David Neeleman - Founder of JetBlue, Azul, Breeze

About This Episode

David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue, Azul, and Breeze Airways, shares how his mission in Brazil influenced his entrepreneurial journey and approach to building airlines.

About David Neeleman

David Neeleman is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple successful airlines including JetBlue, Azul Brazilian Airlines, and Breeze Airways. His mission experience in Brazil played a significant role in shaping his business philosophy and approach to customer service.

Key Topics

• Mission experiences in Brazil
• Founding multiple airlines
• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Customer service philosophy
• Leadership lessons from mission

Watch the Episode

Full Transcript

remember when you started your first commercial airline when you negotiated the purchase of a fleet of aircraft with Airbus for hundreds of millions of dollars when you secured facilities like hangers maintenance facilities and office space and hired qualified Personnel including Pilots cabin crew mechanics and administrative staff when you obtained necessary licenses and permits from Aviation authorities and secured insurance coverage for aircraft liability and other operational risks when you established procedures for ticketing reservation scheduling and customer service and built a strong brand identity while while engaging in marketing campaigns to attract customers to ensure profitability I think you get what I’m driving at creating a commercial airline’s incredibly hard but what does that have to do with anything well our guest today David nemman has founded not one but five commercial airlines including JetBlue WestJet the second largest airline in Canada basula airlines Brazil’s fastest growing Airline and most recently Breeze Airways in the United States he was even listed by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 Nan credits so much of what he’s been able to accomplish in his career to the two years he spent serving his mission in heif Brazil from 1978 to 80 where he’s previously said in part quote my mission saved me it was the first time in my life that I ever felt like I had some Talent it was quote the defining moment in my life that put me on the path to success in this episode my friend and current Elders Corp president my ward also a former Brazilian missionary joins me to talk with David about the great impact of asul airlines in Brazil past failures introducing new opportunities for Success viewing poverty firsthand as a missionary and resolving to make a difference the christ-like attribute of regarding all people equally and a whole lot more I think you’re going to like this one coming up next [Music] well we’re starting a flight at Dallas and then Frontier added flights and everyone’s matching Affairs so you have no excuse not oh did Frontier add flights into Dallas three days a week and then we do it from Provo American added Provo but are you kid not till October and it’s a lot higher fair but and then Frontier added three flights and so fairs are pretty cheap so man you got a bunch of copycats I just gonna tell you I just bought my Thanksgiving Tri home tickets on Breeze my first Breeze flights so flying into Provo yeah no it’s great man it was I think I got a round trip for 500 something bucks and I didn’t see the other Airlines and the competitors into Salt Lake around that time is 800 Buck that’s 400 tickets so works great for me man I’m thrilled about that that’s good thanks for the business yeah that’s the least I could do yeah well I’m sure you have more like my my son’s in the Provo area too and when I saw the flights I’m like hey you don’t have to drive to Salt Lake and drop off the car at your aunt and uncle’s house and then get a ride into the airport go you can just go right there it’s perfect Friday morning back Monday morning it’s easy that’s right yeah it’s perfect so David in your case you’ve kind of had a life where you’ve accomplished a lot more quote unquote big things than the standard person has in that you’ve launched a bunch of Airlines taking companies public you you were listed in a times list as a 100 most influential people or something to that effect so you’ve done a lot of really amazing you had a lot of really amazing professional accomplishments and I’m curious as you look back on your career to this point if there’s anything that stands out to you as something that’s been most meaningful that you’ve accomplished yeah I’ve had success you know the airline business is is not always good to people but it’s been good to me starting from the time I dropped out of college got into the travel business started my first airline that I sold to Southwest and then started my second Airline WestJet which is today the second largest airline in Canada and then the one kind of probably in the US I’m most known for is Jeet blue and that was great but I think the most important thing I’ve ever done and the thing that affected the most people and changed their lives the most in Brazil it’s the largest airline in Brazil we have 16,000 people that work for us directly and another probably 24,000 indirectly we fly 100,000 people a day we deliver 150,000 packages a day to people who order stuff online and it it’s we’ve probably taken maybe half of the people that work for us out of maybe low income or even a poverty situation and that all came about because of my association with Brazil because of the missionary program so it’s by far the most meaningful thing that I’ve done no that that really resonates with me I sered my mission from 1997 to 1999 in goanna and I remember I would go with the mission president to pick up the missionaries and I remember at that time looking at the boards and thinking there are not a lot of flights to a lot of places here you know everything went through Sal Paulo and it was just I remember even back then and I have no connection to the airline industry but yeah I can see where that would make a massive difference to a lot of people in Brazil yeah we started we started aul um there were about 47 million people that traveled domestically in the US in the in Brazil sorry in Brazil in the US it was 700 650 million and that number today is double it’s over 100 million people and most of those additional incremental Flyers are flown byul in Brazil we serve 170 cities we serve over a 100 cities that nobody else serves where there’s no service 18 cities in the Amazon basin if it wasn’t for us serving those flights it’s either a flight on his or a 5-day boat ride so we bring life-saving medicines and we move a lot of organs for organ transplants and vaccines and all the things that people need to become healthier and that service just did not exist before we started probably the most most important I think company that started in Brazil in the last 15 years and particularly during Co and all the things we did to kind of help out even now with the the flooding in southern Brazil we’ve flown 150 relief lights down we rallied when the church obviously gave us a bunch of supplies that we could move and participated and shell and a lot of different people contributed but we were the Catalyst of making all that happen yeah amazing it’s so cool that you’re in a position that that you have been able to affect that many lives you know it’s not common that people are in that position but to do that is amazing it’s a great blessing it’s interesting because the CEO of aul today is somebody who I took with me from JetBlue to to start the airline down there and he was our our CFO at the time now he’s become the CEO I’m the chairman but he served his mission in Portugal so because he had that that Portuguese language expertise that’s why I selected him and now his son is on a mission in Port allegri and is kind of leading the relief efforts down there you know a lot of pictures of him he was with the president of Brazil’s wife down there and you know coordinating got missionaries to all go to the airport to help unload these relief flights and you know get the supplies to the people that needed them so John Rogerson has lived down there for 16 years and now his kids have been raised there and they’re serving missions there so kind of it’s a really cool story that’s super awesome yeah so something when I was kind of getting ready for this you’ve had a ton of success right aul obviously is a huge success and it brought all of these amazing benefits to the people in Brazil broadly speaking but you’ve had some pretty spectacular if I can say it in a nice way like kind of failures right so the Hawaiian travel business or the Southwest I do think it’s funny that you got kicked out of Southwest because you were too good that’s what I took away from all the things I’ve read about it which is funny but Southwest or even the Jet Blue issu so just curious from your end all these failures are learning opportunities so what are some of the lessons that you took away from those experiences that you’ve applied well basically I was a Southwest and I worked really hard to get them to to do e tickless e travel that they didn’t have that I was able to integrate the airline I got convince him to stop charging off peak fairs on Sundays which saved him $50 million a year I I did a lot of things I was only there six months but herb Keller her said you should have taken a couple years to do that you kind of made everybody mad because we’ve always thought we were the best and we didn’t think that we needed Improvement and you kind of pointed out some areas that that we did so that was an interesting experience but I can still remember herb took me over to Ruth Chris Steak House by Lovefield and said it’s not going to work and I flew home and I was obviously disappointed and sad but WestJet probably wouldn’t be around today or and BL certainly wouldn’t be around today if it wasn’t for that experience and then I had kind of my fing out with the board at at JetBlue and they obviously misinterpreted things and we’re not close enough to it and obviously think they made a big mistake but uh Z would not exist without that and so the the thing that I’m most proud of is isul and isul wouldn’t exist without that when I left the company and I was actually on the board I was a chairman of the board but I wasn’t happy with the way things were handled you know I wrote an email to all of our people at the company and it was probably at that time 8,000 people and I just said look I’ve always taught you that it’s not really what happens to you in life it’s how you deal with it and how you’re able to turn the page and make something good out of something that happens bad and I was born in Brazil I served a mission in Brazil I have love for the people and I’ve always kind of when I was was a 18yearold or 19-year-old boy or 20-y old boy walking through the streets of Brazil I always thought it would be so cool to come back here and make him impact and so this is my opportunity to do so and so I’m going to try and make something great from something that I disagree with it’s a bad decision but as will happen because of that so I think the lesson is but you can always have something good comes from something bad it’s just it doesn’t matter what happens to you it’s really how you deal with it and what your attitude is I love the perspective that like you said the best thing you’ve ever done is a zoo and none of that would have happened if all of those things of those other things hadn’t happened necessarily right I got a bunch of people at Breeze saying this is next this will be the next best thing you ever do so or the will have to take its place so but till now is always pretty pretty pretty spectacular you almost need those little points of failure to punctuate change in in New Direction and you get stagnant and stale maybe without some of those larger quote unquote failure experiences that have now bred so many new opportunities absolutely it’s you learn we learn of the scriptures and we learn that there there has to be opposition in all things and that’s how you grow is from trials and difficulties in our lives and not I’m not one that prays for that you know I know some people are like life’s going too good I’m praying for tragedy and I’m like no I don’t do that I don’t want any but things are going to come our way and we need to be able to know how to deal with it and be positive rely on the Lord and things just seem to work out I’ve always thought that having experiences in failure and on the mission because that’s what it is for a lot of the time it feels like an exercise and futility right and uh having that many experiences to fail I think is so valuable to a young kid anyway one of the questions I was going to ask you you know there’s elements of luck in any kind of success but there’s also hard work lots of times creates a climate in which you kind of make your own luck but I’m curious as you trace back the history of your professional career what are some things that you feel that you did that were most beneficial to your Career Success you know I think realizing my strengths my weaknesses and surrounding myself with people who complement my weaknesses and kind of giving credit to other people and doing it as a team as opposed to trying to do things on your own and then just looking outside the box and saying you know can we do this differently than everyone else is doing it why do we do things a certain way and I think that’s why I’ve had success in the airline business it’s an industry that is kind of mired in certain tradition so I just try and look at things differently and then surround myself with people who can complement my weaknesses and to help Implement those things so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on leadership and leadership styles I mean I’ve been fortunate to see leaders in a lot of different Industries over my career and it’s interesting because you have some that are super passionate or compassionate and some are cold right they may call it it’s all business right curious kind of what your style is and who your biggest role model was or is helped you get to that point I was a big fan of her keler even though he fired me he was somebody who cared about people people looked up to him they followed him he was someone who built a great company culture and so I was enamored and in love with Southwest before they even acquired us and so I think I would probably classify him as my top Mentor you know had the opportunity to be at his funeral and pay lot respects to him he was a really great man but I I’d like to categorize myself as kind of a servant leader with all the turmoil in the US job market it’s a lot harder today to necessarily be the best job you’ve ever had and because people seem to be just a little more discontent but in Brazil the reason I’m so in love with what we did down there is we had this thing we would teach and ask people is this the best job you’ve ever had and and if it isn’t why not and so just walking around the company saying is this the best job you’ve ever had what can we do better just always that striving for Perfection always striving to be better knowing that we’ll never reach Perfection but at least if we strive for it we’ll be a better and better company and so I think that’s the the this motto is really make it a great job for people if they believe it’s the best job they’ve ever had if they’re grateful for their job then they’ll just do a better job our turnover in Brazil is almost zero you get a job at Z you never leave be at a flight attendant pilot mechanic you know intervie other positions like call center and all that so we treat people really well and so you want to be able to create a culture where people not only see it as a job but they see it as a kind of a cause a passion and that’s not easy to do is easy to sustain but that’s what I’ve I’ve tried to do as I’ve built my companies just a funny story years and years ago I had read an article about a CEO who on their planes would get on the plane and help out and serve and and I had I read this years ago and it wasn’t until I was getting ready for this that I found it again I thought this is the guy that I read about all those years ago but it Str even back then I remember thinking that’s the way do you want to serve your customers and the people that work with with you like that’s the way to do it go and be with them get down there talk to them don’t be the person in Sea Suite that you never see just go talk to people right ask them what they want what they need what makes them happy what’s fulfilling what needs to be fixed yeah I mean it was always something that stuck with me I always thought it was as comical that show undercover CEO it’s like I can never go undercover no matter what kind of costume I had cuz everybody knew who I was you know you try and lead by examples the best you can and you try and be down there where just where the action is where the really where the money is being made and where people are really serving people that’s really what I’ve kind of strive to do and it was kind of a culture that we set up so you interact with Executives at other companies and do you feel like other Executives have a similar approach and mindset even if it’s not as well manifest in their company I think so I mean I think today especially in the US with the job market the way it is people can kind of go work anywhere so if you don’t figure out a way to take care of your people you know the market will take care of that you have these unions at Airlines and they try and tell you what to do so I don’t need you to tell me how to take care of our Pilots because they can go get a job anywhere and they couldn’t leave us and so you know that and so you strive to be the best going into the mission experience a little bit I heard you talk about with guy RZ about going on your mission you said is this something that you kind of did right it’s an expectation I know it still is culturally familial that’s just kind of what we do in the church and I’m curious what did you think you were going to get into before going was there any thought beforehand that it’s going to be this certain kind of way or was it just blindly I’m going to go and whatever happens happens kind of all of us have serve missions know for sure that it’s not exactly like we thought it was going to be you know it tends to be much different and you know I they just kind of step back a generation my father a couple Generations my great-grandfather was converted to the church in Holland and he immigrated to Utah with his family and through a series of events they didn’t stick with it the church and they ended up he ended up moving to California and my grandfather was born in Salt Lake City and he had five sisters that were born in Holland and he was born in Salt Lake but he wasn’t raised in the church so when he ended up marrying my grandma who was a member but he wasn’t member and they’d never been baptized so my father was 9 years old when my when my grandfather drove down to La down to California to visit his father his grandfather as he was kind of failing and helped and oh great-grandfather Simon Peter pulled out a warn copy of the Book of Mormon and said I’ve been hard-hearted you know we’re Dutch so obviously that comes with the territory I’ve been stubborn I want you to go home and I want you to both get baptized and he died shortly thereafter so my grandfather did as his father asked him he drove back to Utah and my father and my grandfather were baptized on the same day my dad was N9 years old but because he wasn’t raised in the church and he didn’t really attend that much and it wasn’t until my dad was kicked out of primary for being kind of unruly and it wasn’t until my dad met my mom that he kind of started going again and started to really filled that it was filled the spirit and thought it was important and kind of on his own he decided that he wanted to serve a mission and this was in the early 50s he graduated from high school in 52 so this is probably like 1953 54 and so we went to my mom and said I want to serve a mission and she said well gez I wanted you to get back in the church but I wasn’t sure I wanted you to go that far so my father got called on a mission and as fade or not luck but you know inspiration what have it he was called to Brazil didn’t even know where Brazil was and so he always joked that they invented planes while he was gone CU he went down by boat by ship from New York and then he my gosh flew home but that experience changed his life and it was a two and a half year Mission and he actually extended for three more months my mom’s like are you kidding me are you and so they they came home my dad came home and they got married and the first thing my dad said as he got off the airplane was I want to go back to Brazil I want to be there I want to go back and be with those people so he got a job as a Ford correspondent for United Press International and had the opportunity to go back there and we lived there for seven years and it was during that 7 year period the time I was born there in 1959 and so I have citizenship of Brazil because I was born there and then we moved back to the US and well I was only five years old and so we it was Portuguese was my first language but because I was too young we kind of lost the language and my Mom and Dad claim they tried to keep it up in the house but uh weren’t successful so then I was called back to Brazil because I had part in part I think because I had a Brazilian passport uh and visas were kind of hard to come by at those times but it was interesting because as an expatriate kid and then we would go back and visit my dad had lots of friends a and my dad had a great career down there as journalist he interviewed Fidel Castro he was there when Brazil was kind of just trying which side to go with Argentina or if they were going to go into communism or they’re GNA go with Cuba or yeah and he had just so he stayed busy your dad stayed busy yeah he had a he has written a whole book about the experience he’s written several books about Brazil but one of them he talked about his life as a correspondent but when I was a teenager going to Brazil I thought wow this place is better than the United States because we were kind of lower middle class living in the us we’d go to Brazil and beautiful beaches and eat at the finest restaurants and go to these sports clubs and hang out with all our rich friends but then when I was called back to Brazil that wasn’t my experience at all I was in the favellas I was walking the streets all those rich people that I knew didn’t want to hear anything about the gospel they were behind the walls and I was out with the oov you know the people and it really upset me you know I felt like I thought we should you know I can see why people want to overthrow governments and why where socialism comes in because we have the halves and the Have Nots and there were maybe 20 million people that H were halves and the rest at that time it was about there were 110 120 million people in Brazil most of them 80% were have kns and so that was when I I kind of resolved to go back and do something for Brazil but the thing about my experience as a missionary one of the things I learned later in life when I was in my early 30s after I sold Morris air to Southwest aines my mom sent me this book and the book was it was called driven to destruction and it was written by a guy named N Hell he’s kind of the foremost expert on attention deficit disorder he’s written several books his latest book is ADHD 2.0 it and I couldn’t read the book because I never read anything all the way through but I did read the the characteristics of of someone with ADD and I was like wow it was a huge Revelation and so as I think back in high school I was a horrible student I could barely get through high school I scored really low on the ACT I got in the University of Utah just because it was a state school and they they let everybody in at the time did poorly in school and then I went on my mission and that completely changed me my mission taught me how to focus it taught me how to be disciplined it taught me how to be successful i’ had never really done anything really successful in my life I had leadership positions on my mission I had had a lot of success converting people and so between that experience of seeing these really poor people and not totally thrilled how they were being treated but also that they were happy and they were content with very little and just me changing myself from being more disciplined and having a relationship with the Savior I I think I can attribute all the successes of my life to those two years walking those Dusty streets in northeastern Brazil I I shudder to think what I would have become had I not gone on a mission it really did make me a different person a better person somebody who could be successful as a father but also as a business leader and everything because I learned to be egalitarian I learned to really think about others like we were taught to do as missionaries I feel like on my mission that’s where I really started to understand the term Christlike love right as you looked around at different people who are completely different from me right and the people I grew up around but you realize these are amazing amazing people right the kindest happiest yeah it’s such such an amazing experience I spent a lot of time in Portugal cuz I did the privatization of tap Portugal Airlines so so the first time I went there and I was in a cab driving to these the government offices to meet with the ministers and I couldn’t hardly understand what the guy was saying because Portugal portugueses oril but yeah through kind of his crazy Portuguese I asked him if he’d ever been to Brazil before and he said yeah I’ve been to Brazil I said what’ you think he said well I couldn’t believe it what do you mean well I was in Fort ala and there was all these people that were in abstract poverty living on the hillside and they were so happy he said here in Portugal we have everything and we’re miserable so I thought well that really sums up Brazil there really are a lot of happy people that obviously there’s misery there and there’s particularly now in in southern Brazil but you know their outlook on life is and they’re very spiritual people as well and I think that probably helps with their happiness yeah I think sorry to interrupt you it no no I it’s amazing place and I think everybody loves their mission right and grows to love the people that are there in a their own special way but for me it’s been I tried to keep in contact with different people and like you said it’s just it’s amazing how we can live such vastly different lives and then they’re just happy right happy and they love the Savior and they find a way to to find that that happiness in their life but yeah I mean I think everybody loves their missions but I think Brazilian missionaries are kind of like a I was talking to one of my colleagues at work one time and he had served his mission in Holland and but he told me two of his brothers had served in Brazil and I said how’ they like it and he said oh they’re just like every other Brazilian missionary return missionary they’re so arrogant they think it’s the best place on Earth they speak Portuguese they eat Brazilian food they just think they had the best mission of all and discount everybody else I wow yeah that’s kind of true is you know it is it’s a great place to serve a mission for sure yeah yeah totally so you grew up there and I only served a missionary but you kind of what didn’t grw up there you’re born there vacation there served your mission there and then like those experience you’re talking about right where you’re exposed to some of the poverty and some of the people that are more humble did that change how you when you move there to kind of launch a or the time you spend there now like does that change how you I guess interact with people or how you live there yeah I think it I think the the coolest thing I learned about on my mission was if it’s somebody who’s cleaning the bathrooms at work and they’re scrubbing the toilets or somebody who’s your CFO you just treat them all the same you know you treat everybody with love and kindness and that’s what I learned on my mission that that we’re not really bad in God’s eyes we’re all equal and I think in large part we’re going to be judged on how we treat others particularly those that can do nothing for us you know know it’s I think it’s kind of the true measure of a person we can all kiss up to people who we want something from or gives us status or whatever but it’s the humble the the PO in heart and the PO in spirit that Christ taught us about how do we treat them and how do we value them because those are the people really that Christ and our heavenly father value more than really anybody and so that’s really I think in large part that’s what we’re how we’re going to be held accountable I I have certain specific instances that I could look back on and I could say I remember this right and it was super super impactful in terms of treating people the way you’re describing realizing that listen we’re all brothers and sisters doesn’t matter where we land in life let’s just let’s just be kind to one another do you have any specific stories or things that you remember you’re like oh that’s when I really like clicked in my head you know I don’t know I I think it was just the whole experience when you get to Brazil for the first couple months you’re kind of in shock right you’re in culture shock and that transformation of trying to compare everything in Brazil to what you left at home kind of melts away as you fall in love with the people and you see their hearts that people who have nothing would give you scrape together whatever they have to cook have you have a cooked meal of rice and beans and some little piece of chicken or something so I think that really is it just absolutely changes you for sure and it makes you different and there’s hundreds of specific interest instances where you met people or they had an impression on you and they changed you and that’s really the defining characteristic of serving others you know it’s the great Commandments to serve God and to serve each other and to serve your neighbor and that’s what you can do as a missionary 100% of the time you’re constantly serving your companion or serving somebody else and I remember when I left my mission my mission president who’s still alive and lives living in Brazil we have a WhatsApp chat group with all my missionaries and I go a couple days without seeing it and there’s 200 messages inspirational messages that all these missionaries here we are 45 years removed from the experience and they’re still all connected and with our mission president but when I said down with him in my final interview he said Elder Neil and you’re going to go home now and for the last two years you’ve been thinking about others it’s all about serving others and serving your companion and you’re going to have to switch now and you’re going to start thinking about yourself you’re going to go to school for you you’re going to do all this stuff and I can promise you until you can kind of pivot back and figure out how to serve others you’ll never find the same happiness that you’ve had for the last two years and so make sure that you balance that and as you’re kind of doing everything for you make sure that you can keep serving others and so obviously you get married and have a bunch of kids there’s certainly lots of opportunities to serve especially if you’re running a company you can kind of watch out for others as well what I find so interesting about this all is David you served in what 70s 80s 80 78 80 Spencer you served in the 90s whatever both in Brazil I served 2014 2016 in Cambodia and despite difference in time despite difference in location the experiences that each of us had are really like they’re almost identical everything that you’re talking about of going into somebody’s home and then not having anything and yet they’re buying you a sandwich and you’re like what are you doing you don’t have you know that or the importance of service or some of these just really tentpole things no matter where you are if you do the program even within the United States my wife served in Florida and we think that third world countries are crazy because they can be but let her tell you some stories about what happens in Florida and it’s it’s it’s just crazy and it’s just like if you sign up for the program it’s a universal experience uh nearly Universal experience I would say that you come away with these kind of knowledge of the importance of service and the goodness of humanity and some of those really deep and really abiding principles things that you draw from for the rest of your life absolutely it’s just a absolutely it’s it’s amazing that a 19-year-old that 18yar old I guess can sign up and you can almost guarantee that you’re going to have this life-changing experience just by virtue of taking a leap you know absolutely I mean Prett fantastic the spirit’s there the spirit teaches and it purifies you if you’re doing what you’re supposed to do you know I have a Cambodia story I was the war Mission leader in Connecticut and one day I was at our local farmers market and a Gentleman came up to me and said my daughters know your daughters and this is my little daughter Khloe here and she’s friends with your daughter Vanessa and I said nice nice to meet you and so I just kind of went on my Merry way and then he tracked me down and he said I got to tell you I don’t know what you guys are doing in your house but it’s working I said what do you mean well when your daughter came over to our house she wanted to bless the food and she’s like 10 years old and then my little daughter Khloe goes over to your house and she said you guys read the Bible every night and it’s really cool I just want to let you know that so I said to him why do you come and then he started kind of bagging on his own church saying we don’t get that kind of stuff at our church and so I said why don’t you come worship with this so he came and brought his two daughters and his wife and over a period of about 5 years they ended up getting baptized and so there was Phoebe and Khloe so Phoebe goes off to BYU and she had been to efy a couple times and then Chloe was kind of The Reluctant one she didn’t want to get baptized but kind of a miracle happened where he went to her counselor school and her school counselor knew a member of the church had convinced her to get baptized IED so Chloe goes off to BYU and I’m like I wonder how Chloe’s going to like that experience she’s didn’t really necessarily it was kind of new so next thing I know Chloe decides to go on a mission and she gets called a Cambodia so she went to what’s her last name sister Davis okay I was there when she was there I followed her whole experience and read all of her emails because when I sat down with them Chloe was C would he wasn’t coming to church so I sat down with with her mom and dad and her sister and her sister was saying I want to get baptized and I said Phoebe wants to get baptized and they said well not without us I said what about Chloe oh Chloe she’ll just get baptized oh Khloe got drug into to the to the church and went on a mission and had a tremendous experience in Cambodia and then ended up meeting a guy who served in Thailand and they got married and had a baby and now they’re living in New Hampshire and doing great so that’s my Cambodia story that’s a good that is a good tie yeah she’s uh older than me in the mission but I was like Cambodia are you kidding me what are her parents gonna say about that I know I know they’re like we’ve reann nowc everything it’s pretty funny pour out yeah no look you guys can talk all you want about Brazil being the best Mission but I think we all know it’s skim put well that’s the gift that our savior gives us if you agree to serve he’ll make it that way so what would be your C to a returned missionary who once testified of the gospel of Christ and the power of the atonement and now has come home and things change and they may be harboring some doubts about the things they once testified of how would you councel that person yeah you know I think it’s i h have nine children and they’re all strong of the Gospel all marri in the temple U I’ve been so blessed and I think part of it was during the time that we were I was a word Mission leader I had a lot of people having dinner and I kind of inoculated my kids to a lot of this historical stuff that gets people all upset which is kind of ludicrous and so I think that helped a lot but I when I got my pastoral blessing and I was 18 years old one of the phrases in in my patal blessing said that your testimony will you’ll gain a testimony from seeing the lives of those who follow the Covenant path versus those that do not and the happiness that it brings to them and I think when you read in Matthew 7 about by the fruits you shall know them what what I’ve you know come to believe and obviously it’s pretty disheartening when you have people who have been on a mission and testified of Christ and found a lot of happiness and then through some historical thing different versions of the first Vision or polygamy or some of this stuff they lose their faith and the saddest thing about losing their faith is that the vast majority Maybe up towards 90% not only lose their faith in in the restoration of the Gospel they lose their faith in Jesus Christ and they lose their faith in God and they are miserable and they really are and and somebody should could dispute that and say oh I’m not I’m liberated I’m happy and I love wine and it tastes awesome and all that kind of stuff but I just really believe that the true happiness of the Gospel comes through following the Savior and I’ve been watching this podcast there’s this podcast called come back come back podcast and the host is a young lady who left the church and had been through rehab was a heroin addict been through rehab 14 or 15 times and then she came back to the church just by reading the book of Mormon at least one verse a day brought her back and the joy that she has now versus the misery she had not living the gospel she decided to share that with others but also have others tell their stories and I don’t understand the vital against I was sitting at sacrament meeting today just the sweetness of that whole meeting and we had a missionary farewell that was the sweet sister was uh going to the church history sites in New York and then on to Canada and I thought wow why would anyone be vitriolic about this and I think there was a guy that was on the kbach podcast and he went deep went deep on the doctrine went deep on the historical stuff and he really wanted to know if Joseph Smith was a profer or not and he said at the time finally got to the conclusion that it was a 50-50 proposition and that yeah you can argue both sides and both people could argue it effectively but he just decided he was happier Following being in the church and raising his kids in the church that he was when he wasn’t and that was the determination that was the determining factor that brought him back and so I just think I wouldn’t trade my church experience and I really do feel sorry for those people that not only leave but they’re angry about it they feel like they were deceived or lied to it’s it you’re missing the whole point about the gospel and being a a follower of the Savior and living after his principles we we’re promised that if we do that we’ll find happiness I had a really great conversation yesterday we had an Elders corm activity and afterwards I was chatting with one of the brothers and we were talking about the youth right and the challenges that the youth have talked about missions kind of the the whole gamut but one of the things that we he and I talked about was the desire that people have to feel to feel something right and as you look around I think that drives a lot of the different protests or the different things that people want to get involved in and they’re trying to feel those things and as I thought about it I thought the gospel fills a lot of that right it really helps provide that direction it provides that that the feeling the spirit will give you gives you so so much and I think all these are things they may be good they may be bad but they pale in comparison to the gospel right and the feelings you can get from it yeah I mean this the anxiety the depression the suicide rat so we have all this Prosperity I mean today we were learning about King Noah and all the way he kind of corrupted his whole society and it was only 254 years after King Benjamin’s address where everybody was of one heart and one mind so it’s really easy to fall away but then you’re just really miserable and everyone’s searching for something today and they just don’t have know everybody tells you you want to be happy in life get up early get some sunlight go work out eat good and Find meaning and purpose in your life there’s no greater place to find meaning and purpose in life than in the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with ample opportunities to serve and to take care of others and to learn great principles and you know I couldn’t be happier I shudder to think what my life would be like without that my in the lives of my children I think that going back to like you said it it comes down to a choice of it’s all either true or it’s not and to me there’s a lot of Beauty and the struggle anything that is worth doing is hard and go back to a mission a mission is really hard but it’s worth doing you think of stories throughout time you think of fictional stories Lord of the Rings if they were like look froo you just have to take this ring and go throw it into the mountain but you know you’re going to have a terrible time before you do that if he decided you know what too much work you wouldn’t have a story and there would be nothing to tell and I haven’t yet had a faith struggle but I’m empathetic to those people who do and I just think man it if you have to choose one way to have your life go choose the struggle because there’s Beauty in the struggle and I I hope that they do that but anyway that’s great to hear your perspective on that so last question for you what would be your top piece of advice that you would give a a young kid who is questioning going on a mission and talking to 16 17 18 year old kid what would you tell them if you were to give any advice to them so the first thing I would say is prepare yourself spiritually so that you get that confirmation that you should go don’t go because someone want you to go because missions are hard and they’re difficult but they are lifechanging and they will affect you for an eternity so get your life in order make sure that you’re following the Commandments that you’re doing all that you should do and then prepare yourself for that answer and when you get it Go and and if you do go you’re going to be there for 18 months or two years it’s just the way it is I I kind of had this feeling that if I was coming home I was coming home in a pine box I’m not gonna there’s no way I was going to come so you burn it was about 3 months in where I was homesick and I just said my you know I was kind of Crossing off the days on I calendar or thinking man i’ I’ve heard rumors are going to shorten these things 18 months wouldn’t that be great to chop six months off of this thing and get home and then all of a sudden I realized I got to be here anyways I can be the best or I can just kind of be miserable and so when I made that switch where I just said I want to be the best I want to take I want to just take advantage of every single moment of this Mission and my last 6 months were my best and I kind of pity those guys that went for 18 months actually they didn’t get the last 6 months and that was when I spoke the language the best I was assistant for the last seven months we were we were in a part of Brazil where we were up north and with the whole revelation of I got there in October of 78 the Revelation came in June of 78 and so we were just like walking knocking on doors hey we’re here from the Church of Jesus Christ we just arrived and people were just like falling into the baptismal f it was unbelievable we were baptizing 2,000 people a month and we were turning branches into stakes in in 6 months and it was a time it was probably like England in the 1800s and so because I just made that switch I was able to participate in that grand miracle that was going on in the north of Brazil and we was to look at other missionaries that were trunky their whole missions or basically weren’t giving it their all that was the advice I gave my kids just go out there and work every day your hardest and the Lord then it’s coming up at spiral the Lord blesses you and you have the spirit with you and you love it and you get more into it and you have that life changing experience so don’t go out Half Baked and then when you get there just give it your all every day and the Lord will bless you absolutely he’s promised this that that’s tremendous well awesome David we’ll let you go but it’s such a great opportunity for Spencer and I to meet you I think you’re such a humble person and I love how you not shy away from your faith at all in your public Persona and I think that is really remarkable and so somebody that I really admire so thank you so much for your time and for doing this great great how SP great spend time with you and come fly [Music] Breeze you know what it’s not that I know a lot of CEOs or get to talk to them all the time but I have met my fair number in outside of the church and I’ve met a few people who are fairly high up in their different organizations my experience has been that many of the leaders that are church members are super humble like I went camping with a gentleman one time and he and our my life in his life totally different right I mean when you’ve got as much money as this guy it’s so a lot of things are totally different but he was the nicest guy and he give you the shirt off his back and while our lifestyles are different at the end of the day the core beliefs and those shared experiences are the same and it bonds you I think to a certain degree yeah well you also had the fact that it bonds you like horizontally but it’s also a tether right like it tethers you to reality and it grounds you and and that’s one thing that I kind of feel struck by talking to him is he’s a very grounded individual he’s not yeah too big for his britches he understands what’s important and the gospel is a good reminder of that because you’re going every single week and you’re remembering your own in the scriptural term right your own worthlessness before God that you you’re like dust um compared to God and I think that’s a great benefit of the church just keeping that in mind and tethering you to reality and humility and uh yeah yeah I think he said a couple things that I really loved one that we didn’t really like dive back into but I kind of mentally noted it and the other that I think we kind of touched on but I I love his thought process on Christlike love treating everybody the same not not the same treating everyone with love and compassion right treating them like a human but then when he was talking about the gospel one of the things he said kind of flickered my mind was how you shall know them by their fruits and I thought that’s so true about that’s one of the things the mission gives you right is this ability to if you’re all in on the program kind of like you said earlier for foll for doing it what are the fruits love compassion kindness expanded understanding of who different people are and cultures and societies and in what world is that a bad thing right yeah for sure he said another thing that I noted when I asked about testimony as a missionary and it was basically to the the effect of the way that I always phrase it for myself I should say is I’ve seen too much and that’s because of the mission I think before my mission I saw a lot I mean I had really good people around me my parents are incredible examples I have really great War leaders but like man on my mission Isis saw so much so just many many times daily examples of why I chose to believe why I chose to believe this and why other people chose to believe it and that really so much is the core of my testimony and I say to myself I’ve seen too much to let it slip away or to go somewhere else I’ve seen people’s Miracles and I just have seen it over and over and over and I’ve seen how happy it’s made them and like you said that’s a fruit and I’ve just seen too much and I he kind of just mentioned that in passing too and I I think that’s an amazing benefit from a mission that again if you’re home you’re either not seeing as much or you’re not looking for it as much and a mission just puts it right there front and center and gives you the opportunity to treasure up all those things and store them for forever yeah you said at the very beginning a mission is it’s all about failure success yes but it’s a lot more failure than his success and David is such a good example that like we said at the very beginning right this is an individual who was flying high making millions when he was in his late mid 20s lost it all right kind of up and down up and down but he’s also that perfect example to say like listen guys this is what we talk about when we say just keep going you you will be blessed you don’t know the plan you don’t know what God has in store for you but it’ll be great it’ll be awesome whatever it is and not everyone’s going to be a David Nan right they’re not going to that’s unique to him but that doesn’t mean that our lives will be any less amazing just in different ways and I think that’s like you said at the beginning I think the ability to kind of muscle through that you can get that outside of the mission but I think that’s one of the skill sets that I certainly brought home too is say oh okay well keep moving right just keep going resilience faith in the future those are principles that matter no matter if you’re a CEO of a major company or you’re a quote unquote nobody you know that it’s important it’s very important so awesome all right well what a cool experience so fun it’s awesome yeah super cool thanks for inviting [Music] me okay that wraps it up uh it a great episode thanks to Spencer for coming on to help me out and thanks to David for his time and thanks everybody for listening tell a friend fly Breeze we’ll see you back next time [Music] he

Transcript from YouTube auto-captions