Please enjoy this transcript of this episode with Bishop David Zubik. It was transcribed and therefore might contain a few typos.
Bishop Zubik: 00:00 Just let Jesus into your heart, be the best person you can be. You know, discern as I said before, what gifts God’s given you and use them to the best of your ability but not for your own benefit. But for the glory of God for the help of other people.
Doug Smith: 00:22 This is the L3 Leadership podcast, episode number 167.
Doug Smith: 00:35 What’s up everyone and welcome to another edition of the L3 Leadership podcast. My name is Doug Smith and I am the founder of L3 Leadership. We are a leadership development company devoted to helping you become the best leader that you can be. And this episode you’re going to get to hear part two of my interview with Bishop David Zubik. He’s the Catholic bishop here in Pittsburgh and I just want to let you guys know as the audience, I’m actually switching the way I do interviews with leaders. I’m going to try and make them shorter and I’m going to split them into two different parts. The first part will always be the long part of the interview that I do. And in part two you always get to hear the lightning round, which consists of a bunch of fun questions that I ask leaders. This specific episode is a lightning round with Bishop Zubik and you’ll get to hear Bishop Zubik shares about some of his favorite books, his favorite stories in the Bible, his favorite saints, what he wants to be remembered for, and so much more.
Doug Smith: 01:21 If you’d like to go back and listen to my longer interview with Bishop Zubik, which I highly recommend that you do, you can go back and listen to that in episode number 166 before we jump into the interview with Bishop Zubik, there are just a few announcements. I want to let you guys know that we recently introduced L3 Leadership membership. That’s right. You can now become a member of L3 Leadership. You might say to me, well, Doug, why become a member? Because I believe every leader needs a group of leaders to go through life that will encourage them, hold them accountable to their goals and help them reach their potential. And L3 Leadership. We’ve developed a community of leaders that will help you do just that. As a member, you’ll get access to our community of leaders. You’ll have the ability to join a mastermind group, which I believe is absolutely critical to your success.
Doug Smith: 02:00 You’ll get access to extra resources, content, and a member only forum on our members-only website. Membership’s only $25 a month and you can sign up in L3leadership.org/membership I want to thank our sponsor, Henne Jewelers. They are jeweler, owned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, my wife Laura and I both got our engagement and wedding rings through Henne Jewelers and they are just an incredible company. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. John gave Laura and I a book to help us prepare for our marriage and he’s been investing in me as a leader, a dad and a husband now for many years. So if you’re in need of a good jeweler, check out Hennejewelers.com I also want to let you guys know about it, an amazing new leadership conference that’s coming up called the Future Forward Conference.
Doug Smith: 02:40 It’s being held on October 24th through the 26th at Amplify church in Pittsburgh and it is a leadership conference for church leaders and their staff and it’s led by Amplify senior pastor, my friend Lee Kricher. I’ve had Lee speak at one of our events and I’ve interviewed him for this podcast. He is a phenomenal leader and what him and his leadership have been able to do at their church has been nothing short of amazing and so you need to sit under their leadership. I encourage you to check out the conference and check out all the great work that amplify churches doing to learn more about the conference. Go to future forward conference.com and with all that being said, let’s jump right into the interview with Bishop Zubik and I’ll be back at the end of the few announced. With the time that we have left, I want to jump into what I call the lightning round. Just, you know, some pointed questions that are quick, a lot of them around personal leadership. I’m just curious, what do you, well, I’ll ask this, I don’t know if you’re a reader, but if you are, what are some of your favorite books, the ones that you recommend often?
Bishop Zubik: 03:32 Yeah, I don’t get a chance to do a whole lot of, reading except for lots of the letters that I get. But I think he’s, I took a look at that question. Obviously, the Bible is important, you know, because it’s the living word. Every time you read it, there’s a different lesson that God gives. I think when I take a look at some of the books that I’ve loved in my life, I think about the book Profiles in Courage that was written, even before John Kennedy became president. And what I appreciated about that, he highlights in that book, people who had the guts to stand up for their principles. Another book that I, really enjoy a great deal was a little teeny book. It, you know, it, it appears that it, that a lot from a lot of people that it’s a children’s book, but it’s really for adults and it’s called The Little Prince, by the authors, Antoine de Siant-Exupery.
Bishop Zubik: 04:23 And it had a, you know, really strong kernel of truth in it. It is only with the heart that what sees, write me when is essential, is invisible to the eye. Also have to say that, you know, one of my brother bishops, Cardinal Dolan, in, New York wrote a book that was called Priests in the Third Millennium. And I think it was a great reflection, you know, for me. And I think, any priest who reads the book about what we need to be. So those would be some of the ones that have really stayed with me.
Doug Smith: 04:55 And do you do anything, uh, other than that intentionally to grow and develop as a leader? Or is it just going with the process?
Bishop Zubik: 05:02 Well, no, I think it’s looking for every opportunity to learn from other people, you know, who have inspired me. You know, I take a look at, some of my contemporaries, in the Pittsburgh area, whom I admire a great deal. Bob Nowcan, you know, who’s the executive director of United Way, you know, he’s, responsible for a major organization that helps other people. But boy, his, his whole mind and heart is exactly on that. And he’s such a man of joy, you know, and some, another person that I admire a great deal, is Esther Bush, who’s the head of the Urban League and what she does to try to tear down the walls that we built between each other as being members of different races. You know, I think about a woman way back when I was a little kid, my dad used to talk about this woman so much, Judge Genevieve Black, like she was really a woman ahead of her time, you know, and she had such integrity as a judge.
Bishop Zubik: 06:03 And I believe, if I’m not mistaken, that she even, tried to make a run for governor of Pennsylvania, but that would’ve been, in the later part of the 1950s. But I admired her because she had strong principles and she had a strong Catholic principal. She was a member of our church. I admired her much. Another woman that, has since passed and, really, manifested those, some kind of guesses that judge Carol Lewis Mansman, you know, a woman once again, who had very strong principles and, and stood up for them. A very good friend of mine who epos to be a judge as well too, as judge Marine Lally grain, you know, a woman of great principal whom I’ve come to know. And she actually worked on my staff for a while. David Lawrence, you know, uh, a former mayor of Pittsburgh, you know, who had the vision to say this, Pittsburgh always have to be the smokey city?
Bishop Zubik: 06:57 And you know, he was responsible for the first renaissance to, you know, he did more than just clear up a smokey city. He did more than, work with business leaders to build skyscrapers. I think he was very responsible for helping Pittsburghers become very proud that were Pittsburghers, And it made people proud. So his, his interest was not so much his own political ambition, but what it meant to be a leader.
Doug Smith: Who are some of your favorite saints in the Bible war? There are just random questions I just thought of, but favorite Bible story, character and not character, but person. And what did you learn from them?
Bishop Zubik: Well, my two favorite stories in the Bible. All right? You know, our, um, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus a right after Jesus rose from the dead. And you know, why it’s a favorite stories because, they were so blind by their own opinions that they didn’t recognize Jesus in their midst.
Bishop Zubik: 07:58 And I think about that as a challenge in my own life that sometimes I don’t recognize Jesus and other, and another person, but he’s there. And the second story that’s my favorite in the Bible is the washing of the feet at the last supper because Jesus, you know, showed the apostles that, it’s humility that causes us to be able to recognize the need and other people who are some of my favorite saints. My favorite number one saint to Saint Barnabas. There are three times I believe in the, Act to the Apostles that we meet Saint Barnabas. And what I love about him is that every one of these three instances, he was a bridge builder. And I think for me, if there’s an icon that it’s on my coat of arms as a bishop, but I hope that the people would see me, you know, as, you know, as, as trying to build bridges.
Bishop Zubik: 08:53 So Saint Barnabas would be right up there. I think another of my favorite saints is Saint Theresa, the little flower, you know, I made reference to her a little bit earlier in our interview. She was only 22 years old when she died. But she had a simplicity of faith that reminded me of my maternal grandmother, you know, as a, as she was Slovak. And I always called her a Babo, we first started calling and I changed, gave her a nickname of porchy cause she liked to sit on the porch, but she was, but she was a woman, a very simple faith. And so Theresa Saint Theresa was that way too. And thinking as I look up my life, my f my, my faith is, is a pretty simple faith. You know, another one of my favorites is St John The Apostle, because you know, uh, that famous scene at the last supper where, where John places his, his head on Jesus chest, shows that that was more than just an act of affection. But it really, the image of that as he was, he was listening to the heart of the Lord, hoping to become like him. Another one of my favorites of Saint Peter, you know, was so self-absorbed at first and then when he really messed up in life and he denied the Lord and, and let the Lord back into his life, he became a completely different kind of figure.
Doug Smith: Excellent. A few personal questions to wrap up. If you can have coffee with your 20-year-old self, what would you tell him?
Bishop Zubik: 10:28 Keep on, keep on being open, you know, keep on learning from other people. Keep on praying, discerning what God wants from you and follow following his lead.
Doug Smith: Out of everything you’ve accomplished up until this point of your life, what would you be most proud of?
Bishop Zubik: The kind of his son I was. My parents. I was an only child and I’m breaking through the stereotype that most people have about, only children. My parents never spoiled me and I was grateful for that, And I always prayed about and thought that I would want to, to be there for my parents when they needed me. And, I told my parents I would do that and I made good on that promise and I will cherish every single moment of that, especially when that became, most critical and intimate, as each of them was dying, you know, I put everything else aside to be there with them, you know, and they knew, you know, that along the line, anything that I could do to help them, that I would do that.
Doug Smith: I love that.
Bishop Zubik: So I think that’s, I would have to say that that’s the one thing that I’ll cherish. I always said I have to be a good sign as there were tremendous parents. And one day looking back on your life when you pass, what do you want people to remember you by? What do you want your legacy to be?
Bishop Zubik: He did his best to help me come to know Jesus.
Doug Smith: 12:13 I love that. And my last question is just very open-ended. Any advice for young leaders or anything you want to leave us with that we didn’t discuss?
Bishop Zubik: Just let Jesus into your heart. Be the best person you can be. You know, discern as I said before, what gifts God’s given you and use them to the best of your ability but not for your own, benefit but for the glory of God and for the help of other people.
Doug Smith: Thank you so much, Bishop. This was fantastic stuff.
Bishop Zubik: Good to be with you.
Doug Smith: 12:48 Hey everyone. Thank you so much for listening to my interview with Bishop Zubik. I hope it added value to your life. You can find ways to connect with him and links about everything that we
Doug Smith: 12:55 dicussed and more at L3leadership.org/episode 167 also, this was part two of the interview. If you’d like to listen to part one, you can go back and listen to that in episode number 166 I want to take a minute to thank our sponsor Alex Tulandin. Alex is a full-time realtor with Keller Williams Realty, who’s team is committed to providing clients with highly effective premier real estate experiences throughout the Greater Pittsburgh region. He’s a member and a supporter of L3 Leadership and he would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you’d like to learn more about Alex and ways to connect with them. Go to Pittsburghpropertyshowcase.com and as always, if this podcast adds value to your life, it would mean the world to me. If you would subscribe and leave a rating and review on whatever app you listen to podcasts through and share this on social media that really does help us grow our audience or thank you so much for being a listener.
Doug Smith: 13:42 It means so much to me and if you want to stay up to date with everything we’re doing at L3 Leadership, you can go to our website at L3leadership.org and sign up for our email list and you’ll get weekly updates with everything that we’re doing. As always, I like to end with a quote and this quote has action in it. Henry Cloud said that she said, “Choose one interaction today and just focus on one thing only. How can I add value to them today? Then observe what happens in you and in them. Go add value to someone today.” Thanks for listening and being a part of L3 Leadership. Laura and I appreciate you so much and we’ll talk to you next episode.
