Life Notes with Sheldon
Life Notes with Sheldon
Navigating Life's Uncertainty: Resilience in Business and Beyond
Faith and resilience form the foundation for navigating life's unpredictable challenges in business, relationships, and our rapidly changing society. Paul shares his early struggles as a painting contractor when he had to pawn equipment to survive winter months without work, highlighting how these difficult experiences shape who we become.
• Small business owners should reach out to competitors and established businesses for advice—most will generously help
• Learning financial planning the hard way: saving for predictable slow seasons is essential for business survival
• Our trials create the "tear and repair" that strengthens relationships, businesses, and personal character
• Society stands on the precipice of unprecedented change driven by artificial intelligence and automation
• Despite technological advancement, we're not necessarily healthier, happier, or more fulfilled as a society
• Each generation faces its defining challenge—COVID may not have been ours, something more significant may be coming
• Finding stability through faith provides the foundation for facing uncertainty without fear
• Look for the "great" in difficult times and be determined to contribute positivity to the world
Join us every week for a brand new note on life as we help you get off the sidelines and back into the game as your best self.
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.
Speaker 3:Hello friends, thank you for joining us on Life Notes with Sheldon and Paul Mitchell, where we discuss ways to get you off of the sad lines, back into the game of life as your very best self. And perhaps we should preface this with just saying we don't know what we're doing, folks.
Speaker 1:We are shooting from the hip folks.
Speaker 3:We are all shooting from the hip.
Speaker 1:You guys are probably out there sitting like shaking your head. What are these two yahoos doing?
Speaker 3:There are people like airline pilots and brain surgeons and orthopedic surgeons that aren't allowed to shoot from the hip.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's procedures and processes that have to be followed in life, and thank goodness they are. But you know, the fact of the matter is most organizations are kind of just barely hanging on at many given points in life. Right, and this is something that really surprised me. You know, we have a small business and, as you know, starting a small business, you are scraping with your nails, fighting to survive sometimes and to thrive and to start and to get off. You know, get your feet off the ground and then to stay in the air. It can be man, it's a process, you know. I liken it to med school or law school or something that is so intensive, takes so much of your time and if you put in that time, if you put in that eight years, sometimes 12 years, if you put in the time, you're going to reap that benefit of being able to be a doctor, be a lawyer or have a business that is thriving or at least, you know, has the capacity and ability to thrive.
Speaker 1:You know downstairs. We're in the radio station up here at K&N and downstairs I'm a painting contractor and my competitor is probably one of my biggest competitors has an office downstairs and so every time I come here I like him. He's a very good friend. We've only met because in business and when he started his business here he called me up and asked for advice. Isn't that nice? That's a nice thing to do. And he's a kid. He's probably 15 years younger than me, but I look at people who are running businesses and, like Sheldon says, it's all uphill, especially if you're starting it out. And one of the things I appreciate about this kid who's my competitor. He called me up and asked. He asked for advice. He asked for help. He asked what do you think?
Speaker 1:Sometimes I'll ask those kind of just call to ask and folks, if you're in a position where you want to start a business, if you are having a business going, call someone, even if you don't know them. Call them If you need help. 99% of the business owners will help you. They will give you advice. They will tell you don't do this. They'll tell you about clients that if you're in the same industry, if you don't know that, I want you to know that People will help. I know if you want to start a business, but, sheldon's right, there's nothing scarier than quitting a job for sure a paycheck and hoping that you can make money every single week, especially if you have kids. You don't know where the money is and then, once December comes, you have to start over and do it all over again from ground zero. There's nothing scarier, but at the same time, there's nothing more fulfilling than being your own person. That being said, my business succeeds because of God. I'm grateful for God that he allows us to do this.
Speaker 3:Well, there it is, folks. Join us on the next episode. So, whether you're a small business owner, going to law school, going through your first years of college, being a first time parent, struggling in your marriage uh, whatever it is and I say struggling in your marriage because every marriage struggles and you have these different pain points in your marriage that you go through business partners, any relationship, you know, if you don't have some conflict and some struggle, you're probably not going to have a very strong or lasting relationship. Because that's one of the important things that makes the quilt strong, it's this tear and repair. You know what I mean. If all you have is tear and there's no repair, your quilt's going to wither away, it's going to crumble. But what makes a quilt strong and a relationship strong, a business strong, is tear repair, tear repair. And as you repair those tears they get stronger.
Speaker 1:Let me share something with you that is humbling, because I haven't had to happen for 15 years Now as a painting contractor how many people actually really paint outside or really anywhere in January, february and March? It's cold, it's wet, you know there's not a lot of people just spent money on Christmas. So when I started my business, I didn't know that I was 22 at the time 21. And I started a business and I didn't realize that people really don't need painting done in January, february and March and I just bought a sprayer. That summer, I bought some ladders and some tools and I had two kids at home under the age of four and all of a sudden I had a good Christmas.
Speaker 1:I had work coming in January 1st. No one called January 2nd. No one called for me painting Clear through January, february 1st no one called March 1st. No one called by April 1st. I finally got my next job. Now, that being said, that was three months. I had to go to the pawn shop. You ever been to a pawn shop and have to sell something to eat.
Speaker 3:I've been to a pawn shop to look at some of the cool things, but I've never been in that position.
Speaker 1:This is back in the nineties and I didn't have a job anymore. I was running a business and I had to pawn my sprayer, my ladders, any tools that I had. It was very humbling and in the process I learned real quick. Okay, I am saving money for January, february, march. You only did. That will only happen once when you have to pawn things. If you don't learn, then you have to pawn again. I wasn't going to ever do that again. That was the most embarrassing thing. And I got pennies on the dollar for brand new sprayer. And so that was in 1991 or two, I don't know. Now business has been good. I've been in business 36 years. This is the first year in 15 to 20 years that I really didn't have any work january, february, march this year.
Speaker 1:Now I I'm a lot wiser than I was you know one or two days of work a week, one or two days a week, and I have employees I have like five, six employees, so one or two days a week and my employees employees like to eat. Without work it's harder to eat, but, that being said, you know the struggles you have to have a business if you don't learn. I learned 30 years ago, 33 years ago save money for January, february, march. That being said, we should always have money saved right, but it's one of the hard knocks of having a business. There's going to be times, and it reminded me I need to be thankful for God that allows us to do this. And when I don't have work, it's amazing how fast your relationship gets better with God during those months. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I was reminded we weren't starving this year, because I've already learned that experience. I'm not going to pawn anything ever again, so we were okay, but I'm grateful. I'm grateful for business, the things that it teaches you.
Speaker 3:It's not that people don't need painting. In need painting in january through march fall.
Speaker 3:It's just that they're so broke and we're like what's going to happen in this new year? Is everything bad that's going to happen? Going to happen. I mean, people are gun shy, you know. You're broke from christmas and then you're like in these doldrums of winter post holidays thinking is spring ever going to get here? You know, are we going to get out of this mess of of gluttony that we've worked ourselves into? So it's. I don't think it's that they don't want painting. I think it's that no one can afford it because we see it in our business. It's a luxury, but would you trade that for a fast track to the top without those experiences that made you who you were?
Speaker 3:No, no you wouldn't be there, you wouldn't be who you were. Without that, you know, you wouldn't be so. Finding gratitude for those things that built you, those things that molded you, those things that forced you to to not wallow but to do just the opposite, that forced you to crawl, that forced you to scrape, that forced you to be resourceful, all of those things gave you experience to get through the hard things I think, that happen and and and the good things that happen too, because you know our trials and those things that we have to go to that are hard. They don't just prepare us for the hard times, they also prepare us for the good times because we're more capable to manage them, to enjoy them. You know the crap that happens in life. Ultimately, 30 years later, we usually find ourselves grateful for because that made me who I am, that helped me, and being able to look at that and see that, I think, is one of the keys to happiness and fulfillment.
Speaker 1:Isn't that a hard thing to say, though the trials that we had make us who we are, you know. Isn't that a terrible thing to say? It kind of feels terrible to say it out loud. You know, but it's really the truth. The trials that we go through, whether you know, but it's really the truth, the trials that we go through, whether you know it could be anything that you're going everyone, everyone's trial. It might seem insignificant to someone else, but to that person it's the most significant thing in their life and we need to pay attention to that.
Speaker 1:It's like you see these things where you don't know what the person next two years going through, so treat them like they need to be taken care of. You know that's a true statement and that trial that that person's going through is the most hardest thing they've ever had to go through. And but that's what creates the person down the road, with wisdom, with experience, with empathy and and and care, and hopefully it helps them become a better person or it helps them protect themselves later on, depending on the circumstances that they're in. You know that they become stronger and um more able to, capable of handling, you know, whatever comes their way in the future. That's what's scary actually, to be honest with you the trials that that you know you go through you. You hope that makes your kids um stronger, but then you also worry well, what's coming ahead, that they, that they might need those trials.
Speaker 3:You worry about that which brings me to my next point the downfall of western civilization that we are approaching.
Speaker 3:Not to be negative on this show, but there's a really interesting book called the fourth turning the fall of rome, and it's hard not to feel like the institutions and pillars of society that we had are not either crumbling or being torn down before us, and it's hard not to be discouraged, as you look forth, you know, to what your kids are going to have to go through and what they're going to have. I mean the years from 1990 to today. Those years ahead of us are going to be vastly different and I think everybody feels that we're on the precipice of something very, very different, very, very foreign, very, very new. And we have lived you know you talk about the early 90s, paul we have lived through an amazing time in civilization. You know 1995 to whatever year we're in now I don't even know what year are we in 2025.
Speaker 1:It's 20 years you're talking about.
Speaker 3:I'm barely able to get it right when writing a check. We live in a vastly, vastly different world, Completely different world. When you talk about what the internet has done and what all that it brought in the information age, you can't explain to someone what living in the nineties was like, and you can't that can't be said of going from the fifties to the seventies or the fifties to the eighties. You know what I mean. Yes, there was some advancements, but from 1950 to 1980, you know the space travel didn't really increase greatly.
Speaker 1:We went from a three-speed Nuclear energy yeah, three-speed bike to a 10-speed biker.
Speaker 3:There wasn't that. But saying, you know, 1990 to now, it's completely different. And when you consider, you know, the advent of the cell phone, where, you know, I remember when we first got these big computers, my grandma had a Microsoft that you could line a plane on, you know, and a dot matrix printer that I thought was amazing, but you know what I mean, you couldn't lift the thing with three people and it was like this state of the art Bill Gates had created and brought, you know, flourishing to site. It was amazing. You know windows. You know windows was just like it was the coolest thing. You push on this box and it opens up. You don't have to do DOS anymore, which I can, you know. I mean the information we have on an iPhone now. It is astounding, it is truly astounding. So what is causing?
Speaker 1:the fall of this, this world or this.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that society is on a verge of being totally revamped, the way that we function, the way that we operate. A lot of our institutions are not just being torn down, but they're going to be irrelevant in such a short period of time. With AI and what's going on, the jobs that so many people are doing are going to be irrelevant. I mean, take the banking world, for instance. You know, um, we used to have you needed to go see a banker and we had the need for bank branches and these kinds of things. Well, a lot of people are not getting loans by going to their banks and a lot of our local banks are not doing loans anymore because they're not making money on them. You know they're not doing mortgages, they're not doing a lot of things they used to do.
Speaker 3:You go, I mean, you look at buying a Tesla. How do you buy a Tesla? You buy it on your phone app and you put I'm interested in the model three and you put would you? And you basically fill in some paperwork and then you get a lease payment and you do a thing on your American Express for the down payment and they either deliver it to you or you go pick it up in Albuquerque. It's astounding. You do it on an app, you don't go in and you sign these papers.
Speaker 3:It's not that anymore and what we knew and know today is going to be irrelevant. You know, so many institutions are going to be not just torn down, but they're not going to. They're going to be non-existent because of what we're seeing on AI. Now, if there is a major thing and this doesn't happen or this stops happening, yeah, society will slowly kind of just just just go as it's going, but we're on the precipice of something that is even more monumentally powerful and changing. Is it exciting? Is it exciting? It's scary. It's scary because it's such an unknown. You know what I mean. There's, there's so much more unknown than this. You know. We talked about, like, like Y2K and everyone thought what's going to happen, you know.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, the clock is going to go back. And all the pundits were saying you know it's going to be our banking, everything's going to suspend. And I was at a dance, you know, I was at a kid's dance, a youth dance, and at Y2K Y2K, new Year's Eve. And right when it turned midnight everything went black for about 30 seconds. Everyone started freaking out and then they turned all the lights on and started laughing on it. It was the greatest gag. It was so funny.
Speaker 3:But we all kind of started laughing at ourselves and thinking, man, we were so stupid, thinking the sky was falling, you know. But we're at this sky falling moment where we have developed technology to such a capacity that it actually has the ability to possibly think and reason and grow and increase itself, and and and when you have something like this that can reason, can think, can connive, how do you, you go back? And what if this system decides it doesn't like the system of humanity and wants to change it? Or what if it gets this sense of what's right and what's wrong? You know, you look at like war games and things like this.
Speaker 1:It's did you watch tv last night? Like on one of the tv stations? Eagle eye was on, yeah, and eagle eyes were shot. Shall I labroof?
Speaker 1:uh-huh, can't ever say it yeah and it's where the computer thinks oh, the government is not following the way the people you know. Motto because they didn't kill terrorists that they shouldn't, the computer thought they should killed, so he was going to do away with all the cabinet and put someone else in charge. Because the computer kind of took over you. You're kind of going full swing here on this, but let me one-up you a little bit. We've been traveling a lot lately and we have a passport right and you put your passport into the computer and it scans your picture when you check in, yeah, and when that happens, going through security, they now have an iPad monitor at the customs as you go or at the security gate before you get your baggage checked. If you look in it, it scans you and realizes oh, you checked in already with your passport, so I don't have to show any ID anymore. The computer just sees my face. I go through security, then we go to the gate to Delta Airlines Same thing.
Speaker 1:We're going on an international flight. I've already put my passport in back at the airport, at the gate. We are at the door, we came in, I don't have to show ID anymore and it scans my face oh, you're Paul Mitchell and lets me on the plane. I get off the plane in Scotland or Iceland or whatever, usually you have to go through customs and get a stamp on your passport Half the time not anymore. I walk up there's not a customs guy there anymore. Now it's just a kiosk with a computer iPad screen. It scans your face and it lets you into scotland without actually seeing a real person. It's freaking, you're. You're going down that you're saying. Everything you're saying is already happening and it's all done by facial recognition, by ai, and they pull up everything about you. It's, it's. They know where you're flying, where you're coming from, how long you're staying.
Speaker 3:It's simply amazing so many times. The boogeyman that we fear is not really what we should be fearing, it's change. It's change. But you know what I mean. The person who always fears getting in a plane crash ends up dying of cancer Suddenly. You know what I mean. It's like we have these boogeyman that we fear, and I think we feared that the Chinese, the Russians would hack our computer systems and create havoc.
Speaker 3:But we're creating something that can do that itself, that may not be able to be shut down, that can power itself and do it. I mean, we don't realize there's, there's never been a greater period of unknown experiment. You know, perhaps nuclear energy, when we thought this may blow up the world, possibly there was that thought. Yeah, there was this thought that this could blow up the world. Let's try it anyway. I mean, how they decided to just take that risk is real. It's just a really scary thing about society. You know what I mean. But we're at that nuclear point again that we were at as a nation, as a society, where we're like you know what this could blow up our world. This could do a lot of these things. Let's try it anyway. We're going forward and it's humanity's spirit of navigation, of innovation that has driven us.
Speaker 3:My worry, as I send our kids into this, is that, despite all of the amazing challenge, amazing challenges overcome by technology, and the amazing advancements, when we talk about 1992 today, I don't feel that our kids are better off. I don't feel that our society is better off. I do not feel, you know, we have so much technology I mean chat, gpt I can draft a letter like that and put a few things in it. I don't need to even run it by a secretary, have anyone help me. It's faster to use it and not have someone help you. You know, it's faster to use the machine than use a person and all of these things that should be making us less busy, less stressed. I feel like so many of us feel more stressed, more pressed, like there's less time, like there's more work to do, and it's like what are we doing wrong? And so if we have this massive change in this and we start to have robots doing our dishes and these kind of things, it is actually happening. You know, and people rich enough to have these things and and and and willing enough to have this in their home Is life going to be better, is it going to be better, and that's what I want to see from my kids and in the last 40 years since they're healthy, how many years it's been 30, we're not better off as society.
Speaker 3:We're not better, we're not. We're not healthier, we're not. We don't have better mental health. I don't think we're greater spiritually and I'm not trying to be negative.
Speaker 3:I am the most hopeful person you can ever see in the world. I hope for our future. I hope for humanity. I believe that tomorrow the New Mexico sunshine is going to shine, there's going to be birds singing, my little fountain in the backyard is going to be peacefully humming and I'm going to be playing and listening to music in the car on the way to work. I believe these things.
Speaker 3:I am hopeful, but when I see where society is going and what has brought us, there's a certain degree of trepidation that I feel. Sending kids out into this, in this, what could perhaps be the greatest unknown that humanity has ever set forth into. So, yes, it's exciting, but the question is are we going to use this good for the greater good of humanity, or are the billionaires and powerful people going to suppress it and use it to their benefit and not to society's? There's so many things that can happen. I believe in the good of humanity. I think we're going to have a lot of help, the crisis is solved. I think we're going to find cures for cancers, cures for diseases that we haven't even seen yet. But I also believe in this kind of pattern that happens in history and every fourth generation we're faced with this intense crisis and our generation is due for that crisis. It's just our time, it's just our turn.
Speaker 3:When you look through the seculant of history and the way it's always gone and I think many of us have made the mistake of thinking COVID was that challenge. But when you look at what the world war two generation went through and the challenges, covid was nothing and I think we think, oh man, we've gone through our big challenges. We've come emergent and look at us. We let this disease destroy so much of the social fabric and the way our society operates. I mean, you go into a restaurant or check into a hotel. Service is not better, things have not improved. Society is crumbling, in large part because of this. I just don't feel like we've had our existential challenge and I think it's coming. And so how do we be ready for that? How do we ready our kids? It's coming and so how do we be ready for that? How do we ready our kids? And if we're in this state of apathy and just waiting for society to crumble, how do we face that when it comes? And I just, I really feel it's coming.
Speaker 1:I think the only way to do that is by having a number one faith in a higher being. Whatever the higher being is to you, for me it's God and Jesus Christ. And the scriptures tell us that if we have faith we shall not fear. And the promises is that the great day of the Lord will come, which is going to be great and terrible. Those are the words out of the scriptures which you're talking about. Great, you said both in the same sentence.
Speaker 1:It's going to be terrible, but it's going to be great. And literally it's having faith, having faith in God, having faith that there's a plan, having faith that if you are faithful and do good things or, in my terminology, christlike, and you become Christlike to those around you, you shall not fear. It's going to come, it's going to be great, it's going to be terrible, there's going to be all this, but just you know, I think that the faith roots us in stability, it roots us in calmness and I don't know about the apathy part it will help us get through the apathy and that kind of thing. I think it comes back down to faith.
Speaker 3:As we face some of the terrible things of future, some of the terrible things we're going through as a nation, let's find the great, let's be the great, let's make the great, let's all be determined to try and be a little greater, try and bring a little greatness to the world and look for the great around us, because there still is a lot of great. We just may have to look for it a little bit harder.
Speaker 2:You have been listening to Life Notes with Sheldon. Listen every week for a brand new note on life. We hope that we have given you a way to get off the sidelines and back into the game of life as your best you.