The Wall at Operation Smile

In 2014, I had the opportunity to attend Operation Smile’s International Student Leadership Conference in Limerick, Ireland.

It was my first time traveling internationally.

At that age, I didn’t have some perfectly mapped-out vision for what my life was going to become. I didn’t know I would eventually build companies, advise organizations around the world, become an investor, write a book, start a foundation, or spend a significant part of my career working around innovation and exponential technologies.

I definitely didn’t know that more than a decade later, I would come back to Operation Smile as a donor.

I was just a young man from Norfolk being given an opportunity to see something bigger.

And that matters.

There is a difference between someone telling you that the world is big and actually seeing it.

There is a difference between hearing that there are opportunities outside of your environment and physically being placed in rooms with people from different countries, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.

Exposure changes your reference point.

Once you see something, you can’t unsee it.

Once you experience a bigger world, it becomes harder to accept the limitations that you or other people may have placed on your life.

That trip didn’t magically determine everything that happened afterward. There were plenty of wins, losses, mistakes, pivots, failures, risks, and lessons between that young man in Ireland and the man I am today.

But it expanded what I believed was possible.

And I’ve never forgotten that.

As I got older and started experiencing success, I began thinking differently about what it means to give back.

I actually don’t love the idea of success being something we achieve individually and then occasionally reach backward to help somebody else.

I believe opportunity should multiply.

If somebody opens a door for you, your responsibility isn’t just to be grateful that you made it through.

Eventually, you should be strong enough to hold that door open.

And if possible, build another door.

That thinking became part of the reason I created Prevail Foundation.

I’ve been fortunate enough to experience rooms and places I couldn’t have imagined as a kid. My work has taken me around the world. I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, executives, innovators, investors, organizations, and communities across different countries.

But no matter how far I travel, I am still from the 757.

I still understand that there are incredibly talented young people in Hampton Roads and communities like ours who simply haven’t been exposed to everything that is possible yet.

Talent is everywhere.

Exposure isn’t.

Opportunity isn’t.

Access isn’t.

And sometimes one experience can completely change the trajectory of how a young person thinks about his or her life.

I know because it happened to me.

That is why we created the Beyond Borders Scholarship through Prevail Foundation.

The idea was simple: create an opportunity for Black students to experience what I experienced.

Not necessarily to follow my path.

That’s important.

I don’t want young people to become me.

I want them to see enough of the world that they can become whoever they are supposed to become.

Our first two scholarship recipients had the opportunity to attend Operation Smile’s International Student Leadership Conference in Bangkok, Thailand.

For both of them, it was their first time traveling outside of the country.

That part hit me differently.

More than a decade earlier, I had been the student taking my first international trip through Operation Smile.

Now I was helping send two students on theirs.

Norfolk to Ireland.

Then Hampton Roads to Bangkok.

Different students. Different countries. Different decade.

Same idea.

Exposure.

Give a young person a chance to see beyond the boundaries of what they already know, and you have no idea what that experience might unlock.

Our relationship with Operation Smile continued growing, and Prevail Foundation ultimately made a $20,000 contribution supporting the Interactive Learning Center and student programming.

That contribution resulted in Operation Smile offering Prevail Foundation a naming opportunity.

I’ll be transparent.

Seeing your name on something feels good.

I’m proud of what I’ve built. I’m proud of the companies. I’m proud of the investments. I’m proud of the book. I’m proud of the foundation.

But this felt different.

Because I knew what the wall represented.

It wasn’t about seeing my last name.

It wasn’t about recognition.

It was physical proof of a cycle being completed.

I had once been the beneficiary of somebody else’s generosity, somebody else’s vision, somebody else’s belief that exposing young people to the world was worth investing in.

Years later, I was standing in the same ecosystem as someone capable of making that investment for somebody else.

That’s heavy.

There are accomplishments you chase.

Then there are accomplishments you couldn’t have even known to chase because the younger version of you wouldn’t have had the context to imagine them.

This was one of those.

At 18 or 19 years old, I could understand wanting to make money. I could understand wanting to be successful. I could understand wanting to build something important.

But I don’t think I could have fully understood the feeling of seeing something you built become a vehicle for somebody else’s opportunity.

That’s a different type of success.

There is another reason seeing Prevail on that wall means so much to me.

Prevail isn’t just a company name.

To prevail means to prove more powerful than opposing forces. To overcome. To endure. To win despite what stood in your way.

That philosophy has become deeply connected to how I live my life.

Win or Win.

Sometimes you win through the outcome.

Sometimes you win through the lesson.

Sometimes you win because somebody gave you an opportunity.

And eventually, if you’re fortunate enough, you win by becoming the person who can create opportunities for others.

That’s what that wall represents to me.

Not arrival.

Responsibility.

Because I don’t want my name on a wall to be the end of the story.

I want young people whose names we don’t know yet to walk past that wall.

I want somebody to participate in a program because funding was available.

I want another student to get on an airplane for the first time.

I want them to experience another country, meet people who don’t look or think like them, encounter ideas they haven’t considered, and come home asking bigger questions.

And then I want to see what they do with that exposure.

Maybe one of them builds a company.

Maybe one becomes a doctor.

Maybe one becomes an engineer.

Maybe one becomes an artist, an investor, a scientist, an educator, or something that doesn’t even exist yet.

Maybe one of them creates opportunities for another hundred kids.

That’s the return I’m interested in.

People use the phrase “full-circle moment” a lot.

This certainly felt like one.

But I’ve realized that I don’t really want the circle to close.

I want it to keep expanding.

Someone invested in an experience that changed what I believed was possible.

Years later, I was fortunate enough to invest in that experience for someone else.

Now those students have their own experiences, relationships, ideas, and understanding of the world.

Who knows what they will do with them?

That’s how impact compounds.

The greatest return on an opportunity isn’t what happens to the person who receives it.

It’s what happens when that person eventually becomes capable of creating opportunities for others.

So yes, seeing Prevail Foundation on the wall at Operation Smile was emotional.

It was humbling.

It made me proud.

But more than anything, it reminded me of my responsibility.

There was once a young Black kid from Norfolk who got on a plane and flew to Limerick, Ireland, without knowing exactly where life would take him.

Someone helped make that possible.

More than a decade later, I got to help two young people take their first international trip to Bangkok.

And somewhere along the way, the name Prevail Foundation ended up on the wall of the organization that helped expand my world in the first place.

That’s bigger than a naming opportunity to me.

That’s legacy.

And we’re just getting started.