Leading Without
Carrying Everyone
There is a particular weight that only a Bishop knows. Or a father who has been in the middle of a crisis at 2am. Or a mother watching her child come undone.
You absorb it. You carry it home. You lose sleep over people who are not losing sleep over themselves. This pattern — what leaders in The Rubber Band Ball call carrying everyone else's ball — is one of the most common forms of bishop burnout.
You were called to be a witness to the Atonement — not a substitute for it.
"You are a witness. Not the Savior.
The Savior already came."
Chapter 13, The Rubber Band Ball
Signs You've Picked Up
Someone Else's Ball
You can't stop thinking about them
When a member's problem becomes your obsession, you've taken on what was never yours to carry. Compassion is a gift. Absorption is a burden. Learn the difference.
You measure your success by their choices
Their repentance is not your scoreboard. Your job is to point. Theirs is to walk. When their outcome becomes your identity, you have confused your role with the Savior's.
You feel responsible for their outcome
God alone bears that weight. He designed it that way on purpose — not as cruelty, but as mercy. To you, and to them. You are not powerful enough to save anyone. Neither is that your assignment.
You've forgotten to tend your own ball
Leaders have rubber bands too. The ones who help others unwind theirs must also learn to surrender their own. A leader who never processes their own weight cannot sustain the weight of a calling.
How to Use This Book
Whether you are a Bishop, a Relief Society President, a YM/YW leader, or a parent — this book was written for the people in your care. And for you.
In Personal Ministry
Read it yourself first. Let it do its work on your own rubber band ball before you hand it to someone else. The most effective tools are the ones you have tested in your own hands.
In Counseling Sessions
The Process (Appendix A) gives you a structured tool to walk someone through surrender. It removes the guesswork from the hardest conversations — giving both of you a shared framework and language.
As a Ward Resource
Order copies for your ward library. Keep one on the shelf in your office. Give it to those who need a framework for something they cannot yet say out loud. Let the book open the conversation.
A Letter to the Leader
There is a version of leadership that looks like heroism and functions like martyrdom. You absorb the pain of everyone who walks through your door and you take it home and you pray over it and you carry it into the next week and the one after that.
I know this because I did it. And I know what it costs.
The Atonement was not designed for you to be the intermediary. It was designed to be accessed directly. Your job — your sacred, holy, exhausting, beautiful job — is to show people the door. Not to carry them through it.
You are allowed to set it down too. In fact, you must."
Chapter 13, The Rubber Band Ball
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