Hello I'm Roger Killen,
the founder of Get Inspired Talks.
Our mission is to
give experts and their fresh ideas
a loud voice.
This starts with a video you're about to view.
Right after the speaker's talk
you'll be challenged to do one small thing
to support the speaker's fresh idea.
So watch the video all the way through and
take up the speaker's challenge.
Remember: action takers are difference makers.
This story begins on a park bench
five blocks from here with one promise.
Three days before Christmas 1989
I sat in the Downtown Eastside -
one of the poorest postal codes in Canada.
I was young, I was homeless and
beside me was a shopping cart
filled with cans and bottles.
I made every possible mistake
that a young person could make -
in fact, that's a picture of me
from that time frame.
I was one of those individuals that you'd
look at and wonder to yourself
how does a young person end up homeless
living in the Downtown Eastside?
To answer that question we need to go
much farther back in the story
to understand.
I was born and raised in Midland Ontario Canada.
I had an older brother and a younger sister.
This is me in Mrs. Morrison's class
in grade two
and I remember as a child, my life was fantastic.
It was like a Disney after-school special.
I was happy. I was curious.
I had a tree fort and a fat little dog
named Angus that had magical powers.
He could hear cheese wrappers
from three blocks away.
Everything in my life was perfect,
and then one day life lifed me.
We got a knock on the door.
Now my father was this extraordinary man in my life.
He was this hero. He was the kind of man who
I would look into his eyes and I could see my possibility
and just like that one day he was gone.
A man who would say things to me like
"I love you son, you can do and be anything".
Our family went through the kind of trauma
and tragedy that you'd think about
in an event like that and
one of the challenges is not just losing that,
that figure who I looked up to and I could
see my possibility, but also we lost
our economic well-being.
Just like that overnight, we went from a happy
mom-and-dad-three-kid family
to a single mom struggling with
poverty and uncertainty.
The next man that came into our home
he wasn't anything like my father.
He was a violent abusive alcoholic.
And so I went from a father who would
say things like
"I love you, you can do and be anything."
to a man who would say things like
"You're stupid. You're dumb
and you'll never amount to anything".
At nine years old I had fissures in my self-esteem
and self-worth and I was struggling to fit in
and find my place in the world when the opportunity
to experiment and use drugs came along.
And I jumped and I joined.
And for the first time when I went home
the uncertainty and the fear that surrounded myself
in that home was was gone and I felt safe.
and for the next 15 years it became a
familiar place for me to run to
to cope with the uncertainty in my life.
By the time I was 15, I was angry
and I began pushing back.
At 15 years old I had a fight with that man
and I left... and at 15 years old
I was now couch surfing, fending for myself.
At 16 years old, I dropped out of school.
At 17 years old, I went to prison for the first time.
When I was 19, I decided to leave that small community
that I lived in in Ontario and I got on a Greyhound bus
when I came out here and I got off that bus
just near Georgia Street across from the Sandman
and what happened over the next several years
can be explained in watching
a young man's life unravel
until I was on that park bench.
Three days before Christmas 1989
I was on that park bench and I was beginning
to descend into withdrawal.
And the only way that I can describe that
it's like the flu times a hundred
and I needed ten dollars.
I didn't want to rob or steal or hurt anybody
but I couldn't go on feeling like I did.
I didn't know where I was gonna get ten bucks
until I looked down at my feet
and I came up with my best idea.
I walked into the bar across the street
and I walked out ten minutes later
having sold the boots off my feet.
You know sometimes the greatest challenges in
our lives they help prepare us for the next thing and
for the first time in my life, I finally hit rock bottom
and I became willing to do something different.
In a moment of despair, I cried out for help
and I made a solemn promise on that park bench
I said "Give me a second chance. If you give me
a second chance I promise I'll turn my life around
and I'll do something to pay it forward ."
With the help of a local shelter I got a loaner
pair of shoes and I called my mom.
Three days later I found myself back in Ontario
with the help and support of my mom.
I entered into a detox facility and
then a full residential treatment program
and my life began to transform.
After six months of sobriety I decided
to go back to college and I had these
really great teachers and professors
who began to work with my possibility, my potential
that for so many years was hidden from me.
Finally on that fate-filled day four years later I walked
across the stage just like this. They called out my name.
They said "Joe Roberts Dean's List".
I graduated with a 3.9 4 GPA.
And I remember walking down to
where my mom was
and she gave me a big hug and said
"I'm proud of you son."
and on a day that I should have been celebrating,
on a day that I should have been filled
with gratitude and happiness,
all I could think about was
how many young people just like me
have the same potential and the same possibility
but they don't have my mom.
They don't have one person in their life to say
"I believe in you and I
believe in your potential and possibility".
I took that opportunity and my college education,
I came back out here to Vancouver,
I got my first job in sales
selling copiers from Minolta.
I quickly rose and found myself
in a management position and then
a friend of mine said
"How would you like to start a company?"
and I thought "what have I got to lose?"
I started that company with him and together
we worked really really hard and the years passed.
One morning I was driving my big car down
through that old neighborhood
and I stopped at a stoplight and I looked out
my window and there was a man
couldn't been more than 18 years old
with a shopping cart, filled with cans
and it hit me because in that moment I understood
the issues that create the environment
for youth homelessness.
Things like early childhood trauma,
mental health, abuse, addiction and family conflict
in any young person's life
can derail and send their trajectory of their life
off in another direction.
But the biggest thing it can do
is hide their possibility from themselves.
When I got to the office that day, sitting on my desk
was a copy of Canadian business,
and I was on the cover of it
as a celebrated Canadian entrepreneur.
In less than 12 years I literally went
from Skid Row to CEO.
I believe that there's more inside each and
every one of us than we can see.
And I kept that promise
close to my heart
to do something to pay it forward.
At this point in my life
I began to get the opportunity to
share my story in different contexts.
I could speak at business venues.
I could speak at conferences in schools.
I could speak to politicians
and I said to my friend on an airplane ride to Calgary
"I want to do something to engage the country
in a different conversation about how we can support
those young people who are
struggling with homelessness
and other challenges",
and I said "How could we engage the entire country?"
and my friend said
"Well when Canadians want to raise money for things,
they run across the country.
Why don't you run across Canada Joe?"
I said "Why don't you run across Canada?"
[crowd laughs]
Its okay, and maybe you don't maybe don't run
because at the time I was 45,
and 50 pounds heavier than I am today.
He says "Maybe you walk",
and I said "Well, how do we make it different
and unique to homelessness?"
he says "I know!",
he says "Nobody's ever pushed a shopping cart
across Canada",
[crowd laughs]
and I said "For obvious reasons dude",
[crowd laughs]
but there was something in that...
a seed of possibility...
you see the shopping cart represents an outcome
of chronic homelessness - the very thing
that each and every one of us
don't want to see happen to our kids or our neighbors.
Along the way we could push for change
and talk about a different way of approaching
and addressing youth homelessness.
I got off that plane and over the next four years
we plotted and planned.
We built a shopping cart, we got sponsors.
With the help and dedication of my
lovely bride Marie, we put together all of the pieces
that were needed and finally
after four and a half years of dreaming
we found ourselves at the starting point - in the
most easterly part of Canada - St. John's Newfoundland
and on May 1st 2016, I began walking across
the second widest country on the planet
with one goal - to spend the next 17 months
walking 24 kilometers every single day
to push for change.
When we began that campaign
we did so with tremendous risk and courage
because we weren't sure if anybody would care,
We weren't sure if anybody was going to engage
and match the tremendous promise that we had made.
This short video captures how Canadians
responded to the push for change
[truck honking]
[crowd cheering + music]
[Children shouting] Push for Change
[Don Cherry:] Joe you're a great guy
and you're a great Canadian and I know you're
helping all the kids and God love you.
17 months walking across Canada
the equivalent for those of you with the pedometer,
the equivalent of
11 million three hundred and seventy five thousand steps
five months of which,
was through a Canadian winter
is equal to the distance walking
from New York to Los Angeles and back to New York
and yet for all of that
I didn't lose one pound !
I didn't
it wasn't until we switched to a
plant-based diet where I began to shed the weight
but I'll leave that for next year's Get Inspired talk.
When it was said and done we we had engaged over a
hundred thousand Canadians.
We have four hundred and fifty three events. We raised
five hundred and seventy five thousand dollars.
We had celebrity endorsements
from friends like
the greatest hockey dad in the world Walter Gretzky,
pinball Clemons CFL a CFL legend and of course
Don Cherry a CBC broadcaster extraordinaire.
We also had an incredible support from the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
police forces and municipal forces across the country
and of course our greatest partner was
the Ontario Provincial Police.
We even got an opportunity to engage
and sit down and meet with the
Prime Minister of Canada,
where we took the opportunity to explain
to our current government what needs to
get done for us to shift
and push for change so that every single young person
in this country grows up and reaches their potential.
The greatest win came not when we were
pushing for change but a month after the campaign
had finished last year
when the federal government announced
an 11 year plan and a 40 billion dollar investment
in homelessness across this great nation of ours.
It's the largest... thank you
yeah that's good I will take that...
it's one of the largest shows of investment that
the federal government's
made in in the last number of decades
and the Push For Change played a small but vital role
in raising awareness during that 18-month period.
You know one
of the things that Marie and I learned
during the campaign that it wasn't
necessarily what we did,
it was what we inspired.
It wasn't that the the idea of walking across Canada.
Making that kind of commitment inspired young people
to step forward and become engaged
and there's nothing quite as powerful as engaged young
people doing things in their community for change.
As a direct result of the tens of thousands
of acts of kindness and jars of nickels and
sleepouts and admit gatherings
and all kinds of things that they did
we launched something called
the I Promise campaign to keep the legacy
of the push for change in the story going.
We're now working with our charitable partners -
our community partners the
Ontario provincial police as Marie and I are
now working across Ontario to connect with over
300 schools.
The opportunity to connect 300 schools
in the in the next several months
and what we're hoping to do
do is to inspire these young people to
make a promise to do something in their community
to give of their time, their treasure and their talent,
to make a donation to a local shelter, to gather
necessary items as we head into the colder months
or to volunteer their time at a place
that can make a difference.
The the program is really simple - write down the promise
on a card like this and share it on social media.
Commit to making sure that that promise comes to
fruition and then encouraging others
to do the same.
You know one of the questions I get asked
all the time when I share my story is
"Joe what do I do when I see that person
who's on the street who's homeless?"
"Do I give them food, do I give them money?"
Maybe, that's always a personal choice
but the thing that I always say is that if
you want to make a substantial
difference support organizations
that support those individuals.
Find an organization that aligns with what you believe in
and give of your time and your treasure and your talent.
In August I got a phone call from the office of the
Governor General of Canada
and I've been given yet another prestigious
Canadian accolade and later this year I'll go to Ottawa
and I'll meet the Governor General at Rideau Hall
and I'll ask of her the same thing I'll ask of you
and anyone I come in contact with
is that I want you to make a promise
to give of your time your treasure and your talent
so that no young person in this country
or any country, ends up pushing a shopping cart
and losing sight of their possibility
You see I firmly believe that inside each and every
one of us is something extraordinary
and all we have to do is to get up off that bench
and take a few proverbial steps to discover that.
I also believe that the reason we don't take those
action steps is that we feel our contribution won't make
a difference.
But I stand before you today as that difference.
You see I am a community investment gone correct.
I am the result of over 10,000 people who promise to
help restore my life so that I could pay it forward.
If you still have doubts or disbelief let me remind you
of where this story began - on a park bench
five blocks from here with one promise.
Friends it's time to move beyond getting inspired.
It's time for each and every one of us to take action
so my question to you is
what promise will you make?
[applause]
Hello again
I trust that you were informed and inspired
by this talk.
Please like, share and comment on this video
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and take up the speaker's challenge.