Many people know the story of the coffee bean. If you put a carrot in boiling water, it becomes soft. When you put in an egg, it hardens up. But when you put in coffee beans, they change the water. This analogy describes how most people react to challenging situations, where they either become soft, become hard, or, when truly exceptional, become change agents who affect the world around them.

What a lot of people don’t know is that this is the fundamental lesson that Damon West decided to give to the world after he survived drug addiction and a life sentence in a maximum security prison. While many people take this allegory for granted, Damon applied it to one of the most intense situations a human can face. 

He became a globally renowned motivational speaker who enacts positive change in the world through his teachings. These are three of the most important lessons that Damon shared with us on how to become change agents, even through the most adverse situations:

Fight All Your Battles

"You don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights." 

These are some of the last words Damon took on before transferring to a maximum security prison to serve a life sentence. The issue is that Damon wanted to one day return to the outside world as someone his family would recognize. To do that, he would have to fight some of the most brutal battles he had ever fought. 

The minute he stepped in there, a recruiter for a gang came up to him asking him “what family” he wanted to be a part of. Declining the invite meant impending attacks from white gangs and black gangs. If he could survive, he could stand alone and keep his identity. 

Damon would describe some of the worst beatings he ever received and that he lost over 70% of the fights that came to him. But he remembered what he was told: not every battle has to be won; it just has to be fought. 

Imagine going through life thinking you had to win every battle you got into. Every challenge, every goal, every venture? The problem is that too many people believe that and, therefore, never try. 

Damon learned that the fights don’t have to be won, but they have to be fought if you want to be the change agent. 

This is not just a lesson on how to achieve your goals or realize your dreams. It’s a wake-up call to understand that going against the grain is painful, but you just have to do it if you’re looking to succeed. 

Go After Your Dabo Swinney Moments

"Growth follows belief… But no one is gonna believe in you until you believe in yourself. You have to believe in yourself first, and then when someone else believes in you, that's when your life changes."  

January 12th, 2017, Damon had been out of prison for a little over a year. This was when a friend of his gave him a press pass to an award ceremony naming the best college football coaches in America. He took the opportunity to try to meet these coaches and pitch them his ideas. 

Every coach he came up to (some of the biggest names in the sport) would slam the door in his face with outright “no’s.” It’s here that many people would take the hint, give up, and go home. Honestly, could you blame them? But one thing kept Damon pressing on as he took a break to collect himself. 

There was one more coach he hadn’t spoken to, the biggest name there, Dabo Swinney, coach of Clemson University. While he was the last coach, he was also the longest shot (a Hail Mary Pass, if you will). But Damon hadn’t “left everything on the field” yet. Until he cleared that room, he refused to go home. That’s when he approached Dabo. 

Dabo would not only show interest later down the road, but he would also open the door for Damon to meet Jon Gordon and write that famous book, The Coffee Bean because Dabo believed in his message. 

The takeaway from here is that if you want to get your Dabo Swinney moment, whatever that looks like for you, it starts with believing in yourself and simply going for it despite all odds. Like Damon says, no one will believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself. If you have a message, hold on to it and let it drive you. When someone believes in you, that’s when the doors open!

Stand on the Right Side of History

“It's always okay to stand alone as long as you're standing on the right side of history." 

It was 1971. Damon’s dad, a sports writer, had made an (at the time) controversial decision to put a black man on the cover of a sports magazine. That was the first time that ever happened in his small town, creating an uproar. People broke his windows, slit his tires, sent him hate mail; you name it. 

When Damon was old enough to read, his dad showed him each letter of hate mail he received for his action. When he was done, his dad would tell him that he wanted Damon to see what it was like to take a stand for something you believe in. 

“Sometimes, doing the right thing means you’re going to stand alone, but it’s okay as long as you’re standing on the right side of history.” It hurts to hear, but doing the right thing is not always profitable or popular. Honestly, most of the time, it’s not. 

The one thing change agents realize is that the battle doesn’t have to be won; it just has to be fought. Your message may not be a sexy one, but it has to be shared. The question is, are you willing to stand alone on the right side of history, or will you sit quietly among many and be forgotten to time? 

Final Thoughts

It might all seem like a heavy message, but here at What’s Your 1 More, we believe we speak to future and current world-changers, thought leaders, and wave-makers in whatever industry you’re in. 

It doesn’t have to be as drastic as surviving a maximum security prison. It can be as simple as choosing who you want to be when you enter a room: the kind of person who infects it with negativity or who affects it with positivity. 

Be sure to listen to the whole episode (if you already haven’t) and take these lessons into your week, month, and year. 

I’ll end with this, what Damon calls the secret to life. "The secret to life is servant leadership. Servant leadership is helping other people reach their goals in life, helping to raise other people up to a different station of life. Because when we're helping other people, that's when we're at our best. And that is how we grow.” - Damon West