By: Steven Andrew Schultz

Almost all pleasure and almost all pain in your life comes from the people in your life. Your biggest disappointments will come from expecting other people to give you the same love you give them. That’s tantamount to expecting everyone to be able to lift as much weight as you when you have bigger muscles. It’s just not possible.

Picture this! You’re in the gym lifting weights and your partner can’t lift as much weight as you can. Would you blame yourself because they aren’t as strong as you are? Would you be angry with them or hurt by them because they can’t lift as much as you can? Of course not! But isn’t that exactly what we do when someone doesn’t lift us up in love the way we carried and elevated them? When we feel the love we give is unrequited and our generosity not reciprocated, we wonder what is wrong with us and why aren’t I worthy? We wallow in not being enough.

My friend Mitch, who is a professional personal trainer and quite buff and substantially stronger than me, invited me over to lift weights with him and I felt inadequate and kept apologizing because he kept having to remove weights to a level I could lift and then add more weight when it was his turn, and he said to me, “I can’t be mad at someone who isn’t as strong as me. It’s not your fault.”

Right there and then, in that garage of his, I had an epiphany about the physical pain the weight room causes and how it relates to the emotional pain when someone isn’t as strong as you and can’t give you the love you deserve and need.

Someone’s ability or inability to love you has nothing to do with you, but is tied to their ability or inability to love.

Just as someone’s ability to lift a certain amount of weight in the gym has nothing to do with how strong you are, but how strong they are.

When you lift weights, what happens to your muscles? The tear and rip. But if you put the right protean in your body, your muscles grow back bigger. The process repeats! To get strong, you will have to consistently push, pull, press, curl, and lift weight that is a struggle and will leave you feeling sore…but in time, stronger than you were before.

Just like in the weight room where you need to increase reps and weights to keep increasing your strength, you will have to lift “heavy people” repeatedly to grow your heart muscle. And by “heavy” people I don’t mean obese, but those who don’t love you back or are unkind, rude, selfish, mean, inconsiderate, annoying, unfriendly, dastardly in every way. People who tear you down are like the weights that tear your muscles. Showing them love anyway is the protein that makes your heart grow back bigger.  The mean people who rip you leave your love muscles looking ripped.

If you can bench press 200 pounds but your partner can only bench press 100, you wouldn’t leave your plates on the bar and expect them to just be able to lift it, that would be impossible and dangerous. Nor would you feel there was something wrong with you because they are weaker than you are. One can only lift what they’ve trained their muscles to lift…and one can only love the weight they’ve trained themselves to love.

No matter how much you love that person, no matter what you give, there is no way they will be able to quickly increase their ability to love you. Just as, no matter what my friend Mitch did, he could inject me with steroids and pre-workout and give me motivational speeches belonging in movies, I am not going to be able to move as much weight as him. Not today, not in a week, not even a month. It takes a long time to gain emotional and spiritual muscle too.

So, the next time someone lets you down or hurts you by failing to show you the love you showed, remember what my friend Mitch said, “I can’t be mad at someone who isn’t as strong as me. It’s not your fault!” Just like the weight room analogy, their weakness isn’t your wrongness. There is nothing wrong with you, they just don’t have the capacity to love you the way you deserve yet…and, maybe, they never will.

Look at it this way: many of my female students used carry those huge gallon-sized Stanley cups. One day a student came to me crying telling a story of how much she gives to her boyfriend and how he doesn’t give as much in return. I told her that her heart is like her huge water bottle and her boyfriend’s is like this mini water bottle. I told her she could pour a little of her water into his bottle and fill him up completely, but he could pour his entire container into her and her giant Stanley water bottle would still feel empty. I did a demonstration on love capacity. Someone may be giving you all they have but if you have a giant heart, their love can’t quinch your thirst, but leaves you parched.

The stronger you are in the gym, the more people you can spot. Like having a giant water bottle, however, the stronger you get the fewer people can spot you. Which makes growing large love muscles means you have the strength to lift people with ease, but almost everyone you meet will never be able to fill you up and make you feel loved. The most loving people are often the most lonely. They spot everyone else, but have no one to spot them, so they have to lift alone, which makes their pursuit of gains even more a selfless act of love.

If you want to start healing, you must start kneeling and washing the feet of the offenders who failed to give you to boost of love you granted them. By replacing your anger for what they are with compassion for what they aren’t able to be, you become more loving.

Here’s how:

If you are lifting weights with a friend who isn’t as strong as you are, you would remove some of your plates before it was their time for reps, and you being the stronger individual, would probably spot them and help them as they lift.

Just because you can spot them doesn’t mean they will be able to effectively spot you because you are stronger than them. Their weight is easy for you while your weight may be undoable for them.

They may continue to get stronger and eventually lift more weight over time, but it will take months of daily discipline and intentional practice for that person to make a significant increase in the amount of weight they can lift.   The same is true with lifting love. A parent, friend, boyfriend or girlfriend, sibling, coworker, or anyone in your life whose lack of love has hurt you, will take a long time before they can increase their strength to show you the love you want. And many never will. There are millions of people with gym memberships who never go to the gym. Just as there will be people who will always treat you badly no matter how good you are to them. But for all those jealous of the shadow your light casts, there will be more who will want to know how they can get fit too because they witness your strength.

My friend Pepe, pictured above, isn’t just physical fit, but spiritually. Every time I see him or speak to him he tells me he loves me. Men need to make saying “I LOVE YOU” common speech.

Just like fitness influencers on social media get people in the comment section trying to bring them down, there are others in the DM’s asking them for their routines and meal plans and wanting to be trained by them. Most people only read the negative comments but aren’t privy to the DM’s thanking you for sharing your light.

Just like the fitness influencers inspire others to get in better shape, you modeling love will elevate others to be more loving. You having bigger love muscles will inspire others to want to increase how much love they can lift too. Love given is always a double tap impact. When you add more love to someone, they are able to love someone else more. That’s your impact too. The love compounds and becomes abound and more people get healed. Becoming strong in loving will make the weak jealous of your spiritual fitness. 

Like I mentioned, on every fitness influencers post on Instagram are an amalgamation of two types of comments, what I call the Knock Downs and the Kneel Downs. Those trying to knock down probably make some comment about steroids or put a shirt on. You have to learn to love the haters too by keeping your focus on all those in your DMs who give thanks to you and who are getting stronger in love because of you, increasing all those double tap impacts.

To lift a lot of love, you must respond with love to both the Knock Downs are the Kneel Downs. You can’t hate someone into loving, but you can love someone out of hating. Love doesn’t always work but love is the only thing that does. The guys posting the shirtless photos will remind the mean people how they don’t look and will remake the loving people how they want to look. Invoking inspiration also brings mockery.

Today I posted a poem I wrote on my Facebook about how much I’m going to miss my students when they graduate. A woman I’ve never met commented how she was a loyal fan reading the magazine column I used to write for eleven years and how much my words inspired her, and she hopes her son gets in my class next year. Those same articles she thanked me for, some used to mock me for…including some of my coworkers. But them attacking me has nothing to do with me, but a lack of love inside themselves.

Someone can’t give you a hundred dollars if they only have a twenty-dollar bill. It’s not their fault. My former student Peter reminded me that when building your body, rest is one of the most important aspects. Peter said he trains a different muscle every day. If you keep working out the same muscle every day, you’re not going to get big, and you might actually hurt yourself. You need to rest for those muscles to grow back bigger. The same is true for lifting the difficult people in your life, lift a different person each day. Stop giving your attention to the same person day after day, give them love and then let them rest so you can focus on loving all the rest of the people in your life.

You might spend an hour of your day in the gym and then you’re done. Be done with the difficult people and love them from afar.

Loving people who are loving, nice, and kind, is easy, it’s like only ever benching the bar. Nothing easy makes you better. The only way to increase your strength in the gym is more weight and more reps and putting the right protein in your body. The only way to increase your strength to love, is loving more mean people, more often. Just like the literal weights rip up your muscles, learning patience from impatient people, learning kindness from unkind people, learning listening from the loud, learning generosity from the greedy, learning forgiveness from the revenge seekers, learning truth from liars, is like adding more weight and God being your spotter shouting: come on, two more reps!!! You said you wanted to be strong…you said you wanted to lift the amount of love I can, so let me send you a bunch of unloving people so you can lift them up in love.

Far too often, we see a physically fit person and tell them we want our bodies to look like theirs until we see the workouts they do and the foods they don’t eat. Far too often we say we want to be a love like God loves until we realize that means loving the unloving person. Like the weights, their job is to rip your heart so it can grow back bigger. The cross around your neck can’t be mere decoration, but moral direction.

The only way to love God is to love like God and God had the biggest love muscles you’ll ever see. Talk to anyone with muscles and they will tell you a major part of that is not just the pump out, but the poisonous food they no longer put in.

You want to lift more love, you must stop putting in the excuses of why it’s okay not to love someone. All that “junk food” of they did this to me or that to them or they are mean or nasty or whatever derogatory term, because being spiritually fit requires you to love at first sight regardless of what you see and to love even more even after someone fails to love thee.

If you want to becoming spiritually fit, the best kind of workout is learning how to lift up the people who let you down. Only those who feel lower than you want to lower you. Only those who don’t feel good about themselves want you to feel bad about being yourself.  They who wish to bring you down are the unloving people God has blessed you with to lift up…and some will become more loving because of you, and some will hate you no matter what you do. Giving love doesn’t always improve the receiver but love always elevates the giver.

You cannot control how someone treats you, but you can ensure they don’t control how you treat them. Being kind to cruel people might not make them kind but will prevent them from making you cruel. Don’t let those who don’t love you keep you from experiencing the love of those that do. And someone not loving you is not an excuse to not love them.

Love isn’t about where it’s going but where it’s coming from.

We have a sick society. Most people are overweight and spiritually deficient. But you can change that one rep at a time. If you want to see God’s love from someone you have to be someone that shows God’s love to everyone. Which means loving those who don’t love you. Love isn’t about where it’s going but where it’s coming from. Unlike a bank account where the more money you take out the less you have, in a love account, the more love you give away today, the more love you can give tomorrow. Increasing the weight increases the strength and increasing the giving increases the ability to give.

Too many people are speaking about Jesus but not talking like Jesus. You cannot change someone by only talking about your love for Jesus, you must also show them the love Jesus talked about.

Look at top-shelf comedian Matt Rife. His career mimics his physical transformation. When he was in high school, he was bullied for being skinny. He started lifting weights and doing kickboxing and watching what he eats and now has sculpted a Greek god looking physique. Ironically, he is now mocked for being too good looking, as most people in his profession aren’t. The very activity he did to escape the ridicule just brought him ridicule. And yet, Matt doesn’t allow unloving people to make him and unloving person.

Matt is still nice and kind to them all, not because of who they are, but because of who he is…and his Papa would be proud of how much love he lifts. Matt and I suffer from extreme insomnia. I might get 1-3 hours a night and many nights none. I’ve gone a whole week with zero sleep. Doctors have told me they have no idea how I’m alive or even functioning, let alone get up on stage in front of a live audience every day teaching with enthusiasm.

I think my answer is the same for Matt: love lifts us because we can lift a lot of love.

Often, people need to see someone else do it first to know they can do it too.
Just as in the gym it will take months before you notice any changes in your body, it will take months before you notice the changes in your soul, but once you do, you will want more of it…and knowing the more love muscles you gain, the more love you’ll have to give and the less love you will feel in return…but the ROI is knowing for every troll commenting about roids, there is a beautiful soul searching for something greater, and only after seeing your example, did they believe they could be beautiful too.

My neighbor, Blake Trgo, in the above photo was so loving to me and made me feel welcomed into the neighbor. Blake was what Mister Rogers teaches us to be. He didn’t even know me when I moved in, but showed me love. You don’t have to know anything about someone to love them, you just have to know you are someone who loves. When you encounter those “heavy people” who are hard to lift, shift your thought from: “Oh my God!” to “Oh my, God!” Rather than exacerbation, celebration, because you see God in the difficult and He’s spotting you and this “heavy person” is also God building your heart muscle.

From: “Oh my God!” (Dread) to “Oh my, God!” (Delight). That one little comma changes the entire emotional meaning of those same three words just like changing one little thought changes what we experience. The comma makes us pause and can now give applause to the place where pain used to reside. If God still loves you when you behave wrongly, then God gives you people who wrong you so you can learn to love them like God loves you. The unloving person is there for you to lift up so you can be a more loving person. Strength is not about how loved you are but how loving you are.

My friend Finn Bradshaw added, “Just like the gym, personal trainers are sometimes needed to guide you and help you make incremental progress. Working out how to love someone and practice patience is hard work. Never be afraid to ask for help.”

Here is what lifting love weights feels like: Think of someone who has wounded you. When thoughts of anger or revenge come up, recognize them and then replace them with forgiveness and compassion. The power to heal yourself is already inside of you. The best thing you can ever do for spiritual development (lifting love weights) is to think of the worst things that have happened to you and then privately send love to the people who did it. Replace anger for what they did with compassion for the strength they lacked to do better.

When you hold onto hurt, you hurt. When you let it go, you are set free. It’s like those bamboo Chinese finger traps, the more you resist and try to move away from the other finger, the more you’re trapped to them. Only by pushing your finger towards the other person do you escape the trap and free yourself of them. Anytime someone says “F-You!” and you respond with “Bless you!” and mean it, you’ve found the deepest meaning of life: letting Love lead it.

So, get in the gym, let your muscles be ripped, for that’s how you get ripped. Heavier weights shred your fat and leave you looking shredded. Heavier people (harder to love) leave you proving that it’s possible for man to love like God by lowering himself to the bottom of the teeter-totter, elevating up the heaviest of people so they get a closer view of what Heaven looks like…doing so is the greatest strength of all.

Steven Andrew Schultz

Steven Andrew Schultz is a nationally published author with his stories published in over 12 books and multiple national magazines and local newspapers. He also wrote a monthly magazine column for eleven years in Fountain Valley Living Magazine. He has twice been elected to the School Board of FVSD and is a teacher at FVHS.

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By: Steven Andrew Schultz

I’ve been avoiding writing this. Since she died, this is the one thing we still had left to do together, and it’s as if once I finish writing her tribute, that final period is it, we won’t have anything left to do together.

Yesterday, February 6hth, 2026, our song came on the radio, “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis. I did not realize until later, this was the day before she died. Taryn would insist we roll down the windows for that song, and she would belt out those tunes to her heart’s desire, and when that chorus hit, she got the shy guy next to her to join in, too. And I never sing, but Taryn was that friend that was so free of judgement, she could transform “nevers” into now!

I turned to glance at my empty passenger seat, and pictured her there, hair flowing in the wind, and I rolled the windows down, hoping it would be a heavenly invitation and somehow, she could make a surprise appearance like when the moon is visible during the day.

A few flicks of my left thumb on the button on my steering wheel to increase the volume, so she could hear her song. “Closed off from love, I didn’t need the pain, Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain.”

It was the first time I actually paid attention to the lyrics of the song. Before it was just a catchy vibe that my friend would blast the volume to and so singing together, we had a blast! It was pure unadulterated bliss. But now, I started to listen to the words of that song my friend got so excited about:

“Time starts to pass, before you know it, you’re frozen, ooh.

But something happened for the very first time with you,

My heart melts into the ground, found something true,

And everyone’s looking ‘round, thinking I’m going crazy, oh.

But I don’t care what they say, I’m in love with you.”

Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_weSk0BonM&list=RD7_weSk0BonM&start_radio=1

As I started singing the song, I realized it was the first time I had to sing it solo. And it was the first time I wondered if those lyrics she would sing as she looked directly at me many years ago and danced around the car and shook her head and her hair flung around in the wind like a wild horse free on the beaches of an uninhabited ocean, I wondered if those words song by Leona Lewis were actually Taryn trying to tell me something?

In my early-twenty-something-year-old naivete, was I missing out on a message? Being on the autism spectrum, I don’t pick up on social cues or subtleties, I need loud, direct, clearly stated, neon sign, billboard messages. But women rarely speak like that; women speak in Morse code that many men can’t translate.

Only at her funeral did I understand that Taryn really loved me. Autism means to live internally, but Taryn would show a love that allows you to live eternally. In our early and mid-twenties, Taryn and I were close friends. I was living with her best friend Katie Trott, and Taryn gave me the nickname of ‘Roommate” and although Taryn was not on our lease, she practically lived with us. Like the show Friends, which was her favorite, she was always over, and her son would play with Katie’s son, and I would play make-believe games with both of them, and I would later learn that my ability to play in a make-believe world and entertain their sons, made them both enamored by me.

I was in Neverland and Taryn and Katie were my pixie dust, and together we made Happy Thoughts every day that I thought would last forever. But life is not Neverland, and people grow up. Soon Taryn and Katie would get married, and Taryn moved away and our relationship went from one of close proximity to digitally, kept alive through social media and text messages. Taryn meant so much to me, but I didn’t fathom that I mattered to her too.

Most people in my life wanted something from me, but no one seem to want me, except for Taryn. She was genuine gold in a gift shop full of counterfeit gems. At her funeral, I understood I was more to her than a memory of her youth, as person after person came up to me and said with excitement, “Oh, you’re roommate. Taryn spoke so highly of you.” Each time stunned me, as I did not know she spoke about me to her friends. I erroneously thought she saw me as a vintage jersey that someone takes out of the attic time-to-time to remind them of time gone by, but Taryn was still wearing me like her favorite jacket. I wasn’t a relic; I was still present in her life.

The Speech I gave at her funeral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHJonoOFtGU&t=4s

Even after death, her love was still making me feel loved. That is what she was so brilliant at: making others feel loved. And now it’s almost a year to the day she died, and I was riding in my car singing our song and understanding it through her lens for the first time and was reminded that love is the only source that defeats time. Like doesn’t last but Love never expires.

Taryn’s love is like a jar of honey; it never goes bad and everything you add it to tastes better because of it. I keep one of those teddy bear shaped honey jars on a shelf in my classroom, to remind me of her and to inspire me to give all my love away each day, with no thought of anything in return, but love is a gift that always appreciates over time. Through love you live forever. The dead body is not our remains; the love we gave away in life is what remains.

So, there in my car, as the chorus hit, I heard her. She was singing with me because she never stopped singing with me. Cancer took Taryn Audrey’s physical proximity away but transformed her into an eternal intimacy that stays, that sings!

Can you hear her? The chorus of our song goes:

                  “Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love

                  I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love

                  Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love

                  Oh, you cut me open and I

                  Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love.”

To keep bleeding means you might be losing life, but to keep loving means you never fully die. Taryn Audrey is this song for she was cut open many times, and she chose to keep bleeding love. She didn’t bleed revenge, or cruelty, or meanness, or lose her faith in Jesus, she kept bleeding love. When she was betrayed by the person she loved the most and he left her, that really cut her open, but Taryn never became “closed off from love because of the pain” she kept bleeding love and found a boyfriend even while battling cancer.

When she was given terminal cancer and had to go to hospital visit after hospital visit, knowing she wouldn’t get to see her three babies fully grow, that cut her, but she kept bleeding love. Even towards the end, as I was angry with God for what was happening to her and so many others in suffering, she kept praising Jesus…Taryn kept bleeding love.

In fact, the last thing Taryn ever sent me, a day or two before she died, was a literal heart emoji…as she was fighting to breathe, she kept bleeding love.

I only wish I visited more. I didn’t want to take time away from her and her children and family and friends for some old friend, but at her funeral I found out she never stopped bleeding love for me either.

Towards the end, I asked her if I could interview her and put her answers in a tribute article I would write for her. As she always did, Taryn sent me compliments of how much she liked my writing and how she would love to be one of my articles. I sent her the first batch of questions with a in-person interview to follow. She emailed me back her answers, but cancer never gave us the opportunity for the in-person interview.

I will cherish that my final words to my friend was: “Sending you love. Praying. What can I do?” And my friend’s final gift sent to me was her heart, both as an emoji and from all the people at her funeral who let me know her love for me was not something from the past, but very much still present.

Love is never a period but an ellipsis, meaning with death there is pause, but something more is to come…Her love and God’s love is always present, and her death cut me open, but I keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love…

Here are the words of Taryn Audrey:

What is my message to the world?

Take risks. Laugh. Forgive. Be kind.

What is my message to my kids?

“Be strong in the Lord and never give up hope. You’re going to do great things, I already know. God’s got his hand on you so don’t live life in fear. Forgive and forget, but don’t forget why you’re here. Take your time and pray.” -Sidewalk Prophets

What have been some of the most important lessons I’ve learned?

The only things that matters in this life on Earth are love and the relationships I have. It’s that simple. Distractions and deception have consumed us.

What do I wish I knew when I was younger?

I wish I understood then how much the decisions I made when I was younger would affect me later in life – the easy, hard, good and not-so-good decisions. Every thing in my life – relationships, work, hobbies, etc. – is tied to a decision I made at some point.

Personal message to Steve?

I believe you are doing the Lord’s work. His will for your life is apparent to anyone who’s known you for 5 minutes or 5 years – spreading love and kindness. You have and will continue to make a difference in many, many lives. Your influence is priceless. The genuine intention, loyalty and meaningfulness within you can’t be missed.

Who would I want to spend my last day alive with and what would we do?

What are some of my favorite memories with Steve?

Random drives around town, going to the movies, late night game nights, our laughing fits and inside jokes.

How has the divorce, becoming a single parent of 3 kids then being diagnosed with a rare cancer impacted my faith in God?

At first, I grew distant from the Lord and fell away from my faith. I didn’t understand why my then-husband wanted out. I had no idea how I was going to care for a home, work full-time and care for 3 kids and 2 dogs alone. I couldn’t believe I was diagnosed with cancer. It all happened within 7 months and it was a whirlwind. I didn’t know up from down. The kids and I didn’t have enough time to properly grieve the loss of our family before the diagnosis was given. We were thrown back into a storm while still trying catch our breath from the last one. But, in the darkest of times I found God again. He showed up in big and small ways. My feelings of loneliness, confusion and anger miraculously turned into comfort, clarity and an inexplicable sense of peace. Over time, my relationship with God has grown deeper. The last year and a half has completely changed who I am as a person…ask anyone who knows me well.

Steven Andrew Schultz

Steven Andrew Schultz is a nationally published author with his stories published in over 12 books and multiple national magazines and local newspapers. He also wrote a monthly magazine column for eleven years in Fountain Valley Living Magazine. He has twice been elected to the School Board of FVSD and is a teacher at FVHS.

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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.