This is a rebroadcast. The episode originally ran in January 2020.
Melody Warnick is the author of two books about thriving where you live: This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are and If You Could Live Anywhere: The Surprising Power of Place in a Work-from-Anywhere World. Her books have been featured in the New York Times, Time magazine, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and others, and her writing has appeared in such publications as the Washington Post, the New York Times, Slate, Reader’s Digest, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping, and Woman’s Day. A regular speaker about creating connection with your community, Melody lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, where her husband serves as stake president.
Highlights
5:30 Serving in Melody’s stake in Virginia
8:20 How the book came about
10:50 Experiments in loving where you live: micro-action steps you can intentionally take to create positive experiences for yourself
18:45 Applying these principles to wards and stakes
19:20 Creating a community based on geography creates a situation where we can practice being more Christlike
21:50 Benefits of “instant community” in the ward, as compared to moving for people not in the Church tribe: familiarity and similarity
25:45 When you struggle fitting into the community
26:25 Leaders need to pay attention to these people
27:30 The more engaged you are, the more you will feel at home
28:30 Everyone can feel left out or like they don’t fit in
30:10 Being proactive can have a big impact
34:00 Serving in callings and outside of callings: have a personal ministry from a desire to be of service
37:35 Taking your talent to the community
41:30 Do we have to participate in the Church community?
43:30 It can be easier to socialize with Church members
46:10 Serving in a Church community within the larger community
50:55 Being the mayor of your street: building social cohesion in your neighborhood
54:40 Cliques and community: creating horseshoes, not circles
59:00 Detaching from your ward and going forward: moving or changing callings
1:07:00 Choosing to live near family… or not
1:13:00 Finding joy wherever you live
1:15:00 Two-hour church and missing connections: You don’t have to ask permission to create community
1:17:45 Asking, “Where are we needed?”
1:20:00 Building relationships with people and finding ways to serve them is key to living a Christlike life
Links
MelodyWarnick.com
This is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are
If You Could Live Anywhere: The Surprising Importance of Place in a Work-from-Anywhere World
TRANSCRIPT coming soon
Listen on YouTube
Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library
Ranked in the Top 20
The Leading Saints Podcast has ranked in the top 20 Christianity podcasts on iTunes.
Over 500,000 Listens Each Month
Over 10 million Total Downloads
Part of the nonprofit Leading Saints' mission is to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead.
Past Guests Include
Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler, Ganel-Lyn Condie, and many more in over 500 episodes.
Discover Content Related to Callings
Podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum,
view more