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Morgan Jones Pearson: [00:00:00] I recently read a quote that spoke to me as a new mom. It is by Elder Robert D. Hales and says, a few of the basic attributes needed to become a lifelong learner are courage, faithful desire, humility, patience, curiosity, and a willingness to communicate and share the knowledge that we gain. My dear sisters, don't ever sell yourself short as a woman or as a mother.

Do not let the world define, denigrate, Or limit your feelings of lifelong learning and the values of motherhood in the home, both here mortally and in the eternal learning and benefits you give to your children and to your companion. Lifelong learning is essential to the vitality of the human mind, body, and soul.

It enhances. Self-worth and self actuation. Lifelong learning is invigorating mentally and is a great defense against aging, depression and self-doubt. End quote. So, regardless of your situation in life, I'd like to invite you to [00:01:00] join me in 2024 in a quest for lifelong learning to further persuade you today, I will make a case for this with the help of my guest, BYU Marriott School, Dean Brigitte Madrian.

Brigitte C. Madrian is the Dean and Marriott distinguished professor in the Brigham Young University Marriott School of Business where she has a joint appointment in the Department of Finance and the George W. Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics. Before coming to BYU, she was on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and the Harvard University Economics Department.

Dr. Madrian's current research focuses on behavioral economics and household finance with a particular focus on household saving and investment behavior. Dr. Madrian received her Ph. D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and [00:02:00] studied economics. as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University.

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 honored to have Dean Bridget Madrian on the line with me today. Dean Madrian, welcome.

Brigitte Madrian: Thank you. Good to be here.

Morgan Jones Pearson: Well, I am so excited about the conversation that we're going to have.

I had this kind of crazy, wild haired idea to do an episode specifically based on learning and lifelong learning as we approach a new year or enter into a new year. And so I understand that you decided in the eighth grade that you wanted to get a PhD someday. So I wondered in the Spirit of New Year's resolutions.

If we could kind of start there and have you tell me what helped you achieve that goal [00:03:00] and whether or not you have any thoughts or advice about achieving goals.

Brigitte Madrian: So let me start off by. reassuring all of your listeners that I was definitely a weird duck to have this vision in eighth grade of wanting to get a PhD and to be a professor like my father.

So my dad was a professor in the sociology department at BYU when I was growing up. So I had the experience of seeing him in his job and sometimes he'd bring me with him to his office and, and, uh, that was fun. Or he'd help, help me enter grades for his tests. Even once he had me come up and help on a research project.

But I think most people don't have any idea what they want to do in eighth grade. And I don't want anyone to feel pressured that if they don't know what they wanted to do in eighth grade, or you've got younger, younger [00:04:00] listeners, uh, I was a, I was a weird duck, but I'll tell you the advantage of knowing, or at least believing that I knew what I wanted to do at that young age was that it did, it did allow me to make choices, really intentional choices that helped me on that trajectory.

So when I got to college, I knew I wanted a PhD. I didn't know what I wanted it to be in. And I took an introductory economics class, my very first semester as a freshman at BYU. And I loved it, absolutely loved it. And I decided then, okay, this is what I'm going to get my PhD in. And having that focus early on allowed me to, to Take classes that would move me forward more quickly.

So, you know, by the time I was a junior, I was taking the [00:05:00] really upper level advanced classes. So that when I applied for PhD programs a couple of years later, I had taken the hardest classes. in the economics department. I had also taken a lot of hard classes in the statistics department. I, I had had a lot of experience doing, uh, research with faculty, collaborating with them on different projects.

And so I was in a in a position to have a strong application to graduate school, have strong letters of recommendation and, you know, get on this path that I had always, or at least since eighth grade had, had planned on, had planned on doing. So I think, I think having a goal in mind. helps you make different decisions about how to spend your time when you're, you know, facing the types of good, better, best choices that President Oaks talked about in his good, better, best general conference [00:06:00] talk from, from many years ago.

I mean, it helps you decide if you've got two good things, well, which one of these things is really, really, really good for you. Worthy of my time and what types of things am I willing to sacrifice and and give up, you know And in my case it was i'm gonna take these classes Instead of these other classes because I know they're gonna push me in the direction that I want to go

Morgan Jones Pearson: That makes so much sense to me.

It makes me think of the often quoted I believe by President Monson quote from "Alice in Wonderland" about you know, if you Don't know where you're trying to go. It doesn't matter which way you take, but when you do know where you want to go, you can get there, uh, by deliberately making the right turns.

Dean Madrian, you've spent your career at some of the top academic institutions in the world, researching and teaching. about household finance. You've been able to use those skills, I understand, to [00:07:00] even serve within the church. I wondered if you could tell listeners how that was possible and what you've learned from your personal experience about how God gives us gifts and talents, because I think it's, it's so cool to see how Somebody that has achieved the things that you've achieved professionally has also been able to contribute to the kingdom of God and serve others with those same skills.

Brigitte Madrian: Yeah, so just to give your listeners a little bit more perspective, I've spent more than two decades doing research on what's called household finance. So that's essentially how individuals and households make financial decisions and how institutions By institutions, I mean things like employers, things like the government can help facilitate better outcomes for individuals and families.

So the, the little short elevator description of [00:08:00] my academic research is that I, I study all the ways that people mess up in managing their money, uh, and how institutions can help improve outcomes. And I had an experience many years ago when we were living in Boston back before the switch to ministering.

I was assigned to be a visiting teacher to a woman in our ward who was disabled and she had two disabled children. She'd never been married, but when she was younger she'd been working as a nurse. And she adopted these two disabled children a few years apart. They were born disabled and the parents did not want them.

And so she adopted and, and took them in. And then some years later, She became [00:09:00] disabled herself, and so she was no longer able to work and, uh, support her family, and the nature of her disability was such that it was really difficult for her to go out in, in public, so she, she couldn't. Hold down a job. It was hard to even do things like, you know, go grocery shopping or things like that.

And she got to the point where she was on, on social security disability. So she was getting some income through the disability program, but it just wasn't enough, even though they were living in a, in a, Modest house. It just wasn't sufficient to meet the family's needs and they got to a point where the bank wanted to foreclose on her home.

And I spent about two years with her. [00:10:00] And my, my, uh, visiting teaching companion's husband was an attorney. And so, uh, my visiting teaching companion was kind of working on the, the temporal needs of this family. And I was working with her husband who was an attorney kind of on the financial aspect and how to keep Them out of foreclosure how to keep them in this house Because it was going to be really really disruptive if they had to move And um, you know, I learned a lot like I got to apply, you know, some of my professional skills But what I really learned from that was how to empathize with someone who was in a very, very different position than I was in, in so many, in so many ways.

I think of this woman as, as an angel. This is, you know, someone who is living. the principles of the gospel of [00:11:00] Jesus Christ in her life and it was a blessing to be able to serve her in some limited way with the skills and talents with which the Lord had blessed me and at the same time to do so in a way that you know, relieve some of the burdens that the bishop in that ward was feeling at the time about how to meet the needs of this family.

And he was always very aware of what was going on and kind of grateful that there were visiting teachers and home teachers that could help out.

Morgan Jones Pearson: I think it's so interesting listening to you tell that story, which I love that experience. I think it's so interesting to think about whether it's your experience or it brought to mind experiences that I've had where we're called to serve someone, we're called to minister to someone, or in a church calling, and somehow we end up [00:12:00] feeling like we're the beneficiary of the service that we're giving.

Dean Madrian, you first spoke at BYU representing your graduating class in the year that I was born, 1989. You talked in that speech about the importance of asking the right questions, and in it you said, Perhaps we have not yet transformed the world around us, but with the questions that have been stimulated by our careful preparation here at BYU and the questions that will arise as we confront the world that lies before us, We have the seeds of discovery within us.

I wondered kind of looking back on that speech and the things that you've learned since then. Why would you say a willingness to ask questions is critical for learning? And why is this particularly true when seeking answers from our Heavenly Father?

Brigitte Madrian: So I've always [00:13:00] found in my own life, and there's a lot of research to back this up, that it's a lot easier to learn something that you are interested in learning than to learn something that someone is trying to teach you when you're not interested in learning it.

So if you go back and think about what are the classes when I was in school that I, where I learned the most, it's the classes where you were interested and excited about the material and what you were learning. answered questions that you have. Now you may not have been thinking about it in terms of questions, uh, but that's what the education was doing for you.

You found it interesting because you, you kind of have these questions, whether you'd vocalize them or not, that were being answered. And that's why teachers will give students assignments where the students have some scope to decide what they want to work on. You know, you've got to write a book report, but you get to choose the book that you get to, you get to read, you know, you get to [00:14:00] choose what are the things that I'm interested in.

And that's a really important skill is learning how to ask a good question. And, you know, that's one of the skills we try and develop in MBA programs. What, what are the right questions to be asking in a business situation? But another really important skill is learning how to find an answer to a question.

And, you know, some questions are easier to find answers to than, than others. I think Google has probably dumbed us all down in that, in that effort. But I think we've all had the experience where the first answer to a question you give to Google turns out to not actually be a very, a very good answer.

But I think if we're going to make progress in life, it's all about asking questions. And one of the things that I've learned in, in my research, Is that a lot of the most interesting questions happen boundaries. So I was trained as an [00:15:00] economist, but a lot of my research is kind of on the border between economics and psychology.

So when I look at household financial decision making, I'm not just looking at the economic consequences of those decisions, which is where my economics background comes in handy, but I'm looking at the psychology behind why people. Make the decisions that they make and it's kind of those interest the for me the the questions are interesting because they're at this, this kind of boundary between two disciplines and not a lot of people were looking at them there.

But, you know, I think this is really important in a gospel sense because we're told in the scriptures over and over and over, ask, ask, seek, knock. And, uh, I think the asking is important because. Our Heavenly Father has so much He wants to teach us and so much He wants to share [00:16:00] with us, but if we're not You know, you might think, well then, why doesn't, why doesn't he just tell us what he wants us to know?

Why does he tell us to ask? And I think it's because unless we're asking the right question, we're not going to recognize the answer. The answer might be sitting right in front of us, but if you're not asking the question, you won't recognize the answer. as the answer. And the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is, is the result of a young boy named Joseph Smith, taking his question with him into the sacred grove and kneeling down and praying, and then asking a question, which of all of these churches is correct, which one should I join?

And getting a very different answer than he expected. So the answer was not, you know, join the [00:17:00] Presbyterian church or join the Methodist church. The answer was, no, none of the above. None of the above is the answer. Don't do anything now. And then over time, you know, over the next, you know, 25 years, getting a stream Of Revelation, but if you, you know, if you look at the doctrine and covenants, a lot of what is in there is coming as the result of an answer to a question.

We're, we're doing this podcast interview, I think a few weeks before you're going to post it right now. The come follow me assignment is Revelations one through five. That's what I'm studying this week, and DNC 77, that whole section is. Uh, an answer to questions about how do we interpret some of these symbols that are in the book of, of Revelation.

So, I think, uh, you know, being willing to ask questions is what [00:18:00] allows us to be lifelong learners, and really importantly is what allows us to be taught. of the Lord.

Morgan Jones Pearson: I think that is spot on. I have to say as a new mom, if I had a dollar for every question that I've Googled, I would be rich at this point.

And I've been really grateful for Google, but I've been probably even more grateful for the Lord and the way that He has helped me the last few months. I thought about as you were talking about the Bible dictionary definition, I believe it's of prayer where it talks about the answers being contingent upon our asking.

And I've always thought about, you know, why is that so important? And I think you outlined that beautifully. You were a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, um, when you were approached by BYU and you've talked about how that decision was made [00:19:00] more difficult. And I found this story fascinating. Um, that decision was made more difficult by an offer to be an associate dean at Harvard that came right around the same time.

I wondered for you, Dean Madrian, what is your decision? process like? How do you approach a big decision like the one that you had at that time?

Brigitte Madrian: That was a big decision. I would classify that right up there with, you know, one of the handful of really big decisions that I've made in my life. So I had been on the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School for about I'll be 11 or 12 years.

I love the job. It was a, it was a wonderful job. We'd loved my husband and I and our family. We loved living in Boston. And I'd, I'd been having these feelings for, I don't know, a year or two, like something was going to happen. And I thought it was going to be at, at Harvard. [00:20:00] And they had actually asked me to participate in a educational leadership development program that they had internally for people that they identified as maybe having some interest in or aptitude for leadership.

And so I'd, I'd gone through that program. And so to me, it felt like, well, something happens, it's going to happen at, at Harvard. And in the fall of 2017, I got an email from one of the faculty members here at the Marriott School of Business at BYU saying, we're looking for a new Dean. Do you think you would be interested in throwing your hat in the ring?

And I thought, well, I don't know whether or not I'm interested in that. And I really don't think they're going to be interested in me because I was at the Kennedy school of government. I wasn't at the Harvard business school. I was at their public policy school, but you know, I have [00:21:00] this feeling like something's going to happen.

It's been over a decade since I've interviewed for a job. I'm a little bit, you know, rusty on those skills. It would be good to just brush up. This would be a low cost way to brush up on those interview skills. And so I threw my hat in the ring and, and then they just kept on advancing me to the next stage.

And finally we got to the stage where I was one of four finalists and I thought, okay, there's a 25 percent chance they're going to offer me this job. I need to figure out whether I really want it or not. And it's, it's kind of a tricky position to be in because There aren't a lot of people you, you want to talk about a decision like that to like my colleagues at work who would probably have some value perspectives are actually not the people that you want to talk to because you don't want people to go around spreading [00:22:00] rumors that you're not happy and you're trying to leave and, and, and neither of those were true.

I was, I was perfectly happy and it wasn't that I was trying to leave, you know, this opportunity kind of came up. And so then, Okay. I came out to BYU, did, did a kind of two day set of interviews, presentations, a dog and pony show of sorts, and it was going to be another few weeks before a decision was made, went back to Harvard, and the dean there.

Asked me to come in and, and told me that he was looking for a new associate dean. So that would be kind of the number two person at the Kennedy School. And I thought, well, I should probably tell him what's going on. So I told him I was interviewing for this job at BYU and that. If I, if they offered it to me, I wasn't sure whether or not I was interested.

If they didn't offer it to me, then I would be very interested in being [00:23:00] his associate dean. And he came back a few days later and, and kind of put that on the table. And I said, well, I need, I, I need a few weeks. I need to know whether or not the BYU thing is an option. And so then the BYU thing became an option and I had a big, big, big decision to make.

And. You know, I, I approached it in the, in the way outlined in DNC aid by study and by faith. So I had to think about it in my own mind. And for me, that involved, you know, thinking about the advantages and, and the disadvantages coming out to BYU for two days of interviews. That was really valuable from.

Information gathering perspective, and I had this, you know, impression that I needed to talk [00:24:00] to Kim Clark. So at the time, Kim was a General Authority 70 and he was serving as the Church Commissioner of Education. And I think many of your listeners probably know that he had also been the dean of the Harvard Business School from 1995 to 2005.

And then he left to be the president of BYU Idaho. And he was, he was there for two, from 2005 to I think 2014. And so he, he made a similar decision to leave Harvard and to go be a leader at a church educational system. Institution and we had been in the same ward for six years when my husband and I were in graduate school and then our first jobs out of graduate school much earlier, and I didn't know him super well, but I I knew him well enough that I felt like I [00:25:00] could reach out.

I knew he would remember who I was and I was kind of surprised when I reached out and he got back to me immediately. like the next day and spent an hour talking to me on the phone. And, you know, I asked him, I, you know, explain the situation. I have these two different offers. He knew I had the offer from BYU because that had gone through the commissioner's office.

He'd kind of been in the meeting where they'd approved hiring me. So he knew I had that offer on the table. He didn't know about the other alternative. And, uh, you know, I said, well, help me think about these two different leadership opportunities in higher education. And He said, Bridget, you're asking the wrong question.

So coming back to our earlier discussion about asking, asking a good question, or in this case, asking the right question. And I thought, oh no, a general authority has just told me that I am asking the wrong [00:26:00] question. And I said, okay, what question should I be asking? And he said, you should be asking, what is it that God wants you to do?

Uh, and he, of course, he was exactly right. And, and I had been praying about this for, you know, a good couple of months, but, you know, to hear him say that with so much clarity was really impactful. And I recovered and I said, well, I think God would want me to do some due diligence by talking to you. And so we spent the next hour talking about what would it be like to work at BYU as a dean, and what would it be like to work at Harvard as an associate dean.

But it was different to have that conversation with a shared understanding that At the end of the day, I was going to make the decision [00:27:00] based on what was it that, that God wanted me to do. And then, of course, you know, many conversations with my husband about is this the right thing for our family? What would the implications be for his job?

oldest daughter was in college at the time and our youngest daughter was weeks away from graduating from high school. So from, from the standpoint of the kids, it, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't so much of an issue cause they were going to both be in college. It wouldn't really impact them, but those were, you know, that was kind of how I approached that decision by, by study.

And then also by faith.

Morgan Jones Pearson: Well, it's such a good story and illustrates so beautifully the principle that you were teaching before. So thank you so much for sharing that. You have taught openly about how this decision to come back to BYU [00:28:00] showed you your weaknesses and your strengths as you got into the job.

I wondered what you've learned, I guess, you're five years

Brigitte Madrian: in now, is that right? Yeah, five years at the end of December.

Morgan Jones Pearson: Congratulations. Five years in, I guess, what have you learned about all of our strengths and weaknesses from, from your, your role at BYU.

Brigitte Madrian: So I knew really early on that one of my weaknesses was that I actually did not have a lot of leadership experience.

I had spent 20 of the 25 years in my academic career before coming to BYU. in two different colleges that didn't have formal departments. So they had a very flat organizational structure and the faculty kind of all reported up to the, the Dean's office. So the type of leadership [00:29:00] opportunities that you would have found in other places to like be a department chair, and then move up didn't exist in those two organizations.

So at the Harvard Kennedy School, I had been what was called a group leader, which meant that I kind of helped on the, helped on the hiring front and, and finding faculty to, to, you know, fill the different teaching roles that needed to be filled. And I went to. college level leadership meetings, but I had a budget of 1, 000 and I had one, uh, uh, one assistant.

So I didn't, I didn't have any employees. So I really didn't have a lot of experience with. Managing people with working with large budgets, things like that. I had a lot of experience working on teams, and I had some experience working on initiatives and pushing things [00:30:00] forward. I developed a new executive education program.

developed a new research group at the National Bureau of Economic Research, which was another organization I was affiliated with, but I did not have a lot of hands on leadership experience. And I was really open about that with the academic vice president who hired me, Jim Rasband, who's now a general authority 70.

And I told him that I said, Hey, I just want to be open and upfront. I don't know if you noticed this on my CV, but I don't have a lot of leadership experience. And he said, yeah, yeah, we know and they offer it and they offered me the job anyway. And after I accepted the job, I had another meeting with elder Clark.

I said, Hey, I just, you know, I just, I don't have a lot of management experience. Uh, I, I need some advice on, on what to do. [00:31:00] And we had a, you know, we had a productive conversation and he told me at one point, he said, Bridget, you're not a manager, you're a leader. And I did not feel like a leader. And that, so that was an area of significant weakness and an area that was critically important.

But I think one of my strengths was I was willing to learn. And that I didn't have any illusions that I had enough experience and capability to walk into this job and know what I was doing, that I was willing to learn and I understood what that learning curve was going to, was going to look like. And I was willing to, you know, seek counsel from others.

I learned that one of my strengths is an ability to kind of. Think at a high level about an organizational vision, and then to [00:32:00] think about what a strategy looks like to, to help accomplish that. That's still a work in progress. But, you know, I think I've been, I think I've been effective at that. And that wasn't something I'd had a lot of experience with before coming here.

So that was something that I learned about myself. I'm, I'm an introvert. I'm not I don't get really excited about spending a lot of time in group settings talking to lots of lots of people. I can do it. It exhausts me. It doesn't give me energy. It exhausts me. And luckily, I have people on my team who are really good at that and can help fill in the, you know, help fill in the, help fill in the gaps.

So, you know, I've, I've, I've had to learn both about my strengths and my weaknesses. One really interesting that happened, thing that happened to me a couple of years into my job. [00:33:00] Uh, I had, I had retained an executive coach when I started. In part to help fill in some of these gaps and she suggested that we do a formal 360 degree performance evaluation, so she had this Uh, tool that she used with her clients.

It was a survey instrument, it had something like 130 questions on it. And we sent it to a bunch of people that report to me, people who report to the people who report to me, uh, people in similar positions to me elsewhere on campus and then to my boss and collected all this feedback. And the company that runs the assessment delivered to my coach who then delivered to me a 90 page report on my strengths and weaknesses, according to the people that I work with.

No big deal. No big [00:34:00] deal. And it came, it came the week of Easter, which was really interesting, came the week of Easter. And there were, you know, several areas where I was strong, And then there were several areas where I was really weak, and I had to decide what was I going to do with that? Was I going to, you know, lean into my strengths and be an ostrich in the sand with the weaknesses?

Uh, was I going to get defensive about the weaknesses? Was I going to You know, what, what was I going to embrace them and try and work on them? And it was really a blessing that it came during the week of Easter because that made it a lot easier for me to look at that and say, okay, this is an opportunity to repent in the broadest sense of the word.

to become a better, become a better leader. And here are the things that I need to work on. And I had a really productive conversation with a colleague and he said, look, all these areas where you're strong, [00:35:00] these are all the skills that you've had to develop for 25 years before coming here to BYU. So of course you're really good at those.

You've spent 25 years working at on them. And these areas where you're weak, these are the things you never had to work on because they weren't an important part of your job before you got here. All it means is you need to spend some time working on those and hopefully turning those into strengths as well.

And that was a really helpful. That was a really helpful piece of advice because it made me look at those weaknesses, not as, you know, inherent character flaws or problems with me. They were opportunities and they were opportunities to improve. And that felt, that felt doable, you know, that felt, uh, that was a positive spin to put on it.

But I'll just tell you, I am super grateful that I am part of a really, really capable [00:36:00] team and we all have different strengths and we all have different weaknesses. And we kind of know who's strong, you know, who's really strong in organization and who's really strong at communication. And I'm grateful that I have this strong team to draw on and they can make up for some of my deficiencies, even as I try to work on them as well.

I think that's

Morgan Jones Pearson: such a good approach. And I love the point that you made about an opportunity to repent. I also, you know, I think it just takes a lot of humility to be able to receive that kind of feedback and, and be willing to learn and grow from it. So props to you for that. I'm curious, Dean Madrian, looking back now, five years in at that big decision that you made kind of in the rear view mirror,

Brigitte Madrian: do you feel I mean, obviously you have

Morgan Jones Pearson: to say that you feel glad that you made the decision, but what are the [00:37:00] reasons that you can now see that you were meant to be at BYU for such a

Brigitte Madrian: time as this?

So to answer that question, I'm going to go back to the. Decision that I made to come to to BYU. So I mentioned earlier. I had that conversation with elder Clark and he told me I needed to figure out what is it that God wants you to do. And when that phone call ended, it just happened that the the Cambridge stake was having their annual women's conference.

That night, and Sharon Eubank, who was then in the General Relief Society presidency, was the keynote speaker. And so I hung up the phone call and moments later I was in the car with a friend of mine driving to the stake center for [00:38:00] the fireside they were having that evening as part of their women's conference.

And at that fireside, uh, Sharon Eubank. Told the story of Esther and when she, uh, and she read a few verses from that account and she read Esther 414, which says this is Mordecai talking to Esther and Esther has expressed some reservations about going in to see the king and pleading him. Um, her case for her people.

And Mordecai says to her, For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed, and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? And I had this [00:39:00] overwhelming impression come to my mind that Good things were going to happen at BYU, and they were going to happen with or without me, but that I could go and be a part of them if I wanted to, that perhaps I had been prepared for such a time as this.

And I feel like we are seeing that happen at BYU right now, that this institution is becoming laser focused on The amazing prophecy that President Spencer W. Kimball made in 1975 on the 100th anniversary of the university outlining a vision of what BYU would become in its second century. And the fulfillment of prophecy [00:40:00] doesn't just happen.

It happens because we do things that help the prophecy come to pass. President Shane Reese, who stepped in as the university president a few months ago, his mantra is becoming BYU. What are we going to do to help BYU become the institution that President Kimball prophesied? It would become and I'm, I'm a part of that.

I get to be a part of that prophetic journey here at the Marriott school. And I don't know why Heavenly Father decided to bless me with that opportunity. But I feel like it's been a wonderful opportunity for me, and I'm so glad to have been a part of it. One of the highlights of my experience here, one of the things that I would have never predicted I would [00:41:00] have done in this role is to roll out a new vision, mission, values, and guiding principle for BYU Marriott.

And our, our vision is bold. Our vision is that we aspire to transform the world through Christlike leadership. There's not any other business school in the country that has a vision like that. And now I'm trying to make that happen. And I think one of the interesting things to me about that vision is that when we talked a few minutes ago about this talk that I gave at my BYU graduation in 1989, and I talked about asking questions.

The quote that you read from that talk, uh, started off with perhaps we have not yet transformed the world around us. So, this idea of transformation and a transformational [00:42:00] experience that is part of a BYU education and the transformational impact that, that BYU graduates can have on the world. This was simmering in my mind back in 1989.

I didn't, I didn't know it. I didn't make that connection until, uh, you know, probably a year. After we rolled out our new vision mission values, but it's been a wonderful opportunity to be a part of that. And I think that coming in from the outside has given me a different perspective on all of the things that make BYU wonderfully unique.

So that I didn't come to BYU to try and make BYU more like Harvard. If I wanted to be a place like Harvard, I would have just stayed at Harvard. I came to BYU to do BYU. And I think that that intentional choice of leaving something behind and coming here to this [00:43:00] place that's so different and so unique and has so much potential that it's enabled me to do things that maybe someone else who would have come into this role from the inside would not have been able to do in the same way.

I also think I've been able to have a really positive impact on our female students. The number of female students in the business school has increased by almost 50 percent in the last six or seven years. And, uh, I get told, uh, more times than I can count how grateful they are to have, uh, a woman in this position as the dean to have a role model.

I don't think that's the only reason I'm here, but I think that's part of the reason that I'm here as, as well. is to show them what it's like to be a faithful member of the Church of Jesus [00:44:00] Christ of Latter day Saints who's committed to keeping my temple covenants. And who's also been able to figure out not always completely successfully, but figure out a way to, to balance that with, uh, having a family and also having a career.

I, when you told

Morgan Jones Pearson: the story about. You're creating the new values and, uh, your talk and you pointed out that that, that word transform is in your talk. I don't know why I found myself getting a little bit emotional. And so I, I love that so much. I want to touch on, you mentioned the things that make BYU unique and obviously at a privately owned, church owned.

institution of higher learning, there's a spiritual component that is not present at some of these [00:45:00] other universities that you worked at previously. I wondered if you might be able to share why that spiritual component enhances the educational experience in your

Brigitte Madrian: opinion. That is such a wonderful question, and I think there are a couple of key components to that that make BYU different.

So the first is that we're in a community where the vast majority of people Have made covenants with God to follow Jesus Christ to take upon ourselves his name. And President Oaks gave a talk on this campus a long time ago, 20, 25 years ago, about how working at BYU is It's a job and there's a contractual employment relationship, but it's also a covenant [00:46:00] relationship.

And so the interactions that we have with people are different. And the commitment to the mission of the institution is different. Everyone is on the same page. And when conflicts come up, it makes a difference when you have everyone on the same page about what the big picture is and what our, what our purpose is, what we're trying to accomplish as an institution, but also what we're trying to accomplish individually.

Individually, we're trying to achieve, you know, Salvation and exaltation. Uh, and so you, you, you think about people differently and you treat people differently and you try and approach problems differently and you love differently. I have never felt. loved as an employee at any other institution in the same way that I feel here at BYU.

And I have never [00:47:00] felt love for the people I've worked with at other places in the same way that I feel here at BYU. Uh, so I think that that's one difference. I think the second big difference in my mind is that we're trying to learn by study and by faith. And so when I talk to the faculty that we're hiring about what it's like to work at BYU and how that's different about, working in other universities, I tell them that it's not that we just want to enable our students and our faculty and our other employees to learn by study and faith.

We expect it. So we want the classroom to be different. We want the Holy Ghost to be in the classroom because the Holy Ghost is, teaches us and testifies of truth, all truth, not just the truth that's in the, you know, that's in the, the scriptures that we [00:48:00] recognize, but of all truth, truth is about running a business.

Truth is about being a good, a good leader. Truth is about, you know, life, oh, accounting, whatever the truths are, the Holy Ghost can, can testify of truth and that we want our faculty and our students to create the environment in the classroom where that can happen. And I, I love reading our course evaluations at the end of the semester because students will say things like, it was so easy to learn in this classroom because professor so and so, uh, brought the spirit.

Into the classroom and it made it so much easier for me to learn marketing or for me to learn finance or for me to learn accounting and you see students helping each other in different ways. So the students will talk about how the students are competitive, but it's in a good sense. They're [00:49:00] trying to help each other succeed and pull them up instead of, uh, Uh, you know, a zero sum game, someone's going to win and that means someone else is going to, is going to lose.

And I think that comes from learning with the, you know, with the power of the Holy Ghost undergirding your experience. And when it, when that environment happens, it's powerful and, and you can feel it. We had that in a, in a class today, we've got a lecture series where we bring people in, uh, got about 300 students in that class and we had had, uh, Chad Lewis come in.

So Chad is the, uh, associate athletic BYU, former BYU football player, former NFL football player played in, in, in Philadelphia for several years. And, you know, he talked very openly about how his faith in Jesus Christ has helped [00:50:00] him, not just as a member of the church, but as a, you know, as an NFL football player.

And we can do that at BYU in a way that I could never do that at the other universities that I worked at. And you could feel it when, when Chad was talking today to the students, you could feel the Holy Ghost in the room testifying of those truths to those students. It was dead quiet. You could hear a pin drop, even in a carpeted room, because the Holy Ghost was there testifying of the truth of what he taught.

And it's just, it's an amazing experience to be a part of. That's amazing.

Morgan Jones Pearson: Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I have two last questions for you. One, just really quickly, as we enter 2024, I'm curious what your parting words might be about encouraging, whether it's formal or informal, lifelong

Brigitte Madrian: [00:51:00] learning.

I think it's a huge blessing to have a gospel perspective on learning and on education. And I think a lot of times we think that education has to happen in a formal classroom setting, and there's a lot of opportunities to do that, but there are so many other opportunities to learn out there. If we really believe that the doctrine of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, that we can become like God and someday create worlds without end, we have a lot to learn.

And the sooner we start, the sooner we start, the better. So, you know, I think it's important to figure out how you learn at, you know, at the stage of life that you're in. I'm really busy right now. I suspect you're [00:52:00] really busy too. And I learned many years ago that audio books are a great way for me to learn listening.

is a great way for me to learn because I have time to do that. My husband likes to watch YouTube videos, so he'll find YouTube videos on a new skill that he wants to learn and he'll watch the YouTube videos. Uh, and, and other people will sign up for, for formal classes. So I think there are lots of ways to learn, but I think learning is a way that we keep our minds agile.

I think our Heavenly Father wants us to keep on learning and, and progressing. So. I just, you know, encourage your listeners to find something that you're excited to learn about and find a way that matches your learning style and, and the time that you have available at this point in your life and, and learn some new things.

Well,

Morgan Jones Pearson: I have enjoyed this so much because I feel like you have done [00:53:00] such a good job by sharing life experiences that you've had. I feel like I've been able to learn about how to learn. And so I'm so grateful to you for sharing these things with us and for being willing to have this conversation. I, my last question for you is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus

Brigitte Madrian: Christ?

For me, being all in on the gospel of Jesus Christ is to have unwavering faith that the plan of salvation is true and that the atonement of Jesus Christ is real and that the blessings from the atonement apply to me in my life and that to claim those blessings, I need to exercise faith and make decisions that bring me closer to the Savior.[00:54:00]

every day. And one of those decisions is what president Nelson talks about all the time. We need to engage in daily repentance and that repentance is a joyful process. And that's both repenting of things that we've done wrong, but also being intentional about the ways that we can improve and grow and develop and learn a whole bunch of things and become more like the savior, you know, but for me being all in is.

every day, trying to make sure that, that I'm, that I'm focused on what, what matters most, and

not letting some of the other things become a distraction and, and detract me away. from What Matters Most, which is my testimony of Jesus Christ and my [00:55:00] attempts to try and become more like him and to build a relationship with him so that when I hear his voice, I can recognize it.

Morgan Jones Pearson: So well said. Thank you so much, Dean Madrian.

I hope that you have a very happy new year. I hope 2024 is your best year yet.

Brigitte Madrian: Thank you. And the same to you.

Morgan Jones Pearson: Big thanks to Brigitte Madrian for joining us on this week's episode. for joining us on this episode and a huge thank you to Derek Campbell for his help with this episode. We have been promised in the Doctrine and Covenants that whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.

I'd like to invite you to join me in choosing a specific goal that will allow you to learn something. Perhaps you will choose to dedicate yourself to acquiring a skill or to studying at length a certain gospel topic. You could choose to take a class or to read a certain [00:56:00] number of books. You choose, and I will too.

And at the end of 2024, we can report to each other how we've done. What do you think? Are you all in?

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