't changed, I'm cool with, I really am.

And it works for me.

And so I will allow my faith to rest there.

But I just don't give a rip anymore about the fact that I'm an upstanding member of the.

It used to be a real badge of honor, member of the church, Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

You're, you know, when I was in the bishopric, I thought, man, I'm a member of the bishopric in the church.

Wow, God really sees something in me.

No, I was a guy who was there who was willing and able to carry out some tasks that needed to be done to keep the congregation flowing.

But I go to church and I do believe I get value there.

They've changed things in the church.

Like where previously a woman could not be a witness at a baptism and then, and now they can.

Well, that was a policy that changed.

And it was a stupid policy.

And it was stupid for all the years it was stupid and then they changed it and it was right.

And previously when my mom got married in the temple, she couldn't have a civil marriage outside of the temple.

She had to have her marriage with my dad in the temple.

And they, they had to do it or else they get married outside the temple and they had to wait a year to get married in the temple.

Well, my mom didn't want to do that, so she got married in the temple.

Guess what?

Grandma and grandpa didn't get to go to the temple to the wedding.

They didn't get to be part of it.

And that hurt their feelings.

It was a stupid policy.

You know what you can do now?

You can go get married civilly outside the temple and then you can go have a little ceremony in the temple and have your sealing.

You know, I think temple sealing is a beautiful thing.

It's a wonderful thing.

And I'm grateful that I'm sealed to my wife.

I love it as a part of my faith.

But it was a stupid rule then and it's changed and it was a dumb thing.

It's kind of like in Catholicism how priests couldn't get married.

I mean, and they still can't.

But I think it really stemmed from.

I mean, from what I've heard and seen in various things.

Like it was a policy that made sense and it was less biblical, from what I understand.

Catholics, please let me know if I'm wrong.

But it was more of, like, finances and how's it going to help the church and not as much about God wants this thing.

Right.

Yeah.

And so that's why there's also breakaway Catholic spaces where they are married and things like that.

All religions have those policy things.

We grow up with them, so we think they're set in stone.

But sometimes.

I don't know how to say it, but it's like there's obvious moral or ethical things that we could think about with some of these things.

So when it does change, it makes sense that it changed because it didn't feel like it was ethically correct to begin with.

I don't know if ethics is the right word, but.

Yeah, just to give you an example, too, I have friends, you know, you and I both have friends that are Jehovah's Witnesses.

And yeah, I don't know where the people who make the rule.

We give authority to the people who make the rules in our church through prophets and apostles, like, literal connection to God, which in.

In a certain way puts a lot more onus on them getting it right.

But I think in the Jehovah's Witness faith, their.

Their head people, they're anyway, their head decision makers.

They just recently said that men could grow beards when for years they could not.

In fact, they would be ostracized through a beard.

Right.

And women couldn't wear dresses, but.

Or couldn't wear pants.

They had to wear dresses.

And then they changed that.

And I know that for some that was probably really hard, and others want to just pretend that the change never happened and that everything's always been this way.

But the fact is, is that they're policies.

They're policies that men have made.

And, you know, whether in the Catholic Church we decide that.

You know, one of the things that's always confused me about the Catholic Church is when they pray to a saint, there's no other gods before me.

It just.

I went to a Catholic church.

I've been to Catholic church several times.

And when I go, it feels like praying to idols, like, which is kind of seems like that's really bad.

I'm not calling them out on it.

I'm just saying that from my perspective, I've been like, oh, that seems like a blatant.

Thing, but obviously they don't feel that way.

And so it's a policy, maybe, or a doctrine.

I don't know.

I didn't read about anything in the Bible that says you're supposed to pray to these saints.

But they obviously believe that that's important.

And my point is, is that are they seeking, are they putting their energy into finding God?

And as I've come out of my crisis of faith and continue to sort of navigate it, I.

Someone just pulled me aside a couple years ago at one of the conferences and said, kurt, I know you're a good person.

I don't know why you're mixed up with this Mormon faith.

You're going to lose your whole salvation because you're fiddling with this.

You need to worship the right Jesus and you do this.

I thought it was so sweet.

He was trying to save me.

It was great.

And I know his faith is strong.

But where I'm at now is so comfortable where I said, you know, I love what you're doing for me, and I know that what you're saying you really believe is true.

And frankly, I believe that what you're doing right now is exactly what you're supposed to be doing, is that you are being true to what you believe, you're authentic to it, and you really are truly it.

This is you.

And it's the people who are faking it.

It's the people.

You know, there's that razor that says, I'd rather believe and find out I'm wrong than not believe and find out I'm wrong.

Right.

Well, the problem with that saying is that if you're believing just to make sure that you're covering all your bases, then you're gonna get to the end and find out that you're a fraud.

That actually will work against you, in my paradigm of that.

God doesn't want fakes.

He wants us to show that we will bend our will, bend our will to his as we discover what his will is.

And when we knock, what we receive, we are now responsible for.

This has been such an interesting conversation.

Thank you for talking about it.