Stephanie
Her own follow-up after Josh Liljenquist’s “Kindness Is Free” encounter
“It was 100% real.”
Stephanie · own follow-up video
Stephanie recorded a follow-up after appearing in Josh Liljenquist’s “Kindness Is Free” shoe story. She said the encounter was “100% real,” that she was not mic’d, and that no one told her what to say. Her recording also describes the time Josh spent talking with her after filming and the response she received from viewers. Visitors can watch the original video and read its transcript for the full filmed exchange.
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Transcript
I'm completely speechless. If you're here, you probably saw me in Josh's video, and yeah, it was 100% real.
I wasn't mic'd. No one told me what to say. But you have to understand that the people that I met, and now [unclear phrase] the people I met that he's connected to, are some of the nicest people. I mean, Josh stayed at my house for over an hour just talking to me.
When it was done, he's truly a vessel for kindness, and I can completely see why he's been so successful in spreading so much love, and he has so many adoring followers. He is, he's amazing, and he deserves it. I wish him nothing but success in whatever he sets his beautiful mind to achieve. And I am, I am very, very lucky to call him my friend.
I can't believe how many incredible, big-hearted people have reached out to me. Your kind words have completely renewed my spirit at a time when, to be honest, I've completely needed it. The past year has been really heavy. I've been navigating a difficult divorce, and recently I lost my dog
which was my absolute world and my ultimate emotional support. But I'm not going to get stuck on that because I will cry. But when life gets complicated, especially when feelings and finances get tangled
it gets incredibly hard to navigate. But I want to say right now, I carry zero malice or anger for any of that. I want to just move forward with my life, and I wish nothing but the best success and happiness for everybody involved in everything. We get one shot in this life.
Whatever path someone chooses to find their peace is the right path for them. And as I've entered my 40s, what drives me has radically changed. You start waking up with random joint pains that you didn't earn, and you don't know where they came from.
So many more people you love start passing away, and it's hard and it's confusing. And when we were kids, we looked at adults, or at least I did, like they knew everything. But the truth is we're all just the same kids inside, at least I am. We're all winging it and hoping we're doing it right.
If you're not doing it that way, then you've got to tell me the secret. I don't know. But lately I've been trying to find that spark again. And we all try to fill the void with tangible items like money and clothing, but that's temporary relief. It's a way for us to feel better in the moment, but it is not what makes us feel fulfilled as a human, because we need purpose. We need a reason to get out of bed. We need our friends, we need our family, a sense of drive.
Before all of this happened, I was the person who would sit on my couch at the end of a hard day watching videos exactly like Josh's from other people all over that did kind things, because I would want to just feel the feeling, you know, what it must be like to be able to give like that, what it must feel like to receive, just feeling other people's happiness.
But I never thought in a million years that I would be on that end of one of those videos. But here's the truth: I'm nothing special at all. 99.9% of you would have done the exact same thing. If you had a spare pair of boots and you looked a man in the eyes and [unclear phrase about seeing his humanity], you would have given him the boots. Any one of you would. I was just lucky enough to be the person he walked up to.
It is, it is hard to feel truly seen in this world. And because of you guys, this moment in time I will never forget. It has been a reminder to me that someone is always watching, randomly, at any moment. And it's not hard to be kind. And it's, it's not hard to do it when you don't think anyone's watching. Just be a good person, because it does matter. And I want you to know I didn't do any of this to make money or to do anything.
But because of your incredible love, it makes me very [unclear phrase]; I'm nervous talking about it. The Etsy shop that I wasn't going to post woke up to dozens of orders, and that's wild. I'm actually out of town right now for another day, so I haven't been able to really interact very much. But when I get home tomorrow, I'm excited to sit down and look at every single order that I've gotten and pack them up, because I started with zero and now I've got a bunch.
And for the, for the people that have ordered or followed my shop, thank you. I hope that you wanted the sticker, and I hope that you like it. And I will continue trying to improve. And of course, if anything isn't up to standards, please let me know. But the [unclear word] to show another person some support, that's beautiful, and I feel it.
I love to do 3D printing as well, and that'll be on the shop soon, hopefully. But please reach out to me, interact with me. I would love to be able to meet all these people, because the people that are supporting me right now are people that went on to a video of somebody just being kind, and [unclear phrase about choosing to support her]. And that's super beautiful. So all the people that are supporting me, man, these are, like, awesome people. And it's just crazy to think about it.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
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Transparency note: Josh did not ask Stephanie to make this follow-up video about him.
