In 1986, I was 19 years old and working nights stocking shelves at Dillons grocery store in Salina, Kansas. I would eventually spend seven years working for Dillons.
At the time, I lived in a little purple motel. I jokingly called it the “roach motel.” It wasn't much, but it was where I called home.
Across the street was a diner.
Back then, I was making good money for a young man. And like a lot of young people who suddenly have money in their pockets, I liked buying things.
One day I was walking through a mall when I came across a jewelry store.
I started looking at men's diamond rings and saw a big diamond ring that I wanted badly. I didn't have enough cash to buy it, but the store offered me credit.
It became my first credit card.
I bought that diamond ring and eventually paid it off.
Then I went back and bought another diamond ring.
I paid that one off too.
Later came a gold nugget bracelet and then a nugget horseshoe ring.
I was wearing my success on the outside.
But while I was living at that motel, I met a man who was going through a difficult time in his life. His marriage was falling apart, and he was struggling financially. I had gotten to know him, and one day he asked if I could help him get back on his feet.
I didn't give him an answer immediately.
I told him, “Give me until Saturday. Meet me across the street at the diner, and I'll tell you what I've decided.”
All week, I thought about what I should do.
Saturday came.
When I walked into the diner, he was already sitting there waiting for me.
I sat down across from him.
“Jeffrey,” he asked, “did you make a decision?”
“Yes, I did.”
I reached into my pocket, pulled out an envelope and handed it to him.
He opened it.
Inside was $700.
His eyes grew wide. He became emotional.
“This is really going to help me, Jeffrey. This is going to help me move forward with my life.”
Then he asked me something.
“Where did you get this money?”
I told him:
“I decided I wanted to build a temple of gold inside of me instead of wearing the gold on the outside of me, because that's not who I am.”
He asked me again where the money had come from.
So I told him the truth.
I had taken my gold and diamond jewelry to a pawn shop and sold it.
Then he asked:
“How can I ever repay you?”
I didn't want the $700 back.
I wanted something different.
I told him:
“The next time you meet someone who needs help, help them. Plant a positive seed in that person's heart, mind and soul so that seed can continue growing inside them. If you do that, you've already paid me back.”
I believed God would take care of the rest.
Afterward, I walked back across the street to that little purple motel.
I went into my room and sat on the edge of my bed.
And at only 19 years old, I started thinking about something much farther into the future.
I thought about becoming an old man.
What if one day nobody wanted to visit me?
What if I wasn't important to anyone anymore?
What if I found myself sitting alone in a chair, looking out a window and wondering where life had gone?
I realized that the diamond rings, the gold bracelet and everything else I could wear on my body wouldn't answer those questions.
But what I built inside myself could remain.
That day changed the way I looked at wealth.
There is gold you can put around your wrist.
There are diamonds you can put on your fingers.
And then there is another kind of gold—the kind you build inside your heart through what you give to another human being.
I sold the gold I wore that day.
I would spend the rest of my life building the gold no one could take away from me.
— Jeffrey