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[00:00:00] I'm a big believer that you learn more about the way someone acts than anything they could ever say. So I'd like to start today's episode by telling you a little story. I'd never met Gary Crittenden in person prior to this interview, but a few days after we recorded, I happened to pass him while I was running with my husband in kids, and he was biking evidence.

That everything he says about exercise and self-discipline on this episode is true. But the thing that impressed me most is that he turned his bike around just to introduce himself, and that's when it became very clear. Gary Crittenden is someone who practices what he preaches. Gary Crittenden is currently an executive director at HGGC, but has previously served as chairman of.

City Holdings from 2000 to 2007, he was executive Vice President and CFO of American Express, and from March, 2007 to March, 2009, he was the chief financial officer of Citigroup. He and his wife Kathy, have three children.

This is all in an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am so honored to have Gary Crittendon on the line with me today. Gary, welcome. Thank you, Morgan. It's just really a pleasure to be here with you as well.

Well, I have long admired you. I, I remember years ago, I think the very first time that I heard your name was in the book, the Mormon Way of Doing Business. Jeff Benedict was a professor of mine in school, in college, and so it's fun to finally have a chance to talk to you, myself and to ask you some questions.

I, I wanted though to, if it's okay with you. I learned in, in preparing for this interview that you have a practice that you have done for 35 years now, and I found this [00:02:00] so inspiring and so I, I wanna kind of. My thought is set the stage by explaining what this practice is. Okay. And then maybe you can guide us a little bit through what your reflection is like in these different aspects of your life.

So without further ado, sure. You, you, each Sunday night you take a chance to review your life. And I love this idea. I think I sometimes get caught up in not. Reflecting, just doing, and so I wonder first if you could tell me where you were in your life when you began this practice, and then how it became a habit.

And maybe also just kind of give some context for what this, this practice is like for you, for those listening. Sure I'd be happy to. So first of all, the, the idea behind this actually came from Steve Covey, so we need to make sure that, uh, we give him the appropriate credit behind it. But it, it happened, you know, I was busy at work and I was busy with church responsibilities and that kind of thing, and sometimes I would do either.

You know, kind of, uh, firesides at church or that kind of thing. And people would often ask me how I would balance my time. And I really didn't have a very good answer to that question because I really wasn't doing it very well. And, uh, and so I. I, I gave a lot of thought to how I might kind of think about how I could improve the connection that I have with the things that are most important to me.

And I happened to come across, uh, a book that was written by Stephen Covey. As I said, that was called First Things First, and, uh, it, it has a couple of premises to it and one premise is. That you need to sort of decide what is the most important thing for you to accomplish in your life. Because if you don't really have a sense of what you're trying to achieve, you, you, you don't know how to spend your time.

And I [00:04:00] have, I have found over the years that maybe one of the, the saddest things is when people spend their time against goals that are not that important to them. And, uh, it doesn't in the overall scheme of things, you know, depending on, you know, where you are in your life and what you think and what you want, you can have all different kinds of goals.

But, but for me, the things that were most important were the things that were. Really close to my heart, my love for the savior, my love for my wonderful family. And, uh, and I wanted to do a better job at focusing time and attention on them. And so, uh, the, the thought was, uh, it's, it's a very daunting thing to say, how can I achieve a lifetime goal?

If you set out with that as your objective, that is a really daunting thing to do. On the other hand, if you said to yourself. What could I do this week so that my wife will think that I love her? That's actually a pretty easy question I could answer for this particular week. Uh, in fact, I did answer this question for this particular week, and then I would say, okay, if, if, if that's all I need to do to have her think that this week, I can actually put that on my schedule and I can ensure that I do that because I have lots of other things I put on my schedule and ensure that I do, I can ensure that I do that.

And. I can do the same thing to ensure that my parents realize that I think they're the most wonderful parents that any person could have, and all I have to do is put that on my calendar and plan that in like I would any other thing that's important to me. And it turns out that if you do that for a very long period of time, that in the beginning it has almost no impact.

But I've been blessed to see over my entire lifetime now, 35 years that I've been doing this each Sunday night, that I'm able to say that there's sort of a compounding effect of showing those little snippets of love in ways that we would want to have them be shown to those who are nearest and dearest to [00:06:00] us, or the things that are most important to us.

It, it turns out that I think that becoming a disciple of Christ in many ways happens as a result of accomplishing the other areas that I try to focus on. So, you know, I, I, I, one of the kind of five areas that I try to focus on is, is friends. And I found it's really difficult to have a hundred friends in the way that I wish I could have them, but I can have five or six or seven that are incredibly important to me.

That I dearly love and appreciate and for years, you know, I have, uh, been, been associated with and, and so it's very small things done over a very long period of time. Kind of consequently done by thinking about the week ahead and then just ensuring that I, that I actually do it and I'm, I'm certainly not perfect at it.

I could be better than I am, but it's been a great blessing to me to have these as the things that I'm really focused on in my life. Well, the thing that I think is so remarkable is I've interviewed a handful of people, Gary, that I feel like are as accomplished as you are, emphasis on a handful. I think that you have had such an incredible career and impact, and so to hear that that has been a staple in your life over that long of a period of time, I just think that that's remarkable.

And the interesting thing is. I've asked some of those people who have very demanding careers and who have accomplished a lot, how do they find balance? And you said you felt like you weren't very good at balance. And every, every person that I've asked that question, I've stopped asking that question because everybody says there is no such thing as balance.

And, um, so I love though that you, you have determined that these are the things that are most important to me. This is what I wanna accomplish in my life. How, how am I doing as I go? Because if you don't check in as you go, then how do you ever, how do you ever accomplish that? You've said previously?

Determining the [00:08:00] important things requires time, and I feel like one thing that I struggle with, Gary is. Protecting time and not letting other things get in the way. I know, I believe it's President Hinkley who talked about making an appointment with the Lord by attending the temple and not letting anything get in the way of that, and I am not very good at that.

And so I wondered how have you managed to keep this Sunday night appointment with yourself? So keeping an appointment with myself is actually pretty easy. It's, it's acting on the things that you decide that you're gonna do that is a little bit difficult and, and this actually may be sort of a personality thing and could actually be a weakness in some ways.

So I have, I have some friends that I really admire that are incredibly creative. I've worked for some people that are incredibly creative and they have a difficult time. Kind of executing the list of things that they would like to get done. I have a different kind of a personality where I have the ability to get, you know, I, I think a reasonable amount of things done, but that does require me to be a little less flexible than I might, might otherwise be.

And I don't, I don't necessarily think you can. Can do both. I, yeah. You'd like to be able to say I am completely flexible and at the same time I am rigid in some things that I try to do and execute on. And, and I do think that, uh, that there are people who have a net natural tendency kind of in one direction or the other.

I've certainly worked, uh, for people who have had very different, uh, kind of personality types. There was a, a fellow that I worked with once, I won't mention his name, but somebody that I really appreciate and, and greatly respect. And, uh, I would often say that we had a good day if by one o'clock we had the same decision that we, we had the same decision that we made at eight o'clock that morning.

And, uh, and uh, and yet he was a very creative guy. And accomplished a lot, as I said in his life, but needed people around him that helped him kind of keep a pathway [00:10:00] that ensured the execution on the things that were most important and right. So I do think you have to realize that not every person is cut out to wear the exact same suit that, uh, you know, different suits fit, fit different people, and you, you have to.

I, I think, recognize the strengths that each of those capabilities bring. Absolutely. I had a guy sort of in a completely non-church context who really was focused on trying to do very well financially in his life, and he hadn't married, he was in his forties when I, when I, uh, worked with him, he was in his forties.

He worked virtually seven days a week. He worked very long hours and, and his objective really was to achieve. You know, financial success and that's, you know, a, a different outcome than if you say, gee, I have parents that are aging and that are not well, and this is a time in my life when I have to actually take some time away from what I might do otherwise, and focus on them.

Because that's the goal, that's the more important goal, right? Is to have my parents at this really unique part of their lives to, to know that, that we're here for them and, uh, can do what we can. So this happened to work for me. It, like I say, it's been something that has been a, a lifelong, well, three, five year practice, and it has been a blessing for us.

And, and I hope my, my family and friends would say the same. Well, I love what you said about not all suits fit everyone I saw as I was prepping, I saw a post on LinkedIn from someone and she was saying that you had spoken at her place of work and you talked about classifying team members by their inherent skills.

Thinkers, doers. Neither or both. Yeah, and I think recognizing that people have different things that they bring to the table and that something that works for us may not work for someone else, but we can, we can all benefit [00:12:00] from one another, I think is powerful. So I need to figure out whether I'm a thinker or a doer.

I may be neither. Well, I've, I've listened to your podcast a lot. I can tell you that I think you are actually both. You nicely. Well, thank you. Thank you. I'll tell you the, the genesis of that idea if you, if it's okay just to elaborate on Yes, sir. A bit. So the genesis of that idea actually came from a fellow by the name of Kent Bowen, who was our bishop when we first moved to Belmont many years ago.

He was a teacher at MIT and then went to, uh, Harvard Business School and was, uh, the head of the MBA program at Harvard. And one time we were taking our kids on a scout trip. And I asked him what he had learned since he had come over to the business school about success for people as individuals. And he said, you know, as we have kind of looked at success, we have been able to determine that there are some people who can think and some people that can do, there's very few people that can actually think and do.

And there are some people that can neither think nor do, and uh, and so. You know, having a framework like that that helps you think a little bit about how you can best help the people that you're working with, uh, with something that, uh, that Ken taught me that was really, uh, has been useful for me.

Absolutely. And I think that that's useful in any. Work situation, whether it's a church calling or Yeah. A, a work setting. I, I wanted to, you mentioned the idea that being a better disciple of Jesus Christ kind of came as you were focusing on these other areas. Your professional career, Gary, has made you very useful to the church.

But I imagine that when you began this practice, you probably never could have imagined the ways that the Lord would use you, which I love. Seeing the way that the word uses people and their unique skill sets. But I wondered how have you felt him guide your development as a disciple of Jesus Christ? And, and what has it been like to, to [00:14:00] realize, you know, as you're going along?

Oh, that's, that's one way that I can be a better disciple. This skill that I, I learned professionally can now make me a, a, an instrument in the Lord's hands. So there, there are, there are I think, many things that overlap when you're talking about the organizational aspects of the, of the church that overlap with things that you also can learn in the workplace.

And I underline also as I, as I say that, and this particular, maybe we'll talk a little bit later about the missionary department and the opportunity, I had to do a little bit of work there. So the process of receiving revelation, as you know, revelation happens to, uh, each individual for their areas of responsibility.

Areas of responsibility are both in the church and outside the church. And I think insights that can be applied to the work of the Lord. Can come from the experiences that we're learning as we become more capable in other areas as well. Revelation comes as a result of the preparation that we do. That preparation happens in part, uh, in the scriptures that we study each day in the, uh, impressions that we get when we're in church.

And when we're sitting in a work meeting and recognize that here's somebody who really can think about what needs to be done. And oh, by the way, that could apply to my elders scoring president that he could, he, he's really a great guy at figuring out what needs to be done. And so, uh. It, it, it, in the end, it becomes a bit of an amalgamation of, uh, the impressions that you receive at church, the experiences that you have in church that greatly bl bless your life, but also the same things that happen to you as you, uh, just go through your, uh, work experience.

So well said. You mentioned your work with the missionary department, and some people may not know this, that you literally devoted years of your life to volunteer work for the [00:16:00] church's missionary department. I wondered if you could talk to me a little bit about what it meant to be able to take those, those professional skills that you've developed and use them to benefit something that is as important to you as your faith is.

Well, you'd have to ask, uh, them, that those who, uh, supervise the missionary department when I was there, if it benefited them, that'd be the first and most important thing, but I hope they would. There were, it was really, you know, as I often say, it was a time never to be forgotten. So first of all, I had the chance to work under the leadership of, of Elder Brent Nielsen, who.

Has become one of my great friends in life and is one of the most capable people I've ever been associated with. Regardless of the venue. Just such a wonderful guy. He and I had our offices next to each other and I could always tell when there was something very funny going on in his office 'cause I could hear his laugh.

So I could come around the wall and catch up with what he was, catch up with what he was saying. But there, there are a number of things that happened while I was there that were a result of, again, good people applying their capabilities. And inspiration to, to, to, to, to make some important decisions. So let me give you just one example.

So, uh, I didn't know that in the, in what used to be the North visitor center, the, in the basement of the North Visitor Center, there was a, a space where the sister missionaries who were called to serve on Temple Square would take phone calls from people who were calling in, requesting information about the church.

And I, I didn't know then, but found out. Uh, that, uh, elder Ballard had started that many years ago when the, the church used to do infomercials on TV and people could dial in a phone number and we would send them a free Bible, believe it or not, and the missionaries would generally bring it to them. So anyway, this was, the church was doing some advertising and the sister missionaries were getting phone calls from people and they were answering them.

And I went over there to visit and they were as busy as they [00:18:00] could be. They were probably 50. Companionships that were kind of engaged in this work. Uh, some were kneeling, uh, saying prayers with investigators on the phone. Uh, some were teaching. It was just the most inspiring thing that I had seen for a long time.

On the other hand, I pulled out of the parking lot that very night and was driving up the hill to our house, and I saw the missionaries from our stake walking down the hill. And I thought, boy, I wonder, you know, have those missionaries taught today? Have they had the opportunity to share their testimonies?

I wonder what their day has been like. And it struck me that here 300 yards away were a group of sisters that were pressed to get everything done they needed to do. And here's two elders over here. Really didn't have anything to do, and there had to be a way that we could take advantage of the many people who at any moment in time are asking the question, how do I find peace in life?

How do I develop a relationship with Christ? I don't know the exact number, but at this moment right now as we're sitting here, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are online worldwide. Asking themselves those very important questions and how do we take advantage of that and find people who are looking for us and looking for the solution that having a relationship with the savior can bring into their lives?

That set us down a pathway that engaged the Missionary Executive Council, which consists of some members of the 12 and some members of the 70 and of the auxiliary presidencies. Where we got to know some people at Google and some people at Facebook and uh, you know, other of the social media, uh, organizations.

That then led to some testing that we did at Christmas time, about a year after that. It took a while to develop that whole thing, which resulted in our discovering that there really. It was a significant opportunity for us to have people find us more easily than they had in the past. And [00:20:00] the result of that was that the social media function got kicked off in a significant way in the missionary department.

And that has been the, you know, the blessing for many, many, many people, uh, finding the church. Over time and resulted in better opportunities for missionaries to have good use of their time because they can get people who are actually looking for the gospel. Right. That sort of thing. And so anyway, it's been a, uh, that's been a blessing, but that's just one example.

So it's, it's sort of a combination between. Seeing what is already going on and kind of having two things come together that, uh, you might not have put together on the same page, but actually did work out. And then inspiration that comes from the leadership of the church never would've happened without President Ballard's view that, you know, we could actually do infomercials, uh, and, and that kind of work.

It's, uh, uh, you know, I, I think that's kind of a way to frame how these kind of things come together. Well, I think all of that is there. Those are all examples of the ongoing restoration that President Nelson talks about. I, I love hearing the way that things happen and it's neat to hear and, and there were some other examples, I believe in the Utah Business Magazine article that was written about you.

We'll link that in our show notes and there you'll find that Gary is being humble and other people will say how helpful he was to the missionary department. I wanna move on to, in this self-reflection that you do every Sunday night, you look into how have you done as a husband, a father and a son? And I selfishly want to ask you, because I think based on what I've read about you, Gary, my.

My thought is that you and my husband, and this is a high compliment to him, are cut out of the same cloth, and so I wondered what would be your advice to a young husband and father who is. Beginning a busier part of his career. He just graduated [00:22:00] from from school and who has great ambition and drive, but who also wants to be a great husband and a great father.

And it's clear in reading what your wife has said about you, that you are a great husband and father. So what would be your advice to, to someone that's in your situation, but. Decades ago? Well, I would, first of all, I would strive to be a good husband. Uh, it's not a finish line. Uh, I would strive to be a good husband and, and I appreciate that Kathy might feel that way.

I also had a chance to talk to Benjamin, as you know, a couple of times, and he's a very fine person. So, uh, really wonderful guy. Um, so I would probably say, uh, if I were starting the process to think about that there's a. There's a, um, a Mormon message that was done probably 15 years ago by Elder Holland.

That describes, and you may have seen this, that describes a trip that he took as he was leaving to go to graduate school at Yale. Have you seen this? Uh mm-hmm. Can, yeah. In Canaryville. And he's driving in his car, and the car, you know, breaks down a couple of times. And, and there's an old farmer that, that helps him and, and basically tells him, uh, that, uh.

You know, he, he may make it to, uh, Connecticut, but he's not gonna make it in that car. And, and he walks down the road frustrated and has the feeling in his heart, you know, don't you give up, you're gonna make it. Things are gonna get, gonna get better. And, uh, that, that, seeing that Mormon message, I probably have watched it 150 times or something in my life seeing that had such a profound influence.

On the way a young father feels as he's trying to care for his family. Get an education, make sure they're protected, heaven forbid that they're on the side of the road without him there on a hot day. That [00:24:00] whole kind of message is just so profound. I think I have shared that message with, with friends that were in difficult places in their life that were not members of the church.

I had a, I had a good friend that ran into some difficulty at. Uh, work and, uh, lost his job. And, uh, was was someone I had worked with very closely and I thought very highly of. And, uh, and so anyway, I, I sent him that and said this had been something that had inspired me in my life. And, and, uh, he told me after he got a, another job, uh, maybe three or four months later, that he had listened to that Mormon message every day since the day that I had sent it to him.

And it's, you know, it, it, it is, it's hard. It's hard to be a mom. It's hard to be a dad. It's, it's hard to feel all of the pressures that go along with both of those responsibilities. But there is comfort in the support and love of the Holy Ghost in our hearts and feeling the, the understanding that, uh, the savior has of what we're going through.

I think. You, you have read some of the things that Kathy has written about herself. My wife Kathy, has written about herself and, and she is one who has relied on the, the power of the atonement to recognize that at difficult times and at difficult places that others have felt, what she has felt, that she's not, she's not alone.

And, uh, so that's, that's what I would say. I would say I'd start with President Holland, and then I'd recognize that there's help in the atonement of Jesus Christ that he has. Suffered all for us. That he has been through everything that we are experiencing and, and we can take comfort and peace in that.

Well, my next question was going to be, what would be your advice to that person's wife? A k Me. Um, but as I was, as I was reading the article about Kathy, um, which again, we'll, we'll link that from the Mormon Women Project. [00:26:00] I was so struck by her faith and her example, and, and I wondered before, I guess we get into advice for how I can be like Kathy, maybe.

We start with you, you and Kathy have gone through, uh, a lot together, specifically. Um, in the, the late 1980s, Kathy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and has dealt with that for decades now. And it's clear that you have been an incredible support to her. It's also clear that she has been incredible throughout that journey.

Yeah. And so I wondered how has your wife, even amidst health struggles, been a support and a comfort to you throughout a very demanding career? Well, I wish you could meet her 'cause in some ways you have to meet her to kind of fully appreciate. So when I've had church callings, I was a state president in Connecticut, and this was at a time when she was in the early stages of her disease and she had a lot of mobility and our kids had sort of already left the nest.

They were either at school or on missions or whatever, and I would oftentimes have, when we would travel to various wards. I would have interviews that I would need to do after church and, uh, but she would come with me. And you know how they have those flowered couches in every ward in the church? Yes.

She would, she would often sit on one of those flowered couches in a, in a church building and people. Are drawn to Kathy because Kathy has a really unusual capability to listen to people. And, and when I say listen, I mean really listen, not just listen to what they're saying, but listen to what they're feeling.

And I, I suspect that may be in part something she was born with, but it certainly is something that she has learned as a result of what she's had to live with, uh, these, these many years. And I used to [00:28:00] and have often said to her that. That she was actually much more effective in benefiting the Yorktown stake than I was.

I, I did, you know, the kind of operational I interviewed people, I did that kind of thing where she was touching people's hearts and minds. That's, that's who she is. And, you know, she is a remarkable friend of women. I don't know how else to put it, but she, she has an ability to, like I say, to listen but to.

Help people recognize that even in spite of really difficult circumstances, there's a way to get through it. There's a, there's, there's usually always another side to it. You know, one of the benefits that I think she would say has come, sadly as a result of. You know, the disease that she has battled is that our kids have always had to work really hard.

You know, our kids, uh, you know, always were they had assignments and cleaned houses, and cleaned our house and, and, you know, did the things that I couldn't do because I was busy and that she couldn't do because it was physically difficult for her to do. And that was a really enormous, uh, benefit I think to our kids.

I think they would say that today. You know, having grown up with that kind of responsibility in our home was a really good thing for them to live with. But, but, but mostly Kathy is a patient, thoughtful listening soul. And if you happen to be a person who needs somebody who won't judge, but who can really help you kind of think through the things that are difficult, there's just nobody better.

There's nobody better. She's really amazing at doing that. And as a result, she's got this, you know, great group of people that she's had positive influence with over the years. And, you know, I just, I just, uh, admire, uh, what she's been able to accomplish as a result. Well, she seems, she seems remarkable and I, I should take a page out of that book and, and listen a little bit more than I talk.[00:30:00]

I I wanna jump to another thing that I found interesting and maybe it's because looking at you right now, Gary, I literally cannot imagine a time in your life when you were overweight. But I understand that at one point you were given feedback and a performance review for work, which, uh, I believe it was Tad watch in his article about you said that would never happen today, that you were told to lose weight and as a result you began running.

And that is a practice that you continue to this day. I think that. Physical health sometimes can take a backseat to many other demands on our time, but I wondered, how does physical health aid you in all of these other very important aspects of life and ambitions that you have? Why is physical health something that you prioritize and, and seek to, to give time to?

Yeah, I'd be happy to. Uh, I'd give you just a little bit of context to the performance feedback. So, okay. I had just started at Bain. This is like my first job outta graduate school. I had just started at Bain. And, uh, we were broke, you know, had zero money and I started traveling and because I was traveling, the company was paying my food bills.

You know, I'd go to a restaurant, I could buy a steak, I could have a milkshake, anything I wanted. And sadly, that was a lot. And so anyway, I started eating and believe it or not, I gained like 40 pounds in six months. And I was having my first performance review with, uh, one of the partners of the firm. And, uh, he came in and said, oh, you're doing a fine job.

But there's three pieces of feedback that you've gotta act on or you're not gonna succeed. And I said, okay, what's that? He said, first of all, you need to lose weight. I said, okay, you know, today you couldn't say that, right? You couldn't say that in a professional environment. The second thing he said was, you have to stop wearing brown suits.

I had one brown suit my parents had given me and I wore it, and you have to stop wearing yellow shirts. So, so I stopped wearing [00:32:00] yellow shirts. That's Bon Gary. I know. I got rid of the brown suits. And anyway, I went home and I said to Kathy, I said, I said, do I really look that bad? And she said. Well, sweetheart, you actually have gained total weight, and so I got on the scales for the first time and saw how much it was.

It was a little bit, little bit breathtaking, so I did start that week. I, I laced out a pair of running shoes for the first time in my life. I had s chin splints for the first week, and then they gradually went away. But for most of my life. With the exception to Sundays, I have gotten up early in the morning and laced on a pair of running shoes and gone for a run somewhere.

And it's been incredibly helpful for me. It's been helpful in the sense that it's a great time for me to reflect and think and you don't know how many all in podcasts I have listened to. Seriously. So nice. Seriously, while I've been out, uh, while I've been out running. I absolutely love doing that. Um, but uh, you know, it just.

There's all kinds of things that go along with being, uh, feeling good physically. You, you know, you, you have the capacity to, to do more. You have, you know, the ability to elongate your days, I think because you're feeling healthier, right? Um, you know, you, you, you might know that for the time that I was in Connecticut, because I commuted into New York City.

That was an hour and a half commute each way. And so in order to do this, I had to get up really early. I had to get up at 4 45 in the morning, uh, which I did for a long time. And that sounds hard, but once you, it's sort of like, you know, when you're a teenager and they tell you, you just have to make a decision.

You're not gonna drink. And so you just don't ever drink. You don't ever have that decision. It's the same way with running. You just have to say to yourself, I'm gonna get up at 4 45. That's it. Doesn't matter what happened the night before, I'm just gonna do it. So I've, I've tried to do that and I can honestly say it's been a great blessing.

It also, you know, now that I have grandkids that are, you know, bonafide grandkids, they're teenagers in, in their twenties, you know, sort of in that age range. It's wonderful that I can still run with [00:34:00] them. I can still. Wake surf with them, you know, that sort of thing. Just, it's a, it's a, it's a blessing in life.

And Kathy fortunately, has tolerated this misbehavior, all these, all these years. So she has, she's put up with it. So when you were getting up at 4 45, I'm curious, what time did you go to bed? So about 11. Okay. About 11. Okay. Yeah, so generally about 11. I tried to be disciplined about that. I, you know, during the financial crisis, which is a whole different set of stories and everything, you know that that was a time when my schedule was really crazy.

But even during that time period, I tried to do my best to keep that early morning appointment, but generally around 11 o'clock. Okay. You're so disciplined. I, I wanna be more like you. I, I love Gary that being a good son is also among those very important things to you. And I think sometimes, especially as adults, we fail to recognize that honor thy father and thy mother.

Is still a commandment. Yeah. And so I wondered how have you continued to honor your parents? Parents? Well, my parents are both gone now. My mom died in 2003 and my dad in 2013. I, I just would very briefly say that my mom, uh, I think is in many ways was an enormous blessing in my life. So my mom, my, my, my parents had a small business in Ogden, Utah.

My mom worked in that business her entire life. She would go to work at noon and work until five or six o'clock at night, and then one night a a month, she would work all night long. And I think a lot of the, the blessing of having some amount of discipline in my life came because I had this amazing example of a mother who really did everything, sacrificed everything for us as a family.

She was truly incredible. And, uh, and just such a great, great person. My dad is. A person who would be characterized, I think most people said he [00:36:00] was a wonderful southern gentleman. So my dad was not originally a member of the church. He joined the church during World War II when he was stationed at the Air Force Base.

And he's the, the, the kindest person that I think I know. He's was always someone who was aware of other people's feelings and was just a picture of kindness to others always. But, so I tried to do the same thing, which means that I didn't do anything dramatic or significant. But I did do something every week.

And so the question is, question is what do you do? And you, you never know when that's gonna be such an important day. So with my, with my dad as an example. Uh, my dad died when he was 92 and, uh, and he and I had decided that we were gonna go four-wheeling up in Heber that day. So my dad was still working, he was relatively healthy for someone who's 92.

And, uh, he and I had gone four-wheeling and we came down to the bottom of this hill. It was in September and it was a beautiful kind of clear, you know, cool day. And we got to the bottom of the hill and he stopped next to me and he turned and said. This is one of the best days of my life. And, uh, and that, that evening he slipped in his bathroom and he fell over a door that was open in a cabinet and broke his ribs and passed away that night.

And, uh, you know, I, I can't remember exactly how I found an afternoon to go four wheeling with him, but. Obviously this many years later, it's one of the most important decisions that I ever made was this decision to be with my dad, uh, on that particular day. And, uh, and like I said, none of this is, is, is a huge thing.

I mean, it could have been as easily that I just would've stopped and picked up something for him that he needed or something like that. It's, it's, these are not great things. It's, it's the consistency over a very, very long period of time that builds. Kind of an internal bond that becomes the thing that we're all kind of trying to [00:38:00] work towards.

Yes, sir. Well, and I, I can't help but think when you live your life that way, it frees you of regret. Yeah. And so you never have to look back and think, oh, I wish I had spent more time trying to do something to let him know how much I loved him. You did it. Yeah. Another thing that I love that you've talked about in multiple settings is you told Utah Business Magazine, always be a friend because you never know where your friends end up.

And you, you elaborated on this at, at LDS Business College a few years ago and talked about, you know, people that have been classmates or friends that you've known and how when you knew them. They, you never could have imagined what they would accomplish in their lives, but that now they've gone on to be CEOs and founders of companies.

And I think sometimes in our world, networking gets in the way of developing real relationships. And I think the thing that. Bothers me about this, is that the idea of networking, it's like, well, I need to get in with the people that have clout instead of just trying to get to know people. Because to your point, you never know what they're gonna turn out to be.

Yes. Who, who is actually, you know? And so I wondered how do you think that we can seek to have the right mindset as it relates to building relationships such that it's not just how can I get ahead, um, but also recognizing that. The way that we treat everyone matters. Does that make sense? It actually makes a ton of sense.

Okay. Um, so again, just a bit of context here. So let me use an example if I can. So, um, when I was at Bain, uh, in my first year, both in the summer and then af when our first year started after graduate school, one of my, uh, colleagues, there was a fellow by the name of Ken Chenal. And Ken and I sat in the same cubicle area of the Bain office, which was in the south market of Quincy Market.

Uh. In downtown Boston, [00:40:00] and Ken and I didn't work on the same projects, but we knew the same bosses. And that gave us plenty of opportunities to complain about the people that we were working for, for whatever reason. Right? And, you know, lots of late nights and doing things that we didn't think were particularly productive.

You know what it's like when you're at a brand new job. Uh, that's sort of what our life was together, but, but. You know, this idea of being a good, he was a good friend, he was a good colleague. You know, he pitched in and helped me out if I needed something. I tried to do a little bit of the same for him.

He was smarter than I was because he was a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. A pretty amazing, pretty amazing character. And, uh, so anyway, we, we became good friends and, uh, so I go on and do other things outside of Bain. You know, I, I stay at Bain 12 years and then go do other things outside of Bain.

After four or five years, he left Bain and went to American Express. And, uh, at one point in my career, uh, we sold the company that I was the CFO of, uh, this was Monsanto and Kathy and I had basically decided that we were gonna. Retire, you know, we'd maybe go on a mission or do something like that. And so we had moved out to a, a house that we had in Park City at the time, and we sort of, by the end of the summer of doing that, we said, you know, maybe we're a little too young for this.

You know, I, I'm not sure we wanna quite retire yet. And then out of the blue, I get a call from Ken and, uh, Ken says, Hey, look, you know, uh, as you know, I'm head of. You know, the largest division of American Express now, and I think Harvey Gob, who's the CEO is gonna retire, how would you think about coming back to New York and being my CFO?

And I said, well, let me talk to Kathy. And so anyway, two days later we were headed to New York and the rest of that is sort of history. Yeah. We had this wonderful time together that included nine 11. And all the issues that surrounded, uh, New York City during that time. But more importantly, we had a wonderful run together as partners in that business.

[00:42:00] And it just would've never happened if he and I hadn't sat together in that cubicle and he hadn't done what he did. And, you know, he a after. He and I were working together. I learned so many things from from him. Do you know what I mean? And it was all natural. It wasn't, I wasn't seeking out a mentor. I learned things because he was a great guy and I had this chance to work with him.

Mm-hmm. And uh, he was a fellow who really. Knew how to make sure that politics did not play any role in a business environment. And it was just such a refreshing thing to experience that under his leadership. It was really a wonderful thing for me. So that's sort of the idea, is that it never hurts to be.

Helpful to people, you know, a answer questions, uh, you know, stay a little longer and help somebody. What's an issue that they're trying to deal with it, that sort of thing. I think at the end of the day comes back in spades. Ways you can't anticipate, because I would've never in a million years thought the Ken would've become the CEO of American Express when he and I were sitting in those cubicles.

Right. Uh, it just, I just would've not thought it would've been possible. It's a great story. Another thing that I loved that you said in Utah Business Magazine is don't confuse the urgent with the important. There are many, many, many things that are urgent, but not important. There are few things that are really important, but not very urgent.

That's true about almost everything in life from my experience. You said if you can figure out how to spend your time on the important things and only deal with the. Urgent things that happen to be important, it's likely a good outcome. Hopefully people can follow that. But I'll put that in the show notes just in case.

So I wondered how have you figured out how to delineate between the important and the urgent? Uh, so again, this is a Stephen Covey thing, okay. Came from that same book and also came at the same time and is usable as you begin to think about what you wanna accomplish this week. [00:44:00] For the things that are most important to you.

Okay. And so, uh, the, the most important things are actually fairly easy to sort out, whether that be from a work perspective or a, uh, or a family or a church perspective. I think, I think you can sort that out fairly easily. What is hardest to do is to have things that are urgent but unimportant, not end up being on your list.

And one of the things you find as you get a little older in life. Is that a lot of things are not important, but appear to be urgent. Right. You know what I mean? And, uh, and so making sure you don't commit yourself to a lot of things that are, you know, feel urgent or could be urgent, but are just not urgent and not nearly as important as the things that, uh, really at the end of the day are gonna move the needle.

On the relationships that are most important for you and the things that you really long to make sure are done in the way that they should be done, for lack of a better way of, of saying it. So I, I think if, if you actually sat down and did the exercise, I think you'd find it's easier. To do then you might think the hardest thing is just to provide the feedback back to the urgent, but unimportant that you're just not gonna spend that much time on that particular issue.

But it does take that discipline. That may be the core discipline, actually. Okay. Uh, because if you can't, if you can't do that, if you can't say, gee, that's just not, I, I just don't think that's something I can get to right now. It's really hard to find the time to do the other things that are a little bit more important to you.

So almost essentially the idea of being able to say no or to say maybe at a later time. Yeah. And, and frankly, the courage to say no is really hard courage to develop. We, we don't grow up, you know, in our tradition, you know, learning to say no. Mm-hmm. We grow up here to say yes and so much better to be able to have the kind of courage and strength to be able to say, you know, that [00:46:00] just doesn't fit right now into my schedule.

So that people don't have an expectation that you can't fulfill, you know, that begins to erode trust and, you know, a lot of issues that I'm sure we're all familiar with, but it's, it's a hard thing and not an easy thing to. You know, to come by. I read a Twitter thread years ago that has stuck with me, that was written by a member of the church that talked about how the savior is an example of someone that had boundaries.

Mm-hmm. And that he didn't always say yes. And I think that that's, that's important for us to realize. I think sometimes as, as members of the church especially, we're, we're trained to be ministers. To one another. Yeah, we want to be ministers and we think that that means being always available, but I think that ability to say no is so important.

So I'm glad you touched on that, Gary. I could talk to you all day long, but I have two last questions. Sure. Of the last one, you already know what it is, but you also said, I think one of the saddest. Is if we let the outside world dictate how we spend our time and our efforts, we end up getting what the outside world would have us receive as opposed to the thing we might want most in our own lives and in our own hearts.

And this goes back to the idea that you, you talked about at the beginning of this conversation, Gary, and that if you don't know where you want to end up. It doesn't matter what, what path you take to get there. But I wondered how have you seen the Lord giving you what you intended as you have involved him throughout your life?

Because I think that's essentially what this practice that you've had has been. It's been touching base with the Lord on this is how I'm doing, this is where I wanna end up. And so how have you seen that he has given you what you desired as you've made him a part of that process? So I would say, you know, the, probably the clearest answer to it is that he gave me Kathy.

So the result of having Kathy as my partner throughout my life is that she and I have had to make [00:48:00] different choices about how we might otherwise spend our time. And that has required us to prioritize maybe in ways that we wouldn't have necessarily done if we'd had, uh, a circumstance where she had been able to do everything that she would like to get done.

And that life experience over a long period of time has forced us to ask ourselves what truly is important. The, the most important thing in my life right now is her. My most important assignment right now in my life is her. And fortunately we've had 50 years together so she can get used to the fact that I'm around and be, be part of that.

But that, you know, I don't know if we could go back and rewrite history if she would have chosen to have this as a challenge for her in her life, but because she has had this challenge. A lot of other very wonderful things has been, have, have, have resulted from that. So I don't know if that's something that, that the Lord put in our lives, if it's something that just happened because it's part of what happens in life.

But that has been a terrific blessing to, I think us as a family and her contribution to the feeling of goodness that I hope pervades our home is, uh, really. Very significant. So that's beautiful. Well, congratulations on 50 years of marriage. Thank you. That's amazing. And my last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

So as I, as I have thought about this question, I've thought about it more as a process rather than a particular destination, if that makes any sense. And I reflected on an experience that I had in the New Canaan ward in Connecticut, uh, on one Sunday, where a fellow who was, uh, a new member of the church, he'd been baptized just a couple of weeks before, had been ordained a priest, uh, was blessing the [00:50:00] sacrament.

And he knelt to bless the sacrament, and as he went through, he missed a word. And so he had, uh. You know, the bishop asked him to start over again. So he started the second time, and as you might guess, everybody in the chapel had that feeling in their heart, oh, please let him get through this time so it'll be a little easier for him.

He goes through, and again, he misses the exact same word. So this time the bishop then stands up and he kind of kneels down beside him. He puts his arm around his shoulder, he points to the word and the, and the fellow understood what. Where, where he had missed it. And he went through, and of course now we're all, everybody really wants him to succeed.

And as he's, as he goes through, he gets it done perfectly. And you can just feel everyone in the congregation just really, and so as I was sitting there during the sacrament, I was thinking to myself, why do we do that? Why do we make this so hard? I mean, why do we, you know, force that to be perfect? And then I thought, well wait a second.

You know, when we do a baptism. We do the same thing. You know what? It actually has to be said perfectly and the person has to be completely under the water and, and yeah. When we go to the temple, you know it has to be done perfectly. If we're going through an endowment session and we miss something, we actually back it up and start over again, and it has to be done perfectly.

And it occurred to me that that's sort of what our pathway here is a little bit that we. We have every opportunity to try and get things right. And if you're like me, you go along that pathway and you make a mistake. And the good news is there's an opportunity to redo it and to try and get it on the right pathway.

And. When we go to the temple, when we, you know, go through the endowment process, when we get to the veil of the temple, we have an opportunity to account for what we have learned during the course of that session. Mm-hmm. And if we don't get it right, we have somebody standing right next to us there to help [00:52:00] us get it right.

And in some ways, that's like our partner in life. He or she helps us to make. Kind of midcourse corrections and get that right in our life and get it in the right spot. But then we realize even if we have done that correctly, that we're still missing the final element necessary for us to go into the celestial room, kind of move into figuratively the presence of the Lord.

And we receive that at the veil. And so as much as we can do, we do, and we try to make ourselves as good as we can, but even after all of that, it is only by the grace of our savior Jesus Christ, that we actually can receive true perfection in this life. That he makes good, all of the other things that we don't do well.

So all in for me. Is that last step. It is not just, gee, I'm really trying to do this and strive to do this and focus to be the 'cause that I'm not gonna do perfectly right. But if I can get it close enough, then after all I can do, then through the grace of Jesus Christ, I can be all in. That's so, so beautiful.

And I, I feel like for me, that phrase, after all we can do, has been really important lately in my life, and it keeps showing up again and again. And so this is another, another touch point with that scripture that I will tuck away and, and think about. So thank you so much for sharing so many wonder thoughts.

You're, you're amazing. Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure to be with you. We are so grateful to Gary Crittenden for joining us on this week's episode. As always, we're grateful to Derrick Campbell of Mix at six studios for his help with this episode, and we're grateful to you for spending your valuable time with us.

We'll look forward to being with you again next week.