Aloha!
As you heard from President Haws’ introduction, I’ve been around a lot of years. I actually thought it would take longer to get old, but here I am. It’s by the way strange, to be the same age as old people; but today, I wanted to share some of my life experiences with you— from the people I’ve met and the things I have learned from them, but also from my readings of the scriptures. I hope you’ll bare with me and there will be something here of value to you.
In the hundreds and thousands of speeches given on a BYU campus, I have been unable to find a single one which begins with a quote from this man. That is probably for good reason because it was he who famously first said: “God is dead.” [1]
But Nietzsche also said something with which I agree: Jesus, he said, brought “a transformation of all values.” Let me say that again: Jesus brought “a transformation of all values.” [2]
Let me offer what I think that means. The values that people live by, then and now, he flipped on their heads. What people had desired for themselves, he dismissed. The ambitions that had driven history for thousands of years, he cast aside.
Prior to Jesus, the so-called great persons of the earth prized power and wealth—power to conquer, power to subjugate and enslave, wealth for luxury and riches to flaunt their superiority. These were the Caesars, the pharaohs, the kings; Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar.
But these were not the people Jesus admired nor was he impressed by their power or wealth.
Jesus preached of entirely different values. His values and the world’s values were opposites.
On one hand, for example, the world valued the people with power. Jesus taught instead that the meek, not the powerful would inherit the earth. [3]
And rather than living for our selfish desires, Jesus taught that we should lose ourselves in the service of others.
Instead of seeking revenge and retribution against one’s adversaries, Jesus said to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who despitefully use us. [4]
Rather than craving fame and the praise of others, Jesus promised that we are blessed if we are reviled and persecuted for His sake. [5]
Instead of judging others based upon their ethnicity, their education, their wealth or their fame, Jesus taught us to esteem everyone as a child of God, whether Jew, or Gentile; Roman, Canaanite or Samaritan.
I think that a friend of mine captured well this disparity between Jesus and the world with these words: “The will to power is not the Jesus way; loving your enemies and washing the feet of others, is.”
Jesus transformed the values of the world, and He would transform the values in each of us, transforming the very desires of our hearts. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell explained:
“Therefore, what we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity.” [6] Elder Maxwell continues by quoting from the Doctrine and Covenants: “For I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts”. [7]
Will you live by the values of the world or by those of Jesus Christ?
Which values have you chosen? Do you know?
Some years ago, I worked in a small company that was experiencing a great deal of disharmony and conflict. My boss, Bill Bain, hired two psychologists to help us become more united and collaborative. Early in one of our sessions, one of the psychologists explained that if we did not live in a way that was consistent with our core values, that we would experience stress, anxiety, and conflict. Further, he said that our health would be affected. Even our lifespan, he said, would be shortened.
Someone in our group asked the obvious question: “how do we know what our core values are?” He responded with a simple test.
He told us to write down the names of the five people who had ever lived who we most admired. I gave this some thought. You might think for a moment about who you would choose. I chose Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Abraham Lincoln, my father, and my wife Ann.
Then he said that next to each name, we should write down the three qualities we most associate with each of them. So, five people and three qualities each meant that I had a list of 15 attributes in total. Now circle the qualities that appear multiple times. These, he said, were our core values.
I looked at the words I had circled. I had love, service, honor, and integrity. These, of course, were the very values that Jesus taught.
What surprised me was that all but one of the other people in our group had the same or a very similar list. We had each chosen Christ’s values, not the world’s. But unfortunately, it was clear to us that we were not living and conducting our business in a way that was consistent with these values.
In the weeks and years that followed, we did some soul searching, offered some apologies, and changed some behaviors.
I know that for some of us, Christianity may have been abbreviated to a list of dos and don’ts. I believe that there’s much more to the gospel than that. What Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount, what He taught through his parables, and what He taught in the miracles He performed was about transforming the qualities of our hearts. He taught us the values that would make us more like Him and more like the Father.
We all struggle with sin of some kind. But even as we do, remember that we are all welcome in the Church of Jesus Christ, because it is a body of people who aspire to live by Christ’s values: love, service, kindness, forgiveness, meekness, honor, and sometimes, long-suffering. Living as a follower of Jesus Christ does not mean just following a checklist of dos and don’ts. It means endeavoring to live in a way that is consistent with the values of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you noticed that of the five people I had written down as the ones I most admired, four of them had lived in the past. That is not to say that there are not people in the present whom I admire. In fact, I am often inspired by people around me, and it is usually because they have demonstrated one or more of the values taught by Jesus Christ.
When I was in high school, I remember trying sometimes to sit at lunch with the right people, the ones that were popular. I guess that’s why I was struck by what my granddaughter, Grace, did. I guess you can say that she’s eligible to be at the cool table—she’s good looking, athletic, and has a big personality. Unsurprisingly, Grace sat with other girls like her at lunch. One day, she noticed that a Somali immigrant student was always sitting alone. She knew that he spoke virtually no English. Most kids were distantly friendly to him, but sitting next to him at lunch when you couldn't even converse with him just didn't make sense. Except to Grace. She walked over to his table and sat down. Not once, but every day. They communicated as best they could, and as his English improved, they became true friends. After a few months, Grace asked him if he had any other friends at school. Yes, he said, one other girl. It turned out to be Grace’s best friend from church.
I mentioned that Grace is athletic. She’s also quite tall—five foot eleven inches. And she has no trouble attracting the attention of the tall athletes at school. But Grace invited the shortest boy in school—a seriously short kid— to go with her to prom. The two of them got quite a laugh at how they looked. Grace figured that he would have been uncomfortable asking another girl, or maybe he would have just stayed home, so she just stepped up, so to speak.
Grace’s way is the Savior’s way. She reminds me that I also can reach out to the one.
I thought of Grace when I saw the media coverage of the funeral services for President Jeffrey R. Holland. One of my friends told me that he was President Holland’s best friend. I marked that down as wishful hyperbole. He bolstered his claim by recounting things they had done together, even flying last year to Boston to see a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. But then I heard something in the funeral service that made things clear.
The speaker said that everyone who meets President Holland is convinced that they are his best friend.
I think that’s what accounts for the fact that when the hearse that was carrying his body to be buried in St. George drove down the street toward the cemetery, hundreds of people stood along the road, in the rain. They sang “Amazing Grace” and “God be With You Til We Meet Again.”
President Holland’s love for all of God’s children, especially for the one, was wonderfully clear. I try to be more like him.
One of the things I love most about the Church of Jesus Christ is that its leaders are almost always people I want to be like. Some sit on the stand in general conference, some preside in wards and branches, or lead Relief Society or Primary. Do you know how unusual it is to have leaders that inspire you? That’s not so likely in politics, nor in pro sports, nor in some businesses. It’s one of the blessings of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
One man I came to know in the business world truly exhibited Christ-like values. Tom Monahan. Tom was an orphan. He was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Michigan. He was admitted to the University of Michigan. After studying there for a few semesters, he found that he could no longer afford the tuition and board, even with his scholarship. So, he decided to drop out and buy a pizza shop close to campus. He put up $200 for his half of the business–that’s about $2,000 in today's dollars— and his brother sold his Volkswagen to come up with $200 for the other half. A few months later, his brother sold out and asked for his $200 back.
Tom was pretty successful. He grew his pizza shop with new locations. Today, you know his company as Domino’s Pizza. It has 21,500 shops around the world.
When he became wealthy, he began to buy some of the things he had always wanted.
He bought dozens of vintage automobiles. He built a massive new office for himself in the Domino’s office building. He even bought the Detroit Tigers baseball team. They won the World Series in the first year he acquired them.
And then it hit him. He was not living by the principles and values that he had been taught in the orphanage, by the values of his Christian faith. Tom sold his cars, sold the baseball team, and moved his office to a desk next to his secretary. He even decided to sign the Millionaire’s Vow of Poverty in which he promised he would not own a luxury car nor fly first class. Finally, he decided to sell his company.
My firm decided to buy it from him. I got to do something I had never done before or since: I made out a check for over one billion dollars and signed it.
I did not expect him to do what he did next. He turned it over and then signed all that money over to Catholic charities and to Ave Maria University in Florida, a college he founded to promote the ideals of Jesus Christ.
Tom’s was one of the most sudden transformations from worldly values to Christian values that I had ever seen, first-hand. And in a small way, it reminded me of the transformation of Paul the Apostle. Tom’s commitment to his core values inspired me to do so more fully myself.
During one of my political campaigns, I had the opportunity to travel to Poland. While there, I met a man named Lech Walesa. It was a name well known to me. His country had been invaded by Russia in the early days of the Second World War. To quell any possible uprising by the Polish people, the Russian invaders rounded up 22,000 judges, teachers, political leaders, police and journalists, then took them into a forest and murdered them. It is known as the Karyn massacre.
For nearly 40 years, the Russian Soviets brutalized and oppressed the Polish people.
And then one man, Lech Walesa, stood up to them. He silently gathered workers at a steel factory in Gadansk and led them in a strike against the Soviet government. He organized the first independent labor union ever in a Communist country and demanded human rights for the people of Poland. It is hard for me to conceive of the courage it would take to confront a dictatorship that had previously slaughtered 22,000 Polish leaders.
Through his courage, he overthrew Soviet Union power and helped replace it with freedom and free agency. This he did without resorting to violence. His example spread throughout the Soviet Union and led to the freedom of many millions of people.
I met with him in his small office. He didn't look or sound much different than you or me.
But the courage of his conviction was of an entirely different dimension. Whenever I face a test of my principles, I often think of Lech Walesa.
You will note that my granddaughter Grace, Domino’s Pizza’s Tom Monahan, and Poland’s Lech Walesa have influenced how I strive to live. Even more so, I have been shaped by the teachings of the Master and of Joseph Smith. The examples of my father and of my wife Ann were formative in a very proximate and personal way.
My dad was born in Mexico to American parents who had lived there to escape religious persecution in America. When revolution came to that country in the early 1900’s, his family fled to the United States. He was five years old. First, they lived in El Paso Texas, on government welfare. Then in Los Angelos and Idaho and then they finally settled in Salt Lake City. My dad didn't have the time or the money to get a college degree, but he had determination and faith. He became the CEO of a car company in Detroit, a three-term governor of Michigan, and a member of the United States President’s cabinet.
When he was 88 years old and long retired, I asked him what had been the greatest accomplishment of his life. Without hesitation he answered: raising you four children.
“That has been the most rewarding thing in my life, and frankly, your mom deserves most of the credit.” Children!
When Ann and I were newlyweds, President Ezra Taft Benson taught that we should not delay having children. Our first was born not long thereafter. When Ann became pregnant with our third child, we called her non-member parents to give them the news.
Her father was so upset that we were contributing to what he saw as the overpopulation of the earth that he hung up on us. Fortunately, my father and mother’s example and President Benson’s admonition overcame the thinking of the world. We went on to have five children. They are our greatest accomplishment and our most rewarding joy.
As the Psalmist so wisely wrote, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward…. Happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them.” [8]
There are so many reasons why my wife Ann is not only the person I love, but also the person I most admire. Just before the Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She documented her battle with that disease in a book which has inspired others facing debilitating illnesses. She also founded a center for neurological research that has led to treatments for Alzheimer’s as well as multiple sclerosis. But there is something else that stands out about my Ann.
One day some years ago, I overheard her talking at great length with someone on the phone. She was on that call for over an hour. When it was finally over, I asked her who she was talking with. She said it was an elderly widow who she had met during one of our vacations—not a family member, not a close friend, just an acquaintance. A little puzzled, I asked Ann why she had spent a whole hour talking to an acquaintance. She explained simply that the widow was lonely and needed someone to talk to. And then she added this: “wherever I go in life, I want to leave flowers in my wake.”
My wife’s example of Christ-like kindness inspires me.
One of the surprising lessons of my personal life, as well as in my business and political career, is the outsized impact that one person can have on others.
For almost two decades, I served on the board of directors of Marriott International, the hotel company founded by J. Willard Marriott. When he died, his son, Bill Jr., took the reins of the company. At that point, the company had only a handful or two of hotels and several dozen restaurants. Bill Jr. grew the business to over five thousand hotels.
Today, it is the largest hotel company in the world.
Every year, the members of the board were presented with a survey of travelers that compared Marriott hotels with those of the competition. One thing that stood out to me was that Marriott employees were regularly seen as being more attentive and service-oriented than those of other brands. I wondered how that came about.
One day, I drove Bill to a Marriott hotel in Weston, Massachusetts. As we entered the hotel, Bill shook hands with the general manager, but then, rather than secluding himself with the manager in an office, he went behind the counter to meet the staff. He asked their names, how long they had been with the company, how, and what their family was doing, and what they saw as their future with the company. He held their hand in his, looked them in the eyes, and seemed to actually care about them. And then it hit me: this was the answer to why Marriott employees were perceived as caring for their guests. It was a reflection of the example of Bill Marriott himself.
There are 170,000 people who wear a Marriott name badge, but in some way, they had been influenced by the values of one person, one leader.
The impact of a leader is greater than I had ever imagined. A CEO like Bill Marriott, yes.
But also a teacher, a parent, a spouse, a friend. The values that shape your life, the kind of person you are, will influence others in ways you cannot imagine. Each one of us can be an emissary of the qualities of Jesus Christ, spreading his gospel and his values by the way we live, by our kindness, our genuine concern for others, our courage, our devotion to family.
Young brothers and sisters, what are your core values? What are the innermost desires of your heart? Are they those of the Master or those of the world? Are you living in a way that is consistent with the values of Jesus Christ? Do you learn from and seek to emulate the qualities of character from the people you most admire?
What will you choose to be, a disciple of Jesus Christ, or a person of the world?
I am convinced that as we endeavor to become more like the Savior, to set our hearts on the qualities He taught, to desire what is best in the people we admire, we will experience heaven on earth, and heaven hereafter. May we choose every day to do so is my prayer.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes:
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science [1882]
[2] Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality [1887]
[3] Matthew 5:5
[4] Matthew 5:44
[5] Matthew 5:10-12
[6] Neal A. Maxwell, “According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts,” Ensign or Liahona, November 1996, 21
[7] Doctrine and Covenants 137:9
[8] Psalms 127:3,5