“This evening really highlights something we all know to be true – mental health touches every single life in some way. No one gets through this life without a story, and it’s by coming together, through compassion, through understanding and through showing up for one another, that we create the kind of community where healing and hope can actually grow,” NAMI Executive Board Director Rachel Baker said, welcoming the crowd.

“To everyone here tonight, thank you. Thank you for showing up, for supporting this mission, for giving your time, your presence and your hearts, whether you’re here for yourselves, for a loved one or simply to learn more. You belong here. Your presence reflects a shared belief that mental health matters and that hope is something worth investing in,” Baker said, encouraging those gathered to keep the conversion going after leaving the event.

Sharing the stage with Baker was Megan Doherty Kelley, whose father, the late Doug Doherty was the inspiration behind the Kelley and Doherty families extensive work with the organization.

Doherty was a community business leader, who battled severe, recurrent depression throughout his life, though through it all, he never gave up hope, Kelley said.

“That’s what tonight is about, hope,” she said, while stressing that it can be the simplest things like just reaching out to someone in need that can bring them back from the brink of making a life altering decision.

At the time of his first speaking engagement, Kyles had no previous experience, explained in an excerpt from his forthcoming book, ‘Greatness Redefined,’ he shared with the Sun-Gazette.

“Oct. 10, 2019, changed my life forever. In a small classroom filled with middle school boys, tears began falling as I spoke,” the excerpt said.

“Up until that point, I had never spoken to students inside of a school before. I had no polished system, no years of experience, and no real idea what I was doing. All I knew was that the night before, something in my heart began to ache for those boys to experience the kind of transformation I had experienced in my own life. So, when I showed up the next day to speak after school, I walked in with a heart full of excitement and hands full of inexperience,” Kyles said in the excerpt.

“At the time, content creation filled my world. That was the lane I knew. I was only there because a good friend asked me to come. In my mind, it was a simple opportunity to show up, encourage a few students, and leave. But what happened in that room was far bigger than anything I expected,” the excerpt continued.

“As we spent time together, something shifted. That classroom stopped feeling like a classroom and started feeling like a transformation chamber. And in that moment, something became crystal clear to me: This is what I am called to do. This is my assignment. This is my mission,” it said.

Being Kyles’ first visit to the area, he found the experience to be “absolutely amazing,” he said in an email to the Sun-Gazette.

“From NAMI’s hospitality to the love shown by locals in grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants, this city truly embraced my team and I with open arms,” Kyles said, giving a special shoutout to Baker and fellow board member Cathy Snyder.

“Their support, love and dedication made me truly feel like family,” he said in the email.

“My mission is simple. I want to encourage, empower and equip every single one of you to do just two things, to encourage you to embrace your identity of greatness. We will help you get rid of the false labels and the lies that stop you from embracing your rightful identity,” Kyles told the audience.

“Secondly, I’m going to help you be an agent of hope,” he said, encouraging the audience to embrace the impact they’re capable of making to others in need.

“It starts in your family, at your school, at your Job, every place you have the opportunity to share it,”Kyles said.

“As Ms. Kelley talked about earlier, making one phone call, making sure someone knows that they’re seen, giving a nice message and compliment is one of the proactive ways in which we can mitigate suicide, mitigate the losses of lives the people that we love,” Kyles.

To drive that point home, Kyles spoke of his mother’s suicide attempt, five years before he was born, thwarted only by her proactive best friend.

“She was feeling hopeless. She felt like she had nothing left to live for,” he said.

“Thankfully, earlier that day, she made a call to one of her best friends and she let her know how she was feeling,” Kyles said.

Though that friend was at a party, immediately upon hearing Kyles’ mother was in need, she rushed to her side.

“In that moment she got in and immediately she called 911, and she saved my mother’s life,” he said.

“To be available and willing is what it means to truly be an agent of hope,” Kyles said.

“If my mother’s friend would have never left her party, if my mother’s friend would have never arrived at my mom’s house, if my mother’s friend would have never inconvenienced herself, selflessly to go and check on my mom, the reality is I would not be standing before you today. The reality is I would not be a husband to my beautiful wife, Joi. The reality is I would not have two kids who I love dearly,” he said.

“I share that with you to let you know that being an agent of hope is not optional,” Kyles stressed, sharing his belief that kindness is a superpower everyone can possess and wield.

Standing at 5 foot, 1 inch, throughout school Kyles endured bullying over his physical appearance, though as the years went on, he came to embrace the fact that these were only false labels put upon him by others. These labels can, however, be unlearned through embracing the truth about oneself and through the kind words of others.

Though Kyles hid this mistreatment from his family, their actions were impactful, nonetheless.

“After her best friend helped her walk through the situation of hopelessness and the dark times that she had, my mom, single handedly, with the help of my father, was a very prominent role model in how you can affirm someone past the pain that they experience,” he said.

“Every single day before I left for school, my mom would affirm my worth and my value. My mom would affirm the love she had for me daily. My mom would tell me that my mistakes were not the measuring stick for who I was. My mom, every single day, discarded labels of lies that I had, and she put labels of truth in my brain,” Kyles said.

“Because of what my mom did for me, my daughter will never understand what it’s like to not have her father affirm her. She will never have to guess what her father feels about her. She will never guess what her home feels about her, because I have committed to be an agent of hope in my home,” Kyles said.

To demonstrate this, a mother and daughter were welcomed to the state for an exercise in which negative, false labels were affixed to each, with the other removing the label and replacing them with positive, affirming truths.

“What we just did is not just for a parent and a child, it’s for a brother, a sister, a nephew, an aunt, a grandparent, a grandchild. It’s for anybody you have close relationships with that you can take the time to speak life when most times they hear lies, and that’s what it looks like to truly be an agent of hope,” he said.

Kyles also took the time to offer some stress management tips available to anyone in order to regulate their emotions during moments of lonely despair, including box breathing, which he tried for the first time following a medical emergency involving his wife in which the doctor in charge of her care had been extremely dismissive.

“I was planning how my mugshot was going to look, I was planning how I was going to defend myself in jail as a five one man,” he said with a laugh.

“I was planning to do whatever was necessary to get my wife seen,” Kyles said, before he made the choice to de-escalate the situation using box breathing, which consists of a four-second pattern of breath inhales, exhales and holds repeated for several cycles.

Another method shared by Kyles was the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method, in which the person identifies five things they can see, four things they can physically feel, three things they can hear, two things they can smell and one thing they can taste.

Reframing and replacing negative thoughts and emotions with something positive, such as gratitude is vital, as well, he said.

“Every single day, 150,000 people pass, and every time I wake up, I have something to be grateful for, because I’m still here for a purpose, on purpose, with purpose,” Kyles told the audience.

“I firmly believe that we are designed to use our dark seasons as displays of determination and hope for those around us, even through your divorce, you can still share hope, even during relationship trials with your child, even in financial struggle, you can still share hope even in the worst situations,” he stressed.

“Hope can and should be shared, because you never know that you may be the person that they receive hope from,” Kyles said, closing with a crowd participating affirmation to cap off the night.

“I am born for greatness. I am an agent of hope. I will love those around me every day, every year for the rest of my life. Yes, I will make mistakes, and yes, life will get hard, but I will keep going. I will keep loving. I will be everything I have been born to be,” he led the crowd, before inviting the Williamsport Area High School’s Hope Squad to join him on stage.

“These people are showing up every single day, even at their young age, to be agents of hope,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Kyles spoke with students at the high school, an experience he called “phenomenal.”

“The students were engaged, challenged and inspired during our short time together,” he told the Sun-Gazette in an email.

“Afterwards, we received multiple messages and testimonials from students and staff expressing the transformational value they experienced during our visit. I also had the pleasure of being interviewed by students from Williamsport High School’s student media team and ‘boy oh boy’ they were truly outstanding,” Kyles said.

“If they are any representation of the caliber of students that attend the Williamsport School District schools, the future of this city is in great shape,” he said in the email.