The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change
“Then you must promise me that you will come back. And Pencils of Promise will work in Ghana to support the education of our children.” “I hope so.” I meant it. “Hope is not enough. You have to believe, and then it will be so.”
Adam Braun • The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change
But over time I noticed that certain people became energy vampires, sucking time and enthusiasm out of others without providing value in return. At first it seemed laughable to consider firing someone who wasn’t even being paid and who dedicated thirty hours per week to our cause, but removing people who didn’t produce became imperative to setting
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These expectations of excellence became the tent poles that formed our values, and our values then guided the choices we made. 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
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Adam Braun • The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change
For the first time we started saying no to certain offered partnerships, to ensure that we didn’t dilute our own brand. We invested our efforts into fewer but larger collaborations. Through this approach, we ultimately landed partnerships with Google, Microsoft, Delta, Warby Parker, and many other best-in-class companies. They still viewed their do
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As Marcel Proust wrote, “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
but internally I was beginning to ask fewer questions about money and more questions about meaning.
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
took the train out to Greenwich and told John that I couldn’t accept the job. I was going to stick with PoP. I knew if I wanted any success, I had to devote myself to it fully. 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 t
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