What is Circular InspirationA Key to Inspiring a Lost Generation

so we see you all looking

you think that our generation’s lost

don’t you well

we’re not lost you just haven’t inspired

us yet

and if you want to inspire us there is a

way

we are sobros we are scholars

athletes published authors and

international philanthropists

we founded a non-profit as 8th graders

and in the process found a generation

we are the generation that many of you

refer to as lost gen

z the tick tock generation the

participation trophy generation the

iphone baby status generation

but since 2015 instead of being

stereotypical gen zers

we have donated over seven thousand

pairs of shoes to kids all around the

world

spoken in dozens of churches and schools

written a book

but most importantly we found the lost

generation

you see we aren’t lost we just seek to

be inspired

while we didn’t exactly set out to

inspire anyone

we simply wanted to put shoes on kids

feet we accidentally discovered

along the way how to inspire our

generation

there are some critical repeatable steps

to recreating our successes

our journey begins with our sixth grade

basketball team that’s where we learn

how to trust one another

and win we want to defeat it that season

but the best thing that happened to us

that season

besides going undefeated is that we went

to an event with magic johnson as the

speaker

of course we all thought we might be

professional athletes all middle school

basketball players believe that

but according to our research only one

in four will be over six

six anyway

at the talk magic made us realize that

to whom much is given

much is required he talked about giving

back

then he did something amazing he says

hey boys come on up here and he was

pointing at us

he went on to say that he was so

inspired by seeing young guys like us in

the audience

you see inspiration is sort of like a

give and go

you ditch the ball off to your teammate

and they set you up to get a bucket

if you want to inspire a jinzier you

have to show us that we

are important to you and you know what

else

he promised us all signed jerseys and

five days later

we all received them in the mail see if

you want to inspire a ginzier

you can’t just talk about it you have to

be about it

so we started soul bros in the back seat

of my mom’s little blue chevy cobalt on

the way to a polo match in 2015.

we were talking about all the latest

shoes that were being released and we

were super excited about it and my mom

got super annoyed with our teenage

sneaker head banter

so she dropped some bad news on us she

told us that there were kids in jamaica

that had cardboard for shoes

and i’m going to keep it real with all

of you guys she had told me that story

before

but it never sparked me to any action

but when the big guy with the big heart

heard that story

he just couldn’t let it go i just

couldn’t imagine that there were kids

out there

that another fresh privilege used to

wear it broke my heart

i said miss jackie i have some shoes at

home i’ve outgrown do you know someone

in jamaica

maybe i can donate my shoes to them so

then we started to think about all the

kids that we knew with perfectly good

and even high-end sneakers

see my mom showed us a problem and we

could have just talked about it we could

have posted it on social media

but that day we all decided to be about

it if you want to inspire us

you have to do more than tell us you

have to show us

so let me tell you about that polo match

that day it was a big fundraiser

there are a lot of professional athletes

philanthropists entrepreneurs

tons more type of people but we were the

only kids

so when we got there we started telling

people about our idea we were talking to

a guinea and venture capitalist above

room and we told them hey

we want to send some shoes to less

fortunate kids in jamaica

he looked at us and he smiled and he

said oh so you guys want to start a

non-profit

well you’re going to build a website and

fundraise and this and that

and remember we were all 12 but he never

told us we couldn’t do it

he just told us how to do it we went

that day with an idea

but we left inspired if you want to

inspire us

tell us that we can so after that polo

match we all decided together that we

would

collect a thousand pairs of sneakers to

send to these kids in jamaica that had

cardboard for shoes

we knew that we had to inspire people to

help us so you see

i was a point guard on that championship

middle school basketball team so i knew

better than anyone that it was going to

take some handles

to get this ball across the court so

after that

i also had my 13th birthday coming up so

i decided that i would have this big

party with all of our friends and family

and we were in eighth grade at the time

and eighth graders live

for a party with the dj but here’s what

we pulled a punk fake on them

they never saw it coming we told them

that instead of bringing me a gift that

they should donate to this cause

that’s the thing about inspiration it’s

contagious

that party was fun big fun

we got those people into a room and we

told them about the kids with no shoes

some of those kids left they told their

parents

and their brothers and sisters and

inspired them

after that we got lots of donations and

then

really dug in the work was like

pre-season training

we’re running full court sprints in that

storage unit

we’re cleaning through all breaks

through the freezing cold

but the image of kids with cardboard

shoes and spiders to push through

even when it felt nearly impossible so

we pushed through

and we pushed through we kept pushing

about a month before shipping day

we were still coming up just a little

bit short we only had 800 pairs of

sneakers

and more importantly shipping was gonna

be nearly three thousand dollars

and we didn’t have it at all think about

it like this

the clock was ticking and we were all

down by three and we wanted to win this

game

so i remember that the poll match that

day that someone told us that we were

going to need a shipping partner in

order to get all the work done that we

wanted to get done

so we decided to pull up from half court

and reach out to the president of dhl

and we knew that we could make that half

court shot if we could inspire him

then we would still be in the game so i

reached out to him we told him what our

idea was and the work that we wanted

done

and he loved it he wrote back within an

hour and agreed to sponsor

all of our shipping costs that right

there put us in overtime

but it just keeps getting better they

were so inspired by what we were doing

they also donated 400 pair of brand new

sneakers

that right there helped us win the ball

game

that’s the thing about inspiration it

moves in circles

we inspired dhl and they inspired us

we went to jamaica with the original

foundation where we don’t have the shoes

but then we realized it was about the

shoes anymore it was about inspiring

those kids

and giving them hope my little sisters

basketball teammates growing

inspirational coach to go along with the

shoes

they said things like you can do it and

keep your head up

you see inspired people inspire people

that’s circular inspiration by the time

we got back from jamaica

we knew that this inspiration thing was

everything

so we decided to journal about our

experience and we ended up writing a

children’s book

it’s called soul bros change the world

and since it’s for kids

we even took our time and made it rhyme

we’ve been on book tours all over ohio

to share our story and our book sales by

more sneakers

and inspire more kids some congregations

even recognize that inspiration is

everything

so they started buying books for us to

give to the kids who receive these

sneakers

now that’s circular inspiration it never

stops

we’ve inspired kids in ghana they became

the ghanaian soul bros and distributed

shoes to their villages

we have a friend named alex whose 14

year old little sister was so inspired

by what we do

that when she won her mission trip to

haiti she took 100 pairs of shoes with

her

we inspired a congregation in dc and

they had a sneaker drive for us where we

collected a thousand pairs of sneakers

in just one day

and we sent them to hurricane harvey

victims in houston and beaumont texas

it keeps going and going like a

basketball drill just keep passing

so don’t you guys see we inspired a

generation

but in doing so we realized something

even bigger than expected

we realize that inspiration is truly the

solution to everything that’s wrong in

the world

but it’s also at the core of every

single thing that’s going well in this

world

don’t listen to people out there that

say our generation’s lost

our generation’s not lost we just need

to be inspired

when you leave today we challenge you to

take the ball the inspiration ball

and just keep passing it be inspired

and be an inspiration

you