THREAD

Story time... this is by far the craziest thing to ever happen at one of my keynotes in my life.

Okay, so this photo is from two days ago. I was keynoting Dutch Bros‘ company-wide event with 2,500 employees at the Golden 1 Arena. The keynote was going really well and then when we opened up for Q&A, it took a turn. (2/10)

A young woman named Amanda asked a question about whether she should finish college or not. Halfway through her question, she started choking up. Then she stated crying. ⠀
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The audience clapped for her and Amanda decided to be extremely honest and explain that... (3/10)

the reason she was even asking is because, just one hour earlier, she got an email from her university’s financial aid office saying they were cancelling her $5,000 in aid this year. And she wasn’t sure if she should go into even more debt to finish school. (4/10)

It’s hard to explain how emotional it was as she told her story. The only thing I could think to say is that I promised her that everyone in this arena loves her and we could figure this out together.

And then the audience started chanting.

“Venmo.... Venmo... VENMO.” (5/10)

It took me a little time to realize what they were saying: they wanted to know Amanda’s Venmo username. Someone in the audience shouted out that if everyone sends a few dollars, we could crowd fund her financial aid. ⠀
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This was either the best or worst idea... (6/10)

but I just ran with the energy. I told Amanda to very slowly say her Venmo username into the microphone. ⠀
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We eventually wrapped up the keynote and an hour later, I saw hundreds of payments sent to her, all sending her comments of extreme love and encouragement. (7/10)

But I didn’t know the dollar amounts. I reached out to Amanda the next morning and asked what happened with her Venmo account. ⠀
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She said the total was... $6,411 (!!!!!!!!!!) ⠀
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I couldn’t fucking believe it. (8/10)

What’s so amazing about this story is that Amanda never asked for money during the Q&A. She was asking for advice so she could help herself. And she was so courageous and vulnerable about what she was actually going through—people wanted to help. (9/10)

This is proof that there are a lot of good people in this world. It’s proof that random miracles happen through the kindness of complete strangers.⠀

And it’s proof that sometimes, what you thought was one of the worst moments in your life, can turn out to be the best. (10/10)