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