The Mission

So, the story starts way back in 2007 when I was in junior high school. I felt like I had something to say and wanted to say it in a big way. Facebook wasn't enough. Just telling my friends wasn't enough. So, I came up with something that would grab attention. I decided to make sandwich-board signs with my messages on them, and I would wear them all day at school. To my surprise, it was a hit. Everyone wanted to read them! Well, flash forward to the last two weeks of my senior year in high school. I had the urge again. Another not so surprising thing about the signs was the massive inconvenience and discomfort, so I had a better idea. I bought a bunch of blank t-shirts and wrote my messages on them with a Sharpie. I made a new one every day for two weeks. Some were song lyrics, some just a single word like "FEARLESS", and others were phrases I had come up with. And yet again, everyone was stopping me in the halls trying to read what my shirt said! I was amazed and knew I was on to something.

A shirt can start a conversation. A conversation can change a life.

Getting people's attention was only part of the goal, though. I wanted to give them something that might make them stop for a moment, quiet the chatter of the world and the pressure of life, and look deeper within themselves. I hoped they would find something meaningful, find something with substance that they could hold on to, a foothold in the climb of life. I hoped to challenge harmful or superficial norms and the tendency to just go through the motions every day.

In the years since those sandwich boards and original Sharpie Shirts, I've learned that the most remarkable experiences often begin with ordinary days, ordinary decisions, ordinary conversations. I have my dream job, and as far as I can tell, the thing that made the single biggest impact on me achieving my dream was just telling people about it. A friend just happened to have a friend looking for a drummer and knew I was looking for a gig. My willingness and excitement to share my passion gave other people the opportunity to participate in it. They say success happens when preparation meets opportunity. The preparation is the work you do in private. The opportunity often comes from the connections you make out in the world.

I told the world who I wanted to be constantly, like it was printed on my shirt.