Spend each day wisely.
Dan Meers shared the message -- and several other uplifting thoughts -- with about 200 Central Missouri community leaders Wednesday morning as keynote speaker for the annual Boy Scouts Patron Breakfast.
The Five Rivers District of the Boy Scouts of America Great Rivers Council hosts the annual breakfast, which is a fundraiser. Its goal was to raise $75,000 this year.
Money raised during the event is used locally for programming, membership drives and ad campaigns.
It has been ongoing since 2013.
Meers, whose day job is as Kansas City Chiefs mascot KC Wolf, said he was excited to speak with the patrons attending at Lincoln University's Jason Gymnasium, located at 809 Lafayette St.
He said patrons had a chance Wednesday morning to make an impact.
"I'm excited about being a part of this work. I know that Boy Scouts is making a positive impact in the lives of so many young people in our communities around this great country of ours," Meers said.
Meers said he carries a coin in his pocket to remind him of a quote on his desk at Arrowhead Stadium.
The quote says, "Your life is like a coin, you can spend it any way you wish, but you can spend it only one time. So spend it wisely."
The quote reminds him that every day he gets to choose how he's going to live his life. He gets to decide how he's going to spend his coin.
The choices a person makes every day -- both large and small -- add up ever day.
"At the end of your life, when you look back at your life's story, that's who you are. That's who you've become," Meers said. "It's the impact, the influence you have with your life that's going to be determined by those choices that you made along the way."
He said that when he is speaking, he tells young people their destiny is not determined by chance. It's determined by the choices they make every day.
"We're all writing our life stories. Every day is just another sentence," he said. "I once read that since you're the author of your story, you get to decide each day whether the sentence you write is going to end with a period, a question mark or an exclamation point.
"I believe that every day we are called to live our lives so that it ends with an exclamation point."
Meers often shares the story of Nov. 23, 2013, when he came within inches of dying. As KC Wolf, he was practicing for a bungee/zipline stunt over Arrowhead Stadium, in which he jumps from a light stand on one side of the stadium and ziplines across to the other side of the stadium. The stunt was supposed to start with about a 20-foot bungee jump, then continue across on the zipline. But instead of falling 20 feet, he fell about 75 and struck seats (knocking them loose from the concrete). He then dangled from the zipline as it went across the stadium.
He ended up with a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a broken tailbone and a broken back. Doctors said he was lucky to be alive or able to walk.
After the physician came in and told him about his injuries and that he would undergo surgery on his spine the next morning, the physician began to walk out the door and stopped. He turned to Meers and said, "Mr. Meers, I hope you realize tonight you are a very lucky man. You fell 75 feet. Number one, you're lucky you're still alive. Number two, you are very lucky you are not paralyzed right now."
Meers said he thought a lot that night about what the doctor had told him.
"That night in the hospital, I thought a lot about what that doctor said," Meers said. "I thought about my life. But what I thought a whole lot about that night was how I was choosing to spend my coin each and every day."
The Five Rivers District serves Cole, Gasconade, Moniteau and Osage counties. It currently includes 558 Scouts.