Meet Bryan Hein

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bryan Hein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Bryan, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

In 2007 I was living in Florida and married to a woman who worked in a bank. I was working 6 days a week, making the most money I ever have, enough to cover all expenses and add to a savings account. It was convenient to give her my checks and have her pay the bills. She sat me down one evening and told me that we were 3 months behind on all of our bills. Electric, water, cable, internet, mortgage and my work van were all unpaid. I caught her cheating a year earlier so the first thing I did was file for divorce. It was the beginning of the great recession and I knew I was going to lose my job in a few months so I salvaged what bills I could. I caught up on the electric, water and work van but cable, internet and the house had to go. The house went into foreclosure and I found my purpose. This was my AH-HA moment, in realizing that people fall into desperate situations through no fault of their own and it isn’t always brought on by drugs and alcohol as I was led to believe. I remember being very grateful to my now ex-wife even in those moments for the realizations her actions caused within me and the path it had set me on.

I knew I would get myself out of homelessness and I vowed to help as many people as I could get out of desperate situations. At this time, I started the nonprofit that would become Eden Plan with the intent of helping as many people as I can, out of poverty and homelessness.

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Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Eden Plans focus is on giving opportunities to those in need. Like the old saying goes, rather than giving someone fish as most of our social safety net programs do, we teach people how to fish. We immediately provide people with their needs of food, water, housing and love. We live in a community on 38 acres in Hawaii focused on helping each other and those in need. When someone arrives here, we provide them with all of the tools, knowledge, materials and help necessary to build their own home and grow their own food. This is exciting in how much it empowers an individual to be so directly involved in their own success and growth. We are open to helping all people in need but our main focus is to find kids aging out of the foster system. They are more prone to live a more difficult life than most as they are more likely to be unemployed, incarcerated and homeless than the general population. We believe we can be an incredible pivot point in so many young lives, as they become more skilled, they will teach the next generation what they’ve learned here. It will be a beautiful domino effect of people learning, growing and helping each other.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Perspective – Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. I was going through a divorce and facing homelessness at the same time and was so incredibly happy and grateful. Although those are significant issues, so is the fact that I had food in my belly. a vehicle, people who loved me and a whole list of things to put a smile on my face.

Perseverance – I have lost count of how many times I’ve failed. A fundraising walk across the country ended in homelessness. My first attempt to build Eden Plan was stopped by permitting issues and I lost the property. Failure never deterred me from my mission with Eden Plan. I always saw the end goal on the horizon. It was only a matter of finding a new path to my goals.

Discipline – I know what I want the future to look like, a world without poverty, homelessness and suffering. That will take a lot of work to achieve and the more I apply myself, the more positive an impact I will have. I happily work 7 days a week, frequently singing – poorly and I’m eager for the sunrise each day knowing my efforts will help change the way the world functions!

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

We would love to collaborate with donors of time, money and materials. We’re building a homestead and constantly expanding our farm and housing supply. This costs quite a bit of time and money. I am Eden Plans main source of income as I was flipping houses for several years to earn the money to start it. The work we’ve done on the property has all been done by myself and volunteers. Donations that could help provide an income for volunteers so they can stay long-term as well as pay for building materials would greatly improve our ability to expand and help more former foster youth. All of our contact info can be found on our website at edenplan.org

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