The Promise of a Pencil Quotes

“I understood that I might fail, but I wouldn't let it happen because I changed my compass along the way.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“At the greatest levels of affluence, and the deepest levels of poverty, parents share the same desire for their children to have a better future.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“The purest joys are available to all of us, and they're unrelated to status, recognition, or material desires.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Here's my best advice: make the little decisions with your head and the big ones with your heart. Do that, and you'll be just fine.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Most ventures fail in the early stages because people stop trying after they're told no too many times.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Sometimes you have to show someone that you’re willing to run through a wall before they’ll open the front door.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“In truth we re-create our reputation every day.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“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.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“They served as a constant reminder that to achieve exceptional things, you must hold yourself to exceptional standards, regardless of what others may think.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“When you align individually high-performing people around the idea that they are collectively underdogs, you tap into the cohesive gel that brings early adopters together. We created an enemy for us to rebel against (this belief that our approach was “impossible”), which is one of the fastest ways to unite people around a common goal. And with each new person who joined our volunteer army, we received both the validation and the skills necessary to prove that we could carve a different path from those who came before us.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“...when your faith is tested you simply have to believe that there will be light ahead and continue moving forward.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Many of us spend our entire lives in the same bubble—we surround ourselves with people who share our opinions, speak the way we speak, and look the way we look. We fear leaving those familiar surroundings, which is natural, but through exploration of the unfamiliar we stop focusing on the labels that define what we are and discover who we are.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“But deep down inside, I was no longer enamored with the life I’d created. The only purpose I was serving was self-interest. While I rarely showed it to outsiders, my happiness waned day after day. A restless voice kept me up at night, telling me that until I found meaning, the money wouldn’t matter.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Creating a company means you’re going to go through hell and high water along the way. You need to know the character of the people at your side. Trust is everything.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“When you're part of something special, you have to cherish it and defend it against many outside distractions and temptations. But nothing is more potent or deceptive than the competing interests or another great opportunity. In those moments 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.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“You never realize how much you value something until you are faced with the prospect of losing it.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“In certain situations you ask to see a sign to guide you in the right direction. Sometimes these calls to a higher power are answered and sometimes we are left to seek counsel from within. But if you look for them, the signs will usually present themselves to those with open eyes.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“The mind delivers logic and reason, but the heart is where faith resides.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Purpose can manifest from so many different places, but it most often appears through the small things that enable us to feel connected to a broader whole”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“They chose to be different. And in doing so, they proved that through struggle, sacrifice and service, staggering personal transformation is possible.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“How many times do you have thirty things to do and you focus on the twenty-five that matter least?”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Purpose is found when you stop thinking about how you exist in the world and start trying to figure out why you are here. Once you solve that question, everything else will fall into place.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“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.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Dancing with these kids, I looked around and acknowledged that what you see around you is proof of what exists within you. There is a primal energy that spurs us to move, to shake, to transform. And once ignited, it is a feeling that takes on a life of its own.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“The role of the founder should eventually be to listen to the echoes of his or her initial words, and then encourage and amplify the most genuine among those you hear.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Expectations are the daunting shadows that trail behind accomplishments; no matter how high one goes, the other follows on its footsteps.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Think about how the world will change in the next ten years, and how you and your resources and networks will change within it. Use that as a compass to determine how you can affect as many people as possible.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“Sometimes you just know. With absolute conviction. The complete absence of doubt is so rare it generates a sense of excitement that’s so powerful it becomes shocking. . . . That name just appeared in my head, and I remember a hard closing of my eyes followed by an opening and a quick punch of breath. It literally knocked the wind out of me, left me searching for air, a tingling of excitement surging through my chest. Yes. With absolute conviction. Everything had changed.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“You have to find a mantra and live it fully. The one I’d adopt right now if I were you is something I found on the inside of a friend’s journal last year: ‘You may be safe, but I am free.’ Take advantage of the freedom that comes with your youth. Inhale life, exhale fire, and embrace the late, sleepless nights, because that’s when the magic happens—when everyone else is asleep and you’re awake thinking about the world as it is, and the world as it could be. Make the most of those moments,” I said forcefully. “And in the coming years people will tell you that you’re too young to change the world. I’m here to tell you, that’s fucking bullshit.”
― Adam Braun, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change