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Leading Saints Podcast

When the Stake President Struggles with Mental Illness | An Interview with Michael and Susan Dayley

Leading Saints Podcast

Leading Saints

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Michael and Susan Daley are currently serving as temple missionaries in the Palmyra, New York Temple. They lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for 40 years and later moved to Logan, Utah. Michael has served as a stake president, stake Young Men president, bishop, bishop’s councilor, elders quorum president, stake mission president, Seminary teacher, and as a young missionary in the Switzerland, Geneva Mission. He earned a bachelor's degree in Communications and Media Sales from Brigham Young University, and worked as a media sales manager for Don Rey Media and Stephens Media in Las Vegas, Nevada. Here is a picture a few months after this interview when Kurt visited Michael and Susan in Palmyra, New York. Highlights 02:00 Introduction to Elder and Sister Daley, serving as missionaries in the Palmyra Temple. 05:00 Michael’s story and his mental health struggles. He was released as stake president and was out of a job when the depression and anxiety started to take over his life. 10:00 Michael talks about how he got help for his depression and his treatment. The things that worked and didn’t work. 14:00 Working in the temple every day helped ease his depression. He would work and pray. 15:00 Michael began working at Deseret Industries when the temple closed down during the pandemic. It was important for him to serve and work again. 17:45 At Deseret Industries they helped Michael create future goals. His next goal would be a mission. 20:00 He still has his bad days. However, through medication, temple service, his wife, family, and friends, Michael has been able to get his depression under control and feels more like his old self. 21:15 The key to Michael’s mental health when he was a bishop and stake president was having a great executive secretary. Between his wife and secretaries they were able to monitor him and help support him. 29:45 Don’t let pride get in the way of getting treatment and getting help. There is a stigma around mental health that causes many people to avoid getting professional help. 31:30 Kurt and Michael share experiences of getting released from big callings in the bishopric and stake presidency and feeling a loss. Michael encourages others to embrace their new calling or ask for a calling. 37:15 Susan shares her perspective on Michael’s transition from huge leadership callings. 39:00 Michael talks about his mental health after losing his job and being released from the stake presidency. His biggest advice to others struggling with mental health is to find something to do and finding a sense of purpose. 42:20 Co dependency issues. Feeling like your self worth is tied to helping people. 46:00 Susan shares how going through these mental health struggles with her husband has made her a better follower of Jesus Christ. 47:45 D&C 121 and 122 have helped Michael through his mental health journey and he encourages others to read and study them. Links Why working at Deseret Industries helped a former stake president heal from depression Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Watch on YouTube Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast gets over 300,000 listens each month and has nearly 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. 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 podcasts, articles, virtual conferences,

Transcript

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0:00.0

Mental illness, mental health,

0:05.0

mental health, anxiety, depression, OCD, there's so many topics to cover

0:11.0

when it comes to mental health.

0:12.0

And as church leaders, we often feel like we have to be prepared to answer all those questions.

0:17.6

Well, the interview you're about to hear is actually going to be part.

0:20.1

We're going to throw it in the library of our mentally healthy Saints virtual library and this comes from a past conference that we did where we interviewed 20 plus individuals.

0:30.0

They had presentations and personal experiences and all sorts of good stuff like you're about to hear

0:34.7

and we put it all in this library and so you're going to enjoy this episode and you're going to think

0:39.4

I want more of that type of discussion when it comes to mental health in the Latter-day Saint tradition,

0:45.3

and you're going to want more.

0:46.5

So you'll go to leading Saints.org slash 14, and you'll get 14 days of the full library, and we'll also include all of our other libraries of virtual conferences that we've had

0:56.5

and so just jump in, binge. Such good content, go to leading Saints.org

1:00.6

slash 14 for 14 days free access. Saints.

1:03.0

For 14, for 14 days, free access.

1:07.0

All right, let's go around the room, do some introductions.

1:10.0

I'll start.

1:11.0

So my name is Kurt Frankham.

1:12.0

I am the executive director of Leading Saints which is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and we are dedicated

1:19.9

You know have a mission here to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead.

1:24.1

Now me personally I live in Stansbury Park at Utah which is in Twilla County.

1:28.8

I grew up in West Valley City and been running leading Saints really since 2010 when it started out as a hobby

1:35.3

blog.

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