Life Notes with Sheldon
Life Notes with Sheldon
When Trials Become Teachers, Compassion Wins
A single sentence can change a culture. That’s the heartbeat of this conversation about bullying, regret, and the courage to stand up when it counts. We open with honest confessions of unkind moments, from a second grader’s plea for friendship turned away to a new student mocked for her clothes, and then trace how those memories mature into action. When one of us finally said, “Knock it off. He’s my friend,” to an upperclassman mocking a classmate with Down syndrome, a football team’s posture shifted from cruelty to protection—and a future parent learned the reflex that would later guard his own daughter.
We dig into why these turning points stick. Life feels like a circle: our choices ripple through families, schools, and neighborhoods. Interdependence shows up in unglamorous places—a careful worker keeping someone’s home warm, a patient driver preventing disaster. That lens leads us toward grace. We talk about personal Gethsemane moments, the private seasons of pain that teach knowledge no textbook can deliver, and we bring in Viktor Frankl’s perspective shift: even suffering can be a classroom if we ask, “What can I learn here?” One of us shares a raw story of public humiliation after stepping into a leadership crisis, and how that pain became an upgrade in compassion at home and in the community.
This is a practical guide to everyday mercy during the holidays and beyond: how to speak up against bullying without theatrics, how to model advocacy for kids, how to treat eight out of ten people as if they’re in a crisis—and be kind regardless. We even simplify prayer into something anyone can try: talk to God the way you talk on a walk, with honest words and open hands. If you’re craving a reason to believe small acts still matter, this conversation offers both proof and a plan. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage today, and tell us: what one sentence would you be proud to say in your next hard moment?
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_02:Good morning, friends, and thank you for joining us on Life Notes with Sheldon. And Paul Mitchell is back with us by popular demand. He happens to be in town for a few days off his private jet. So we're glad to have him here with us. And I have a question for you. It's the holidays. Happy Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones. But uh have you ever been unkind? Have you ever been unkind to anyone? And afterward, did it feel good? Did you feel good about yourself? Did it feel good?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I was younger, I used to be no notoriously like sarcastically unkind. I was brutal sometimes. And that's I am really sad about that. It was kind of fun being that way, but that's not a good thing to be. Yeah, I I'm sure I've been. And I've probably been that way recently too, but not really realized it. So yeah, I'm sorry if that's happened to anyone I'm that's listening. I'm sorry. I get carried away with myself ego. My I'm full of myself.
SPEAKER_02:I'm still hurt about what you said to me in 2003. Do you remember what it was? No. Neither do I. I'm kidding. You hurt my feelings, Paul. I'm holding on to a grudge. Oh my gosh. You know what? Uh second grade, Joseph Chavez. For some reason, nobody liked Joseph. I don't know what it was. Maybe I think once time he picked his boogers and wiped it on something, and it was something. Maybe he ate them. I don't know. But you know, people didn't like uh Mr. Joe. And uh second grade, I was worried about what people thought, and you know, trying to be I you you want to have friends.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:In grade school, any school, you know, seven years old. You want to have friends. And so I remember he asked me this. He said, Will you be my friend? And I remember I told him, Well, we just we don't have anything in common. I kind of made up some excuse and said, We don't really have anything in common. I remember that was my excuse. And I probably have felt more guilt and remorse for that than anything I've ever done in my life, because someone came to me and specifically asked for friendship. They needed it, you know, and I worried more about what people thought than being his friend. And you know, I I I I I searched him out one time, and I was probably 22 or 23, and I just said, you know, you may not remember this, but I do, and I am so sorry for that. You know what I mean? It it breaks my heart that I did that, and I said, it both bothers me to this day. And he said, I didn't remember that. I are you serious? And he didn't remember, but you know, there's in in life, there's the things we remember with our brain, and then there's the things that we remember with our soul. And the things that we remember with our soul, they're not always top of conscious, but they're a piece of us that we take in those little holes that we have in our soul. And just saying, you know, I I found out his mother died, and you know, he'd had some hard things happen um later on in life. And uh I just said, well, if you if you need a friend now, you know, reach out to me. My phone number, if I can ever, if you even need to talk or something, you know, I'm glad to hear you're alive and well, you know, and when you get to, you know, 10, 15 years past high school, you it's you start losing friends and knowing that they're well. It's like, well, I'm glad you're I'm glad you're doing okay. If you ever need anything, call me. And that was a a healing moment for me. And I and I'm so glad I was able to find him and do that, but I still just can't believe that that I did that. And so, you know, um I have a story like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It's actually affected the traject trajectory of my life. I was in eighth grade, I guess you're like 13 or so when you're in eighth grade, and I grew up in a small little town smaller than Aztec. Wow. Yeah, my graduating class was 26 people. That's how big my town was. Yeah. Anyways, um, in eighth grade, there was this girl who moved into school, and it was like after school started, like October. And I was part of the football team. Uh, you know, the eighth-grade football team was a big deal to be part of, and I got to be part of that because there's only 11 kids. So they had to they needed the numbers, but you think you're something special, and uh and her name was Ruby. I don't know her last name. And like I said, I'm 58, so this is 45 years ago. And uh Ruby had those old-fashioned glasses with the oyster type points on the end. Oh, yeah, and she had a flower dress. Now, no kid no girls wore flower dresses in in October, it would be a summer dress, but to top it off, it was oversized, so you could probably tell it was her mom's, and then she wore old high heels, which were way too big, which were I knew we everyone knew that they were her mom's, and then she had some raggedy coat, and every everyone would make fun of Ruby. And um I was a kid, and I as an eighth grader, you're always wanting to be be popular and fit in with that group. I never made fun of her, but I didn't stop my friends from making fun of her. I remember that, and I felt heartbroken whenever it was happening during the school day. I kind of stepped back, and I think probably once or twice I saw her looking at me, like help me type of deal. Well, Thanksgiving came, and Thanksgiving break came, and uh after Thanksgiving it snowed, and we came back and we're kind of excited because it's almost Christmas, Thanksgiving's gone. Ruby didn't show up. She wasn't at school, and the teacher was crying at the beginning of school, and you know that couldn't be good as an eighth grade group. And she was gonna make an announcement, and she told us that Ruby had tried taking her life over Thanksgiving break and that we should think of her. I don't know, she she maybe even said pray for her, I don't even know. But I was heartbroken. I stood back and didn't do anything to stop kids making fun of her. Well, that that being said, I promised myself I would never let that happen again. Um so my freshman year, right, eighth grade, my freshman would be the next year. Um, there was a little down syndrome boy. His name was Jeff. He school district boundaries changed, and he ended up being in school with us. And he went to my church and he was one of my he thought I was one of his friends. Um I'd always say hi to him and pay attention to him, and he thought I was one of his friends, and he was Down syndrome. And he started going to my school also because he wasn't there in eighth grade. And the football team, I'm back on the football, football players must be mean. Are the football players mean? I don't know, they're tough.
SPEAKER_02:One of my football players I think it's getting better.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, one of the upperclassmen. I'm a freshman on the football team, and you're trying to fit in again. But one of the upperclassmen was walking through the hallway and made fun of Jeff, and I was there, and I remembered Ruby, and I decided I'm not gonna let that happen. So I told the football player, I said it out loud because there's kids with him, teammates with him. I said, Hey, knock it off. He's my friend. And that was an upperclassman. You know how scary that was? He could have taken me out, he could have had all the football team taking me out in practice, you know. Well, that little comment alone changed how everyone treated Jeff. All of a sudden, the football team started putting their arms around him every time they seen him, and I was so thankful for that. Now, fast forward to when I'm 24 I had a my first child, we had a baby, and uh we found out 10 days after she was born, she was diagnosed with Down syndrome. And I think back to Ruby and I tried looking at Ruby like you looked up your friend. Um I I couldn't remember, I couldn't find her, but I think back and thank God that I felt the shame and the guilt that I would never let something happen to people less fortunate than me. And then this in case of Down syndrome, for now, God has entrusted me with a Down syndrome baby. And I fast forward in my thoughts when you have a Down syndrome baby, you just imagine all the bullying that she's gonna experience over the next 15 years of her life in in high school and in school, and so I'm grateful for that experience. That's my that's my school experience with bullying.
SPEAKER_02:Well, with that, friends, we'll close the show. Have a Merry Christmas. It's been great.
SPEAKER_01:I mean I say this I say this for kids.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You don't know what God's gonna bless you with in your life when you have children or with people who you influence, and the way you treat people, it could affect how you're gonna react to your children or your future people around you. I go, you don't know. And God, He entrusted me with a Down syndrome baby, and I'm grateful for that. Thank thank God for Ruby.
SPEAKER_02:So we could have a whole nother episode about how our trials can become our strengths if we let them. And maybe we should sometime, but I really like how things in life tend to become full circle. They always do, and it's just a matter of time. Sometimes the circle completes quickly, sometimes it's longer, but uh we face those things that we avoid and we face our our moments of weakness and trial and uh why does that happen? Because it's just one eternal round, it's just one big circle. Life is a circle, it's a the circle of life, they call it. You know, I don't think it was just a catchy song. I think for generations they've called it the circle. Wise tribes have called it the circle of life for a reason. You know, everything is interconnected. We are interconnected. You know, there's a thing called the butterfly effect, how a butterfly moving its wings in Brazil can affect something in another, you know, how we're just six positions away from any person that in the world, you know what I mean? Six steps away from being connected to that person. There's these things out there that, you know, kind of testify to the fact that we are so interconnected. And even before the World Wide Web, you know, and the spider web of social media, we can go down that tunnel. But even before that, we were, you know, intrinsically connected. We are. We absolutely are. We're interdependent. I mean, I depend on the person working out in the oil field to do their job and not blow something up because it heats my house. You know what I mean? And they depend on me when I drive to not cut them off and to obey the street signs so that they don't lose their child in an automobile. You know, we're so interconnected. All of our choices, all of our decisions have lasting impacts that have ripple effects. And I think it's just a matter of time before it comes around to us and life teaches us. But I think what it does is it brings us back to that opportunity. If we don't learn something, you know, if we don't get what life is trying to teach us at the time or we're not willing to learn it, it's either going to keep coming back or another thing will come back to teach us that. I think it's just a series of like steps that we go through, almost rungs of a ladder. You know what I mean? We learn that and we grow by that principle, and then we get to move forward. And that's my theory on it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I like that. I like that. You know, you think take, well, almost every family, and if not every family, almost every almost every individual goes through trials, right? Tribulations and experiences, like the circle of life, like you just said. Um, that being said, um, I'm a religious person, so I believe in Christianity, and I think that knowledge, and that's what we gain from the circle of life is knowledge, right? Um, I think that knowledge actually we acquire it. I call it I think that the path to knowledge always eventually ends up through Gethsemane. And if for those who aren't Christian, um Jesus Christ, his last supper, he fed the twelve apostles. They talked about what was gonna happen, and then after that, he went to a garden called Gethsemane, and there he he took upon himself the sins of the world and suffered, and this the Bible says he bled from every pore, and I think the Bible says there's an angel that appeared and strengthened him, and then he went to the cross, and then he was crucified on the cross. Well, I think the the road to knowledge or the circle of life, eventually that path eventually in each individual path winds up going through Gethsemane. And I think we gain knowledge as we go through Gethsemane, our own personal trials, our own personal experiences. Um, and if you haven't had a guest personal Gethsemane, uh God bless you, but I'm sorry, eventually you probably will. All right. And I'm glad that you haven't yet, because life is good. Life is meant to be good. This is uh Christmas time. You know, um, we sing praises, glory to God, glory to God in the highest. We hear we hear music, we hear all that, and that's what life is supposed to be like. But eventually, somewhere in there, to get to that glory, we have to go through Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_02:That's a great thing. Is that deep? No, I I think we all have to go through that. Um, you know, some people seem to go through these experiences repetitively. It doesn't seem fair, but I think we all at least once or twice in life have those moments that define us, that can define us, and and they do define us, but how they define us depends on how we approach them, how we walk through them, what we learn from them, and whether we see it as an opportunity to grow and learn or crash and burn, you know, for just using a cheesy rhyme. But I those are our options, you know. Can we grow through this? Can we learn through this? What can we learn from this to help us in the future? Or do we just bemoan our fate and and kind of begrudgingly um approach it? Yeah, sometimes we all do, but in the long run, you know, my life changed drastically when going through some experiences that were very challenging, I started to approach the world as like a college university. Like I get to choose my classes, right? And I get to choose my courses. And it it was empowering because I want to learn from this. You know, like Victor Frankel in Man's Search for Meeting, he meaning, he talks about the the greatest thing about it was this man was in this concentration camp, horrid, horrible conditions, awful conditions. And what sustained him through it largely was that he used it almost as an experiment. He used it to find out the resilience of mankind and how they can, you know. For instance, one thing he says is that he never thought he'd be grateful to sleep on a hard piece of cement in the cold with men huddled around him trying to just have the body heat to survive. But in that grueling moment where he had been working, you know, all day and been, you know, humiliated and treated poorly out in the cold, he said at that moment he was so grateful to have a place to lay his head. And he was so grateful that it was crowded and there were other bodies there providing body heat. And so it's this perspective shift, you know what I mean? And sometimes if we don't go through that challenge, if we don't go through that personal hell, Gethsemane, whatever you want to call it, we can't have that perspective change. And so when I go through a challenge or through something or that's struggling, I try and approach it as what can I learn from this? You know, and and it it almost makes it interesting. You know what I mean? It's like, what am I supposed to learn from this and what can I gather from this? And when we approach the world as like it's a university, it becomes, you know, we're studying, we're exploring, and we're constantly learning and improving. And I'm not perfect in that, but it's just been kind of a perspective change that that's helped me through life. Um, I had a Ruby experience. I stepped into a situation where um there was an organization that had kind of a challenging thing happen. They had a shock in leadership. Someone was immediately let go and they didn't have a leader for this particular event that a lot of people had worked hard for. And I stepped into the role, volunteered, you know, to so that they could go ahead and go forward with this thing that they prepped for so long. And there were a lot of people that were resentful over it, you know. I didn't have the degree, I wasn't educated. Who was this person that stepped in, this bystander? And they were people that were kind of in some of my chosen, you know, field of expertise to some degree. And I remember one night, and it may have been the first night or the second night, I was trying to get through the material and go through things, and I was really struggling because I was presented with it like three days ago. Three days in Christmas time, where I didn't have time to review it. I did some, but I was lost and and they were lost and broken, and it was a total mess. And I had people, grown adults, who treated me so poorly. I mean, it was like I was surprised that other people weren't standing up saying, hey, stop abusing this guy. I mean, it was it was it was really bad. Like it was the worst I ever imagined in a public setting and humiliated, berated. It was just, it was really, really bad. And and at that moment, I seriously just stood there. I almost wanted to cry. I did, I wanted to just cry and run out to my car. I knew I couldn't, but I it was that bad, and I didn't know how to respond to it. I was so shocked by the behavior that and the cruelty really of a few people, yeah. And that they would do this so brazenly in front of others. I just was it was like shock. It was literally like you know, I went to a state of shock, and it was challenging. I mean, the next four or five weeks, I worked harder than I ever have in my life on any other project. You know, I would go home and I'd be working on it. My kids had got home from school, I'd kiss them and say, Hey, great, we'll get ready for dinner. And it would be seven o'clock, and I wouldn't have even realized it. I was so engaged in this project and learning and preparing. But what that did for me is, you know, we have an eight-year-old, seven, eight-year-old, and sometimes, you know, he would do things he shouldn't, and the kids would get frustrated with him, and he'd, you know, I would say, oh, he's just pouting again. You know what I mean? Oh, he's pouting. I am so much more compassionate now, having felt that. You know, if his brothers heard his feeling, maybe he's pouting, but what is he feeling? And so I'm just hypersensitive to that. You know, if people are suffering, if they're pouting, if whatever it is, I feel like my compassion grew leaps and bounds because of that experience. I wasn't grateful for it at the time. And it was hard. It was really hard. And I thought I had no idea how I was gonna get through it. I mean, it was like it was rough. But I'm more compassionate now, I'm more aware of people suffering, and I am more in tune like you to make sure I don't ever do that to Ruby again. You know what I mean? Do I mess up? Yes. Am I an idiot, man? Yeah. But I feel like that experience helped me to grow, helped me to be better with the ones that I love and even those that I tolerate.
SPEAKER_01:That's an amazing. And I think that's what I think that's the plan of the circle of life, and the purpose of the circle of life is is to have that um vision and how to overcome and be be compassionate, right? So we have people in the community that are experiencing trials. I think I remember hearing once that if you treat everyone like they're going through something real crisis, that 50% of the time you're
unknown:Correct.
SPEAKER_02:I think it was even higher than that. I think it was eight out of ten times he said, or something like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Eight out of ten times today, I think.
SPEAKER_01:How how how does a community, how do we how do we focus this on a community level? And or uh where does it start? How do we begin?
SPEAKER_02:Well, um I wasn't going fast enough for a guy with a trailer and a big truck the other day coming home. And he was very compassionate and kind because he just told, you know, he honked at me and he was frustrated, I know, but on the way by, he told me I was number one. And he gave me a sign and even said, You're number one, brother. So I waved back and smiled, you know. I didn't get mad and angry. He was telling me he was a number one. It's it's how he approached things. You know, it's it's like, what is that person going through at the time? You know, if someone is constantly abusive, abrasive, you're gonna have to get away from that person. You know, you can't be a good person if you're exposing yourselves to berating and abuse constantly. But if someone messes up sometimes, you know, they had a bad day, they were mean on the phone, they were something, ask ourselves what were they going through? You know, what's going on with them? And and and you know, pray for them. You know what I mean? We've all been like that. How many of times have we been short-tempered or done something with someone and then not meant to? We feel horrible about it, but but I think it's giving grace. I think that's what it is, and and giving grace to yourself. If you're not giving grace to yourself, it's hard to give grace to others, right?
SPEAKER_01:I agree. I agree.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that's what Christmas is about. You know, we talk about being gentler, being more kind, being more generous, and and I think just really doing the things that will help us capture that spirit of Christmas, take it with us. You know, how do we capture that greater kindness, that greater Christian love and brotherhood, and how do we take that with us through the year when things get stressful, when times get hard?
SPEAKER_01:Do you ever see a movie called Ladyhawk with um Matthew Broderick? No, it's like clear back in the 80s or 90s. Matthew Broderick is playing some peasant in the mid-century level, like medieval century. And um, he's always talking to God. You said pray for them, right? And how many people out there have never said a prayer, right? But as I watch this movie, all Matthew Broderick did was talk to God, like, Lord, I'm trying my best, I'm doing my best, I don't know what else to do, that kind of thing. That's actually a prayer. And when we say pray for people, people don't know how to really do it. I am a house painter and I paint in bedrooms, inside, you know, you know, anything inside bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, whatever. Or if I'm painting outside, I'm I'm walking around the house or the building and doing things. Um, I often find myself talking to God just like he's right with me as he's walking with me. Like, God, I don't know what I don't know how to do this, or God, I'm thinking about Sheldon today, or I'm thinking about Ruby today. Can you just please bless him? Does that count as praying?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Just talking to God? Does that count as a prayer?
SPEAKER_02:I tell you what, I think it counts more of a prayer than folding our arms and saying something rote that everybody else says the same way. Okay. I really do, I truly do. Because if God is our father, does he want us to talk to him like, you know, like would you want your kids to talk to you like that, or do you want him to open up and be real? That's my opinion. I don't know if it's right. I think it's right because my opinions usually are. Anyway, let's take that love and spread it, friends. Merry Christmas, happy new year. Let's be a little bit better, let's be a little bit kinder, and uh, we're all in this boat together. So let's keep her sailing. Merry Christmas, guys. Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:You have been listening to Life Note 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 view,