Translator: Федя Фидельбаум
Reviewer: Denise RQ How are you guys? (Cheers) Good! Alright. My name is Adam Braun. I'm the founder and CEO
of this organization "Pencils of Promise". In the last 4 years, we've gone
from a place that you'll hear about starting with very,
very humble beginnings to now what I really believe is becoming
a leading global education organization. But what I want to today is
talk to you all about the path. What it takes to go from an idea,
and how that idea has birthed, to now really working on
solving a truly global challenge. I'll take you through my story,
the story of the organization, but along the way, I want to share
with you guys, these five phrases that have guided me along this path. This is where my journey starts; with my family. This are my cousins, my grandmother. I'm the really cool kid
in the yellow sweater over here. (Laughter) From a very early age,
we were very close in that family, but more than anything we lived in an home
where education was the top priority. My grandmother and grandfather
were Holocaust survivors. And it was always part
of our upbringing that we knew that the only way that they had removed
themselves from this horrific situation was to emigrate into the country; and then, my parents were able
to lift themselves up was through the dedication to education. And like most of you here at Columbia, I was an academic. Growing up, I played a lot of sports too,
basketball in particular. And I went to the Brown University,
and I found myself a student athlete, which I'm sure, some of you
in the room are as well. And this was myself at the age of 22, entering graduation,
which I think something that hopefully, some of you guys
are going to be facing soon. But what I want to take you through today
are these 5 phrases that they've guided me at various points in my life: at 21, 23, 25, 27,
and now as 4 days ago, 29. My upbringing was one
where there was a clear path ahead. I wanted to work in finance
my entire childhood, I wanted to work on Wall Street. I was competitive, and I played sports and mathematics was the subject
that I was most interested in. Wanting to work on Wall Street,
it is a very neatly defined path to go from a New England upbringing,
New England school, to then move to New York. I saw a film when I was 21
that's called Baraka. It was shot in 24 countries
around the world. Hopefully, I can start
with the first phrase that really resonated with me, which was to get out of your comfort zone. I saw this talk, and this person shared these wonderful stories
of traveling all around the world. And at the age of 21,
I got this phrase in my head, "Get out of your comfort zone." For one time in my life,
I want to be uncomfortable. I hope that resonate with some of you. It's a strange feeling, but when I thought about the greatest art,
the greatest creations that came out of either music,
and painting, and sculpture, it always seemed to be
that the artists produced those pieces in eras of struggle
not in eras of complacency. So I thought, just once in my life
I want to know who I am, and I feel like I can find that
when I get out of my comfort zone. And I discovered this program
called "Semester at Sea"; it's a cruise ship
that goes around the world and you stop in 10 countries. You are able to explore and backpack countries across
the developing world for 4-6 days. And I said, "That's it!
That's how I'm going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to go, I'm going to travel
the developing world, I'm going to do so
without knowing a single person. So I withdrew from school,
I quit the basketball team, and I didn't tell a single person I knew
outside of my parents, and I said, "I'm going to go
on 'Semester at Sea'." And we left from Vancouver, in early 2005. We crossed the North Pacific for the first time
in the history of the voyage in winter. They'd always gone the other way, but they had new ship my year. And I'm not sure
how many of you remember this, but in January 2005, a 1,000 person-cruise ship
was struck head on by a 60-foot roll-way
of 900 miles from land in the dead of winter,
with hypodermic water all around. That was my ship. I'm going to show you guys a video
that has surfaced on YouTube since. It's about a minute long. What you are going to see here
is the captain looking out on what are 40-foot swells. We are about 900 miles from land. (Technical repeated signals) (Collision sound) (Video) Captain: Shit! (Music) Adam Braun: So now you'll see
the actual wave, as it strikes our ship. So here is the wave. And then this is our ship. So this is our ship. And again, you guys don't have
to freak out. I was on the ship. Not anyone in this room. But going through an experience like that as you saw the water
came through the window. And what you don't know
is that how was all the navigational equipment
and the power to our engines. So when the water came through we lost all power to our engines
which caused a mayday alert. And this panic announcement
that I'll never forget came over the loudspeakers: "Help the women
and children up the stairs, everyone get to the 5th floor or higher. Get your master stations." This is what he said
which is where we evacuated ship from. There was a feeling of certain death,
absolute certain death. It wasn't a question at all. And when you're faced with certain deaths,
- I've only had it once - but a few things happen. One of them is you suddenly start
to no longer question you know, the how or the what,
but the why. You'd say, "Why is this happening?
"Why am I here?" About 30 seconds in,
I felt this overwhelming calm I knew without a shadow of a doubt
that it was not my time to perish. I can't explain it, but I knew
I had something more to do here. In that moment,
I found a sense of purpose, which I think is
the single most powerful thing that anyone of us can find; is a true sense of meaning
that you have a sense of belonging, that you have a mission
here, in this existence. The next thing that I needed
to face unfortunately, obviously, I'm here,
we survived through a mass hysteria; you can imagine the whole room
flipping sides, and everyone was screaming.
it was much like Titanic; but we didn't go down. And so, fortunately, we survived, and I now had this renewed sense
of commitment to purpose. The next thing that I experienced
was backpacking, for the very first time
in the developing world. I would ended up traveling
over the next few years through more than 50 countries
as a backpacker, because I felt that I could discover
this purpose by immersing myself in new experiences. For you guys, as college students, there is nothing that I can advocate more than to get out of your comfort zone
while you can and immerse yourself
in something radically new that challenges everything
that you've ever believed before. And I had this habit of asking
one child per country what they wanted most in the world. I said, "If you can have anything
what would you want most? When I was in India, where the poverty was
at its most extreme I'd ever witnessed, - this young boy was begging
on the streets - I said, "If you can have anything
what would you want?" He looked at me, and he said "A pencil." And that was it; I said, "You can have
anything," and he said, "A pencil." It was so profoundly powerful
and immediately illuminate to me this was the plight of millions children
right now is about 61 million children who do not have access
to any form of education, no schooling. And I suddenly realize this is my mission,
is to eradicate this global injustice. And so, at the age of 23, I had a graduate,
I traveled to Fairmount. Like I said, I wanted
to work on Wall Street. And I got this new phrase in my head, "Challenge your assumptions,
so that you can find your truths." I think inside of each of us, we have kind of different ideas
spinning through our head. but we have these truths
that are internal, they come from the heart,
they come from the soul. When you follow those truths,
you will never be led wrong. I've made a career of this now. And there are these inherent truths,
and they are different for each of us, but they are there, and they only come when you break down the walls
of assumptions each of us have been raised upon
and taught by traditional society. And so I ended up saying,
"Alright. You know something? Everyone else is going off
and working straight out in a job," - and I'd always been an entrepreneur
so I'd start several businesses - so I took my money and I went and I backpacked
Latin America for 4 months just before I started working
in New York City. I just want to share one story
from that experience that led to me finding my truth. I was in a remote area of Guatemala. I looked up one day, and there is a man,
his name is Howell Buak. This is Howell. He came up to me, and he asked me if I would come
to stay with him in his village. At that point in time
that was a crazy idea, I'm kind of by myself, I'm in the middle
of nowhere in Guatemala, and this man is saying
come stay with me in my home. And I said, "I don's really know you,"
we're speaking broken Spanish. I said, "Why?" He said, "I've taught myself to read
from my Bible, I can read English. I'm a teacher,
but I can't pronounce it very well. So I want you to come and stay with me and read English
into a tape recorder every night so I can teach English to my children. And it was
such a profoundly powerful idea, that he wasn't asking for a hand-out,
he wasn't asking for money, he was asking for me to read
so that he could teach his own children. And I thought this is
an exceptional opportunity. My parents will kill me if I do this. But yeah, I'm going to do this. And I took shuttle buses to shuttle buses
to other buses to this remote town, where there were no phones, nothing. I was the first gringo
in the history of the village. I got to Howell's home.
This is my supplies. Here is the Bible. He had shockingly a pamphlet
called Raising Kids Who Don't Smoke". (Laughter) I don't know how he had that. And he had this dictionary, this large tape recorder
that I've read into for the next 3 days. Because I have a bad stomach, I brought peanut butter jelly
and a loaf of bread. And that's all I eat for the next 3 days,
so you can see my butter knife. I found, when I got there,
it wasn't just Howell. It was him and his wife. They set me up on this lovely bed
with my backpack, you can see back in the day. What I didn't know
is that on the other side of the room, was Howell and his wife,
in the same room. It was only a one-room home. But I lived with him for 3 days. I read English into his tape recorder. And witnessing Howell's commitments
to his children's education informed this broader philosophy
on how an organization could be built. that was about empowering locals; that wasn't about
handing out gifts from the top but it was a ground-up approach
to finding leadership within communities that was truly dedicated
to their children's education. and then empowering them to spread that
to their communities and beyond. And so I ended up
moving into New York City. I started working at what I thought
was the top corporate training that I could find
to one day start an organization that would truly affect global education. That was by working at Bain & Company,
a top-tier consulting firm. I worked at Bain for a few years, I leaned how Fortune 500 companies
were advised to become even better. It was literally
the best business training possible. But I found I was losing my passion
for service work, for education. When you go out to a bar
or somewhere, a social function, and someone says, "What do you do?" And you say,
"I'm a management consultant," and you're 24 years old, it's not an inspiring conversation,
it wasn't for me, because I didn't feel like
I was speaking the language of the person that I sought to become. I wanted to become somebody who was going
to start a non-profit or an organization that it was going
to affect global education. So this was the third phrase, "Speak the language
of the person you seek to become. I sought to become somebody
who started this. So I started just changing
the language by which I spoke. I really believe when you start
to project ideas into the universe, the universe starts to manifest
around their eventuality. So I started to saying,
"My name is Adam," etc. "Well, what do I do?
I work in consulting, but I'm going to start an organization
that's going to build one school, and we are going to start
to affect global education." I got this big idea in my head, I said, "I'm resigning my job, I want to try and find a way
to build one school. My grandmother, who is
a Holocaust survivor, is getting old, I want to build one school
and dedicate it to her." I was turning 25. I went to the bank, and I said, "I have this big dream," but big dreams start
with small and reasonable acts. So I said, "My big dream is to build
one school; how do I start?" The Bank of America said, "You have
to start by opening up an account with 25 dollars." I said, "That's a good sign,
I'm turning 25 this month. Here is the bank deposit slip
on October, 1, 2008, when I put 25 dollars into a bank account
and started officially Pencils of Promise, This organization that passed out pencils
because that one child in India. I ended up throwing a birthday party,
I'm born on Halloween, I just don't think
that I needed more gifts, so I asked friends
to give small donation at the door. And through a series of small events
with twenty somethings, we were able to raise the money
to build our very first school. I took a sabbatical, I left my job, and I went out to Laos, one of
the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. I was riding a motorbike everyday
out to this remote village called Paktom. I turned around one day, we just broke ground
on this very first school. And again, I could tell you guys
a million stories about how the organization was built,
but I want to focus on the lessons today. I turned around, and I see these
2 beautiful young girls, 3 girls actually. "Jâo seu nyãng?" is "What's your name?" (video) First girl: Tamun.
Adam Braun: Tamun. (Laughter) (Vietnamese) What is your name? Second girl: Nit.
AB: Nit? (On stage) AD: what you are going to see
now is there's an existing primary school, where we were building a preschool. And I just met these girls literally
in this moment, it kind of hits me. (Video) AB: You are going to be
our first preschool students. Girl: (Laughter)
AB: Sounds good? All right, thank you guys. AB: So now I am smitten,
now I'm just totally in love. Not just with the idea
of building a school, but I have these girls
whose lives could truly change. What was incredibly personally
transformational was months later, when I got this picture, Facebook was just kind of getting legs,
at this point in time. So I posted this,
and then I posted this picture, which is Nit and Nut now
in their very first classroom. This language
I've been speaking became real. It was no longer just an idea,
it was incredibly real. I came back to my job,
and I had to make this critical decision: do I return to Bain
after I took this sabbatical, or do I pursue the person
that I really genuinely believe I am on Earth,
that I'm in this existence to become? And that's when heard this phrase that you "Make
the little decisions with your head, and the big ones with your heart." I think every single person
at some point in your life - might be a relationship,
a home, or where you live, a job that you choose,
a school that you end up attending - but you have these massive decisions,
and your head will tell you something. I am here to tell you: follow your heart. Your heart will never
lead you wrong if you follow. You might find challenges and regrets,
but those regrets are temporary. If you follow your heart,
you will not go wrong. That's what I did, I said I'm going to go and focus
on building a best in-class organization. I noticed there was profit and purpose
and those are traditionally separate. And that there was
an emerging generation that said, "No, that's not the case anymore." They're intersecting, and we each
have a sense of profitable propose. where it's not just about maybe making
the world better or advancing yourself, but that those two
can intersecting in a way in which you were advanced
and society is made better as well. And I said this phrase ""not profit"
makes no sense to me. It's the only industry
that says what it's not, right? What it means you are non-profit,
none of us are driven by not profiting: we are driven by making
true value, purpose, emerge. So I said that Pencils of Promise,
we are technically a non-profit, nut we are not going
to treat ourselves that way. We are a for purpose organization. We are about making the world better.
We're not about lack of profits. We're going to be driven by the data,
the same way that Bain trained me, and so many some others
on building the best in-class company, We are going to take the same approach to best in-class problem solving
on global issues. And that we'd build a movement of people,
of true citizen philanthropy. And there are amazing stories
all across the organization. This was a girl who raised 250 dollars,
educated 10 kids by shouting at people on the corner of 42 and 10. This girl, Kennedy Donnelly, she is 17. She just rode a bicycle across the country and raised 10,000 dollars in doing so. We threw a party for her at our office, a donor was there inside,
"You know something? I'm going to match her,
I'm going to do another 10." And her response last week was, "Geez! I should just started here,
and met my goal." And then Louis, who donated his part, said, " I'm going to match
every dollar donated." He raised 25,000 dollars
to build a full school. So this is our story now,
this is the snapshot; Pencils of Promise, as of this week,
has broken ground on 90 schools around the world, and in 4 different countries
across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. There were 400,000 supporters
in some form of this organization. And we've delivered more
than 3 million educational hours. This is what I feel like is my purpose, but it was only found through following
those four mantras I shared earlier. One great kind of part of this story
is that I returned later on and thank Howell
as we opened up our first school. As of this week, we've broken ground on a new school
everyday last week in Guatemala. We've now built 40 schools
in Howell's region, so that people like him
are empowered to educate their children. Now is about continuing
to speak that language; we'll break ground on a new school
every 90 hours in the coming year. That's a big claim, but I know
that this organization can do it. And the way it's going to happen
is by a movement of the people. So this is one way you can easily find me:
Adam@iPromise.org; it's very simple, in case any of you guys
want to get in touch. The very last thing I'll share with you is the current phrase
that is guiding me right now. It is how can you, with the knowledge
the world will change in the next 10 years and you'll change within it, how can you create the most positive
impact for as many lives as possible? I think everyone of us has the capability
to truly transform millions of lives. Every person is a revolution
being carried within a vessel. It is just about finding
your purpose, activating it, and I hope that each of you dream big
because if your dreams aren't scaring you then I really believe
that we aren't dreaming big enough. Thanks so much for this. (Applause)
