Transcriber: Lisa Rodriguez Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
My life changed on a dusty road under the hot sun in Nairobi, Kenya.
I'd just graduated college in 2007 and decided to travel the world.
I'm from Nampa, born and raised right here in Nampa, Idaho.
Good ole Nampa, it's the best town in the Treasure Valley
between Caldwell and Meridian.
(Laughter)
Good old Nampa, it's kind of a smaller town,
actually the Native American word for Nampa
means "city close to Boise."
(Laughter)
Good ole Nampa, and I left this funny smellin',
sugar beet lovin' town
and went all the way to Nairobi, Kenya.
When I was there in Nairobi, I got to live and work at a small orphanage
with over 140 kids whose parents had passed away
from tuberculosis caused by HIV/AIDS.
The kids were amazing and I got to live right there with them and eat with them,
and hang out with them,
and they just taught me about life in Africa.
They were awesome,
in fact, they were actually fascinated with my white skin and with my brown hair,
especially my arm hair,
and unfortunately my back hair.
(Laughter)
It was one of their favorite things to come up behind me
and pull up the back of my shirt, and laugh and point at my back hair.
(Laughter)
They would do this alone.
They would do this with friends at the orphanage.
They'd even do this around the village to complete strangers.
They were just very, very proud of it.
But the kids were so great,
and so this one day, we were all walking together
on this dusty road under the hot sun,
and as we were walking together,
I remember there was a little girl in a white dress walking right next to me.
I remember looking down and being absolutely shocked
at how small her shoes were.
I mean, her shoes just didn't fit at all.
In fact, she had to cut open the front of her shoes
to let her toes stick out.
They were just way too small.
I looked around and many of the kids had on shoes
that were just way too small.
I knew they were poor, but I just hadn't noticed this before,
and it really bugged me, and it just kind of stuck with me.
So later that day, I asked the director of the orphanage,
"Why do so many kids have on shoes that don't fit?"
He told me that more than a year before
they'd received a shipment of donated clothes and shoes and things,
but they had not received any more donations since then.
They barely had enough money for food,
much less money for shoes every time the kids needed them.
He said, "They're kids; their feet are always growing,
and they just have to do the best with what they have."
So right then and there, I thought to myself,
what if there was a pair of shoes that could adjust and expand their size?
What if there was a pair of shoes that could grow?
It seems like that would make sense for the kids.
Actually that might make sense for donors too,
for people who want to help them out,
instead of donating a pair of shoes year after year after year,
they could just donate one pair,
and it could grow with their feet,
and it could last for several years.
A shoe that could grow.
That might make sense for that little girl in the white dress.
That might make sense for a lot of the kids at the orphanage.
And who knows?
That might make sense for the estimated 300 million kids around the world
who have no shoes and countless more with shoes that don't fit.
A shoe that could grow.
We'll come back to that.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
"The purpose of life is not to be happy.
It's to be honorable.
It's to be useful.
It's to be compassionate.
It's to have it make some difference that you have lived, and lived well."
We are all humans, and there are certain things
that connect all of us and define all of us.
One of those things is that we live in community,
whether it's at home with your family or friends,
here locally and even globally,
we live in community together.
And it's a human thing to want to help each other.
Like Emerson said, the purpose of life is to be compassionate, to make a difference.
Our hearts pull us to help someone if they've fallen down,
to comfort someone if they're crying,
to help carry something if someone is struggling with it.
Our human experience finds fulfillment
in living together in community and in helping each other.
The problem is that many of us deny our humanity
because we believe that we can't do anything
to make a positive impact on someone else's life.
We think, "There's no way that I could make a difference,
I can't help anybody."
We think this for several reasons.
We think that we're too small or unimportant.
There's no way that we could make a difference.
We stress that we've never done it before,
we'll probably just make things worse if we try to help.
We worry that we're not good at things in our own lives,
what in the world are we doing trying to help somebody else?
We think we're too inexperienced or uneducated to help somebody.
We're not Bill Gates or Mother Theresa.
There's no way that we could make a difference.
Or we just plain old wrestle with feelings of inadequacy or fear,
which lead to laziness and stagnation.
It's just easier to sit on the couch and watch Netflix
because we just really believe that we can't help somebody else.
So how do we overcome these feelings?
Because you and I know, we see it every day,
online, in the paper, in the news.
There are people around us and around the world
who struggle with small things and big things.
There are people who need help.
So again I ask, how can we overcome these feelings
and get out there and begin to help each other?
Well, I don't have all the answers,
but I have had a few experiences these past few years
that have given me the confidence
to put myself out there to try to make a difference.
And I hope that something I say today can encourage you to do the same.
For me, it can all be summed up in a simple phrase:
practical compassion.
Practical compassion, the small things that make a big difference.
Let me say it again,
because this simple phrase and concept has changed my life.
Practical compassion, the small things that make a big difference.
There are people all over the globe
that live with practical compassion every day.
Let me tell you about a nine-year-old girl named Vivian
and how she lives with practical compassion.
Vivian lives in Marin County, California.
One day, her parents showed her an article that had a picture of two young boys
carrying giant slabs of slate.
Her parents told her that these were child slaves.
Their parents were forced to sell them into slavery to a wealthy business owner
in order to have enough money to buy food for the rest of the family.
Vivian told her parents, "We have to help.
We have to do something because this is too sad.
What if that were me and my brother? We have to do something."
So she did what countless kids
throughout the generations of history have done.
She started a lemonade stand.
At first it was just like any other kid's lemonade stand
that sold sub-par, watered-down lemonade.
She made a few dollars those first few days,
but then word started to spread
about what this little girl was doing and why she was doing it.
Vivian was super excited when the local news
picked up her story and then a few days later,
she was amazed when the national news picked up her story.
She was taking donations there at the lemonade stand
and also online and soon the total started to rise,
$1000, $2000, $10,000.
That summer, Vivian raised over one million dollars
that she donated to organizations that fight against child slavery
saving literally thousands of kids from a life of hard labor.
That's practical compassion.
That's doing a small thing that makes a big difference.
I mean, a lemonade stand,
a simple lemonade stand from a nine-year-old girl.
She shouldn't be doing this.
She should be watching The Disney Channel
and dreaming about an afternoon date with Justin Bieber
at the Boise Towne Square Mall, something like that.
(Laughter)
But no, Vivian didn't let her age stop her.
She saw a need, she wanted to respond, and she did what she could.
That's practical compassion.
But you don't have to become a viral sensation
and raise a million dollars to make a big difference.
Let me tell you about Jerry.
Jerry's my neighbor.
He's an older guy, retired, and lives alone,
just a nice, normal guy.
One day, a neighbor lady from down the street
asked if he could help her do some grocery shopping.
She didn't have a vehicle and she wasn't strong enough
to carry the heavier things like milk.
Could he help?
Jerry said yes.
And for the past few years, he's continued to say yes
to helping this neighbor lady with grocery shopping,
picking up prescriptions, things around the house,
and just general friendship and companionship.
In fact, one of their favorite things to do together
is watch reality TV, Real Housewives of Ada County,
something like that, that's a show, right?
Probably.
I mean, that's practical compassion,
the small things that make a big difference.
And I mean small things.
Watching TV, grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions,
these are things that aren't going to impact
probably anybody else, but to that neighbor lady,
they make a big difference.
For me, I took that idea about a shoe that could adjust and expand
and turned it into The Shoe That Grows,
a shoe that grows five sizes and can last up to five years,
protecting the feet of kids living in dirty and dangerous places.
Helping keep them healthy, making it easier to go to school,
and just giving them the dignity of having a pair of shoes that fit.
Something as simple and small as a pair of shoes
makes a big difference
when you live in places that don't have adequate sanitation,
and there are parasites and diseases in the ground around you.
Or when your school requires shoes as part of the uniform,
or when you have to walk across rocky and difficult terrain every day
just to get food and water.
I just wanted to make a shoe
that would make more sense for the little girl in the white dress
and the other kids at the orphanage.
It took us five years to go from that idea to a reality, but we finally did it.
And a year and a half ago,
we received our first batch of 3,000 pairs of The Shoe That Grows,
and they lived in the guest bedroom of our house,
and we slowly got them out to kids around the world.
And then we accidentally went viral.
Things took off about a year ago in April,
and since then, there are now over 30,000 pairs of The Shoe That Grows
on the feet of kids in over 40 countries.
(Cheers) (Applause)
Seeing a need, wanting to respond, and just doing what you can.
Even if it's as simple and small as a pair of shoes.
That's practical compassion.
But did you know The Shoe That Grows almost didn't happen?
I mentioned things earlier that cause people
to believe that they just can't make a difference.
Hey, I was in that same boat.
I struggled with those same feelings.
In fact, let me take you through the checklist.
We feel like we're too small or unimportant.
Hey, I'm from Idaho. Where is that? What is that?
And I'm not even from Boise. I'm from Nampa.
I mean, what can I do?
(Laughter)
We really stress that we've never done this before,
we'll probably end up making it worse.
I've never made a shoe before.
I'll probably make a shoe that hurts the kids
more than it helps them, right? I shouldn't do this.
We worry that we're not good at things in our own lives,
what in the world are we doing trying to help somebody else?
Hey, I've got a laundry list of things that I struggle with.
Ask my wife.
I mean, what am I doing trying to help somebody else?
We think that we're too inexperienced or uneducated.
Hey, I'm the son of a plumber.
He was the best plumber in Idaho, but I'm the son of a plumber.
I'm not a billionaire, I'm not a celebrity.
I don't have a doctorate in economics or humanitarian development.
What am I doing trying to help other people?
Or we just wrestle with those feelings of inadequacy and fear.
Hey, I'm that guy, apparently alone at Halloween.
I don't even know where this picture's from.
(Laughter)
I'm this guy, I'm a regular guy from Nampa
who the best thing I've got going for me
is that according to a couple hundred African kids
I've got a noteworthy amount of back hair.
That's me.
(Laughter)
What am I doing trying to help other people?
Many people, including me for a while,
just really believe that they can't do anything
to make a difference.
Maybe you feel that same way.
Well, if you ever do,
I want you to remember the stories from today.
A little girl with a lemonade stand,
an old guy helping a neighbor,
or me, a regular guy from Nampa
who had a crazy idea for a new shoe.
All of us, and so many others,
are beginning to shred our fear, shred our doubts,
shred our laziness and our selfishness,
and live with a heart and a mindset of practical compassion.
And you can too.
You don't have to be a perfect person.
You don't have to have all the answers.
You don't need a doctorate to make a difference.
It doesn't matter if you're a kid, a teenager, an adult,
an adult who still acts like a kid, or an older person,
you can live with a heart and a mindset of practical compassion,
doing the small things that truly, truly make a big difference.
You can connect with the deepest parts of your humanity.
As we all live in community together
and as we just do what we can to help each other,
that's life.
That's us.
And you can do it.
You can open your eyes to the needs around you.
You can respond to what you see and hear
in your neighborhood, in your city, and around the world.
You can live with practical compassion.
You can do it.
In fact, let's do it together.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)