Daryl Worley

Oh, years ago, we had a couple of friends, and they had a child that was born autistic. And that kind of started the whole thing for me. So anything that came along, not too long after that, I wound up doing this show down on Broadway every year at – one of the bars down there and we would have this big benefit show and bring in all kinds of artists and songwriters for cystic fibrosis.

And because we had a family member who died with that disease and so it was always close to our hearts and I did that for years and I thought to myself, you know, because we had seen how other lives were affected by autism that If I ever had a chance to do something along those lines, that I would jump right in there, and that's how this started. So I think I've been doing this for several years.

absolutely i think uh and you know we've mentioned cystic fibrosis and autism and there's a thousand other yeah things that yeah that people are and some some of them uh i mean i've just i've been close to uh people with uh muscular dystrophy and and ms and yeah uh it goes on and on and and and

You know, to be perfectly honest with you, none of this stuff we're talking about is for the faint of heart. It's a difficult thing to deal with. And in some instances, some are not as bad as others. But it's still a challenge for every person that's involved. And so, you know, whatever we can do to help, at the end of the day, that's why we're put here is to love one another and to help out.

Exactly.

Well, I just feel like people have always even made jokes about... They used to call me Benefit Daryl because I would just do anybody's benefit that came along. And growing up in music, people used you like that a lot. They'd say, hey, can you guys come out? Which I'm not saying in a bad way. I'm saying we were thankful to be used in that way. And...

And then I got to a different level and started doing this on a national scale. And, you know, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is bigger than I ever dreamed it could be with my career and stuff. And the first thing that occurred to me is, man, I'm really going to be able to help people now.

Yeah, I mean, we do that in a lot of different ways. I have my own foundation. The Darryl Worley Foundation is alive, well, and active. Oh, nice. We are really, really making a difference in our region, which would be like West Tennessee, North Mississippi, North Alabama. All there. But we help people all over the country. Yeah. And, oh, it has really grown. That's great.

And we, you know, we look for other smaller startups that we know are doing good work, and we try to donate to them and help them. Nice. you know, figure it out because we went through a lot of time when it was not easy. Those first few years, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to wind up being in debt. Yeah.

Well, and the bottom line is you've just got to come up with free money somehow. Yeah. And when you say free money, people go, what is that exactly? And I say, well, where are you giving me money to help people? Yeah, exactly. So for us, it's free money. For those people, it's free money, but it doesn't come free. There's a lot of work that goes into it, but every bit of it's worth it.

It's probably, you know, I look back on it all, and I think, My travels to the war zones and entertaining our troops and doing all that stuff, that's going to be huge and on the highlight reel. But leaving the foundation behind, it's a work that will continue long after I'm gone. I know it will because good people are involved. Good people want to be involved in things like that.

And I think we're about to start...

Oh, yeah. Well, that's because you're helping somebody. I can sit here and harp on it all day long, but I'm a spiritual person, and I'm a born-again Christian. I love Jesus Christ. I don't preach to people. That was my daddy's job. He's really good at it, but I said, I don't think that's going to work for me. Right.

I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that my convictions in this area are very, very strong. But that's how each of us was designed, whether we know it or not yet. You may not know it yet, but that's how you were designed. And you won't feel real accomplishment. You won't feel real effectiveness in your life until you've

done at helping someone else yeah that you didn't have to help exactly someone that that you just thought that person needs help i'm going to step in yeah whether it be stopping on the side of the road and helping some old lady that's changing a tire i don't care what it is those acts of kindness yes and acts that you do out of your heart that you do not have that's the good stuff

And that's what kind of, my mother always said, those are the things that put the silver lining on the clouds.

Yeah, I'll get you to come talk about autism on my podcast. Yeah, I'd love to. It's called Sounds Like Life with Daryl Worley. You'll love it, man. Oh, I love it.

Man, yeah, I'm glad to be on here and to hear all the good work you're doing. That's awesome.