Dont be afraid to say yes
good evening everybody uh i want to
preface by saying
i’m not a doctor i’m not a phd candidate
i’m not an economist but somehow
i’m here standing in front of this
official sign this
really really cool red rug so we’re
going to spend a little bit of time
tonight trying to figure out why
the heck i’m here because i don’t really
know myself
i want to talk about something so simple
i think a lot of kids when i’ve given
some speeches they come up and talk to
me and ask me what the secret is
how you got there how you get success
and everyone focuses on the big story
to make the big story the hero and i
think really
to me there’s this really small thing
out there
that is the true hero of the ultimate
story
and that’s the word yes the action to
actually
go after the dream you’ve been dreaming
uh
simply answering an invitation that you
got from a friend
uh asking the person that you’ve been
dying to go on a date with
to go on a date may set the course of
the rest of your life you may start a
family with that person
the simple fact that your two feet hit
the
ground this morning when you woke up um
deciding to celebrate that it can really
really change the tone
um and make it a little bit easier to
obtain those dreams that you really
want to chase after i think society
spends so much time
trying to prepare for what they’re going
to do before they even actually
start i’m it’s going to be like this
it’s going to be so big and it’s going
to
happen here and i’m going to have this
many employees and
i’m going to do this many things and
then by the time you know it
you never even decided to do it or you
scared yourself out of doing it
so tonight i’m gonna tell a couple
stories uh about my life and things that
have happened in my life
um that really focused more on the
how i got there how um
one of my favorite verses in the bible
talks about when
when peter decided to step out of the
boat
and step onto the water and i try to
live my life that way
how can i how can i get off the boat how
can i get going
how can i just let all fear aside and go
and it’s not
always business it’s not always a
ministry thing
it’s not always this big thing it’s
something simple and you’ll you’ll hear
a story tonight that
recently happened that’s really really
simple and probably one of the biggest
moments in my life to date so i’ll start
off by talking about my
my business we will um and how that got
started
it’s it’s i had a friend of mine
asked me one day hey i got an invitation
for this funeral
it’s a funeral service for all the
homeless people who have died
in hartford this year
and i’m thinking to myself like what
like
you got an invitation how did you even
get that invitation someone mailed it to
you what
and i i said yeah sure i’ll do it um
great i show up it was this beautiful
absolutely beautiful somber event when
it was over they had some coffee and
donuts and whatnot
and i saw this this really rugged
looking man
standing in the corner he had
camo pants on camo jacket on
a military-grade rucksack to round up
his outfit
and to be honest with you he looked he
looked pretty terrifying
uh looked like a guy that didn’t really
want you to approach him
so what do i do i walk up to him and i
just
say hi to him long story short
he had told me that it’s probably been
weeks if not months since anyone’s
ever had a conversation with him and
we ended up deciding that he would
really enjoy it
if i came out one morning and cooked him
breakfast
and he said oh yeah the best time to do
it would be before the sun comes up
because we try to get to our next place
as early
as possible so i don’t know months went
by maybe and i finally said
oh this guy told me you want me to cook
him breakfast i’m going to do it so i
had some buddies
come with me two guys we set up a grill
right in downtown hartford
and we had this little tiny cooler
thinking like maybe like two or three
people are gonna come by
and we set up we didn’t even know there
was a methadone clinic
on the opposite corner so the sun’s not
even up
it’s dark and we have all these people
asking us what are you doing we’re like
we’re gonna cook breakfast
just go go tell a couple people and
they’re like okay we will
there was a line around the corner
before we even cracked an
egg and we had like two dozen eggs
a little bottle of orange juice and a
box of joe that
serves maybe 10 12 cups of coffee
so i went right on facebook i said we
need to do this
fast forward i don’t know two years
i have this company now and it all
became it all came from that moment
i started talking to people that were
living out in the streets
and i saw this basic necessity that they
needed
socks the thing that i just open my
drawer and
grab a pair i don’t even look at the
time when i’m grabbing
right but it all happened because i
answered that
invitation from my friend with
99 of the time i would have said no
because i would have found some other
thing i was doing that day but for some
reason
i said yes and it completely changed my
life
just a couple weeks ago i want to talk
about relationships now because i think
a lot of times with these talks and and
it they become so business-minded and
people want to know how you became
successful
and you guys don’t know if i’m
successful or not you don’t know if
anything that i’ve done
has actually worked that well right so
why
why does everyone assume that so i want
to talk about relationships
i heard what i think is god to sum it
maybe something else but i heard a voice
in my head
tell me to text a friend that i hadn’t
talked to in many years
and invite him to play hockey the next
night sunday nights i play hockey
recently and it’s been great
i texted him i said hey want to come
want to come play hockey with me
tomorrow night
and he said yes he gets in my car the
next night
and he said
not moments before you texted me
minutes hours whatever it was i forget
what he said
but he said i was on my knees
at the end of my rope and i was praying
for my friends and for haki to come back
and they both came back in that one text
that you sent me
now to me it was just something simple
i’m inviting my friend
to come play hockey with me to him
it was the beginning of his new life
um some a little bit of hope uh
and and in turn it gave me this this
sense of hope
you know so if you get an idea
if you have this thought to reach out to
a friend
i think i think we always try to find
where the benefit is for ourself what am
i going to get out of it
sure we we need to be have some sort of
success
i have two kids i have this
responsibility to provide for my wife
and my kids
but if we start to just simply say yes
to things
i know my generation we’ve been taught
the last
i don’t know five or six years that we
need to start saying no more
we need to start eliminating things from
our life we need to
we need to stop doing all a million
things and i think there’s a
sense of wisdom there and you certainly
need to
find certain things that are kind of
toxic in your life and
if you are an extremely busy person yeah
certainly
but i think we’ve kind of trained
ourselves to just naturally say no
before thinking
oh maybe this is something that i want
to try out so
recently a friend of mine decided to
start up kind of a men’s group
whatever you want to call it and we meet
every other sunday on zoom of course
right now
and the first
none of us really know each other
besides our connection is him
so he thought i have this group of
friends that i really think would all
enjoy each other and build each other up
that iron sharpens iron mentality
so we started off the first the first
sunday by
just introducing uh each one of us
and he said he said matt
fosters a friendship unlike anyone that
i’ve ever seen
he said i think he texts me and calls me
more than
my wife does and i started to
reflect back on this one moment when i
was
i don’t know 14 15 years old i got
invited to this
very high level hockey camp where a lot
of
college division one college coaches
were going to be at
and it was right outside of boston and
my father my father brought me but he
actually had somewhere to be he had a he
had a job
he had to be at so he drops me off and
outside of boston
and i go into the locker room all these
kids play with each other
and they’re all talking to each other
i’m all alone and
that can really do a lot for your
performance where you feel kind of
exiled so i didn’t know my dad called
his friend and he said hey
my son’s all alone tomorrow would you
mind driving down to boston
watch him tell me how he’s doing and
then can you take him out for lunch or
something
in between sessions he said yes
he goes i see him there
it makes me have this sense of
confidence the sense of comfort
acted like i was his own son he was
answering the call
to his friend and he went above and
beyond the call of duty
he didn’t bring me a bag lunch he didn’t
just come
and watch and text my dad i don’t even
know if texting was really a big thing
back then
after the session he takes me to the
nicest restaurant he could find
probably spent five six hundred dollars
on oysters and
all kinds of seafood and i was blown
away and
i don’t really think i knew at the time
the impact that was going to have on me
but now as a parent and when my friend
said that about
about me i realized
that moment right there changed changed
the way i viewed friendship
i i thought i thought that’s what you do
i thought when your friend
calls you and asks you to do something
that’s how you’re supposed to do it
on the highest level on the topic of
friends
four years ago i got a phone call from
my father
and i answered it the same way i know
hey
what’s up hey dad how you doing
he goes son i need you to sit down
and i said okay what’s going on and he
said i
i i think your your best friend might
have passed away
and i go what what are you talking about
now my best friend
was a third so his father
his grandfather they all share the same
name and i’m like no
he’s 26. he there’s no
it’s not him it’s his father or his
grandfather i didn’t wish it was any of
them but
i had a decision to make i either live
in this mystery
or i drive down the road to his parents
house and figure out if my best friend
had passed away
i think that’s going to bring me closure
and i’m going to know
i opened the door i knocked on the door
i remember his aunt answered the phone
or answered the door
and she just nodded her head and i’m
crying and
i go inside and his mom comes walking
down the stairs and they said she hasn’t
come downstairs since it happened
and she just held onto me she she just
held on to me
and would not let go and i it gave her
this sense of peace
and we spent the whole night talking
about stories and i was telling them
stories that they had never heard before
they’re laughing
and we’re crying and it felt good it
felt good to reflect
and they they finally had a chance to
take a deep breath
my phone rang the next day and it was
his father
and i knew right then and there i
started crying i picked up the phone and
he said i’d be honored if you would give
the eulogy
now i’m 26 years old i never imagined
i’d lose a friend
and i also never imagined i’d be
preparing a speech
on a day like that but then i thought
this is this is amazing i get to brag
about my friend
while some of my other buddies are maybe
getting drunk and standing in the back
of the church and cursing god and
figuring out why
i get to stand up front and bring people
peace
and get to brag about my friend and tell
stories peop that people i’ve never
heard and it all
goes back i decided to say yes
to my desire to drive to his parents
house and bring them peace
now there was a little bit of
selfishness there because i was
torn up i didn’t know if my friend was
dead or alive
i was calling him obviously he’s not
picking up
and i said i gotta i gotta go figure
this out
so i hope to take away from from tonight
and
uh from the stories that i told you that
you never really know
and i think a lot of people right now in
this state of the world every
everyone has an opinion on what to do
what not to do
and they may not necessarily have ever
even been involved in that topic ever in
their life
i encourage you to go try something new
i encourage you to go actually
live a little bit of your life i
encourage you the next time your friend
asks you to do something
maybe say yes a pretty introverted
extroverted kind of person there’s a lot
of times where i just want to
just be home with my family and
i’ve realized that that word yes
holds a lot of power and
if i can leave you with one thing it’s
go try something new
it could be something small could be
something major
just go try something new thanks
everybody