Because I Said I Would
Alex Sheen wanted to pay tribute to his deceased father — and that turned into an international non-profit movement. To memorialize his father, he passed out cards at his father’s funeral that said “because I said I would” and he encouraged friends and family to write down promises. “Just live by what you say” from mundane to life-altering commitments. On his blog, he promised to mail 10 Promise Cards to anyone who asked for them. This turned out to be a very expensive endeavor (just paying for postage!).
He has distributed roughly 4.5 million Promise Cards in the past four years. His movement has inspired individuals, organizations, schools and communities. It even brought one person to admit he had killed a man. His Promise Card simply said “‘I will take responsibility for what I have done…’ because I said I would.”Because I Said I Would tells the stories of people following through on the promises they made just because they said they would, albeit perhaps with a bit of inspiration from Mr. Sheen.
One of my favorite things is the TED Talks. 15 minutes or so of well crafted on point story telling. Here are three such presentations from the Because I Said I Would website that preach the message. Although my own commitment to building a better person this year was not influenced by his movement, we followed a similar path: we said we were going to do it, built a plan, and followed through just because we said we would. While the 2016 World Series, one side representing Cleveland, represents the hope and aspirations of two cities, Alex represented three Cleveland women by walking the state of Ohio.
Sheen quit a successful & well-paying management job in technology to pursue the betterment of humanity through promises made and kept throughout the world.
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