The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

by Adam Braun

where you start in life should not dictate where you finish. And that no tool can more profoundly unlock a person’s ability to change his or her place in life than access to quality education.

Adversity bonds people more often than it breaks them.

Out of catastrophe emerged clarity.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

People think big ideas suddenly appear on their own, but they’re actually the product of many small, intersecting moments and realizations that move us toward a breakthrough.

Many Western organizations never transition leadership into local hands, which in my eyes demonstrated a lack of commitment to long-term sustainability.

when priorities clash, always stay guided by your values, not your perceived necessities. Necessities exist in a state of mind that will not last, whereas values are transcendent and enduring.

failure is a necessary step toward achievement. In fact, it often accelerates it.

make the little decisions with your head and the big ones with your heart.

the only way to win the respect of our for-profit peers would be to wed our values and idealism to business acumen.

Rather than thinking of ourselves as nonprofit, we would begin to refer to our work as for-purpose.

any company that treats its social mission as its true bottom line should call itself a for-purpose.

exceptional speakers deliver every complete thought directly to one person in the audience, making that person feel like the center of the room—and then they move on and do it again.

“Live not in dreams, but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.”

small wins are easy to achieve, but they won’t move the needle. In the end, the big wins, the most daunting tasks, are the ones that matter.

organizational growth is rarely linear. Acceleration rates, when mapped out, usually produce S or J curves because growth can become exponential. I couldn’t look at the pace of the past to determine our future.

True motivation is not found within reaching a goal, but rather getting to a place where you can confidently and audaciously move the finish line far off into the distance once again.

It’s in the space between the known and the unknown, where you can craft a vision for the future that you hope to create and then chase it with relentless fervor.

Your conversations will lead to opportunities, which will become actions, which will become footprints for good.

change doesn’t happen through hard work alone. It requires strength of imagination. It relies on that ability we each possess to suspend belief in the restraints of today to enable the possibilities of tomorrow.

“Do the small things that make others feel big,”