A Life-Changing Moment: From Classroom Struggles to Drumming Success (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: I have a lot of memories from when I was a child. One that's always stuck out to me though was when I was about 10 years old and I was in school and I struggled. And I didn't struggle with English, math, or science. I struggled holding still. And I would try to listen and focus and process ideas, but I couldn't help myself. And to be honest, I would sit there and then I would just start tapping and the students in the class would look at me and they'd say, hey, stop tapping. A lot of the time, I didn't even realize I was doing it. And then eventually even the teachers got after me and they would yell at me and they'd say, Clint, you have to stop tapping. It got so bad that I got sent to the principal's office for tapping. And he said to me, okay, maybe when you go back to class, just try sitting on your hands. So I did. I went back to class and when I felt myself starting to tap, I just, I did this. I sat on my hands and that worked for about five seconds. One time I was tapping in class and my teacher, Mr. Jensen, he looked at me and he yelled and he said, Clint, stay after class. And I thought to myself, this is it. I am done. Now, I've always been the type of person that believes that a single moment in time can change a person's life. And this was one of those moments for me, and I will never forget it. So I was sitting there with Mr. Jensen and an empty classroom. He walked past me and he sat next to his desk and he said, Clint, come here, I want to talk to you. And as he looked me right in the eye, he said, no, I need you to know something. You're not in trouble, but I do have just one question that I have to ask you. And he asked, he said, have you ever thought about playing the drums? And in that moment, Mr. Jensen, he leaned back and he opened the top drawer of his desk and he reached in and he pulled out my very first pair of drumsticks and he held them in his hands and he looked at me and he said, hey, Clint, you're not a problem. I think you're a drummer. And from that moment on, I've never put those sticks down. I've toured, recorded, and played drums all over the world. My whole college education was paid for with drumsticks in my hand. Just because of a single moment in time when somebody believed in me and he saw something in me that I didn't even see within myself. From that moment, I learned that there's a difference between being the best in the world and being the best for the world.