By: Steven Andrew Schultz

Ever since I could remember, I have always wanted to fly. Not airplane flying but stretch out your arm and just take off type of flying. It was 1995/1996 and the first Toy Story movie has been released by Pixar. Woody was my little brother’s favorite, he even dressed up as Woody for Halloween, but Buzz was my guy. I wanted to reach infinity and beyond, too. Before any toys of the movie hit toy store shelves, they arrived in kids meals at Burger King and so I had to go to get Buzz. His wings popped out just like the movie.

My dad took my brother Stuart and I to dinner so I could try to get my Buzz Lightyear action figure with real pop out wings action. My brother was hoping to get Woody. Well, as fate would have it, my kids’ meal came with the freaking slinky dog toy and my brother did not get Woody either. My brother got Buzz! I thought he would give him to me because he knew I wanted Buzz the most, but he refused. I offered to give him my fries in exchange and he turned it down. I upped the ante and offered him my milkshake as well, but he still denied me. Now Stuart was a savvy businessman since our first deal we ever made and brothers make a lot of deals. He was such a business shark that we would literally create written contracts so he could not renegotiate deals anymore. I knew I would have to make an offer he couldn’t refuse. I went big and offered him my whole life savings of $5, which was more than that whole kids meal cost. I thought for sure Buzz would be mine. But this guy didn’t budge and I was not happy.

Now little brothers can be annoying, but later that night, my little brother would test my patience. We shared bunk beds. Stuart occupied the top and I had the bottom bunk. Right before we turned off the lights to go to bed, he put his little arm down the top bunk and taunted the Buzz Lightyear toy by waving it in my face and then pressed the button and popped open the wings and before I could grab it, he pulled Buzz back up. I couldn’t believe he was actually sleeping with the thing. This taunting continued for the next couple nights where Stuart would wave Buzz in my face from the top bunk and pop his wings open and then pull him back up until a few nights later when that bird I told you about earlier decided to hatch inside my stomach.

I woke up in agony and I must have looked in such dire straits because my dad took me to the emergency room. I could barely stand. What made matters worse is that my mom was out of town in Colorado taking care of her sister who was literally on her deathbed after many years being ravaged by a disease called Lupus. My last memory before surgery was right before they wheeled me into the operating room they handed me the phone and it was my mom and she was crying. I don’t remember much of what she said except for something about don’t die and I didn’t even know I could die from surgery so I was freaked, but my first memory after waking up from surgery was now being in a hospital room and there were two chairs in the corner of the room next to the door. Sitting in one chair was my little brother Stuart, and to my dismay, sitting in the other chair was my mother. I guess she got on a flight that morning and flew from Colorado back to California and I would find out later, that midflight her baby sister, who I knew as Aunt Audrey, had died. It made me wonder when I heard my mom’s voice over the phone say don’t die that maybe she was really talking to her baby sister and not me.

I was still pretty drowsy from the medicine that knocks you out for surgery and soon noticed every movement hurt. Unlike the less invasive method used today to remove your appendix, back then they cut open your stomach, so recovery was longer and pain more severe. I would spend the next few days in the hospital measuring success based on how far down the hallways I could walk with my walker attached to the IV. But none of that would really bother me because of what my brother did for me.

While my first memory after waking up from surgery was the sight of my brother and mother, it was my second memory that has literally and figuratively stayed with me ever since. After they realized I was awake, my brother got out of his chair, walked over to my hospital bed, and without saying a word, opened up my clenched hand, reached into his pocket, pulled out Buzz Lightyear and put Buzz in my palm and with his little six-year-old hand, closed my ten-year-old hand around Buzz. Doing so accidently pressed Buzz’s wing button and the wings popped open inside our joined hands. That sound of Buzz’s wings popping open was once the noise of brotherly annoyance but was now the sound of the bonds of brotherhood.  

My brother was too little to have the words to speak what he was feeling, but he knew his big brother was in trouble and hurting. Little brothers look up while big brothers lead up. But on that day, my little brother gave me my wings and showed me how to lead up. Through his actions he let me know what all great leaders express to their people: you’re not alone, you’re going to be okay, you matter to me, I see you, I value you, I got you, and most of all, I love you.

Over a quarter century later and that Buzz Lightyear toy from the Burger King kids meal still sits on my desk and the wings still pop open and make that beautiful sound. Every day I look at it and think of when one of the first major painful emergencies of my life knocked me down, the love of my little brother led me up by giving me my wings and I ask myself every day: who can I give wings to today?

Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

The post To Infinity and Beyond! appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.

Flip Up Your Light Switch

By: Steven Andrew Schultz

She said something that totally changed me. She said it so nonchalantly too. But when she spoke, I
had one of those truly “lightbulb” moments where I knew my life would never be the same. My next-
door neighbor, Mary Luther (who was like another mother to me) said, “Well, I guess I no longer need
to flip up the switch anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I inquired. Mary told me the story of how one time she left her side backyard
light on all night by accident and how the next day when I came over to play with her toys, (I was
maybe three years old) my little toddler self apparently told her I had a really bad nightmare and woke
up scared, but this time I did not run to my parents room and wake them up because I saw a light
shining through my window. It was light from Mary’s house.

Mary said I told her that seeing her light made me feel safe and not scared of the “bad guys” or
“monsters” and because of her light I stayed in my bed and was able to fall back asleep in my own
room without waking up my parents. Mary then told me ever since then she made it part of her nightly
routine before she locked up and went to bed, to walk to her garage and flip up the switch to her
backyard light so I would feel safe and loved and know I was never alone. She had done it for so
many years she just kept doing it without thinking about it even though I was a teenager. Giving away
her light became part of her routine.

I was eighteen years old, about to begin college, outside talking to my neighbor Mary like I had done
almost every day since I could walk, and I had just told her I was moving out of the room I had lived in
my entire life. The bedroom whose window looked directly into Mary’s backyard where this little
uncovered lightbulb above the side door leading to her garage shined like the sun. And now she was
realizing she didn’t need to be my nightlight anymore, and I was realizing, for the first time, the impact
of unrealized leadership had on forming who I’d be.

It was one of the most moving stories I had ever heard. I knew, for some reason, I always felt safer
seeing her light each night; but of course, I didn’t know all these years she was keeping her light on to
serve me. Like most leadership impact, I didn’t even realize something was being done for me, to
benefit me, being done on purpose by someone for no other purpose than to give me peace. By
elevating the light switch to the on position, she elevated me to be a better person. And I don’t even
know if Mary ever quantified it that deeply, other than she was doing something kind for a little boy
and kept at it out of habit, but the gesture moved me greatly. Being an eighteen-year-old, although
touched, I still lacked the life capacity to fully inhale the magnitude of the love shown from one
neighbor to another. As I look back now, my heart weeps with gratitude. The child inside me wants to
wrap her up in an endless hug.

Mary’s love was deliberate, was daily, and developed me to feel more loved, to give more love, to be
Love, more. There are two kinds of leadership: 1. The light you shine by accident. 2. The light we turn
on, on purpose, in pursuit of life’s highest purpose: service to our neighbors.
Mary’s backyard light beamed right into my bedroom window from age three to eighteen, but at the
age of thirty-six as I write these words, I can still see her light; I still feel her love. That light that Mary
gave could not be seen from inside her house but shined into mine. Mary gained nothing from it and
had to pay to provide it. But her light reached a scared little boy, and now that boy has devoted his life
to giving his light away to as many people as possible before my bulb goes out. Because she did it
first, I now flip up my switch to elevate others. That’s leadership and there is no Amazon Prime in
leadership. You might have to wait decades to be delivered the news that you elevated someone.
Often, because they didn’t even realize it themselves until they gained the life capacity to
comprehend the service shown.

Monsters aren’t just things little children battle. Remember, every person you meet is just a child in a
bigger body. Think of all the unseen scars and inner battles so many adults face and most of them
don’t have their parents to run to anymore, nor nightlights by their bedside, either. Just imagine how
many lives can be saved and healed if more people loved like Mary and flipped up a light switch they
will never personally benefit from, but knowing in doing so, someone else will be able to get through
their darkness.

Every light switch I’ve ever seen has always worked in the same way: flip up for light and pull down
for dark. Up is light, down is dark. Up is on, down is off. Up gives, down hoards. It’s true with our
thoughts, words, and actions too. Up is light, down is dark. Will you be an elevator or a deflator?
When it comes to leadership, don’t focus on the title you have in your organization, but the position
you put your switch. Is yours down or up? Lead up and love will light the way home.  The love you
give to a child does not leave them, even after you do.

Mary keeping her light on for me reminds me of my favorite message from one of my favorite novels,
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s the first book I read that made me cry. I read it in college, a
couple years after Mary told me the story of why she kept her light on. The novel takes place in an
America where civilization has totally collapsed due to either a nuclear war or environmental
catastrophe. There is no light anywhere, just a constant fog of grey and dirt. Everyone has lost their
morals, and many have even turned to cannibalism. There is a father and young son traveling down a
road trying to get to the ocean in hopes some civilization might still be alive. The boy’s mother killed
herself rather than continue on in the darkness and face the monsters of the night. In a world devoid
of light and love, the father keeps telling his son they are on an important mission of “carrying the fire”
down the road. The father is dying and doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to stay with his
son. He sees his boy as the last resemblance of God. His son is still pure and innocent and only sees
good in people and thus only wishes to do good to people. The father keeps telling his son they are
the “good guys” and his son’s most important mission is to “carry the fire” and give the light of the fire
to other good people when he finds them, so light can spread again in the world. The metaphor of
“carrying the fire” represents the invisible light inside each of us that represents our Godly goodness,
morals, and pure, childlike love.

I have not seen my Mary since my mom sold our house on 10325 Bunting Circle fifteen years ago.
Sometimes I’ll drive by and visit the old street which seems eerily silent now. I don’t know any of the
people who occupy the houses. But in the brief moments I stay there, I look at my old bedroom
window on the side of my old house, visible from the street, and the uncovered lightbulb resting just
above the fence next door. I think about that little boy who was so full of light that he was scared of
the dark, and his loving neighbor who left the light on for him, and my eyes water, my lips stretch to a
smile, and I examine how I’m leading.

My grandma Schultz gave me a poem called Lamplighter. The author is unknown:

“He has taken his bright candle and is gone
Into another room I cannot find.
But anyone can tell where he has been,
By all the little lights he leaves behind.”

I give the fire to you. May you leave the light on for someone else. Flip Your Switch Up!

Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

The post Flip Up Your Light Switch appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.

The 2021 Summer Olympics just ended and the USA Basketball team won another gold medal after a shaky
start, but they didn’t have the same devotion and adulation that Kobe’s Redeem Team had garnered. There
weren’t twenty-year-olds like me setting our alarms to make sure we watched the performance live, but
instead settled for clips on Instagram after-the-fact. Something was missing and it was more than just Kobe
and Coach K, it was the love and devotion they represented. With the Olympic games over, it made me
wonder: What if we celebrated people who love the best like we do who runs the fastest, jumps the highest,
or swims the quickest? What if we idolized those who give the most love instead of those who get the most
money? What if the message we taught our children that being a loving person mattered more than being a
“successful” person? What if before we asked our children about their grades, we asked them how kind they

were today? What if instead of just buying our children private trainers for athletics or private tutors for
academic exams, we also got them personal coaches on how to be a more loving person?
To love first not only requires you to have the audacity and temerity to be the first to speak I love you, it also
requires you to speak and show I love you to those who will never love you back and who don’t like you at
all. To love first means you love those who don’t love you, who don’t like you, and who aren’t even friendly
or nice to you. To love first means you have to love those who are the most difficult and challenging to love.
It’s important to remember, you don’t need to know anything about someone to love them, you only need to
know one thing: who you are. When love is who you are, love is what you give to everyone. And the end of
every day, honestly ask yourself: Would I Gold Medal In The Love I Gave Today?

This concept of getting a Gold Medal in Love first came to me many years back when a student of mine
shared something he wrote in class with the whole class. He mentioned how he felt like a loser because his
track season ended and he never got a first place medal. Even though he was a sophomore on varsity, he felt
like a loser for not getting a gold medal. That night after school I drove to Party City and bought him a big
plastic gold medal with 1 st on it and wrote him a handwritten letter. I wrote to him that the only thing that
really makes him a winner is “Gold Medaling” in Love. I mentioned Mr. Fenny, the fictional teacher from
the television show Boy Meets World and how the final thing Mr. Fenny says to his students on the last
episode is, ‘Do good.” Topanga questioned him, “Don’t you mean do well?” thinking her English teacher
had misspoken as doing well means what you do for yourself. For example, if you win your race you did
well, but if you help a teammate win his race you did good. Doing good is about the love you give to others
while doing well is about the accolades you accumulate for yourself. And so, Mr. Fenny corrected her and
said, “No, do good!” And I wrote to this student that to study these losses and turn them into a future win,
not only for himself, but for his team. His team had won the league championship that year but he was only
wallowing in his own self-pity. I told him to train better but also become a better teammate and one day a
gold medal would come. I told him to look at this gold medal every day and visualize the real one that would
be around his neck with enough time and training. And then I never mentioned it or heard anymore about it
from that student again.

Three years later, the current English teacher of Hunter, the student I gave a gold medal to, who was now a
senior in high school, sent me the essay he wrote about me in her class. The student wrote how he kept my
handwritten letter on his wall and kept that plastic gold medal in his athletic bag and would look at the medal
every day before practice and before each competition. In the final race of his senior year, he won first place
and finally got his real gold medal…but he decided not to keep it. His essay mentioned how there was a
sophomore on his team who had lost his race and was in tears and felt like a loser because he never got first
place. He said he could hear my words echoing inside him and he went up to his teammate and did good, by
placing the gold medal he had just earned around his teammates neck and then took the plastic one I had
given him three years earlier and wore that one for the team photo. He said he became a champion twice that
day, first by winning his medal and then again by giving it away. He wrote that he learned how to love first
because I had dared to first love him all those years ago. He not only did well, he did good, and learned how
to Gold Medal in Love.

With that nightly question of Gold Medaling in Love, I wanted to create a symbol that would serve as a
visual reminder for my students to feel more loved and to be more loving.  I had a former player tell me
once, “If love was money you’d be rich because you understand love so much.” I thought about making
money with the messaging of love on it but then I remembered the time my former student gave away the
gold medal and kept the one I gave him, and eureka: I knew I wanted to give all my students a real gold
medal with the phrase LOVE 1 st  on it.
I started out by hand-drawing (I don’t have drawing skills) the design I wanted. I wanted my life logo of the
Teeter-Totter Leader on top where there red, white, and blue ribbon would go, and a fluted bezel around the
edge of the medal like my favorite Rolex watch design, and then a big LOVE 1 st  and some other words of

mine. From this point on, I, on my own, possess no other skills to turn this thought in my head of real gold
medals into an actual thing in my hand. This is where leadership comes in.
 
When you know how to lead you are never limited by your singular skills but have access to every skill of
those you influence. I contacted a former player of mine who I led fifteen years earlier when I was his high
school basketball coach. His name is Alan and he is an amazing graphic designer. I sent him my non-Van
Gogh drawing and he transformed it into a beautiful piece of art free of change because he said of the lasting
impact my leadership has had on him these last fifteen years.
 
I contacted a plethora of trophy companies about creating my custom-made medal and all of them gave me
prices that were astronomical. Then I posted Alan’s design of my Gold Medal and explained a little bit of its
deeper Love 1 st  meaning and how I wanted to make these into real gold medals and gift them to my high
school students but every manufacturer I asked was way too expensive and I asked if anyone knew anyone in
the manufacturing business that could help.
 
Only one person responded…but often, one response is all you need to multiple your talents and build the
product you envision. My one response was from a man named Mitchell who was a former student of mine I
had taught seven years earlier. He said he deals with manufacturing companies on creating all kinds of
products in the business he was in, and he would reach out to people for me. For over a week, he called me
every day and went over all the details and prices multiple different companies he contacted would make the
medals for. We hashed out all the details and I picked the company and finalized the deal. These medals
were still expensive about $1,000, but Mitchell got me a tremendous deal that saved me thousands of dollars
from all the companies I contacted on my own were charging. With leadership, it’s not about what you can
do on your own, but how you can multiple talents by building a network of people who feel loved.

 
Mitchell gave a date and time to Facetime him so he could walk me though the details on how to wire the
money for the medals. I had my $1,000 ready but was not ready for the surprise that was about to happen. It
would become the most memorable Facetime of my life! I gave him a call and we are chatting for a couple
minutes and then suddenly, two more faces appear and now it’s a group Facetime (which I didn’t even know
you could do). The two other faces were familiar. It was Mason and Dylan, two former students I taught ten
years ago who had become business partners. We had all stayed in-touch since they graduated and continued
a relationship (there is no leadership without a relationship) and I was always thrilled to see the
entrepreneurial successes they had become. One of the first people Mason called when he bought his first
house was me. So I knew these two guys well, but I had no idea why they were on this Facetime.
 
Dylan and Mason said, “Mitchell told us about this project he was working on for you and how expensive
these medals were that you were buying for your students and so we are here to surprise you and let you
know we are paying for all of the medals for you.”
 
I was stunned and speechless. All I could muster was, “What! Why?”
 
These three men continued, “We know how you have spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on
your students in bringing the learning to life and you have elevated all three of our lives more than you can
imagine. We still have all the lessons and symbolic gifts you gave us and use your teachings to navigate our
business and our lives, and you have always modeled generosity for us and so we are just doing what you
taught us to do. I know very few people in society give back to teachers and so this is our little way to be like
you and give back to the kids at the school we were once kids at and remind our favorite teacher that the
message of his medal of Love 1 st in alive inside each of us. We love you.”
 
And then each one individually, Mason, Mitchell, and Dylan, all said to me the three most transformational
words in the world and changed my world in the process: “I love you…I love you…I love you.”
 

I just could not believe it. I responded, “Are you sure?”
 
They all had these big smiles. I was waiting for them to yell, “Sike! Just kidding.” But they didn’t waver.
They said, “Schultz, you taught us the most important teaching of all: how to love ourselves fully and how to
love others first. You truly elevated each of our lives and we are being the leaders you taught us to be. We
are loving first! It’s already been paid in full. Mitch just scheduled this Facetime so we could tell you. We
planned this a couple days ago. It’s already been done. We are doing what you taught us and are using these
medals to teach the new teenagers. We are Gold Medaling in Love.”
 
“I can’t thank you enough” I said. “We can’t thank you enough” they said.
 
And then one more time each of them individually said the three magic words to me: “I love you…I love
you…I love you.”
It was the best Facetime I’ve ever had and now these Gold Medals took on a whole new meaning to me as
my Love First medals were truly made with love.
 
None of this could have happened without leadership: mine and theirs. And none of this could have
happened without love: mine and theirs. Together, we will lead up even more people to Gold Medal in
love…that is leadership in its highest form.
As I hung up the phone I looked up to the framed photo that was hung on my wall. It was me being hugged
by Kobe Bryant. I used to tell my players that when you’re a Teeter Totter Leader and you Love 1 st , your
influence will elevate people where they say, “I don’t know you personally, but you made me a better
person.” I didn’t know Kobe personally, but Kobe Bryant made me a better person…a better leader.

Although Kobe is synonymous with basketball, Kobe is bigger than basketball. People love Kobe so much
because he showed us how to love something so much more than we thought was possible. It wasn’t merely
collecting championships and gold medals; it was the pursuit of perpetual personal improvement. Be it in
basketball, business, writing books, or storytelling that wins you an Oscar or just one child’s heart, whatever
you’re doing, love it and you can give more to it and become more because of it. Love is how you turn critics
into crickets like Kobe did when he gave the crowd the hush one finger to the lips signal. Love conquers
fear. Kobe said, “It’s okay to fail because you are going to be loved no matter what. Love gives you the
confidence to go for it in anything in life. Children become paralyzed by their own fear when parents don’t
give them that security blanket of love.” By Loving yourself 1 st you hush the haters and silence self-doubt.
With our Los Al varsity basketball teams we had many hand signals for different plays, but I would always
remind our guys that our most important hand signal is three fingers that represent the three most
transformative words: I LOVE YOU. I would show them the sign language signal for I love you and told
them that “Placing Love first is greater than getting first place.” That it’s bigger than basketball and XOXO
is greater than X’s&O’s. When the game would get close or a player had some doubt on their face, I would
hold up those three fingers of I Love You and help them quell their inner fear thanks to my visual love.
Those three fingers were like Kobe telling all those who doubted USA to be quiet because Kobe loved so
large he didn’t fear outcomes because Love always overcomes. When you Love 1 st , you have already won
whether the shot goes in or not. Kobe missed many shots, but he’s known for the ones he made. I admired
him because he wasn’t afraid to take them and I love him because Kobe put his arm around people like he
did to me and through love, encouraged us to take our shots in life, too. Through Love you live forever.
Impact is how you gain immortality and there is no more lasting impact than elevating others to Gold Medal
in Love. The love you give continues when your life can’t. May you not only do well, but do good, by giving
your medals away. Love 1 st !

Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

The post Gold Medal In LOVE appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.