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Mormon Stories Podcast

969: Jeremy Young - From Entrepreneurial Bishopric Member to Wine Geek Pt. 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.55.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2018

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Longtime friend of John and Margi Dehlin, Jeremy Young joins us discuss his pioneer ancestry, faith journey, ventures as an entrepreneur, and wine!Near the conclusion of the interview, we hear about an exciting scripted TV series on Joseph Smith and the founding of the Mormon church that Jeremy is undertaking with John C. Hamer and other brilliant collaborators.

Part One:  Growing up deeply rooted in Mormon culture in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Jeremy felt the pressure to be perfect but realized early in his teen years that he didn't quite fit the mold. From mimicking the edgy "Zestfully Clean" TV commercialin front of his entire high school - to performing magic tricks as an icebreaker for investigators on his mission - Jeremy had a playful approach to life.

Jeremy attributes much of his success in life to the values instilled in him by his Mormon upbringing. Jeremy served a French-speaking LDS mission in Québec, Canada, which he reflects fondly upon. Attending the temple was never a source of feeling the spirit for Jeremy like playing church music on the piano or attending church was.

Part Two:  From climbing the ranks within telemarketing to building Rush Limbaugh's early online store, Jeremy realized great success as a business person. He became a multi-millionaire by the age of 28 with over one hundred employees and multiple ventures under his belt.

After about 6 years of dealing with infertility, Jeremy and his wife Molly adopted their first child through LDS Social Services. Jeremy emotionally recounts the challenging and beautiful experience of growing his family and interacting with the birth mother of his adopted child. "It was a magical experience." In total, the couple now has three children.

German board games became a passion for Jeremy, inspiring him to start a board game company. There, he created the game Settlers of Zarahemla. Jeremy came close to owning the rights to the game Ticket to Ride.

Part Three:  After serving in multiple church callings related to music, Jeremy became the Elders' Quorum President as a young father and husband. Jeremy found three of D. Michael Quinn's booksat his mother-in-law's house. Jeremy describes the cognitive dissonance reading these books cause within him as "jolting." Other influential books in Jeremy's were Newell's Mormon Enigma, Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, Dawkins' The God Delusion.

Around this time, Jeremy heard of John Dehlin's work and Mormon Stories Podcast but was cautioned to stay away. Living in St. George, Utah at this point, Jeremy was grappling with his emotionally-taxing faith crisis.

In a temple recommend interview, Jeremy's bishop questioned Jeremy's tongue-in-cheek Christmas cards that he would send to hundreds of people, using this to threaten not issuing a recommend.

Living in St. George, Utah was a challenge for Jeremy during his faith journey. Perhaps the last straw that made him move was receiving a gift certificate for a massage. When he went to the massage studio, he was given a massage by a polygamist woman in full garb with a Massage Envy t-shirt over her dress. "We've got to get out of here!" Jeremy told Molly.

Expressing concerns about issues within the church prevented Jeremy from having a temple recommend, which strained relationships between Jeremy and his friends. Transitioning out of the church, what took Jeremy thirteen years, took Molly three days after reading Runnell's CES Letter. Jeremy and Molly's participation in Arizona LDS LGBT & Family/Friends and marching in Pride parades "caused all hell to break loose in the ward" and started untrue rumors that Jeremy is gay. The "November Policy" was a final straw for Jeremy and his family, causing the entire family to resign membership in the church through Quit Mormon.

Jeremy details how he and Molly have evolved as a couple, sought help from others, and have moved from "okay" to "great." John and Jeremy share memories of a trip they took together with their spouses to Tuscany, Italy. There, Jeremy shared with John his love of the craft of wine - which John did not drink. The two discuss the role and risks of incorporating alcohol into life as an ex-Mormon.

Transcript

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Music

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1:22.0

Hello and welcome back to part two of my interview with Mormon Entrepreneur Jeremy Young. We've talked about his

1:34.0

early years in the church, growing up, his mission, his meeting Mali, his marrying Mali. We've talked about

1:41.0

creativity in his life and the love of music and of people, of magic a little bit and how his

1:50.0

Mormon upbringing in some ways set him up to do some really cool things afterwards. Thanks

1:57.0

for joining us Jeremy. Welcome back. So how do you become a millionaire in kind of a very short

2:03.0

amount of time as a BYU student in the early 90s? I remember meeting you and learning about you

2:10.0

and wishing I had figured out how to do that because I wasn't in the same place you were

2:16.0

at those early years and I'm like how did you do that? How did you do it? Yeah, look. It really

2:21.0

was a lot of luck in persistence. So Mali and I were both looking for jobs and we started out

2:28.0

at the fundraising arm of BYU where we dial for dollars and absolutely hated it. And so did that for

2:36.0

a couple of months and then found another job where there were inbound calls at a telemarketing

2:43.0

company led by a guy named Tim Stey and he had a company called Marketing Ally, Western Watts

2:49.0

Direct. If you remember that, it's a big telemarketing company in Utah. And so applied, got the job, did

2:57.0

amount telemarketing calls for TV and radio and catalog companies and eventually kind of I moved

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