The Power of Kindness
Speaking on the theme Living Your Legacy at Speaker Slam® in Toronto on Feb 28, 2018, Mitch Kurylowicz took the stage with a five minute story.
Transcript
I'm gonna ask you all a question and if you don't mind if your answer is yes I want you to raise your hand and if your answer was no I want you to keep your hand down it's not okay have you ever gotten lucky all right all right not bad okay well let me tell you something about myself I get lucky all the time but not in the way you might be thinking I am lucky every single day for three very simple reasons because I'm healthy because I'm safe and because I have access to opportunity I'm healthy because I don't have to worry about things
are out of my control I'm safe because I have a warm apartment to go to every single night and I have an amazing amount of access to opportunity because I made the luxurious choice to come to an event of idea sharing tonight instead of having to pitch up a tent underneath a bridge to sleep in we've all made a luxurious choice tonight to even have the conversation about purpose and legacy when the majority of the world the majority of the world over 50% is having a conversation about survival now I've seen people pursuing survival all over the world I spent a lot of time in
East Africa in the developing world and every time I go back I meet young people my own age 20 years old and younger who are studying in schools that are made out of cow dung I can't afford to go to a hospital and you have to walk ten kilometers with bare feet to go and collect water that the donkeys have just relieved themselves in it's not right the first time I came back from Kenya to Canada was in 2007 I was nine years old it was January 2007 lots of snow on the ground really really cold and I've been home for about three days I'm
sitting on the couch and as a nine-year-old in my family my task was to go and get the mail so you think okay well it's time to go get the nails come to go do my my tasks so get off the couch I go to the door I open it up I grab the mail key I go outside lots of snow so I have to trudge through the snow get to the mailbox take out the key put it in the lock open the door take the mail close the door put the mail here trudged back through the snow get home open the door or take
the mail put it on the counter and there's a newsletter a newsletter for my street the one that they put out but once a month to tell the community things that they have to look forward to and things that they have to complain about the number one complaint was on the headline this newsletter our street is the last one in the whole city to get snow removal our streets the last one in the city to get snow removal so what do we do I mean not about the snow removal but about the attitude I can't blame my street for not knowing what's happening halfway across
the world but I can blame myself for not better exposing that world to my street and to my peers it snow removal is not a big problem so what can we do well I believe that the number one kind of trick of God or the universe or whatever higher power you believe in that keeps the happiest people the happiest can really be boiled down to just one word giving when I give when I'm nice to people when I kneel down and shake the hand of a homeless man on the street and treat him with respect I'm not saving the world but what I am doing
is spreading the love and feeling personally really happy to be a part of the solution so in a certain way when I give with my time or manner gee I'm being selfish ly selfless doing things for other people selflessly but selfishly getting so much in return knowing that I've helped someone else so I'm gonna continue to be as nice to as many people as I possibly can and by doing that I'll be the nicest guy and I'll be the happiest guy around finally is to incorporate goodness into what you already do every single day but not because you have to but because it's okay to
be selfish ly selfless and it will make you the most happy the way that I can leave a positive legacy is by being selfishly selfless by reminding myself that this removal problems of the world are not big ones and reminding myself how lucky I am to be healthy to be safe and to have access to opportunity when the majority of the world does not so let me ask you one more question now that you know you're getting lucky will you be a part of the solution too Thanks
Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.