Each January offers more than a fresh calendar—it gives us a quiet invitation to rethink how we move through the world. Not through grand resolutions that fade by February, but through something far more powerful: examining the patterns of thought that shape who we are and how we show up for others. These mental habits—often invisible to us—steer our choices in our families, workplaces, communities, and faith spaces. And when we don’t recognize them, they can quietly limit us and unintentionally harm the people around us.

One of the most influential of these patterns is the tension between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset. In this episode I share my thoughts about this. These are great mindsets to think about this year!

President Jeffrey R. Holland passed away earlier this week, and he and his family have been in my thoughts are prayers. Of course, like so many of you, I loved his words – both the content and the way he delivered his sermons. He had a style that was sincere, powerful, thoughtful, insightful, and so much more. We all loved him so much, and we’ll all feel this loss.

Of course, I’m sure that President Holland’s passing has prompted many people including me to revisit many of this talks and words. I share many quotes that I appreciated and loved from President Holland in this episode. I will miss his amazingly positive influence in my life.

I'm smiling as I release this episode as it is a little difference. I’ve been using AI for ideas, definitions, and other things the last few months, and I’m so intrigued with how it just knows things – it remembers and it does research so fast. Anyway – the last few weeks I’ve not gotten any inspiration coming my way for episodes. I’ve gone through a lot of challenges with support for the work I’m doing in Utah and it has just made life heavy this year. It is hard to be inspiring on this podcast, when I’m not feeling inspired. I need to do better.

Just for fun, I asked Copilot to give me some text for an "inspiring 10-minute podcast script for my podcast Unleashing Sister Saints, which is for women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." It came back with 4-5 segments, and then I asked it to expand each one, so this is what I’ve got. Copilot has named this episode “Arise and Shine: The Power of Sisterhood in Christ.” So, for this episode I read what AI produced, and it was pretty good, actually! I felt a little inspired myself when I was reading it! :)

I recently had a commentary published in The Salt Lake Tribune that I thought you might find interesting. Through the years, I’ve had many people new to Utah mention how different our state is from others. Although it is invisible to most people who live here, certain things stand out to new folks that are just part of the “Utah culture.” Although some comments are positive—like our high volunteerism rates and how so many people here are involved in recreational and physical activities—other aspects of the culture have been termed “disturbing.” In my experience, these tend to revolve around two areas: one is the religious divide in neighborhoods and communities; and the other focuses on “masculine defaults. I will talk about what I shared in this editorial and add some additional comments about how it plays out in the Church.

RESOURCE: Are “masculine defaults” part of the unspoken bias holding Utah women back?

This episode focuses on the recent sister missionary age change from 19 to 18. I actually really love this for a number of reasons. I talk about those, and I also highlight results from a study I led several years ago about the leadership development gained by women serving full-time missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. Listen in!

UWLP Mission Study: The Leadership Development Gained by Women Serving Full-Time Missions

In September of 2025, the Utah Foundation – a partnerorganization that I have respected for years – published a report titled, “Households and Heritages: How Family Health Hooks into Social Capital.” The report begins with a statement that aligns with Latter-day Saint beliefs: “Family is the basic building block of society and a core component of social capital. Stable families provide ways for children to socialize and develop emotionally and intrinsically. The larger community benefits from this stability, especially when family connections are strong.” This report provides some results that are a little surprising in terms of Utah's ranking in reading to your children, screentime, eating dinner together, and overall time spent with the family.

RESOURCES: https://www.utahfoundation.org/reports/households-and-heritages-how-family-health-hooks-into-social-capital-index-metrics/

Dr. Chelom Leavitt is an amazing person with a fascinating background, from attending law school at BYU to later earning a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State. She now works as an associate professor at BYU where she studies healthy sexuality in committed relationships, including sexuality and mindfulness, and how women experience and contribute to sex differently than men. Sounds interesting? Well, I recorded this a year or two ago and felt it was a good time to re-release it again. You won't hear this type of conversation in the Church often, but it is so important! Listen in.

A month ago, the Salt Lake Tribune published apiece I wrote that they titled “Voices: In a place like Utah, ‘moral credits’ can’t make up for how we treat women.” The subtitle was “Maybe some of the conditions that create women’s conditions are unconscious — but they could beheightened in religious cultures.” In this episode, I read this for you as it is an interesting concept to think about. I do think it is broader than the title that the Tribune provided, so, I’ve titled this podcast differently as you'll see. Listen in!

RESOURCES:
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2025/09/26/voices-moral-credits-cant-make-up/