Alex Sheen
SEATTLE–For much of their existence, credit unions made loans based solely upon a person’s “character” and a promise to pay money back. Today, credit unions were told by a man whose life has gone viral, “promises” are important, but what really changes the world is “promises kept.”
Alex Sheen, the founder and CEO of “Because I Said I Would,” shared with credit unions at America’s Credit Union Conference (ACUC) here how a painful time in his life has led to a worldwide movement over the past three years that is all about keeping commitments.
And it’s all due to a Facebook post that has changed his life and others.
“I posted it and went to sleep. The next morning it had 1.997 million views on Facebook. The local and national media were at my door.”
Before any of that occurred, however, Sheen went through a difficult time in his life when his father, a pharmacist who worked at a hospital, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
“My father was too average, too normal, except for one thing: My father was a man of his word to his sons,” said Sheen. “When my dad said he was going to be there, he showed up. My father kept his promises, and not many people are like that, it seems.”
Father Diagnosed With Cancer
Sheen recalled his father elected for the most aggressive types of treatment even though he knew better than just about anyone what the side effects were and how long were the odds he was facing. For a short while, it seemed a “miracle” had occurred and the cancer was in remission. But in no time it had spread again and on Sept. 4, 2012, his father died.
“When we lose someone we go through a struggle. We have so many questions, and we get very few answers,” said Sheen.
Asked to give the eulogy at the funeral, Sheen said he kept coming back to the idea of “keeping a promise” and why it was so important. He titled those remarks, “Because I said I would.” As part of that, he created what he calls a “promise card,” on which the five words, “Because I said I would” were printed. The rest of the cards were blank, and allow space for someone to make a promise. The concept was to take a promise made, write the promise on the card, give it to the person to whom the promise is being made, and when it is fulfilled, the card is returned, as it has been earned. It is meant to be kept as a reminder that someone is a person of their word.
It’s what Sheen did next that set off a chain of events that he says “he may never understand.”
Sheen posted on Facebook that he would send 10 Promise Cards to anyone, anywhere in the world, which he now jokingly referred to as “the dumbest financial decision I have ever made.”
4.47 Million Promise Cards
Since Sept. 4, 2012, Sheen has distributed 4.47 million Promise Cards to people in 153 countries around the world.
Sheen said he hasn’t just distributed the cards to individuals; organizations have adopted the cards, as well, for internal promise keeping.
During his remarks Sheen shared the types of stories that have been shared with him since the initiative was launched. For instance, the story of Garth Callahan, a Virginia resident who is a “cheesy dad” to a daughter, Emma. From second grad on, Callahan wrote letters and notes that he placed in his daughter’s lunchbox; sayings such as, “Remember that guy who quit? Neither does anyone else.” Or Babe Ruth’s observation, “Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” Callahan wrote the notes for six years, and was then diagnosed with kidney cancer, with his doctor telling him, “You are going to die of this.” He was given an 8% chance of living longer than five years.
“When someone tells you the ride is almost over, that your time on this Earth is almost done, you begin to reflect on this concept of time and how you have spent it. You begin to think about everyone you love on this Earth. Those are the exact thoughts that went through Garth’s mind,” said Sheen.
What Callahan wrote on his Promise Card was, “I will write 826 Napkin Notes for Emma,” which was how many days she would have in high school.
“This to me is not about some good father. In fact, maybe your dad wasn’t there for you,” he said. “This isn’t about cancer. This is about doing what you can with what you have.”
180-Degree Change
For Sheen, those stories and others have led to a 180-degree change in his life. At the time he made the Facebook posting, he was a highly paid, highly successful software engineer and executive at a company in Cleveland, where he still resides.
“I would sometimes receive thousands of messages from people from around the world, and to be honest, it’s not so easy to take. They ask for your help, and I cannot help all these people. That starts to weigh on you,” he confided. “What you have to understand is who I was before all this started. I was just some guy working at a software company. I loved working at this place. I was the youngest manager in a company with 1,400 employees. But you get a bunch of messages like Lunch Napkin Note Dad, and you tell me that life is about money, and it is not. So I thought about leaving my job. Financially it didn’t make any sense. I’m making tons of money at my job and I’m spending it on envelopes and stamps.”
What pushed him “over the edge,” he said, was a letter that arrived anonymously on his desk at work. It read in part, “I have been keeping up with your blog. Because I Said I Would has really helped me through a rough patch. There have been lots of times where I didn’t think life was worth living, and I almost took my life. Almost. I am getting stronger everyday, and a lot of that strength comes from a few Promise Cards I have written…Because of you, I will not give up.”
Sheen admitted he sat at his desk and cried, and then asked for a meeting with his boss where he planned to share the letter and announce he was leaving, even if he was unsure where he was going. After he handed his boss the letter, he said, “she stopped, and she looked up and she said, ‘Alex this letter is from my daughter.’”
Today, Because I Said I Would is a social movement and non-profit “dedicated to the betterment of humanity through promises made AND kept,” according to Sheen.
“It is a belief in the power of a single individual to shape this world for the better. It is the power of one,” he said.
No Accountability
Sheen said the common fault he sees in society today is a lack of accountability.
“People think they need a miracle, or a billion dollars in funding, or a legislative cure. But sometimes we don’t need a miracle; sometimes we just need people to do what they said they were going to do in the first place. It’s the promises we make and keep that make this world. Sometimes we forget that.”
While schools focus on math and English and technology—as they should, said Sheen—they must also remember “if we don’t teach our kids to be decent human beings to one another, what is the point of society at all?”
For that reason, Because I Said I Would today invests much of the funds it has in character education, said Sheen, who also walked across the state of Ohio to let the three women who had been discovered living as prisoners in Cleveland know there are “complete strangers who care.”
While Because I Said I Would has become a global movement thanks to social media, Sheen stressed that a Facebook posting alone is not enough in and of themselves.
“It’s incredible what social media can do, but it can not do enough. Let’s not pretend that Likes and Shares are enough to create change.”
And he added that if credit unions were to remember one statement from his presentation, it should be this: “You can pretend to care. But you can’t pretend to show up.”