Rich Dixon and I are writing separately this week, but are on the same page.

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How do I help this audience of homeless men connect with the dream behind Rich’s Ride?

I felt myself grasping for the right words. This story felt just right for this audience.

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Leonard was tired of my endless complaining. More than a year after my accident, I still invested more energy in seeking sympathy than working to get better.

One day as I complained about what I couldn’t do with my damaged body, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper. On one side he drew a circle around “10,000.” He said, “Imagine this circle represents all of the things you could do before your accident.”

Then he turned the paper over and drew a similar circle with a pie-shaped wedge removed. He wrote “2,000” in the missing piece.

“You just lost a lot of things; you may never get many of them back. So now you need to decide.

“Will you spend the rest of your life griping about the two thousand things you lost, or will you focus on the eight thousand that remain.”

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I asked if anyone in my audience had ever lost something. Slowly, everyone raised a hand. I told them how I let loss define me for a long time. In my mind, I was the guy who couldn’t. Whatever it was, I couldn’t do it.

“Has that happened to you?” Again, every hand went up.

“How would it be different if you focused on what you can do instead of what you can’t?”

They got it. I could see the connection in their eyes.

I talked about how it isn’t easy, doesn’t change overnight. I tried to be transparent. I told the men I couldn’t possibly understand their situation. But I also told them I knew about hopelessness, and I’d been to the place of giving up.

Then I asked if they thought my ride was easy. Heads slowly shook. It felt like they understood I wasn’t just some guy who dropped in to toss around some empty God-words. I ended with a challenge.

“If an old, bald, crippled guy can do this ride, what can you do?”

To be continued…