EP. 011 - BILL

CEO. Radical Empath. Cognitive Shifter.

BILL BEDROSSIAN

'HOME AT LAST'

Age: 46

Location: Los Angeles, California

Bill is the CEO of Covenant House California - a non-profit agency whose mission is to reach out to at-risk homeless youth living on the streets and offer them hope and opportunities to turn their lives around.

My parents had me when they were eighteen and nineteen. Everyone told them it was a mistake, and that they were breaking all the rules. Instead of caving into the fear, they embraced parenthood and everything it stood for. They opened their home to pregnant teens who needed a hand. Over the years, they have adopted eight children and fostered what must be over a hundred. They even bought the house next door to expand our ever-evolving, malleable family.

To me, everything seemed so normal. Of course you would help the girl experiencing domestic violence who had a baby at sixteen. It was important to them. I didn’t realize until college that we were kind of odd, because most people spent their money on these wild material things. I studied finance and became a stockbroker (if you can believe it) but I knew within a year that it was totally wrong. I went back to school for social work. Home.

It shocks me to see people turn their nose up at others in need, because I look at young people, like the homeless youth I work with at Covenant House, and they are my north star. I admire them. I try to echo their hopefulness, their radical thinking, their inner beauty.

When I die, I don’t need to be remembered or need anything named after me. I just want to know I made the world slightly better. The wealth gap has created the empathy gap, and it is my deepest purpose to try to close that. The people who have more care less. And I am not angry or indignant. I am open to having those difficult conversations. I emulate patience. Graciousness. Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, the same that I ask them to do.

Understanding the stranger as family is my calling. And I think it heals deep wounds in the earth. At the heart of it, we are all so similar. And life is short. Let’s just be kind and go hang out with our wives.