Life Notes with Sheldon
Life Notes with Sheldon
Finding Joy When Life Feels Overwhelming
Feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or just plain tired of the daily grind? You're not alone. Burnout has become an epidemic across generations, affecting everyone from seasoned professionals to young adults just entering the workforce. In this deeply personal conversation, Sheldon and Paul explore what really works when the spark seems to have gone out.
The discussion takes an unexpected turn when Paul shares a powerful insight from his wife's journey through grief: "If I don't serve others, I think about the loss of my son." This revelation illuminates a counterintuitive path out of burnout—shifting focus from ourselves to others through meaningful service. When we're actively helping someone else, our minds simply cannot simultaneously dwell on our own problems. This principle offers a temporary but potent remedy for those moments when life feels overwhelming.
Meanwhile, workplaces are undergoing a necessary revolution as younger generations question long-standing assumptions about productivity. After noticing employees burning out after just seven to ten days of traditional schedules, Paul's business switched to six-hour days, four days a week, with increased hourly compensation. The results? Absenteeism plummeted while productivity and satisfaction soared. This experience mirrors what many European countries have discovered: flexible schedules and more time off don't diminish productivity—they enhance it. For leaders, another overlooked strategy involves extending privileges typically reserved for executives down to frontline workers, creating deeper engagement throughout the organization.
Whether you're a parent juggling family responsibilities, a professional questioning your career path, or someone simply seeking more joy in daily life, this episode offers practical wisdom for breaking free from burnout and rediscovering purpose. Listen now, and take your first step toward reclaiming the energy and passion that makes life worth living.
Welcome to Life Notes with Sheldon, where we talk about ways to get off the sidelines and back into the game of life as your best, you, just you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us on Live Notes with Sheldon and our special guest again, paul Mitchell, live in our house today where we talk about ways to get you off the sidelines and back into the game of life as your very best self and friends.
Speaker 2:You know that's one thing we try to do and we talk about and you know I I'm I'm assistant coaching my kids uh, baseball team and I love it. You know you talk about finding purpose. I find deep purpose in this because this is the third year we've taken these kids and you know they're just turning 12, in between 13, and they're starting to find confidence. You know they're growing in 12, in between 13, and they're starting to find confidence. You know they're growing in their ability and some of these kids that were so afraid to even walk on the ball field are now finding this confidence and I'm starting to see the value of what a coach does. You know it's not teaching them how to play the game yes, it is that but it's building these kids and building their confidence and building their ability to be teammates, and watching this happen has been so rewarding and I'm convinced that the way we improve our team. But how do we do that if we're experiencing burnout or fatigue or just overwhelm in today's society which so many of us are.
Speaker 1:That's true. I was in my 30s when I got really burned out. I've been running a painting business since 1988. And in my 30s that would have been 10, 15 years into my business and I think every you hear the it's cliche, right Every man gets burned out so he buys a race car, motorcycle or whatever, a girlfriend, whatever, right, and I didn't want the last so I didn't buy a motorcycle. But yeah, how do you overcome burnout so that you can still be a team player for your family, for your business, for your employees, for your the people who rely on you? That I think every man, or every person goes through a burnout. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you this I have friends that can get you a motorcycle and a race car, but I don't know any friends that'll sell you a girlfriend. You know friends that'll sell you a girlfriend, but hey, you know, if that's what someone out, there is looking for you know hey, yo it's just a cliche, I know, but I had to I'm sorry, friends, if you can't laugh in life, what is the point?
Speaker 2:that's one of the things I love about paul is he has the most contagious laugh and he uses it. You know, he really brightens people up just by being in the world and he inspires and enlightens and I think I've had.
Speaker 1:You know, I had a motorcycle. I still have one, a motorcycle. Yeah, I think I got it. When I got that, had a boat. Now I have airplane. Those things don't really work, though, you know, to overcome burnout or or apathy or anything like that. So I don don't know. I haven't tried the girlfriend yet, though.
Speaker 2:Don't? You have a wonderful wife, and I know her personally, and she would kill you if you even thought about it. So would I. So I think that we all experience this to some degree and at different points in our life, and sometimes it's hard to find that spark again in what we do. And so what do we do? Do we just give up? Do we change what we're doing? What's the answer?
Speaker 1:I don't know, when I was in my 30s, like I said, I decided to change occupations and I was in Las Vegas, nevada, and the congregation, the church of friends I went to, they were all professionals accountants, lawyers, dentists, people who are business people, all in their mid-30s, they've been in business or in their jobs for about 15 years, and all my buddies. When they said, really, you're going to change occupations, and I go, yeah, and they go, what are you going to do? And I said I'm going to be a pilot. And every single one of them came up at different times individually man, I would love to change what I'm doing. I hate doing what I'm doing. And these guys had paid tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to become a lawyer or a dentist or an accountant or whatever they were doing. And they all came up to me and so I would love to do it, but I, I, I can't do it. I'm stuck. You ever feel stuck?
Speaker 2:Never, never. I always wake up with an extreme sense of purpose energy and desire.
Speaker 1:You know what?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I wake up every day really grateful to have another day. I truly do. I truly do Um, and the things that bring me purpose in life and great joy are I love coaching my kids ball team. I really, really, truly enjoy it. Every time I go to a practice, go to a game, I feel like it's the greatest capacity I have right now to make a difference in people's life Real difference. You know what I mean, because when kids are being hard on themselves and I know which ones they are you can always tell the kids that are so hard on themselves and it's not even coming from their parents, it's coming from deep within them, like they miss a ball, they miss a hit and they're so hard on themselves. And being able to identify that and say, you know, just let it go, just next time you'll get it, you know. And and build them up and teach them some of those life skills. It's I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2:You know I walk um Burke park with my dog and sometimes on my own. Almost every day of the week I go to Burke park and walk. I love that. I love spending time with my kids. I love teaching my kids things. I love riding my bike, which I never do anymore. Um, you know, I find these things that I really, really love, but how do I incorporate them into just my daily? You know what I mean? Because there's things in life that I don't love, there are things that I used to enjoy and be passionate about that I just don't feel like I have the capacity to have that anymore, and so sometimes that's just a natural change with the natural flow of life process. Things change, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, things do change of life process. Things change right. Yeah, things do change. You mentioned earlier that since COVID, there's been a little brain fog and I had COVID when I was doing 2020, 2021. And I was on oxygen for six months carrying an oxygen tank and I have brain fog and so sometimes it's hard to focus on things that you have to focus on. But I'm with you. I remember coaching teams.
Speaker 1:There's nothing more fulfilling than being part of someone in the youth or a child's development and helping them overcome obstacles, that they're going to learn how to have tools to how to overcome those, and that is definitely fulfilling, I agree.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think a large part of life is finding the way to get energized about the things that bring you joy and be able to do more of those, and instead of just the mundane things that you have to do. But there's those things that we have to do in life, right, somebody has to buy the groceries, somebody has to clean out the fridge, somebody has to go through the kids clothes and get them ready. There's all these things that we have to do that we can't just abdicate someone else. There's the have tos in life. How do we find joy in the have tos, the daily have tos?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. I, as I think about it, something that is personal or something that is intimate. I guess doing something once for yourself that isn't all time-consuming would probably be the answer. I don't know if that's the answer, if you find joy in the walk, if you find joy in those kind of things. I'm still trying to figure that out. But as we think about this, um, today's kids, I don't know what you call them. They're not millennials. What gen x? What are they called? They're 20 year olds.
Speaker 1:Some people call them snowflakes, I don't know because of social media, because of the cell phone, the attention span to having a job they get burned out real fast yeah I mean literally.
Speaker 1:Um, I had to change my business model and how I hire and employ kids between anyone under the age of 35. Literally, they get burned out after seven to 10 days and they need a day or two off and it's really legit a problem or concern that kids are having to figure out how to overcome. Is that burnout kids are having to figure out how to overcome. Is that burnout? And it's a travesty that our society is being put that way because if we have a society that is burned out, apathy comes in. You stop caring, people stop caring and that's dangerous. When we stop caring about things most likely actually people and relationships and how what we do or don't do affects them that can be very dangerous. But we're dealing with a generation that is going to be dealing with this for 20 years.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of people that are burned out and I feel a lot of apathy in a lot of ways. In our cultural institutions, institutions, even our governmental institutions, a lot of the pillars that used to be strengthening edifices in our community. I think there's a lot of apathy, you know. I think leaders are seeing it in churches, in schools. I know teachers are overwhelmed and you know part of it is.
Speaker 2:And we had to make up snow days in our district, right, ccsd, and it was so asinine to me that we thought let's make up these two days because kids need that extra time of education school. What in the heck is going to be going on productive in that time? Teachers don't care, staff doesn't care, principals are barely hanging on of caring. You know what I mean. Kids are coming in and we're going to have a pajama party and watch Jumanji. You know what I mean. What is that going to do for their education? Let's start somewhere. Who cares snow days? Who mandates that? And why do we think that's so important?
Speaker 2:It's just some of these things are ridiculous. If we, if we add more time doing the same old thing, it's going to improve the result or it's going to improve their testing to make up two snow days at the end of the year. Some of these things that we do, and I think this younger generation, paul, sees through the cracks. I think they call BS. More than any other generation. You know, if you're trying to Buffalo this younger generation, they're going to see right through it. I agree with that. They respond to authenticity, they respond to honesty, they respond to frankness. But I feel like they see through the cracks of some of these institutions and they see some of the inconsistencies and they're calling BS on a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for us older people it's offensive because that causes us to be on the defensive Like, well, we've been doing it all wrong then and we can't accept that. But we really kind of have because of society, culture and who says that we have to work 40 hours a week? There's things that the new generation I think is calling BS on and they're figuring out ways to get around it, and I think that's good and I think that will help people. If you take that apart, we're talking about burnout. We need to figure out how to overcome burnout outside the box and for me it seems kind of temporal or shallow. We book a vacation almost for every four months. We've done that since we've had kids. So my oldest daughter is 33. So for 33 years we've had a vacation every four weeks or every three months and it's been something that has blessed me to get through burnout of running a business for 36 years. That's my, that's my happy time is being with my kids, making memories.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you mentioned the 40 hour work week, because I think that's becoming a thing of the past. I think it has to to some degree with this newer generation. And you know, I'll tell you, we have office staff and if I don't get them out of the office by one o'clock on a Friday, they're going to be burned out on Monday. You know what I mean. And we pay them 40 hours a week, but I encourage them hey, friday, get out of there early. You know what I mean. Get to get things done, do what you can, because you know the the getting the ability to get home a little earlier, be with your kids a little earlier, that's what people want. You know what I mean. I mean they want to get out of the meeting, they want to get their job done and they want to get home with their families. You know a lot of these companies that used to offer, you know, oh, come to the weightlifting class after, come and do these things. People aren't wanting that. They want to get home and they want to be with their families and they want to do what brings them joy.
Speaker 2:And I find that we're more productive when we get more time with our family, more time doing our passions and more time doing those things, and so we've encouraged it in our company. So we've encouraged it in our company and, you know, with our people, instead of, you know, demanding that they put in that eight hours. If they can do their work quicker in a day and quality, then I'm good with it, within reason. You know, if they're charging us eight and doing four, but I mean if they can do it in six and we're paying them eight, you know I'm glad because I'm going to have a person that's more energized the next day, more ready, and so I think, rethinking this box of 40 hours. I mean, if you're doing on an assembly line, yeah, that makes sense. You know what I mean, because you have to make so many widgets by this time of the day, but but that you know, robots are doing the majority of assembly line tasks in the United States and they're going to be doing all of them in five years.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean I mean I go to Sam's club and I look at our job security. There's Do you know what I mean? I mean I go to Sam's Club and I look at our job security. There's a machine sweeping the floor and mopping it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? And it's a robot.
Speaker 2:Nobody rides it anymore and this is happening. So you know that 40 hour have to be there the whole time, and I see it sometimes. You know in like schools, for example, the secretary has to be here at a certain time. There's nothing going on. There's nothing going on. Let's send these people home a little bit earlier and they're going to come back more engaged, with more energy and more ready to do their job the next day.
Speaker 1:We've had to do that. We had to change our business model because we hire kids or at least we used to and they literally would get burned out after seven to ten business days, seven to eight. So they show up from Monday to Friday, come, go home, show up Monday, tuesday, wednesday, then they'd skip Thursday, friday. So I had to change the way I did business and we went to six hour days, four days a week, and I had to increase their pay to get them to do that. And literally since I've done that it's been three years now people stopped missing work, they stopped calling in sick because they get Friday off and I pay them more per hour and that has made them more productive. We're actually running more volume in labor because they're happy.
Speaker 1:And then I think we literally have to get outside of the thought that 40 hours a week is what we need to work, and I don't think they do that in europe, do they? They work less hours and yeah, I mean and there's less for nap.
Speaker 2:They're given more time off. They're given more things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they take a whole month off, don't they in europe, somewhere, something like that, something like that? And so, literally, as americans and as in our culture, we need to think outside the box and still be productive and have a happier people or workforce you know, um, I have a dear friend, dan sherwood.
Speaker 2:He was state president out in kirtland for years, um involved in this community, just a real pillar of the community out in kirtland and Farmington, and he ran national sanitary supply for years and years and they give all the paper products and cleaning chemicals to the large institutions in our area and nationally. And then it later became Brady and he ran it and when he was running Brady he did something that I always remember. You know, a lot of us court in our businesses. We court the wealthy, the decision makers, the people with power, and that's who we court. Well, he had this thing that he put on and he put on a nice dinner and he put on this thing where they had games and taught him how to use equipment and told him about the supplies and things and the people that he invited to this thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, he invited some of the decision makers, but the lion's share of people that he invited were the people out there doing the work, the people cleaning up the messes of the decision makers.
Speaker 2:You know the janitors on the front line and they came and to watch them, so engaged and so grateful to have this event put on for them and to be able to do some of those things that usually their supervisors get to do.
Speaker 2:I learned a lot about that. I learned a lot about that because, you know, the perks of travel, of corporate benefits, of these things, are at the top and they usually stay at the top. But when we move some of those down a level watching their engagement and watching what happened to them when they did that, of those down a level, watching their engagement and watching what happened to them when they did that that's a lesson that I tried to learn and tried to apply in our culture, in our company, and it made a tremendous, tremendous difference. And so you know, if we, as owners, are getting off early on Friday, yeah, we come in Monday maybe more engaged, but if we have this constant burnout of our people, that's going to trickle up into our lives, you know it always does, and into our business and into the community you know we have.
Speaker 1:if we have employees who aren't engaged and they're burned out, it doesn't help. It doesn't help those who are serving Right. So, yeah, it's a rough one and I'm sure that there's people out there who are listening who are burned out. I mean mothers, fathers. We're working. We live in an oil-filled community where they're on call 24-7. And I am constantly in awe and I applaud the community who support this kind of industries here because of the time involved and we just want you to know that we see you and that we're thankful for what you do. But we're always constantly figuring out how do we overcome burnout.
Speaker 1:Now, scripturally speaking, god told Adam we work by the sweat of our brow. That's all of our life. And I tell my kids, and especially if they're men or boys, you weren't born in a wealthy family. You're going to have to work for 40 years and it's awe-inspiring to have them think seriously. We're working 40 hours a week for 40 years. Oh yeah, it's kind of like 50 to 65 hours a week, but it's something that has to happen and I think there's some value for work, because I think we need to work to find value in ourselves, but we have to be able to find a balance, to be able to not become burned out and still have joy in our lives, and so, um, I don't. What are some other things that we can do to to have that balance?
Speaker 1:You know or have you seen other people who have done it without you know.
Speaker 2:Recently a friend of ours lost her husband and after a lengthy battle with cancer, he went what they call is just off the cliff. He was with treatment and all of his vitals were good and it looked like he was going to pull through and have you know, three to six months of quality life. And he hit a cliff and just came down and she was very grateful for this because of the pain that he went on. When he started going down that cliff he was in immense pain, immense suffering, and what they said could be up to July 4th became three days out of the hall, became one day in hospice, out of the hospital, and it was a tremendous blessing.
Speaker 2:But you know, going over the night that it happened, we went to visit with her and we sat down and, and you know, one of the things I said is you're going to find over the next few days that doing things you can have control over are going to be very helpful. You need a new washer and dryer, going to Lowe's and picking it out, making a decision to deliver. Those things are going to be really helpful because they're things you can control, because right now you have a major life event that is totally out of your control and it's going to be life changing. So, finding those little things that you can control and you can enact, you know, I think we all, action is a powerful thing. If we're not taking action in our lives, if we're not making a decision, if we're not going forward, even with little things, it's easy to get burnout, it's easy to get, you know, in a rut or just a blockade.
Speaker 1:Sure, you know, my wife is really good at something. We lost our son and deal with grief and burnout from all that tragedy. She started serving, she took opportunities to serve and she was really good at serving people anyways. But if someone needed something she would be there. Older gentleman in his 80s, and he has a you know 20 acre, 30 acre little farm with horses and cows and animals and she'll go over there every day with our one of our daughters and she rakes and she cleans and she helps make grain and she helps with the tractor, things like that.
Speaker 1:And I think I think one of the options for burnout is taking the eyes off of us, because when we're burned out, woe is me. And I don't want to go to work today. I'm tired, I'm unappreciated, I have bills to pay and all these things are about me, me, me. I think one of the things that we can do is look around us, in our family, our friends, our peers or the community and find ways to serve. That actual service actually has a healing process upon our own individual souls and it was a miraculous thing to learn from my wife that that actual serving, because for me it's not human nature, I have to actually work at it, but her, she, she is amazing at going about and she goes. If I don't serve, then I think about the loss of my son, and it's the service that makes me not think about the loss of my son.
Speaker 2:so so I'm feeling like I'm burned out on my job, my business. I don't this, and I just need to pull my head out of my butt and not be selfish and go serve people.
Speaker 1:No, but I'm just saying I mean there's power in that, there's power in that. It's still really hard to do.
Speaker 2:You can't serve someone else and be thinking, oh, my life is this. You know it's hard to do, it's like it's like trying to think of two things at once. You can't do it, and if you're kind of in the doldrums and thinking, oh, I just, I don't have passion, I don't have this, find someone who's really going through something and serve them and, and it's a powerful, potent antidote for that, at least temporarily I think, and I think that's a powerful point that you just made and one that we want to discuss in our next episode. Thank you for joining us on Life Notes with Sheldon and Paul, and we hope you have a wonderful, wonderful weekend.