It’s funny how a single phrase can influence and even guide the course of a life.
For me, that phrase was uttered by my mom. “We might not be able to change the world today, but we can change the world around us,” she would say often as I was growing up.
Mothers, whether good or bad, are defining influences in everyone’s life. In my case, I couldn’t have asked for a better role model.
My parents divorced when I was two and my mother raised me on her own until my father re-entered my life in my early teens. I was blessed that their split didn’t affect me to the extent that divorce has on millions of children because growing up in a single-parent household was simply all I knew. Plus, my mother’s selfless actions and determined self-sufficiency instilled important, lasting lessons in me at an early age.
Camille Meek wasn’t just a single parent; she was also taught deaf students from a wide age range, many who came from terrible circumstances. She made me acutely aware that life doesn’t owe us anything and that our circumstances may be unfair – even cruel – but they are not unmanageable.
A number of my mother’s students came to school having experienced physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Forty years ago, these issues weren’t talked about. The number and caliber of resources to address them barely existed; perpetrators escaped justice even more often than they still do today.
My mom was keenly observant and extraordinarily compassionate. But her qualities didn’t stop there. She didn’t hesitate to act.
Recognizing that many of her students desperately needed and deserved the everyday kindnesses that so many of us take for granted, she would bring them home from school with her where we had twin beds for them to sleep on, a homemade meal for them to eat and a place where they knew they would be safe. As she would with me, she would tell them, “We might not be able to change the world today, but we can change the world around us.”
For those students, my mother did change the world around her, them, and me when she brought them into our home – even if it was just for a night or two – and cared for them as if they were her own.
She showed them compassion during difficult times in the hope that it would change their lives, even in a tiny way, ultimately for the better. It’s amazing what a little compassion from the heart can do for the mental and physical wellbeing of others and how it can form the foundation for others to take their next steps forward in life after trauma or intense pain without shrinking into a forever state of victimhood.
Victimhood is something that I have diligently avoided throughout my life. Yes, we can all be victims of circumstances in the moment but we choose whether we remain victims or take control and move forward. I always choose forward momentum over victimhood.
That requires a conscious decision to put in the work to change the world around me, but it’s a choice I gladly make. Never was that more clear to me than on September 11, 2001, and the days, weeks, months, and years that have followed.
I remember looking at my shoes that day. Staring for what seemed like an eternity. Contemplating and attempting to comprehend what had happened a few hours earlier that day. How could it have happened? How could I have been there? How was my life spared? Why did so many others die?
It was a day that changed so many lives across our country but, perhaps none more so than for those who were at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and on the California-bound flight that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the people close to them.
I worked then, as I do now, in the financial industry. As searing as the memories of that day still are, I still consider myself fortunate to have been among those people who were able to walk away in the aftermath of the Twin Towers’ collapse.
We walked that day almost like zombies, dazed and disbelieving, yet acutely aware of the horror that we had witnessed.
That night I was still in utter shock. Those words – utter shock – fail to do justice to my feelings and yet I still can find none better. In the evening’s first quiet moments, it was hard to process what I had experienced together, yet alone, with thousands of others who had been in lower Manhattan hours earlier.
That day, I could not find a focal point among my swirling thoughts and emotions. Between every comforting call I made to tell friends, colleagues and loved ones that I was safe, I was gripped by the agony of wondering about those who hadn’t made it home yet, and likely never would. Plus, the disorienting fear of more attacks, the relentlessly disheartening news coverage, and the carnage and devastation of a place that had been so familiar and dear to me combined would have left even the most disciplined mind reeling.
But what I have practiced since then is that something as simple as taking the next step forward, physically, and metaphorically, is often the beginning to saving yourself, no matter what the situation or circumstances. It isn’t always easy, yet the possibility almost always remains: the choice, when life warrants it, is ours.
It goes back to that pair of shoes, my own shoes, that captured and held my attention. Of all the things to dwell on, looking at my shoes created the evening’s first calm moment. More than two decades later, staring at them is the only peaceful memory I have from the entire day.
My shoes had padded and protected every step I took from the American Stock Exchange where I ran floor trading for Goldman Sachs, near Ground Zero, all the way up to Second Avenue to my apartment on the Upper East Side. They only stopped when I stood still to watch the mournful exodus of people crossing the iconic Brooklyn Bridge.
Glancing up while half a block away from the World Trade Center, I caught sight of something that is burned forever in my mind’s eye: a woman in a yellow and pink dress falling from one of the buildings. Whenever I have nightmares of that day, this singular memory haunts me. As she fell, she held her dress down in one final act of dignity.
As my mind and thoughts began to settle, I thought about the men and women who took their next steps running into the chaos to protect and defend us. The men and women from the NYPD, the FDNY, the Metro Transit Authority and the EMS personnel. They all just kept coming and coming, bravely responding to the unimaginable tragedy. These images, too, remain burned into my mind forever. They also point the way to a debt I don’t believe I will ever be able to repay to men and women I will never know but to whom I will forever remember and be grateful for their awe-inspiring sacrifices.
Alone in my living room, my shoes covered in dust, gravel and gray ash, the following realization struck me: we take our next steps forward for granted, right up until we have taken our last step. I thought about all the people who would never take another step again – 2,996 people in all, as we’d learn later.
That knowledge and those memories set so many other Americans, and me, on a different path – one of introspection and contemplation about how we had gotten where we were, and much more importantly, how we would get to where we could be, the idea of how we could change the world around us into what we wanted it to reflect – a world that hopefully looked much different than the chaos, horror, and devastation of that day.
When I forced myself to sit down and take my shoes off, it struck me. The dust and ash that covered them wasn’t just rubble from buildings. Within that dust and ash were the remains of men, women and children who had been murdered indiscriminately. They’d taken their last steps on earth earlier in the day without knowing those steps would be their last.
When I woke up on September 12, 2001, my shoes were right where I left them, still covered in the history I’d walked through the day before. On September 13, they still hadn’t moved. Days and days, weeks and weeks, finally more than 20 years later, I have not cleaned those shoes. I never will. I look at them every day and remember the people who died on 9/11, as well as those who have given their lives in defense of our country since. I do it to remind myself that the steps I take are for them.
Going back to that evening, and in the first few days that followed, I felt the beginning of an urge to move forward for others. I didn’t know what those steps would look like, or how I would take them, but I knew that my calling in life was about to evolve. I would eventually find a way to help others take their next steps forward and change what they knew of the world around them.
That simple realization changed my life. In some ways, it saved my life.
Our nation was deeply wounded by the 9/11 attacks, but we were far from dead. Immediately after, I knew I had a role to play to ensure that terrorism didn’t shut down a cornerstone of our freedom: the financial markets.
Our first few days of work were 20-hour marathons to complete mundane but vital tasks: purchasing laptops so people could work in new locations; getting our T1 line up and running; connecting with every team member to make sure they were OK returning to work. But there was nothing mundane about the goal: to get up from the mat and keep the nation moving forward.
Markets resumed trading and, in a show of true American resilience and determination, the Dow exceeded pre-9/11 levels before year’s end. A few years passed when, in the spring of 2007, the first ripples of another impending financial crisis surfaced. The spirit of togetherness and unity following 9/11 began to fade, replaced rising bickering, finger pointing, and politicizing. By late 2008, Americans began losing their homes and their livelihoods.
I’d done my part to keep America moving forward by helping to keep the markets open in the wake of 9/11, but I knew the power and responsibility to do more. My mother’s words rang true; I had to change the world around me once more.
In the years following 9/11, my path forward began to materialize and I gained enough experience that I felt I was ready to share something valuable with the rest of the world or at least, to begin with, the rest of Connecticut where I had moved in the weeks following the attacks.
Many Americans’ desire to give back was heightened by and after 9/11. Even though charitable giving happened with the best intentions – and a number of initiatives did make a meaningful difference – many other efforts seemed to focus on something I was viscerally adverse to: victimhood.
My goal was simple: I wanted to empower people. With a financial background and an economic crisis looming large, I set out in early 2009 to help others through my expertise with people facing foreclosures and the agony of losing their precious homes.
I connected with local and national banks to host an educational event at the community center in Stamford. Five banks came to the event, as well as a few state agencies that offered foreclosure assistance. That event’s impact was swift and heartening. Thirty-six families were able to modify their mortgages, avoid foreclosure, and keep their homes.
That success demonstrated the urgent need for more events like it and gave birth to my first nonprofit, START Now! (Start Taking Action and Responsibility Together), with the mission to help individuals and families become self-sufficient through financial education, support, and opportunities readily available to them. Simply put, START Now! was built on the basic concept of financial empowerment.
Over the course of the next year, START Now! hosted 11 events throughout the state, including one at the State Capitol building in Hartford. Through those events, we helped more than 250 families avoid foreclosure and keep their homes.
START Now! was a response to the financial crisis that Americans were facing at the time. Halfway around the world another crisis entirely was playing out as a war waged on in the Middle East with no end in sight.
In the years after 9/11, the sight of first responders always took me back to those mind-numbing moments as I walked away from the wreckage of the Twin Towers and heroic first responders and even some civilians ran to it. I wondered how we could ever repay those men and women.
I thought intensely about the role our country’s citizens played in caring for those who bore the brunt of that sacrifice. And I heard, over and over, my mother’s admonition, “…we can change the world around us.” All of that led me to ponder what building a better tomorrow entailed.
These same questions continued to rattle in my mind as men and women, many barely out of high school, continuously deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other faraway, dangerous places to defend our freedom and protect our democracy.
It may come as a surprise to many but back in 2009, even though our nation’s military budget was over $700 billion and those serving on the frontlines had much of the best training, weaponry, intelligence, and support in the world, our troops lacked many basic necessities. The number one requested item? Socks.
I was moved by that odd reality. How could the U.S. Air Force spend several million dollars to train one person to become a fighter pilot, for instance, yet so many service members were desperate for items like socks, baby wipes and sunscreen?
The support of friends and family inspired me and others to stand up for those who were sacrificing so much for our nation. Together, we organized supply drives and fundraising events to get our service members the necessities they needed. That was when my second nonprofit, SoldierSocks, took flight.
Word of our mission quickly spread and we were blessed to form partnerships vast in scope and size, including with such outstanding companies and celebrities as Vineyard Vines, Elvis Duran and the Morning Show and the WWE. Over several years, we collected and shipped more than 85,000 pounds of necessities to troops overseas.
As the war scaled down and more service members returned home, I pondered again what it truly meant to authentically honor their sacrifices. Where SoldierSocks had been committed to providing comfort to our nation’s heroes while they were abroad, I realized the importance of investing in their comfort when they returned home. That’s when SoldierSocks became SoldierStrong.
We acknowledged from the onset that higher education provides irreplaceable opportunities to veterans as they begin to transition to civilian life. Though the GI Bill has benefitted millions of veterans over its lifetime, it has not historically relieved all of the costs associated with obtaining a degree, such as textbooks, classroom fees, transportation, technology, housing, and tutoring.
Such costs often go unrecognized when making financial plans and become barriers to success to many veterans who must still work full- or part-time to support their families and honor other financial obligations not typical for the average college student. SoldierStrong fills in those gaps left by the GI Bill and alleviates the additional costs associated with receiving a college degree.
Since 2012, we have been honored to award more than $500,000 in scholarships to veterans at Syracuse University, Georgetown University, Old Dominion University and most recently, the University of Southern California.
While SoldierStrong provided a source of educational empowerment for veterans, more and more service members were returning home with the visible and invisible wounds of war. Once again, I was spurred to reflect on what it meant to honor their sacrifices and how best to offer opportunities to help veterans take their next steps forward in life. Little did I know that those steps would be so literal.
During the War on Terror a greater percentage of our warriors survived trauma and devastating injuries. In wars past, they would have bled out from lost limbs and traumatic brain injuries or died en route to surgery at a hospital far from where they were injured. Today, advances in medical procedures and technology have saved their lives. Yet, they will require – and deserve – equally advanced care for the rest of their lives.
No matter how many resources were available, quickly pivoting to that new level of care and service was no small task. The Veteran Affairs system was having a difficult time supporting them with the necessary innovative care, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying, desire, or determination. Thankfully Americans have long believed that those who serve in the world’s best fighting forces also deserve the best healthcare.
We knew two things for certain: SoldierStrong’s next step would be to assist the VA in making innovative medical technologies available to veterans, while also providing a source of physical empowerment that struck at the heart of victimhood.
In 2013, SoldierStrong began partnering with some of the country’s most developed medical technology companies to donate state-of-the-art robotic exoskeletons, which we called SoldierSuits, to VA hospitals. SoldierSuits aid in the rehabilitation of paralyzed veterans who experience mobility setbacks from strokes, spinal cord injuries and disorders, and traumatic brain injuries. This revolutionary technology quite literally helps veterans take their next steps forward by helping users stand and walk unaided.
Since then, we have donated 29 SoldierSuits to VA facilities and individual veterans across the country.
While working to help paralyzed and injured veterans get back on their feet, we quickly recognized that a growing mental health crisis was affecting even more veterans. The effects of this crisis continue to be reflected in a haunting statistic: an average of 22 veterans take their own lives every day.
Post-traumatic stress plays a significant role in those suicides. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, 11 to 20 percent of veterans who served in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom have experienced PTS in a given year. It seemed only natural that for an organization committed to addressing veterans’ most urgent needs, SoldierStrong would once again expand its programming, this time to foster mental empowerment.
To address the struggles that many post-9/11 veterans were facing, while simultaneously working to reduce the staggering number of veteran suicides and fulfill our mission of providing innovative alternative treatment options, SoldierStrong began donating virtual reality hardware and software systems, known as BraveMind, to VA hospitals to treat post-traumatic stress.
The BraveMind system, developed by a team at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies led by Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo, delivers prolonged-exposure therapy, the practice of recalling specific traumatic memories while talking through the nuances of the memory with a licensed therapist. In the hands of trained clinicians, BraveMind helps veterans safely relive traumatic experiences and process them to reduce their toxicity. Like my mother did years before for many of her students, those clinicians can help veterans find refuge from their worst nightmares.
Since 2019, SoldierStrong has donated 22 BraveMind systems to VA hospitals and other medical facilities across the country. Our mission is to someday make the BraveMind technology available to as many veterans as possible in all 50 states.
As the SoldierStrong team began to see veterans’ lives transformed by Bravemind’s prolonged-exposure therapy, we’ve set a new goal of extending its benefits to more people, including our nation’s first responders.
With the mental health crisis reaching every corner of our country, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, the opportunity to educate the American public about brain health and the importance of seeking treatment for mental health setbacks seemed more imperative than ever before. In early 2020, we launched a new charitable organization called ReachStrong as an ally and sister organization to SoldierStrong. Today, ReachStrong is an online repository of information (ReachStrong.org) for those seeking better mental health resources.
The 9/11 attack was the first in a chain of events that drastically changed Americans’ mental and emotional wellbeing. Although I’ve never fought in a war and understand that my experiences on 9/11 are different from those who served in the Middle East, I do know what it’s like to have to confront past experiences and traumatic memories.
It’s no surprise that the events of 9/11 had a profound impact on my own mental and emotional health. It took me 17 years before I returned to Ground Zero.
When I did, I could feel the searing soot on my eyes. I felt the choking sensation in my tight lungs as I gasped for breath of fresh air, the ground quaking beneath me and I could see the woman in the pink and yellow dress falling with desperate dignity from the sky. But I was also reminded of the steps that I had taken that day, the very steps that had saved my life. I thought about the steps forward – physically, emotionally, professionally, and in the spirit of service to others – that I’d taken since then.
It was those steps to show compassion to others, empower my fellow Americans, honor the opportunities to make a difference that I had been given when I had made it out of the carnage of 9/11 and to truly change the world around me – for myself and for others – that mattered most on that day. They are steps that proudly continue my mother’s legacy. And the ones that still matter most to me.
Returning to Ground Zero and looking back on that fateful day was an important and inevitable step in my own journey. But the determination to look forward, take the next steps forward and always strive to change the world around us will always be even more important.
