[Music] like if everyone could do me a favor please and close your eyes and I need you to picture if you will you're standing on the corner and standing on this corner with you is a guy and he has a piece of torn cardboard in his hands on this cardboard are the words written homeless please help you look into his eyes and their bloodshot red maybe from a lack of sleep maybe from doing drugs you look at his face he's unshaded his hair is uncut uncombed you look down at his clothes they're dingy they're dirty
they're tighter they're towing and then suddenly that smell hits you that smell that says I haven't bathed in a week or two now open your eyes that guy was me see I spent 30 years as an alcoholic Internet it's been 17 years homeless I remember the first day I have went to the shelter once they got me processed in the lady behind the counter she say excuse me sir what are you doing here you don't belong here see right at that moment I wasn't dressed like him so I didn't look like them but the fact
of the matter I did belong there see my choices and my decisions put me there while they didn't grow up in that real life I would quickly adapt to it it not became like everyone else complacent comfortable and content and I would want nothing more than to sit there and to be taken care of I remember the first day ever at out of a trash can I felt so repulsed by in the beginning I will wait till the wee hours of the morning and I will go downtown Dallas and go trash getting the trash can
looking for food I would wait to that time because I wanted no one to see me until one Saturday evening about 11:30 the partygoers are going back and forth and there I am digging in the trash but all that would change for me in June of 2016 because of a random act of kindness a good deed if you will see I had begun selling these homeless newsletters and there was a conference going on at the convention center in downtown Dallas and I was there at this time I don't know who the person was that was
hosting the conference nor the type of people that were attending but I quickly found out that they were nice how they were buying papers but there was a problem it was hot it was 104 105 outside so that third day of the conference that Saturday morning I figured I'd get there early to beat the heat and I got there about 8 o'clock and I started right by the doors but I had no luck nobody wanted to speak to so I move a block away and I'm standing at the corner it's a group of people waiting
for the light to change instantly I think to myself I got access somebody's gonna buy paper the light change the first person calls I say pardon me good morning sir he says good morning before I could say anything else he threw his hand up and he kept walking no problem I turn around speak to the next person pardon me good morning sir that person didn't speak at all the worst thing that ever happened to me while I was out there what poor a person not to speak to me not to acknowledge me even after I
look him right in the eyes and be as polite as I can they would just walk right on by so right at that moment I felt dejected and I dropped my head I heard someone say hey and I look up it's that first person he had stopped he says come here he got a couple of bucks in his hands I start smiling he said now listen I'm gonna give you this what you need it for what you use it for I don't know and I don't care he said but you got to make me a
promise that you find a way to pay it forward he says when you pay it forward is when your true blessings come I said wow thank you sir however can I explain to you what Street zinnias see I didn't want him to think that I was paying him or asking for something for nothing he said sure when I got to explain it to him he says you know what I want to apologize to you he says I'm an advocate for the homeless and the last thing I want to do you'd be disrespectful he say do
you mind if I take your picture I say do you mind if I pray for you see I come to realize two things I'm posed to do let's love God and love his people so what more can someone who has nothing offer other than prayer I pray for me he videotaped it when I got through he went on about his way I stayed there another 10 15 minutes spitting out a little low so I went back up to the Convention Center as I'm walking up the steps a lady that I admit the night before motions
me to come have a seat beside her and she's on her phone and she's texting she says listen I got to go inside and see someone you're not going into where I'll yeah I said I'll be right here she said I'll be right back she goes inside to see this guy who just so happened just watching the video of me pray for this other guy as it turns out they were all crew members for the personal hosting the conference Tony Robbins they bring this guy out and they introduced me to him he said let's go
inside I'm thinking he's like let's get out the heat cuz it was hot he walks me over to the registration table and he registered me to attend the last two days of this conference they sit me in the VIP section I went in my seat five minutes and someone walk up to me here you're gonna need this some food somebody right behind him with some water someone right behind in with a blanket instantly I started thinking to myself who are these people right how do they know me but most importantly what do they want from
me I would quickly find out they wanted nothing from me instead they wanted something for me and there was an opportunity at a new way of life a new way of living that final day that fourth day of the conference I'm standing at the food court and someone walks up to me now this guy doesn't have a participant lanyard on he doesn't have a crew shirt on so I really don't know who he is and he asked me he says so were you at out here I'm thinking he's talking about what corner I still only
sell my papers he says no what Joost and so I look at it and I tell him and I explained soon now that's far from here you're not used to walking I said me I walk all the time I'm gonna make he kind of laughed he said so what type of work you do I say a customer service what's up he said were you doing anything else I said I'll push a broom you know somebody who's hiring he hands me his business card he said listen I'll be out of the office till Wednesday give me
a call in the morning and I'm gonna come down here and pick you up I'm thinking to myself yes so that Tuesday after the conference the guy that I pray for it gave me a call he said have you went on Facebook I said no he said go on Facebook and called me back I go on Facebook and the crew has started to GoFundMe page to help pay for my house I called the guy and I meet him he meets me downtown Dallas for the lunchtime that Wednesday when I get in the car this is
what he says before he puts it in Drive he said this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna put you in the hotel I'll find you an apartment you're not going back to the shelter and I started thinking to myself wow see what I understood it's this they understood the magnitude of my homelessness but they did not understand the magnitude of my addiction in my alcoholism so I started rationalizing to myself you got to go get help and I would go in and out of treatment facilities but I could never sustain any type of sobriety
because I was going for the wrong reasons see I was going because I thought that's what they wanted me to do I was going because I thought that what I was obligated to do so the most I could come up with was 30 40 days and I would always relapse Tony Robbins found out what the crew had done and he went live on social media he called her crew members out by name and he thanked them they invited me to come to a different one in his conferences as his personal guest just was December 2016
I never forget the exact moment my plane was taking off I remember looking at my wife thinking yes they're gone because I wasn't on him see right at that moment I was in a dope house relapsed instantly the guilt the shame and the remorse we just follow me and I started thinking to my surely they hate you surely they just see you as the rest of them that don't want to change so the more they tried to keep close to me the further I tried to run Tony Robbins says that's in your moments of decisions
is when your destiny is shaken April 17th of 2017 I had a decision to make it had been raining I had one news letter left I was already with my choices were simple either try to go downtown and pedal this last newspaper or trying to make it to the shelter I chose the shelter I got there and they explained to me that they were poor the shelter manager said you can come in and get something to eat and dry up a little bit but after you eat you got it go I say ok no problem
when it came time for me to go it was raining harder than it was when I got there I said I'm not gonna be able to do it there's security to see it so what are you gonna do I said I'm going to the Oaks that's green Oaks a mental hospital now the only way you can go to Green Oaks you got to be in jeopardy harming yourself or someone else so I told him I wanted to harm myself they got me the Green Oaks they got me processed in I was there maybe an hour
or so and the nurse come to him she said excuse me sir I'm gonna have to transfer you we don't have any room here I said what about the VA she say are you a veteran I said yes ma'am she said you never told us see I had never told him because it never would matter I got two honorable discharges and went back condo and because of the bad contact ever since I've been home in 1994 I was never eligible for services that the VA but when the crew started helping me a lady down in
Houston one of the crew members knew something she had me give my discharge paper to someone in Dallas who got it to her in Austin and in August of 2016 I received a letter from the VA we're gonna separate you and listeners recognize your honorable discharge you're eligible for services the VA would come pick me up and then put me on their mental floor I was there about four or five days and the case manager called me in the office she said I got a question for you how would you like to go at bottom
and I jumped for joy so I heard about this place called Bonham Texas the VA have a rehab facility they're not always wanting to go everybody I knew that winter had everything I wanted sustaining sobriety housing and employment I would get the bottom of Texas and I would play full out I was tapping there every resource they had and I would get the things I want sustained sobriety house employment even transportation and you know August 8th of 2019 my world would come crashing down the very job that I poured my heart into I was terminated
from I would go home I would become very depressed and suicidal so I've resulted back to the one thing I knew that could take the pain away and I realized I would spend the next two months lying to myself telling myself you got this you can stop you did it once you can do it again well the fact of the matter I didn't do it myself on my own the first time I went and got help so I made a decision and I went back into treatment I just discharged January 6 2020 three weeks ago
so what are your takeaways three things first and foremost you or someone you know is suffering from the disease of addiction or alcoholism there's hope see I understand what it feels like to be out there and to be hopeless not helpless but hopeless I literally thought I was spending the rest of my life eating out of trash can and doing though I thought I would die on those streets but love brought me out of it the crew just loved on me until I started loving myself and today I do love me too a random act
of kindness I am the product of a random act of kindness you never know how you impact a person's day or life by doing so imagine the change the impact we can have on the world if more of us peer around the mexicanas so I encourage you all do a good deed a random act of kindness for someone who doesn't look like you who wouldn't hang in your circle finally gratitude become more grateful develop more of an attitude of God - not for the big things but for the small things the everyday stuff the stuff
we take for granted for me is something as simple as a glass of water see I remember walking downtown dollars having no money in my pocket and since I had no money and nobody gave water away everybody sailed water I had to find a water sprinkled water in the grass and been down on my knees to get something else how often have you went to the pantry or the refrigerator and it's full of food and then you walk away and say there's nothing in there to eat well I don't eat out the trash today I
know there's somebody that still is so today even if it's just a bologna sandwich or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I'm grateful for it how often have you put on the change of clothes or some clean clothes and don't stop to be grateful for when the crew started helping me out of the clothes our own what the clothes I had on my back and no telling how long I had them on today when I put on a clean pair of underwear I'm grateful for it now along with these newsletters we had these bookmarks on
the back of one of the bookmarks was a point this point spoke of me the title of the poem is called vision of a minute today I get to be the person speaking the point I watch a man move down the wall a man whom I call friend a lonely soul who lives outdoors who struggles never ends belongings into grocery sacks a clean shirt for today his long hair streaming down his back I watch him walk away why can't I hip him lord I cry well I cannot fix his pain there's so much I would
like to do yet there he goes again just in the world the street the cause as I stood him watching going became a field of diamonds and I somehow saw the hole for just one incident sparkling clear when time Stood Still and God was here a gentle voice in my ear whispered it is so much deeper than that and I saw my friend is perfect though broken he appears I saw my friend is sacred exactly as heals he's not in need of fixing does not call for repair or people looking to him as if he
was in therapy he doesn't need untangling like a twisted knot of client does not require cursing to walk a different line he does not need a drug a rule a class a pacifying what he requires his carry in the privileges mine be kind of one another thank [Applause]
