Image: Bamboo Forest courtesy of ratamahatta

Hi! My name is Diego, and my friends call me The crazy Colombian. I am the founder of “Pass It Forward” globally, and today I need to share the story of how in the year of 2007 this idea found me. That’s right, the idea found me, not the other way around. I had no choice but to take it, accept it, and make it happen. It has been a labour of love, and I have enjoyed every step of the way.

It all started in the winter of 2007, when I was working my sixteenth year in corporate Australia. On that cold and miserable night, you could see me shivering and smell the wood from the fireplace. I was enjoying a nice glass of wine with a new friend of mine who was sharing her story. Taylor didn’t have much. Her job was casual and although the pay was ok, she never got enough work to lead to a comfortable life. She was renting a small flat in a nice part of Sydney.Her savings were close to zero. In reality, although she lived in Cammeray, a posh suburb of Sydney, she was living out of a small apartment where she was pretty much surviving week by week. Casually, she told me that she was sponsoring two children in Africa. I was shaken by her generosity. She had far less disposable income than me, yet she was helping not one but two kids in Africa? Wow! Then she dropped the bomb: casually, she mentioned a friend she had. Just two days ago her friend had been badly bashed by her partner (again!). So what did Taylor do? TOok all the money she had in the bank for her upcoming rental payment, and gave it to her friend.  ”I don’t want you to die at his hands and know I could have done something about it; I will figure something out for my rent. Please take this money and find somewhere safe to stay. Then go to a shelter for abused women and ask for help. Please. If you don’t do this for you, do it for me, your good friend”.

At that moment, I could feel goosebumps in my skin; smell her subtle yet sweet perfume, and see the shadows of the fireplace dancing in her beautiful face. And then it hit me! She has so little, yet she’s doing so much!! What aboutYOU? What are you doing to help others? To pay back to life all the kindness you have been given?

In a split second I understood it was payback time. I had no other option. What would my legacy be if I didn’t do something to give back to society? To my community? To life? I had to do something. At first, I thought I’d give all of my money to charities. But there was a problem. First, I had two kids whom I adored; I wasn’t sure I could do that to them, I thought. But more importantly, even if I kept rising the corporate ladder and got to leading roles; even if I then used all my disposable income from work for the rest of my  life to give back to charities and to society, it just simply would not be enough. You see, I was an engineer and had a Master in Business; I did the maths, and it just didn’t fly.

l know! I will give all of my spare time to volunteer for social causes! How silly, I realised immediately, Even if I gave all my money AND all my spare time, I still would not have made a dent in my debt to life. This was a harder puzzle to solve than I originally thought!

And then I remembered the movie Pay it Forward. As a marketer and businessman, I had always been disgusted by pyramid schemes. They were scum of the scum, preying on people’s hopes for a better future, and they benefited the very few at the top of the pyramid at the expense of the great masses at the bottom of the pyramid. But the book by Catherine Ryan Hyde which was then turned into a Hollywood BlockBuster by Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey had shown that pyramid schemes are not evil; they are just tools, and like any tools, they can be put to good use. I won’t go into the details (you can read more about the book and the concept here), but at that moment, I got it. That’s it! That’s how I will pay back to life, and leave a good legacy!

It was the way to pay my debt. I felt like it was the only way I could pay my debt to society. Today I understand that was not true, but am glad that’s how I felt back then. I will forever be thankful to my naivety and ignorance of that day; to Taylor for having the courage to share her very personal story with me; and to life for giving me the chance to start this movement. Within a few weeks I had talked about the concept with my wife; chosen the name “Pass It Forward” instead of the book’s title of “Pay It Forward” (I don’t believe you can ever pay for kindness; only receive it from someone, and then pass it around); and started a web site.

Being a businessman, I was told you only get what you can measure, so I designed some cards that would hopefully get people to come and report their actions. I was hoping I could use that to know how much of my debt had already been paid (It was all about me, remember? I needed to make a difference, and know I had made the difference….) I was also hoping people would be inspired by checking where their kindness had gone; what ripple effects it had created.

Being a businessman, I also knew that to motivate others to do what I wanted them to do, I needed to market the concept nicely. I figured a kindness register would be just the tool for the job. What if all those stories inspired others to action? Educated them in how small, free acts could create a massive snowball effect that could literally change the world? Persuade them to do an act of kindness they otherwise would not have done?

I got obsessed with the last one. I decided to set a goal for myself: By the end of the year 2012, I will have inspired 1 million people around Australia (or beyond) to do an act of kindness they otherwise would not have done. This last part was important: It had to be INCREMENTAL to whatever good they were going to do in the world already, otherwise it would have been part of paying their debt to society, not part of paying mine. At the time I didn’t understand that it didn’t really matter! I know, I had spent too much time in analytical roles in the for-profit sector, but hey, we all learn. Now I understand that even one act of kindness I inspire, even if the person was already considering doing it, is one more act of kindness that leaves the world better than when we found it.

And so that is how Pass it Forward was inspired and born. I hope you enjoyed the story. Before you go, I want to ask for your permission to ask you one last question. What about you? What will your legacy be? How are you paying your debt to society? Perhaps you can consider doing one of those millions acts of kindness I am trying to inspire, and do it today. Don’t wait, or you will forget. And when you’re done, come visit us again and tell the world in our kindness register. Your small action could inspire millions of others into action. Don’t let this opportunity pass you now. Go on. Do it now. I dare you!