Thread by @AlexBanayan

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)