Hey there folks, I'm Daniel.
Welcome to the Pebble in a Pond podcast.
This is not only going to be our first episode, but the first time that I've ever recorded
anything like this.
So I hope that everyone is a little forgiving and understanding as I try to figure this
all out and work out the kinks as I work my way through this.
Hopefully the message will be more important than the technical buffoonery that I am about
to try to work my way through.
So I think we'll start with a simple introduction of what exactly this podcast is going to be
about and what the point of it all is.
To do that, I'm going to start with a story.
A story that I heard when I was very young.
One that it really did have an impact on me.
I remember it sparingly, the details, so I'm going to try to fill in as much as I can.
I don't know where the story was originally told.
I don't know how old the story is.
It is literally just a childhood memory that really stuck with me a lot as I got older.
The story starts with a little boy in a village or somewhere.
And he's a little farm boy in a village and he starts to wonder as he goes through every
day, get up, go to do his chores, do all the stuff that he does.
He just works all day and then he goes to bed and he starts to wonder about his place
in the universe.
He starts to feel very insignificant.
And at some point he gets to where he's really questioning his own existence.
And so he goes to the village elder who is renowned for being this wise man who really
understands where people's place is and really has a way of explaining things in a clear
and concise way.
And the village elder sits and listens and the little boy just says, how does somebody
like me, like why do I matter?
What can I do to make the world a better place?
How can I be important?
And the elder just looks at him and smiles and he takes him by the hand and he leads
him down the hill to a small pond that's at the bottom of the hill.
And when they reach the edge of the pond, the elder picks up a small pebble and he hands
it to the boy and he says, throw the pebble into the pond.
So the boy does.
And when the pebble hits the pond, it creates a, you know, it's a little tiny pebble.
So it just creates a splash and then some ripples.
And the boy just sits there and watches the ripples for a second.
And the elder says, just like that pebble, our actions can create ripples in the world
around us.
Every time you're kind, every time you're gentle, every time you act with compassion
and courtesy, you're creating a ripple that reaches far beyond anything that you can ever
really understand.
The same thing goes for when you inflict harm or pain or negativity.
Those ripples are also felt and they have far reaching consequences that you'll never
understand.
So as the boy sits there and thinks about this, he begins to understand, you know, just
how simple it really is.
And he turns and he looks at the pond and he realizes that those little ripples that
he had made by throwing the pebble have now turned into a little bit larger waves and
they're hitting the shore and they're moving the dirt and the pieces of stuff on the edge
of the pond.
And he, you know, has a look on his face like he's starting to understand and the village
elder reaches his hand down and puts his hand on the shoulder of this boy and says, you
must understand that you don't get to choose what happens when you throw the pebble.
It just hits the pond and the ripples go where they will.
So if you act with love and kindness, you don't need to worry about it because you know
that the positive energy and the love that you're spreading will be the effect that you're
bringing into the world.
Whereas if you are spreading hate or anger or any other negative emotion, that's what
you're going to spread into the world.
As the boy stood there, he began to understand and he made a promise to himself and to the
elder that he was going to live his life with purpose and intention.
He was going to try everything he could to be as kind and loving and compassionate as
possible so that the energy that he put into the world and the ripples that he created
would be ones that were positive.
He understood that the smallest boy, the smallest pebble can create far, far reaching effects
just with a simple act of kindness.
Now obviously I was kind of trying to remember a lot of that off the cuff so I apologize
for kind of stammering and working my way through it.
It really, when you're a little kid and you hear a story like that, it kind of cements
your place to a certain degree.
It makes you realize just how important you can be while also kind of being crappy because
this old guy is like, hey you're insignificant.
But completely forgetting that part, it's an important lesson.
When I decided to start, for lack of a better word, changing my life, I decided that that
was the basis on which I was going to make the changes.
I'm not somebody who has ever really embraced a lot of major changes in my life so all I
could really think to do was small things.
And one of those small things is starting this podcast.
And if you've come here from the TikTok videos and you know that I've started doing that
as well, it's really just to get the idea of this message out.
And that idea is as simple as that story.
If each one of us takes just a little bit of extra time, just a little bit of understanding
and carries that with us and says, you know what, I'm not going to be a jerk.
I'm not going to be mean to people.
I'm not going to treat people horribly.
I'm just going to be kind and loving.
And I'm going to put that energy out.
If we could get 50 people to do that, it would be a massive change in the world.
If we can get 100 people to do that, it would be a massive change.
Any number of people that can latch onto this idea and start to understand it, the changes
that you'll start to see in the people around you and the world around you will be jaw dropping.
And I'm not just saying that for hyperbole.
I really do believe that.
I believe that if all of us just took a little bit of extra time and effort to be better
people that the world would genuinely be a better place.
Now, obviously it's not that simple, right?
Like I can't just come on here and say it and it makes it happen.
And that's kind of what the whole point of this podcast is, is to try to illustrate ideas
and concepts and ways of thinking that will help further this idea and will make it easier
for people that maybe haven't thought about some of these things.
I'm just going to be giving suggestions and telling stories that I feel are positive and
bring some good energy into this world because at the end of the day, all we can do is try
to change things.
And if we do nothing, then things are going to stay exactly how they are.
And I don't really feel like doing nothing anymore.
And on that note, I think it's probably important to make sure that everybody understands a
little bit about me.
I have been clinically depressed for probably 20 years.
I don't really remember when it started.
I don't really remember how it started.
It just kind of creeped in and took hold of me.
And for those of you that don't really understand depression, it can, it creates a version of
you that is, I don't really know how to say this, it is your front-facing face.
The way that you interact with people, the way that you, the way that people view you,
they see this mask of depression most of the time.
And what I mean by that is there will be times when you'll be interacting with someone and
you'll be trapped in your own body.
You won't be able to speak out and say the things you want to say because your depression
is just so stifling and so overwhelming that it's doing all the talking for you.
You don't really get to make the choice of how you interact with people a lot of times.
So for me, having lived with it for as long as I did, or still am really, it was very
life-altering.
It became my way of life and it really did affect everyone and everything in my life.
And obviously for a period of time like that, I can't really get into all the details of
it.
Maybe if I do this podcast for another 40 years, I can get into it.
But it's pretty depressing since we're talking about depression.
And so there's, I don't really see much point in all the details.
The reason I bring that up is because this podcast and the ideas that come out of it
were spawned at the very, very bottom of that depression where it basically became a situation
where it was sink or swim.
I either had to find a way to claw myself out of it or I was it.
I was done.
And I mean that in just the way you think I mean it.
It was really, really that bad.
And it was really over the course of one night I just hit rock bottom emotionally.
I couldn't see a way out.
And then I'm not really sure what happened, but I mean I've been calling it an inspiration
or an epiphany.
But at some point it just clicked.
You know, I can't keep doing this.
I can't let this depression kill me.
I can't let it take over my life anymore.
And I mean once again the backstory is a little bit more in depth and the reasoning for the
depression getting that bad is a longer story that I'm not going to get into at this point
at least.
But suffice it to say I was moved.
I was changed.
I felt almost immediately better about my life.
For those of you that have dealt with depression you'll know that there's periods of time where
it fades away and you start to feel yourself again.
You start to feel good.
And the problem with depression is that it always comes back.
It always rears its ugly head.
And you know, who knows?
It may, I may have to deal with it, fight the hydra again if you will.
But right now as I'm recording this I feel better than I have in a long, long time.
And I feel like I have a purpose.
And that purpose is to try to get this message out and make people feel better about their
lives and try to affect the lives of those closest to them so that they may also be pebbles
in the pond if you will.
Now the general idea of this spawned, like I said, in a period of extreme depression.
And the original idea was going to be me as somebody who is a, I guess you could say a
student of humanity and history and just general, I guess you could say I'm a student of people.
My favorite pastime when I was in high school and those formative years was not going out
and partying and drinking and all of those things.
I would just go places and sit and people watch.
That was my favorite thing to do.
I loved watching people.
I loved learning people.
I would sit in the middle of a mall or I would sit in a, at the time there was a virgin megastore.
I would sit and I would go up into the top level of the virgin megastore and I would
just sit and watch people.
And no doubt it was probably boring for most of my friends.
But for me it was enthralling.
I loved it.
I loved watching the way people walked.
I loved watching the way that some people held hands and some people, you know, the
looks that they would give each other, the ways that people communicated without ever
really saying a word.
I really spend most of my time when I'm in public studying people and trying to understand
them on a verbal and nonverbal level.
So I know that sometimes when you get into these podcasts and you start to listen to
them, people throw around terms that I guess are hot button terms and this is one of those
for some people.
And so just bear with me on this.
Some people would say that I'm an empath.
I know that there are people out there that for some reason don't believe that empathy
is a real thing.
I don't really understand that, but you know, welcome anyway.
I am an extremely sensitive empath and I really do connect very well with people in a way
that is oftentimes painful, but is always something I can learn from and I grow from.
I don't have to do a lot of things myself.
I can learn from the pain or the happiness of other people.
I can really pull from that and experience it through them a lot of times.
No, I mean obviously like skydiving is something you just have to do on your own.
You're never really going to be able to emulate that with just empathy, but it is, you know,
I can certainly understand the happiness and the high related with it.
So the original idea was going to be me having the skill set that I have and a very close
friend of mine who is a trained life coach and she was going to be bringing her expertise
and her training into the fold and we were basically just going to have a back and forth
about how certain ways of seeing certain problems and dealing with certain people and you know,
things that you go through in your life.
There's just different tactics that you can take and different ways that you can move
through those scenarios and those situations.
Sometimes the better thing to do is you know, you take the life coaching and the therapy
and the psychiatry way of doing things, the kind of professional way of doing things and
that's obviously going to be better for some people.
But for a lot of people, it's just really something you can just boil down to simplicity
and kindness and I think that that's lost on a lot of people is that sometimes the best
way through a scenario or a situation that involves other people is really honestly the
simplest and easiest way of doing it.
But I feel like it's important to let everybody know that the life coach friend that I had
is probably not going to be taking part, at least not for a long time if she does.
It wasn't something that necessarily moved her as much as it moved me, but I felt that
the message that I was trying to get out and the importance of the change that can come
about from it were just too important.
I couldn't let that sidetrack me and I couldn't let it stop me from making this podcast.
I may end up spending hours making these podcasts and making these episodes and just end up
talking to myself through most of them, but if that's the case, then at least I'm getting
it out.
I work on these with two of my children and they're actually going to be my engineer and
my social media manager.
So very soon after you hear this, there will be a social media presence on almost every
social media site for this podcast.
We're really going to try as hard as we can to get the basic ideas of this message out
to as many people as we possibly can.
I don't just want to do a podcast.
I really do genuinely from the bottom of my heart want to start a community.
I want to build something out of nothing.
I want to create a movement if I can.
And obviously I can't do it alone.
So if you're hearing this and it's something that you're interested in, please, please
engage, please stick around because as I get better at this and we start to really be able
to touch some people and change some mindsets and ways of looking at the world, I think
that you're going to want to be here to see it.
You're going to want to see it from the beginning.
You're going to want to understand how this change came about because if I can accomplish
what I'm out to accomplish, it's a really simple goal.
I just want to change the world.
And that may sound a little arrogant, but we got to dream big, baby.
Dream big.
That's where I got to be.
This inspiration came to me at a point where I was at my lowest and I'm not going to let
it come back.
I'm not going to let that low point come back.
I'm going to follow this lead to the very end if I can and try to make not just my world,
but the people in this world better.
I just have to.
I don't know why.
I don't know what's driving me.
I'm not a religious man.
I'm not someone that has a lot of faith in a lot of things.
I'm actually pretty well known for being a cynic and a skeptic.
So these things that I say and this leap of faith, if you will, that I'm taking is extremely
uncomfortable and odd.
And I don't quite understand it, but sometimes we just got to roll with it.
Sometimes we don't have much choice in that.
My goal with these episodes will be to try to keep them between 30 and 45 minutes.
As we move forward, I would like to start to bring some people in, whether it be actually
in person or through whatever media I need to, to bring people in and do some interviews
and really get some professional outlooks on certain things.
I have a few avenues to pursue some historical, I guess, historians that might be willing
to come on and talk about the history of certain concepts and ideas that I'm going to be talking
about.
But those are a little ways out and obviously something I'm still working on.
So as of right now, every episode is going to have a theme, an idea that I'm going to
be discussing and trying to create understanding and avenues of change for people so that they
can start to employ some of these concepts in their everyday life and make these little
changes.
Now, I'm not, as I've already stated, I'm not a doctor.
I mean, maybe I didn't already state that, but I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a psychiatrist.
I'm not a therapist.
I'm not really somebody who, you know, any more than you would listen to your best friend
and their advice.
I'm not anything more than that.
But I can offer this if it makes any of this easier.
I genuinely care about what's happening to people and I can't tell you how important
it is to me that each person that hears this gets something out of it.
I don't want to sit here and talk into the void, but I certainly will if at some point,
whether it be tomorrow or a year from now, somebody might hear it and it might help them.
So I'm going to just keep doing it until it changes somebody's life because that's what
it's all about.
So I guess what I'd like to do next, and this will probably wrap up this episode, is I want
to tell a story.
And this isn't going to be a story like the other one where I'm trying to remember it
and stammering through it while I am trying to remember something.
Well, I mean, I guess kind of it is.
I mean, this was a long time ago, but I remember it much more clearly than I do that story
that is a childhood memory.
This story actually takes place when I was, I'd say around 16 or 17, and a group of friends
of mine, like three or four of us, we used to go hang out at the McDonald's, which is
just as exciting as it sounds.
There was a McDonald's that was, a big McDonald's that was open 24 hours.
And instead of going out to clubs and things like that, since we were still only 16 years
old, 17, we would go hang out at the McDonald's.
And we would hang out until like four or five in the morning.
This was like a serious hangout.
This wasn't, we weren't playing around.
We were hanging out.
And I remember very clearly going in there, you know, we'd been going in there a lot,
but I was, we went in there and a young lady at the time was at the register.
I'd never seen her before.
And she was sad, I guess you could say.
She looked like she had not necessarily been crying, but had obviously been upset about
something.
And keep in mind, I had been there a lot and I'd never seen this girl before.
And everybody, you know, everybody ordered their thing.
And I just, I don't know why.
I don't know.
I can't really explain it to you or anybody why I felt this need to talk to this girl.
But this would become something from, I mean, even back then, this would be something that
would actually be a driving force for me and a lot of interactions I would have is just,
I just feel these like overwhelming, like I have to do this.
I have to do that.
I don't know why, but I have to.
And this was one of those times I was overwhelmed by this need to talk to this girl.
And there was no attraction.
I mean, we were, you know, she was probably a little older than me, but there was no like
physical attraction or anything.
It was just, I just felt like I had to talk to her.
And I just asked her, I was like, are you okay?
And she said, yeah, yeah.
You know, she has, she put on the face that a lot of people put on where they, oh yeah,
of course.
Yeah, no problem.
I was like, are you sure?
Cause you seem like you're a little upset.
You know, I'm not, I'm not trying to pry.
I just, you know, you see, you do seem upset.
Is there anything I can do to help you?
And to say that those words changed lives would be doing a disservice to those words
because at that point in time, she, she damn near broke down.
Honestly, she, she just, tears came to her eyes and she said, no, I, you know, I've got,
I've got some problems and I'm dealing with them.
You know, you don't worry about it.
And you know, she, she did what most people do in society and she tried to deflect and
she tried to not get into it.
And I wasn't, I wasn't trying to pry.
I wasn't trying to like force anything out of her.
So I just, you know, I told her, you know, well, I'll be, I'll be over there sitting
down if you take a break and you want to talk about any of this stuff, you know, come join
me and my friends were there and everything.
So obviously that wasn't going to be the most comfortable scenario for her, but I, I sat,
I went, I got my, got my fries and I went and sat down and it wasn't that long, maybe,
maybe 30 minutes.
And she came over and she had a tray of food.
She was on a break and she sat down.
Well, let me be clear.
She didn't sit down with me.
She actually asked me if we could go talk.
And then I got up and went to a different booth and she sat down with me.
So she begins to tell me that she's a newly single mother.
And for this story, since I don't want to incriminate anybody or make anybody uncomfortable
that might hear it, we're going to call her Sarah.
So Sarah tells me that she's a newly single young mother.
She lives on her own.
She's basically got enough money to make it a month in the apartment that she's at.
Maybe, maybe two, if she really pushes it.
But the man in her life at the time had, you know, through her, through her pregnancy and
everything had promised that they were going to, you know, they were going to do this and
they were going to do that and they were going to make it.
And then as soon as her daughter was born, he ghosted her.
He disappeared.
And back then, I mean, this is, this is the nineties.
Back then when you ghosted somebody, they were pretty much just gone.
Like there wasn't any social media or anything to find them.
They were, you know, if they didn't want to be found, they were just gone.
Unless you know, a friend narc'd on them or something.
But for the most part, ghosting people back then was, was they were literally just ghosts.
So she, here she was alone, suddenly trying to raise a baby daughter.
And it just, it had just become too much for her.
And when she would come into her new job, this McDonald's, she was, she was getting
into trouble because she was showing up five, 10 minutes late because her situation dictated
that she couldn't necessarily make it every time, every day on time.
And so the managers and stuff were kind of laying into her and telling her that she was
going to get fired.
And this was creating a level of stress that was, it was just breaking her.
And you could just see it, like I said, on her face, you could just see that she was,
she was damn near the end.
She was going to have a breakdown and everything was going to be really bad.
So I just sat with her and we just talked and I told her about myself and we ended up
spending the 30 minute break that she had just sitting there talking and going through
all this stuff.
And I told her, you know what, I'll, I'm here all the time anyway.
I haven't seen you before.
I didn't know the first time we met, but I'll be here tomorrow or the next day.
And if you want to take a break, we can sit and talk some more.
Now, like I said before, this wasn't a situation where I was necessarily, like there was no
physical attraction.
She was, she was a pretty girl.
I'm not, I just, at the time I was with somebody and I wasn't really thinking like that.
And so it, there was no ulterior motive for what I was doing.
I just felt this overwhelming desire to help.
And I realize now looking back on it, that that might not be something that everybody
can relate to.
I don't, I'm not somebody who necessarily understands that because I kind of live my
life trying to help people.
Even in my deepest depressions, I was trying to be pleasant and trying to help people.
But I guess that's not something that everybody experiences.
I guess that's not something that everybody can relate to.
And that's as a side note, important because that's what we're trying to change.
You know, we're really, we're really want to try to get people to understand the mindset
that can go into being helpful and being kind and being there for the people that you contact
and the people that you come across in life.
So back to the story, I did come back, obviously, the next day and she was working and she took
her break.
And it was the same thing.
You know, she wasn't, obviously she wasn't quite as upset for whatever reason.
And we sat for 30 minutes.
She took her, she took her lunch or break and she just came and sat with me and we just
sat and talked.
And this happened over the course of a few weeks, multiple times.
I think it probably, probably been four or five, five times a week I was there.
And like I said, this was just our hangout spot.
We would just go get a drink and sit down and, you know, start shit with people as they
walked by.
We were, you know, Repscallions and hoodlums hanging out at the McDonald's at 3 a.m.
But this, this moment and this interaction I had with Sarah kind of changed that a little
bit.
I kind of had, had removed myself for this period of time from these guys.
And these are, these are my close friends and you know, obviously they're looking at
it like, oh, are you trying to get with this chick?
And I'm like, no, I'm just trying to help.
And so them knowing me relatively well, they kind of backed off and they kind of understood
where I was coming from.
And so over the course of this month or so where I would go in and we would have these
conversations, things were getting progressively worse for her, but she was feeling better.
Having somebody there to talk to and to kind of lay down some of the burden that she had
really helped her a lot.
And I saw it and she, she said it a few times, you know, she was, she was happy.
She was, she was glad she would look forward to going to work because it was almost going
to work became a respite from the dreariness of the rest of her life.
She got to come in and have a 30 minute therapy session with, with yours truly.
And I knew that, I knew that it was a high point for her.
She had, she'd explained it to me.
And so I started to try to build on it.
I, you know, I started to try to give some suggestions and some ideas of things that
she could do, things that might make it easier for her and her daughter.
So you know, like I said, this was a, this was a pretty concentrated period of time.
This was a, I don't know, like I said, a month, month and a half that I did this and then
life happens, things happen.
And I think I got a job.
I don't remember which job this was, but I got a job and I couldn't, I wouldn't come
in all the time anymore.
It became more of a once a week thing.
But when I would, every time I would come in, she would come sit down with me and she'd
eat some fries or whatever.
And we'd sit and talk.
Well, as time went on and she was, you know, she wasn't taking all my advice, but she was
listening and she was understanding that I was trying to help.
And so as time went on, she ended up taking some of my advice and doing the things she
needed to do to become a shift lead and then become a manager.
And this happened over the course of probably, I don't know, I want to say six to eight months.
She went from a new hire cashier to a shift lead.
And then she became the night manager of a pretty big McDonald's.
Actually, it was a pretty big deal.
And I'll never forget the first time, because I knew that she was up for the manager position,
but I'll never forget going in there and seeing her.
And she was, you know, wearing little manager shirts that they wear and everything.
And she just smiled at me.
And even now just saying that I just, the mental image of her smile, it's heartwarming,
honestly.
Seeing her smile and she came and instead of me buying my food, when I went to go check
out or went to go up to the register, she just waved me off.
And I was like, okay.
And she's like, just go sit down.
So I go sit down and probably 10 minutes later, she comes around the corner and she's got
a tray of food for me.
And she was a manager now, so she got the perks.
And she went and she got food for us both.
And we sat there and we had our normal.
I think it was actually a 45 minute conversation because she was the manager.
She had to get up and go deal with a bunch of crap while we were talking.
But we ended up sitting there talking for quite some time.
And then that would happen.
That ended up being the new normal thing.
It was once a week, once in a while, I would go in and sit down and we'd catch up.
And as time went on, life just went in separate directions.
And I stopped hanging out at McDonald's.
And I never had her phone number.
I never had any way of getting in contact with her.
There was a point where I didn't know where she lived.
There was a point where her ex-man had come back into her life and was threatening her.
And I remember her telling me that.
And especially then I was a lot more white nightish, if you will.
And I got her address and met her at the gas station by her house one day and followed
her to her house just to make a show of...
I never went in her house.
I never went in her...
It was her apartment.
I never went in her apartment.
But I remember going in there just to make a show of she's got muscle, basically.
And shockingly enough, I'm not really a big guy, but apparently I'm pretty intimidating.
So shockingly enough, it worked.
And this dude took off and from what I understand, didn't come back for a long, long time and
didn't bother her anymore, which was good for her and her daughter because that guy
was a real douchebag.
So as time went on, like I said, we just kind of went our separate ways.
And I won't say I forgot about her, but when life is happening, you tend to put things
that are in the past in the past.
And I was just living a whole new life.
Well flash forward about two years.
And I'll be honest, I don't remember the concert.
I don't remember what I was there with, but I was there with my mother and somebody else,
another friend of mine.
And we're out in the lobby leaving the merch booth.
And I've got a fresh new concert t-shirt over my shoulder and we're walking back into the
venue and I hear my name.
I just hear somebody yell, Daniel, Daniel.
And I turn around and I'm looking through the crowd and my mom heard my name as well
and she's turning and she's looking and she's somebody she recognizes.
And I remember scanning the crowd and not recognizing anybody and just being confused
and thinking, well, they must be talking to somebody else.
And then the crowd parted like a movie scene and Sarah was standing there.
But it wasn't the Sarah that I remembered.
It was an entirely different Sarah.
I mean, same face, same everything.
But this was a Sarah that didn't have McDonald's clothes on.
And I'd never seen that before really.
Like I said, I had seen it briefly when I stood outside of her apartment and intimidated
her ex-boyfriend.
But other than that, I had never seen her done up to go out and things like that.
It was just not something that had ever crossed my mind that she would look different.
I just always imagined her as a McDonald's employee.
And so there she was and she had a friend with her and she sees me and she has this
huge smile and she starts to tear up and I was shocked.
I was like, Sarah?
And she's like, yeah.
And she comes up and she just throws her arms around me and gives me the big one of the
biggest hugs I've ever had squeezes me till it hurt.
And she said, I saw you.
I didn't want to bother you.
I'm like, it's okay.
It's okay.
How are you doing?
You know, I'm trying to trying to small talk because it's weird.
It was weird to see like when you have an interaction with somebody and the only way
that you ever see them is in this one way and then you see them in an entirely different
way.
I mean, she had like a bunch of makeup on and she was all dressed up and she looked
great.
And it was shocking.
Not that she could look great, but that she looked like she was really happy and healthy.
And that was a departure from the way that we had started our friendship.
And she said, I saw you and I had to tell you.
And I said, I had to tell me what?
And she's at this point in time, she's damn near bawling.
I mean, she's having a hard time speaking.
And she just says to me, you changed my life.
I owe you everything.
And I'm not gonna lie, I actually just get a little emotional thinking about it.
She says, everything that you did, everything that you said changed everything in my life.
My life is better because of you.
And that's all she said.
And she just sat there and hugged me and I didn't know what to say.
I just, I was shocked and I just hugged her back.
And I said, are you, this is one of those moments where you say the dumbest possible
things.
Are you here for the show?
I mean, she's in the arena, like obviously had to take it to get in and I'm, are you
here for the show?
I just want to really, really stupid thing to say.
But and she's like, yeah.
And I was like, okay.
And I just remember looking back and seeing my mom and she's got like this puzzle look
on my face, but also was like, she was like freaked out, but also like, I don't know,
proud to a certain degree.
Like, I don't know if she'd even heard what Sarah had said to me, but she, she, I guess
she just assumed that like, I don't know.
I don't know what she assumed, but I thought at the time that she had this look of concern,
but pride.
And I don't, like I said, I don't, nothing else was really said.
I, there's, there's nothing more to that part of it.
But we go in, you know, I say, I say, okay, well, you know, just stay in contact or whatever.
And we went to the show and I went and watched the show and she went and watched the show
wherever she was sitting.
I didn't follow up on it.
And that was it.
That was, that would, that would normally be the end of the story.
And even that part of the story is, I believe enough to show, to, to evidence what small
kindness and consideration can do.
I really think that that would be a great end to the story, but that's not really the
end of the story.
And the end of the story is actually many, many, many years later, as in, uh, well, what's,
what year is this?
Uh, six years ago was 2016.
Um, I get a message on Facebook, don't recognize the name.
Don't know anything about it.
Don't know who this person is.
And I was like, oh, or did you, it just says, is this Daniel?
I was like, yeah.
Did you, do I know you?
And the person, uh, which we will call, let's say Jessica, uh, the, the person, uh, Jessica
says to me, you know, my mom.
And I was like, oh, what, who's your mom?
And she says, Sarah blank.
I'm not going to say her last name.
Uh, and I'm like, really?
This is, I knew you when you were a baby.
And she said, yeah, that's my mom.
And she was telling me about you and how you changed her life.
And I just wanted you to know that you didn't just change her life.
You changed my life too.
And I wanted to thank you because I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for you.
And so, uh, you know, the, the, the conversation went back and forth a few more times and come
to find out that, uh, Sarah's daughter had grown up with her mom being a manager at a
McDonald's, which never would have happened if I hadn't talked to her.
And I, you know, we hadn't had the conversations that we'd had and ends up that she ended up
going to college.
And, uh, when I talked to her, she was working on, I think she was going to be a vet, some
sort of, some sort of animal doctor.
I don't know exactly what, uh, some sort of veterinarian.
I don't know what her particular specialty was going to be, but, um, now I haven't, I
haven't, I'm not going to say that there's like a big happy ending beyond that because
I haven't really talked to her since then.
Uh, maybe she'll hear this.
Uh, maybe I'll post it, uh, if I can find that message again.
But um, you know, this was a girl that was, you know, she, I think she was 20 something
when she contacted me about her mother who was, uh, uh, a little bit older than me.
So, um, but it, it stunned me.
It completely floored me.
I, I, I'm not going to lie to you.
When I tell you that I, that was not a message that I ever could have expected or really
even wanted for.
I'm so happy and so proud that they were able to live a good life.
And, uh, and who knows the effects that they're, they're living and the lives that they've
affected and the lives that they've touched because of the, the positive energy that they're
bringing.
And I know that I had a part in that.
I know that I, I helped create that energy that, that, that went through multiple lives
and changed them for the better.
And it was really then, it was, it was at that concert actually where I thought, wow,
I didn't, I never thought I could do anything like that.
I, I don't really tend to think of myself as being overly important throughout most of
my life.
So it, when stuff like that has happened, it has really, really left me with a, a feeling
of pride and happiness, something that I can pull back on.
And when, when I got to my deepest, darkest parts of my depression, I would often think
about that story and that moment and all of the, the, the choices that I made, the small
things that I would say and the, the careful considerations that I took when, when talking
to her and dealing with her that would end up changing her life.
And I'm extremely proud of it.
But that's the end of the story so far.
That's all I know.
And I wanted to share that in this first episode because I think that it really does illustrate
just how powerful each of us can be and each of us really are.
A lot of people just don't know it.
A lot of people just don't understand the effect that each and every single one of us
can have on the people in our lives for good and for bad.
And if you're gonna, if you're gonna be here, if you're gonna be on this planet, if you're
gonna be trying to live with the rest of the people on this planet, then you might as well
be good.
You might as well try to bring as much light and positivity and love into the world as
you possibly can.
Now I'm gonna end the episode with a quote.
A quote that has stuck with me since I was, I'd say probably 14.
And it has haunted me and been an ever looming specter over my shoulder.
And that quote is by Henry David Thoreau.
And he once wrote, Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with
the song still in them.
I have lived many years of my life in quiet desperation.
Despite the warning that I got when I was 14 and first read Walden, I have lived, I've
lived out exactly what he speaks of in that quote.
And I don't want to do that anymore.
So from this point on, just like the little boy in that story, I'm going to make a promise.
I promise to use everything that I can and everything at my disposal, which isn't much,
but I'm gonna use every bit of power that I have in me to try to make this world a better
place.
And I'm going to try to help as many people as I can understand how beautiful and valuable
they really are in the grand scheme of things.
If you made it this far, I appreciate you.
And I thank you for listening.
The next episode will be up in a week, hopefully, from when you hear this.
And we're going to be talking about the very basic concepts that come into play when you're
trying to change your life.
And the number one most important aspect is honesty and truth and understanding the value
and the importance of being earnest and forthright with people and making sure that you are as
authentic as possible in every way.
So that's what we have coming up in a week.
Thank you very much for slogging through this first episode as I'm trying to figure this
all out.
I promise you these episodes will get better as I get more comfortable.
This is my first go.
Thank you again.
And I want you all to have a very, very good day.