Stake Conference Quotes

Set aside time each day to thank the Lord for that day. Never allow yourself to forget, even if it's a quick "thank you for getting me through another day.

It is part of the nature of a strong erotic passion—as distinct from a transient fit of appetite—that makes more towering promises than any other emotion. No doubt all our desires makes promises, but not so impressively. To be in love involves the almost irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies, and that possession of the beloved will confer, not merely frequent ecstasies, but settled, fruitful, deep-rooted, lifelong happiness. Hence all seems to be at stake. If we miss this chance we shall have lived in vain. At the very thought of such a doom we sink into fathomless depths of self-pity. Unfortunately these promises are found often to be quite untrue. Every experienced adult knows this to be so as regards all erotic passions (except the one he himself is feeling at the moment). We discount the world-without-end pretensions of our friends’ amours easily enough. We know that such things sometimes last—and sometimes don’t. And when they do last, this is not because they promised at the outset to do so. When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also—I must put it crudely—good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people. If we establish a “right to (sexual) happiness” which supersedes all the ordinary rules of behavior, we do so not because of what our passion shows itself to be in experience but because of what it professes to be while we are in the grip of it.

There had been circulated around the Church a letter, which somehow had been sent to the bishops and stake presidents, announcing that the Church was out of the way, that we did not have the priesthood because the priesthood was never conferred properly. . . . This was having quite an influence around the Church. Someone asked President Smith, "What about this letter?" He said, "Well, before I tell you about the letter, let me tell you about the man." He proceeded to tell us a few things, and then said, "And so you see, that man is a liar, pure and simple. Well, maybe not so pure!" . . . Our members are marvelous. They can answer the questions of the detractors. It is not worth doing with some detractors. They will think what they think, and we think what we think. They go where they are going, and we are going to go where we are going. . . . The Lord does not have to explain why. I have learned to never ask why. You get the answer "because." . . . Do not take counsel from your fears, and do not hope that everything is done in one day. [CES Evening with a General Authority, Feb. 29, 2008]

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

When I was first called as a General Authority, we lived on a very small plot of ground in Utah Valley that we called our farm. We had a cow and a horse and chickens and lots of children. One Saturday, I was to drive to the airport for a flight to a stake conference in California. But the cow was expecting a calf and in trouble. The calf was born, but the cow could not get up. We called the veterinarian, who soon came. He said the cow had swallowed a wire and would not live through the day. I copied the telephone number of the animal by-products company so my wife could call them to come and get the cow as soon as she died. Before I left, we had our family prayer. Our little boy said our prayer. After he had asked Heavenly Father to “bless Daddy in his travels and bless us all,” he then started an earnest plea. He said, “Heavenly Father, please bless Bossy cow so that she will get to be all right.” In California, I told of the incident and said, “He must learn that we do not get everything we pray for just that easily.” There was a lesson to be learned, but it was I who learned it, not my son. When I returned Sunday night, Bossy had “got to be all right.” This process is not reserved for the prophets alone. The gift of the Holy Ghost operates equally with men, women, and even little children. It is within this wondrous gift and power that the spiritual remedy to any problem can be found. “And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned” (Alma 32:23).

Everywhere you look with this young lady, there’s a purity of motivation,” Shultz told him. “I mean she really is trying to make the world better, and this is her way of doing it.” Mattis went out of his way to praise her integrity. “She has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics—personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated,” the retired general gushed. Parloff didn’t end up using those quotes in his article, but the ringing endorsements he heard in interview after interview from the luminaries on Theranos’s board gave him confidence that Elizabeth was the real deal. He also liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character. After all, he’d dealt with his share of dishonest people over the years, having worked in a prison during law school and later writing at length about such fraudsters as the carpet-cleaning entrepreneur Barry Minkow and the lawyer Marc Dreier, both of whom went to prison for masterminding Ponzi schemes. Sure, Elizabeth had a secretive streak when it came to discussing certain specifics about her company, but he found her for the most part to be genuine and sincere. Since his angle was no longer the patent case, he didn’t bother to reach out to the Fuiszes. — WHEN PARLOFF’S COVER STORY was published in the June 12, 2014, issue of Fortune, it vaulted Elizabeth to instant stardom. Her Journal interview had gotten some notice and there had also been a piece in Wired, but there was nothing like a magazine cover to grab people’s attention. Especially when that cover featured an attractive young woman wearing a black turtleneck, dark mascara around her piercing blue eyes, and bright red lipstick next to the catchy headline “THIS CEO IS OUT FOR BLOOD.” The story disclosed Theranos’s valuation for the first time as well as the fact that Elizabeth owned more than half of the company. There was also the now-familiar comparison to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. This time it came not from George Shultz but from her old Stanford professor Channing Robertson. (Had Parloff read Robertson’s testimony in the Fuisz trial, he would have learned that Theranos was paying him $500,000 a year, ostensibly as a consultant.) Parloff also included a passage about Elizabeth’s phobia of needles—a detail that would be repeated over and over in the ensuing flurry of coverage his story unleashed and become central to her myth. When the editors at Forbes saw the Fortune article, they immediately assigned reporters to confirm the company’s valuation and the size of Elizabeth’s ownership stake and ran a story about her in their next issue. Under the headline “Bloody Amazing,” the article pronounced her “the youngest woman to become a self-made billionaire.” Two months later, she graced one of the covers of the magazine’s annual Forbes 400 issue on the richest people in America. More fawning stories followed in USA Today, Inc., Fast Company, and Glamour, along with segments on NPR, Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, and CBS News. With the explosion of media coverage came invitations to numerous conferences and a cascade of accolades. Elizabeth became the youngest person to win the Horatio Alger Award. Time magazine named her one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. President Obama appointed her a U.S. ambassador for global entrepreneurship, and Harvard Medical School invited her to join its prestigious board of fellows.

The Diverted Imperium by Stewart Stafford Welcome to my lush vineyard, As we crush poison grapes, Forcing that last vinegar sip, Of this “first citizen’s” foul wine. In spite of meeting in night's shade, It is not the taint of shame's veil, But a new dawning concealed, Our hand to reveal in due course. Fellow senators, my brethren! Men of honour, and, you, Brutus; The noblest of all at our gathering, But your eyes are on yonder hill. Our dreamer’s conference tonight: Seeks sacrifice, not bloodlust; A fly caught in Necessity’s web, And, is no more, for that is Nature. Stakes of the bear pit arranged, A swift consumption of power, Nipping retaliation in the bud, Smoothing our ascendancy. A patriot in a traitor's pall? Liberty's stars in alignment Or noose of the ill-omened? History’s verdict in absentia. The hand beneath the cloak Shakes the dagger mightily, Mercy’s coup de grâce stills, Bloody tip to inked treaties. Once the bloodshed has passed, Martial backing shall follow, And our regime commences, The Imperium by right diverted. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

When talking to professionals in gerontology, aging, and related fields, it’s not uncommon to hear the assertion that aging is a beautiful process and that it would be unethical, even unnatural, to interfere with it. I’ve heard such comments myself at conferences from people who are held in high esteem within their respective fields. These comments would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. Aging is a natural process? Cancer is a natural process, too—cancerous cells are created every day in our bodies. Would it be unethical and unnatural to interfere with cancer? Of course not. So why should we feel any different about aging?

In whatever life gives or takes, in whatever the liabilities or stakes, in whatever the pains or aches, in whatever pleasures or gratifications, I inhale the fragrance of the Prophet and ask, “What would the Prophet have done in this situation?

saddlebags. “And please tell Kiri she should put her shoes on. Lucas will have a fit if she serves like that.” “Mummy, why do I have to put on shoes? Kiri isn’t wearing any.” George met Gwyneira and her daughter in the corridor outside his room just as he was about to go down to dinner. He had done his best as far as evening wear went. Though slightly wrinkled, his light brown suit was handsomely tailored and much more becoming than the comfortable leather pants and waxed jacket he had acquired in Australia. Gwyneira and the captivating little red-haired girl who was squabbling so loudly were likewise elegantly attired. Though not in the latest fashion. Gwyneira was wearing a turquoise evening gown of such breathtaking refinement that, even in the best London salons, it would have created a stir—especially with a woman as beautiful as Gwyneira modeling it. The little girl wore a pale green shift that was almost entirely concealed by her abundant red-gold locks. When Fleur’s hair hung down loose, it frizzed a bit, like that of a gold tinsel angel. Her delicate green shoes matched the adorable little dress, but the little one obviously preferred to carry them in her hands than wear them on her feet. “They pinch!” she complained. “Fleur, they don’t pinch,” her mother declared. “We just bought them four weeks ago, and they were on the verge of being too big then. Not even you grow that fast. And even if they do pinch, a lady bears a small degree of pain without complaining.” “Like the Indians? Ruben says that in America they take stakes and hurt themselves for fun to see who’s the bravest. His daddy told him. But Ruben thinks that’s dumb, and so do I.” “That’s her opinion on the subject of being ‘ladylike,’” Gwyneira remarked, looking to George for help. “Come, Fleurette. This is a gentleman. He’s from England, like Ruben’s mummy and me. If you behave properly, maybe he’ll greet you by kissing your hand and call you ‘my lady.’ But only if you wear shoes.” “Mr. McKenzie always calls me ‘my lady’ even if I walk around barefoot.” “He must not come from England, then,” George said, playing along. “And he certainly hasn’t been introduced to the queen.” This honor had been conferred on the Greenwoods the year before, and George’s mother would probably chatter on about it for the rest of her

It is not necessary here to examine the important moral and material contribution of the United States to the general victory. But in the Peace Conference—to European eyes—President Wilson sought to play a part out of all proportion to any stake which his country had contributed or intended to contribute to European affairs. Actuated by the noblest motives he went far beyond any commission which the American Senate or people were willing to accord him, and armed with this inflation of his own constitutional power he sought to bend the world—no doubt for its own good—to his personal views.

When Jeremy Liew and Lightspeed had invested just a few weeks prior, Liew had included terms giving Lightspeed the right of first refusal to invest in Snapchat’s next round of funding, as well as rights to take 50 percent of the next round. Essentially, Lightspeed controlled Snapchat’s next round of funding and made Snapchat unattractive to other investors, who would want to take a larger stake in the Series A round. Evan was furious. He felt betrayed and taken advantage of. Liew had told him these terms were standard. Evan would warn other students about this betrayal for years to come, as he did in a keynote address at a Stanford Women in Business conference in 2013: One of my biggest mistakes as an entrepreneur involved a term sheet. This particular term sheet was our first. And when we talked to the venture capitalists, and we talked to our lawyers, they took refuge in the notion of Standard. When I asked a question because I didn’t understand something, I was reassured that the term was standard, and therefore agreeable. I forgot that the idea of STANDARD is a construct. It simply does not exist. So rather than attempt to further understand the document, I accepted it. It wasn’t until a bit later, when the company had grown and we needed more capital—that I realized I had made a very expensive mistake. He also warned in a 2015 talk at the University of Southern California, “If you hear the words ‘standard terms,’ then figure out actually what the terms are, because they are probably not standard and the person explaining [them] to you probably doesn’t know how they work.” Teo and General Catalyst put Evan in touch with lawyers who would help him escape the blocking structure with a new round of funding. Evan struck a deal with Jeremy Liew to sell Lightspeed a limited number of Snapchat shares at a discount in exchange for removing the onerous terms. Feeling stung by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Evan then put the deal with General Catalyst on hold and put together a group of angel investors from Los Angeles, including his father, John Spiegel, and the CEO of Sony Entertainment, Michael Lynton.