It was  Wednesday morning and  the second full week of school. The entire freshman and sophomore class was sitting in the audience of their high school auditorium.  All the lights were on in the room as the stadium seating filled up from front to back. I stood off to the side in the dimly light corner as the principal stood at center stage holding a microphone. He was wearing a white button shirt, black dress shoes, and the ugliest tie I had ever seen. It was forest green plaid tie with lime green, gray, and goldish brown stripes. His left dress shoe was untied and the inside lace scraped the ground. As he took a step forward he stepped on it with his right foot and began to stumble forward some, but caught himself just in time. His hands were shaking, you could tell he didn't enjoy speaking in public.

I see this at a lot of the schools that I visit; principals who can’t control their students or talk extremely quietly. They often aren't good at getting people's attention because they typically lack a sense of humor. But I can't judge.  While I waited I took a minute to pull my phone out of my pocket. 9:33am, perfect. I opened the camera to check my make-up and the part on my hair. The students talked and turned around looking for their friends who were entering behind him. Those in the front row sat attentively and the ones in the middle as usual, whispered to their friends and took pictures on their phones. 
       “Good morning students.”  The principal said  quietly in a mouse like manner. Nobody  payed attention.  “We have a guest speaker with us today”  Still no change.
I had to interrupt. At the top of my lungs I projected my voice loudly, “ Hello can I get everyone's attention?” Silence. “Can I get three claps from everyone please? One, two, three.” I don't have a microphone, but everyone shut their mouths and turned to face me just like everyone had listened and clapped. I then turned to face the principal,“I think I got it from here. Thank you, very much.” The principal handed me the microphone and I raised it up to my mouth and proceeded by projecting my voice. 
       “Hey you. Yes, you in the back put down the cell phone in fact everyone turn them off I don't wanna see one. That's our first lesson today, respect. That was unintentional, but even if you don't know it I just taught you something. It'll come in handy when you have a job one day.” I took a couple deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale…… Exhale… “Your job could be anything. Every single one will be slightly different. This is my job. I am a public motivational speaker. I have the privilege of traveling all over to deliver speeches at high schools.
Today I'm going to tell you all a story. I prefer not to have any interruptions I am doing you all a favor by sharing my story with all of you. I have shared many times. You may not have class right now, but you are going to learn something during these two blocks. Also, when I ask a question I expect an answer. Ready?”
“Ready,” the entire room echoed back and so I began.
       “Many people reflect back to their childhood and remember their parents reading to them and telling them the differences between right and wrong. Everybody knows the story about the tortoise and the hare, it taught you not to brag.  The mouse and the lion story taught  everyone no matter what, you can accomplish anything. Size or appearance doesn't matter.
Don't do this, but this is okay or don't say that, it's rude say it like this instead. My experiences however have been different.”(When I talk to an audience I move around, it makes my presence more enjoyable. I walk up and down the aisles as over one-hundred sets of eyes stayed glued to me.)
       “I’ve figured a lot out in my own life through time. Valuable lessons come when we least expect it. So I say to you, dare to be different and strive for greatness; and never, and when I say never I mean never, judge a person. We all know the saying don't judge a book by its cover.  Has everyone heard this before, by a show of hands?” Nearly everyone in the room raised their hand. Majority only slightly, but I know some always hold themselves back, It's highschool people want to be cool I understand that. I signaled with my hand so they knew it was alright to lower their hands now. “You all probably thought, ‘oh yeah I can get out of class and just hang out with my friends.’ I'm telling you, you want to  pay attention.” Several chuckles crept through the room and I was reassured that statement was correct.
“Anywho, I am 35 years old. So my freshman or sophomore year of high school was about twenty years ago.  Seems like a long time, however I remember it like it was yesterday because I still know they house that I grew up in inside and out. I remember every single room.
       It was mid January. A snowy day, one of those days when you think it's going to snow and school will be canceled, disappointingly, it isn't. I was sitting in the back of my second block math class on my phone when the principal walked in with a new student.  He had said in a deep voice, ‘We have a new student his name is Brian. Brian is from Canada. He will be here with us for the rest of the year. So I expect you all to make him feel welcome. Brian, find any open seat.’ I remember looking to my right. It was the one of the two open seats , usually my best friend would sit there. She was absent. The other was all they way in the back left of the room behind a group of girls. Slowly he made his way towards me to sit down. I tried to say oh that is  where my friend usually sits, she sick though, at home, with a cold.; but he just sat down and smiled before I had been able to finish. ‘Hey,’he had managed to squeak out as he dropped the water bottle he was holding in his hand and slammed his book bag to the ground.  He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that had some name of some band I didn’t recognize on it. I smiled and went back to playing on my phone. After, I  rolled my eyes, the kid was so, so, soooo quiet. For the remainder of that week every day he would come in, sit down, take  the notes, do the homework,  and leave. I couldn't even remember his name. When my best friends recovered from her illness he just switched his seat without even saying a word. He just walked in, noticed her standing next to me, and walked to the other side of the room. I had seen the boy in the hall over the next few days, but he was never with anyone. Quiet and patient, no rush to go anywhere, but then again no place to go in between classes. I remember I would talk to my friends and his name would always come up, haunting me. I didn't like it. One day I decided to be pragmatic by saying oh, we should branch out more. They all hesitated and simultaneously said, ‘we can't like just talk to the new kid we don't know that much about him. ‘What if he's like strange?’ Those were their precise words.
       The next day when I showed up to math we were given a project with assigned partners. partner was, believe it or not was Brian. That was probably not a coincidence . The audience giggled at this as well. “At this point in my story I am left to believe that some of you are questioning what the project was, that's not important.
In fact the names of the characters are not important, the story is mostly made up.
I know, I know, shocking. But allow me to continue anyway.”  I was interrupted.
“Wait so you lied to us.?”
“It's not as simple as that though, y,” interrupted again,.
“This isn’t rigggg,” the bell went off and all of the students stood up.

“Wait, “ before you all leave one last thing!
All of you will take something different away from this today.
I may not be able to tell you what it is, that’s for you to figure out on your own, by thinking about it.”      
I didn't know if anyone had heard me because everyone then rushed to leave”

Skip forward a month.

I was sitting in my kitchen one bright spring morning checking my phone and packing up everything that I was going to need for the day to visit another high school and deliver my speech. I noticed and email come in on my phone because it buzzed and a white number one circled in red popped up onto the sky blue mail icon. I hit it and opened the email, it was from an address that I didn’t recognize. It was long too. It read as follows:

Hello,
A few months ago you delivered  a speech at my school yet never had the chance to finish.
It really inspired me and i learned a lot that day about myself and my life. You definitely don’t remember  me because I was sitting in the very back with a blue sweatshirt, but your story really grabbed my attention. From it, I took away a great deal of life lessons…..

I read on  as it continued for several more paragraphs really glad that someone had truly taken my story to heart.  When I finished I realized that it had made me late; i had never ever been late before. I must have read it over five times because I couldn’t stop myself.