Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide Hosted by Tony Miantour Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee Join us as our guests share their raw, powerful stories Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears These real-life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that you're never alone We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance and profound understanding of autism and mental health Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time Hi, I'm Tony Miantour Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide Joining us today is Sharon Eubank a renowned humanitarian and director of humanitarian services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints She's a passionate advocate for unity and kindness and has written a book entitled Doing Small Things with Great Love In this book, her mission is clear You do not have to travel to make a difference You can be powerful where you live by understanding local issues and acting with great love We are truly honored to have her share her transformative insights with us here today So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors Thanks for joining us No, I'm happy to come on I've listened to three or four of your shows and it's fun to hear how you really draw out good things out of people Thanks so much, I really appreciate that The story-based work that you're doing that's what people remember You can listen to a podcast, but the next day, people say, what is it about? They only remember the stories and the way Tony made them feel about the issue Well, again, I really appreciate that So let's get into what you do Can you give us a little background on what you do? By day job, I'm the director of humanitarian services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints But a lot of what we do is based on volunteerism A lot of research is starting to show when people volunteer in this very polarized, you know, community where we live right now, it affects their mental health I have some specific examples about people specifically with autism that their autism is actually the benefit They're working in situations They've been given assignments where they actually excel because of their autism It's fun to see that and I think we live in times so much stress There's so much conflict People don't agree politically We're looking for mechanisms to pull things together So that's really what I do for my day job Last year I wrote a book called Doing Small Things with Great Love So it comes from Mother Teresa's quote But it's just encouraging people here at 12 Principles to follow and don't make the mistakes that I've learned over 30 years when you're trying to do the right thing but, you know, it inadvertently do cross a line So that's what I'd love to talk about Okay, I do not have a problem with that whatsoever Before we dive into it Let's get a little bit of a backstory about it People write books about various things Ultimately, something has to create that passion to write it So what was the passion that created you to write this book? I've worked in the humanitarian sector for 30 years I've worked internationally I was the regional director for the Middle East I've seen a lot of difficult kinds of things Most of the time people's hearts are good They want to help They see something on the news They're aware of something in their community and they feel something I want to do something about that I feel passionate But sometimes the things that we do are the wrong things We don't ever ask somebody what they wanted or we collect a bunch of things that we're going to ship over there They're the wrong things at the wrong time And so seeing those inadvertent mistakes or having somebody call me up and say I really want to do this I thought rather than me talking to people one-on-one let me write a book and just tell the stories of what has happened So there's 92 stories in the book and that's my passion My passion is to enable people to where they live be powerful You don't have to go to Peru You don't have to go far away You can be powerful where you live if you know the issues Yeah, that makes a lot of sense Now you've got 92 stories Is that 92 different spots around the world? Mmm... I don't know, maybe 70 I don't know Like several of them are from the United States But yeah, they're from all around the world Okay, so you've got 92 different stories What's the common thread? Needless to say, they're all different But there must be something common that ties them all together The common thread is you are most powerful where you live And you are because you speak the language You understand the culture You're there all the time And so you don't need to figure out You know, I can go somewhere else You have the most power to change things in the place where you live all the time Yeah, that makes so much common sense So if you would Give me something that just stands out to you It stands out because it really reflects what you're talking about I can tell you a story about how I learned this It was after the Southeast Asia Tsunami And I was in Sri Lanka And it was five months after the wave But that wave was so big It was 30 feet high It went two miles in It just caused so much destruction 300,000 people died I was there trying to help people get their businesses back up and going But we stopped at a place where the daily train came across and was on a big track It's this heavy, big metal train But when people heard the alarm about the wave they took little children that would probably get tumbled in the water and they lifted them up into the train They put them in the windows and people accepted them in and they set them down inside But when the wave slammed into the train it tumbled it like five times and everybody in the train died 1500 people Wow You know, people are they're touching my skin They're saying, you know, can you help me? Help me? You're from America, please help me I didn't have anything in my pockets I didn't have anything to give The fact that we're building houses over the rise it doesn't mean anything to them But the guy who was driving me is a guy named Shanta He's got a soccer ball He starts kicking around Kids come around He starts talking to the lady about her bread making and this lady about washing powder and it just dawns on me Shanta is more powerful in this situation He doesn't have a fund He doesn't have a degree but he's here all the time He knows these people They trust him He's the answer to the needs that they have in a lot of ways And so that really got me thinking about what can I do and how can I help other people galvanize to work where they are And the side effect is it helps our mental health All of us you know, I feel a reduction of the stress when we're doing things that are meaningful in our own communities especially when we do it for strangers That's perfect You actually partially answered my next question is how do you see this helping people's mental well-being? There's a lot of really great research coming out of the University of British Columbia in Harvard that says it was specifically about adolescents but it says when you're 11 to 14 if you help somebody who's not a friend or a family member somebody who's a stranger there's something about that that says I'm going above and beyond my family responsibilities and it gives them respect they feel self-respect by doing that And so there's this research that connects doing something good for a stranger helps you develop your own sense of self and confidence And if you're under stress if you have suicidal ideations or other things it's even more critical because it gives you value that pushes against some of those feelings of worthlessness that people feel Yes, that is so true I had a person on my podcast several months ago he was bipolar he tried to commit suicide fortunate for everybody he didn't he tried it just didn't work thank goodness It was a very inspiring story one that was very very real because of the failure to commit suicide it led him to start a foundation now he helps people all over the country with his foundation perfect example is after the hurricane hit North and South Carolina he was right out there helping everybody that needed help So we can see that you're trying to help people you've written this book with all kinds of stories that are inspirational So where do you see this going? What's your vision on how this can help? The back of the book I give 50 prompts for people to just start engaging their community I think people want to but they don't know how to start I'll preview a little app called Just Serve you type in your zip code and up come all the volunteer opportunities it's free anybody can use it So it's just a way of engaging Go visit your mayor Go visit the school Ask him Is there a student who needs some help? Do you need something for me as a community member? I care I live right in this neighborhood What can I do? And get a couple things that you feel excited about and as I said earlier if you feel that you're different because of anxiety or mental health issues or a diagnosis like autism that's actually your superpower that's actually where you can do the most good and I have lots of examples about that It's amazing you use that word superpower I have many that are autistic that have come on this podcast that's how they describe themselves they say that their autism is their superpower Okay, use that word superpower All the time I mean all the time they say autism is their superpower They say that because they actually do look at things differently they're a neurotypical person That's right Many approach the world in a completely different way So with that said what do you feel in your travels? Not only here in the US but around the world and how they can use this book that you've written to help others One of the things that gives me the most joy is to be able to look around in a community or setting and see who's on the fringe who's not being included for whatever reason They're a different tribe They're a different faith They have different politics They're neuro-atypical But what's the reason? And then see if we can't open up and invite them to come in and be part of that If I can create a situation where people who have been on the fringe come in and interact with each other that's a success to me Absolutely When you can do something like that is truly a success for sure Now you mentioned this earlier We're in a strange world People have different opinions on everything politics Whatever the subject might be So can you think of an instance where things really didn't look all that good? Everybody seemed to have different opinions They weren't on the same page but then the light went on and they realized that they were here for the greater good Anything like that come to mind for you? I bet you there's thousands of examples but the one that I'm thinking about is you probably know how Rotary started It was four guys in Chicago They were different faiths different professions and they decided to just meet and talk and then do some kind of service together and they rotated in each other's offices So there was like a tailor I can't remember what their professions were but they rotated that's how they call it Rotary It was just a couple years ago the head of Rotary now His name is John Yuko He was giving a speech in Australia and he said he's talking about service We need to wage peace as aggressively as nations wage war and he's just saying that same thing For all of us we're so different we have different causes that we support in different politics but if we can find something like service that bonds us and we agree on we can be peacemakers and we can wage it as aggressively as other people are waging war That meant something to me Yeah, I definitely agree on that I've had people that I've worked with We've had different thoughts on different things but we was looking at the common good So because of that we were able to make it work What was the one thing? Well, it was in a situation of helping others I think that's exactly what you're bringing up and putting out there is by helping others you put away all your differences and focus on what's most important Now with this book you've written you're looking to create that tsunami of hope of goodwill Have you seen that wave starting to grow where it is touching on people's lives not only here in the US but worldwide? I met a woman from Nampa, Idaho and she was just telling me about when she was young she was she told me that suicide was just a multi-generational scourge in her family and she was already feeling that when she was 11 years old she was isolating, she was cutting and her family thought what are we going to do to help Megan? They got on that app and they started finding service activities and she said every time I didn't want to go I'm telling my mom I'm not doing this, I'm not going but she said once they went and her mom calmed her down and they went and did it she said it was that feeling afterward it was almost like a drug high but it felt so good of having conquered the anxiety and gone to do it and she finally said if I could help other people feel like they were worth something then maybe I was worth something too she said I was so glad I pushed through it because I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't done that otherwise and I think with the rise of social media whatever the issues are that create the levels of stress and anxiety in our current culture if we can fight back against that and we can unlock the goodness in people then we should I just interviewed the millionth user of that Just Serve app and Guy in Oshawa Canada pretty great that there's a million users that are just saying I'm going to regularly commit to doing something it helps me helps my community and everybody benefits Yeah there's nothing better than a win-win scenario so what's your plans where do you see this going? I always ask everyone for their five-year plan because that's what mine was so where do you see yourself five years from now? In my professional life you know working with the app and working with humanitarian projects and things I'd like to see 10 million people regularly using that kind of service app it exists in 17 countries and will continue to expand it more than that I'd like to see people engage in with those 12 principles so that they help in the right way and the very first right way is to ask the people that you're trying to help what is it you really want? Don't let me assume what I should do for you tell me what it is that we could do together and I'll organize whatever I'm going to try to do according to what you asked for and as simple as that thing sounds we violate that over and over again every day and we do we assume and we do things for people what they didn't really want that totally makes sense now you've got 92 stories we mentioned about the common threads can you give us a little insight on some of those things that are uncommon and unique to themselves? Yeah, because they're uncommon and they fit in with these 92 stories even with the differences they do blend together to create the common thread to your stories Well it might be the creativity one of the stories that I tell in the book is about a kid named Dennis Esterman he's from Haiti and he was going to school in Boca Raton, Florida and his family had come as immigrants he integrated pretty well and he became an athlete and so he's a high school student and he notices there's a lot of kids who sit alone or they don't go into the cafeteria and they just do something by themselves and any of us who've been in a kind of a stratified lunch room you're going to remember how that feels Dennis took a couple of his buddies from the team and a couple other people he knew they formed a little club called We Dine Together so all they do is the 45 minutes of school lunch they walk around and if somebody's sitting by themselves they'll just sit down and talk to them and these aren't the most popular kids in school but they're pretty, you know, well accepted and he said I didn't realize what it meant for somebody in my little group to sit down next to somebody and just chat with them does it cost any money? it hardly took any time but they started this club called We Dine Together it's now all over the world all kinds of high schools do this kind of thing and I like an example it's completely low-tech, really creative but he took that application and he said I can do something just right here in my high school so to me that's a good example that's a great example if you talk with anyone that is going through mental illness if you talk with anyone this autistic most will tell you that the teen years through high school is the most challenging because they get bullied because they're a little different from all the others they don't fit in some will mask because they don't fit in ultimately resulting in not fitting in because they're masking so in your travels I'm sure you've come across those that have the empathy to reach out and help those that need the help I'm going to give you two examples and one of them is a guy named Eric Olson he lived in Murrieta, California and he so wanted to do some volunteer service but he couldn't find anybody who would accept him because of his autism finally his parents helped him connect with a it's like a food pantry and it was called the Bishop's Storehouse and he would go in there and his job was he'd put on a coat he'd go into the walking refrigerator and he'd pull out all the dairy all the milk and he would stock it on the shelves I've seen video of him you know he puts on the coat and he flips up the hood and he opens the doors these automatic doors like Moses you know but he was showing his little his humor and the people working with him in the pantry started to really enjoy him he loved Legos he loved Star Wars and he started to feel confident enough to bring that in he was great with stocking the shelves because he was so detail oriented as he was leaving one day he kind of put his arm around one of those elderly women that were in the pantry with him and he kind of gave her a side hug and his mother she just said he's never given me a hug I've never seen you know him do that and so she recognized that he was developing and blossoming because of his connection everybody who came into that pantry wanted to talk to Eric he was the connector among everybody which was just unexpected for somebody who had autism he brought a great richness to that because of who he was and then it responded so he grew and other people grew and I think that turned out to be a good example yeah that's a great example unfortunately autism has this stigma I don't like the word so I use perception so basically a lot of people have this perception of those that are autistic thinking they can't do anything they can't fit in and their perception is not reality reality is they can do many great things and do many great things now what about the mental health side those with ADHD anxiety bipolar schizophrenia anything that falls under that mental health umbrella have you seen those that have accomplished great things like the one that you just mentioned that was autistic you know in Florence Italy there's a whole bunch of people who have come from they're seeking asylum so they come from Africa or the Middle East they've been on a torturous journey it's been very dangerous they've gotten there and now they've applied for their asylum and they have to wait they can't work they can't do anything while their political asylum application is processed it was just a lot of stress going on in those places where they were waiting there was anxiety and tension and fights were breaking out and families were upset so the local Catholic Bishop who is the head of Caritas in Florence he said look people need something to do he said let's form a football league and let's have these guys come and do some sport with us everyone's like it's a terrible idea they're gonna fight with each other they don't trust each other it's not gonna work but they got them uniforms and they started practicing on the football pitch and they started recognizing okay you're from Algeria and I'm from Pakistan but you have serious football skills I can see what you're doing and they started to bond as a team and then when they put them into the regular rotation with the Italian clubs they weren't just migrants they weren't asylum seekers they were football and they had serious skills and so it was really fun for them to be able to process some of the anxiety they felt through their journey and what had happened to them by something constructive like sports where they learned to trust each other as a team and they had a great time doing some other things and I think in a lot of ways Nelson Mandela was very good at using sport as a unifier for people to take down the anxiety in his own country and when he became a rugby fan against all the stereotypes of black leaders in his country and cheered for the team of his white oppressors I think there's something very healthy in that for people and I think those are good examples from sports Yeah I love sports sometimes they can definitely bring people together and that's a perfect example of it Now what about something that you thought would never work? In the back of your mind you said this will never work somehow after it all came together and it worked in a way that no one thought possible When ISIS took over the main city of Mosul in Iraq you know it's the second largest city in Iraq it's a very modern city and it's full of professional people when they pulled out after they were forced out they smashed all the fixtures and things they cut all the wires they didn't want to leave infrastructure as part of their thing and so as the schools started to open again there's absolutely everything's been destroyed the plumbing doesn't work the electricity doesn't work none of it worked we did a little project with a Christian church up in Mosul and that Christian leader was trying to get kids into school again that was one of the ways people could come we said to them we really want their parents to be involved in that they've been through this horrific experience is there something they can do? and they said well I guess they could try and build the desk these aren't carpenters these are dentists they're accountants you know it's just not going to work we said let's try and then I regretted that afterwards because I thought if it doesn't work out it's going to be so bad but we bought supplies you know we sent some technicians in there to teach them and help them and they were awful the desks were uneven there were splinters you know it just wasn't working out but they kept persisting and in the end you know they created I don't know 200 300 of these bent metal desks with a varnished wooden top and these chairs to match as painful as it was to get through that with unskilled people and so many times I thought why are we doing this? why did we choose to do this? when their kids sat in the chairs and we went to take a photo of the kids in the new school and their parents their mothers and fathers were standing behind them beaming with the pride of having done something to help their kids education it wasn't a handout it wasn't even what they were good at but they all participated and kind of fought through the difficulty of it and they were so proud it did so much to heal and what they had gone through and so I remind myself of that story I don't want to go back and pull out of things too soon if you can get to that feeling that those parents had of we did this we've been through something horrific we felt we let our kids down and now we've done something that helped the other way yeah that's a great story now what do you feel that you need to tell the listener about what you're doing about your book that you think they need to hear so they can get a better understanding of what it is that you're trying to accomplish I titled the book doing small things with great love as I said earlier it comes from a Mother Teresa quote and if you're going to talk about service and humanitarian work Mother Teresa is always going to come up the great thing about Mother Teresa and anybody else like her is she didn't ever have money and she didn't ever go anywhere except India and she helped people in their worst moments because she was there and she couldn't even really change the fact that this person was dying but she could hold their hand while they were doing it so there's some things that you can't fix but you can soften there are other things that if we band together with other people in our community we absolutely can change and fix we all belong to these networks PTSA, HOA, Town Council I don't know that there is I don't want to say this out loud but my HOA can be one of the most contentious organizations that I've ever been involved with you know we're all next our neighbors we all live by each other but we can learn to function in those settings and find the skills of people that we thought were different because of a disability or a cultural thing or some other choice if we can learn to bond over things even if it's as simple as service that makes a successful life and it helps our mental health Yeah, that's so true now where did they find your book? It's out on Amazon you can order it from Shadow Mountain Publishing it's anywhere books are sold Okay, now how do they contact you? Right there on my Instagram it's right there I'll put it in the notes for the podcast Great, so you're on all the social media platforms correct? I'm all everywhere that's good for everyone to know now we talked about things that we didn't think would go well that did go well have you had anything that you thought was going to go really good and then all of a sudden all the dominoes just fell in place and it just astounded you how well it went for sure that's true I'm trying to think if I have an example about that Yeah, I'm looking for something that you didn't think big enough you thought it was going to be good but it just went huge so good there's so many examples that I could choose from but one of them is during the pandemic I saw a picture in the New York Times where because kids weren't in school they weren't drinking school milk you know all that milk goes to school you have to store milk somewhere has to be refrigerated and they didn't know what to do with it so because of the glut they were just dumping it in farm fields they were just using it as fertilizer just dumping it and that just looked like the 1930s to me I was just so sad to see that so we called up the milk association and said what's the situation and could we do anything not really thinking that anything would come out of this as a result our organization was able to buy some of that milk we thought what do we do with it because it's fresh milk you have to be careful so we contacted a cheese making organization they make Swiss cheese up in a Northern state and we said you know this is our situation would you be interested in helping us process it into Swiss cheese and I was surprised at how interested they were in doing something that was for a humanitarian cause so they took all of that milk that we got off the market and they turned it into Swiss cheese and then they donated it back to us that we could send out to food banks during that time when supply chains were breaking and different things like that so a disaster that was in the New York Times you know about the milk because of the decisions that different people made the milk association, the Goster cheese that made the cheese and then the food banks it all lined up that was a good thing out of something that was difficult yeah that's an awesome story and I'm glad it worked out that way what do you tell people they're trying to do something good they're working really diligently on it working every day it's just not going the way they hoped it would even though it is progressing 50% how do you get it across to them that they don't realize it but they're doing something really good every day just by trying so how do you get that point across to them to give them hope because of what they're trying to do even though they may be struggling at times just before the October 7th attack in Israel I was in there in July and as part of my visit I crossed over to Bethlehem from Jerusalem and there was a site there that I wanted to see and in 12 different locations around the world this Catholic organization has set up a place where an order of nuns prays for peace and relief 24-7 so they just rotate through there this was one of them at a place called the milk grotto and I wanted to see that very quietly and reverently you can walk past the place where she was kneeling and praying and the people behind me were sort of what good is this? you know all the situation that's happened between Palestinians and Israelis and all around the world and you know you've got a nun that's just praying 24-7 for a woman of faith like me there's that scripture in James that says the fervent prayer of a man or a woman affects much and I have to believe in that when I'm doing the best I can and it's slow and it looks like it's going backwards and it doesn't work but I can draw on my faith to ask a power greater than me will you please bless this? will you please open doors? I know it may not be in the way that I'm thinking of but I believe that you help good-hearted people who are trying to do what's the best and trying to help other people in the same spirit that that nun was praying I want to draw on the powers that I believe in to help this move forward bigger than my power and I've seen that happen over and over again mostly in ways that I never expected but with a little hindsight you look back and think okay I would say draw on the power of your faith don't get discouraged that you've got this all on your own shoulders God who cares for every one of us will help it move forward yeah that's a great way to look at it now one last time the name of the book and where they can find it the name of the book is called Doing Small Things with Great Love my name is Sharon Eubank can order it on Amazon or through Shadow Mountain Publishing and you can find me on Instagram at SharonEubank underscore well this has been great great information great conversation I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today I would only say that I'm so grateful to you Tony for expanding the topic of the podcast of opening up this forum for people who want to discuss these things and bringing real concrete ideas to people who listen to the podcast every day I've enjoyed the podcast and it was a privilege for me to be on it thank you very much oh it's been my pleasure thanks again thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today we hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you if you know someone who has a story to share tell them to contact us at whynotme.world one last thing spread the word about why not me our conversations our inspiring guests the show you are not alone in this world if you liked the show please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe it really does help the show to grow thank you for listening
