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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-05-18
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8oE2kqVXkk
sorry guys yeah I %HESITATION so my name's Adam Braun and I'm the founder and CEO of this organization pencils of promise and in the last four years we've gone from a place %HESITATION that you'll hear about starting with very very humble beginnings to now %HESITATION what I really believe is is becoming a leading global education are but what I want to do today is talk to
you all %HESITATION about the %HESITATION what it takes to go from an idea and how that ideas bursts to %HESITATION now really working on solving a a truly global %HESITATION and saw take you through my story to start the organization but along the way I want to share with you guys these five phrases that have guided me %HESITATION along this this path and so %HESITATION this
were my journey starts with my family %HESITATION this is my cousins my grandmother %HESITATION and I'm the really cool kid in the yellow sweater over here %HESITATION and you know from a very early age we're very closely knit family but more than anything we lived in a home where education was the top priority my grandmother and grandfather were Holocaust survivors and %HESITATION it was always you
know part of our upbringing that we knew that the only way that they had removed themselves from this horrific situation emigrated into the country and then %HESITATION my parents were able to lift themselves up was through the that the dedication to education %HESITATION and like most of you here at at Columbia %HESITATION I was an academic growing up I played a lot of sports to basketball
in particular and I went to Brown University and I found myself %HESITATION student athlete which I'm sure some of you in the room are as well and and this is my self are at the age of twenty two %HESITATION you're entering graduation which I think is something that I'll hopefully some of you guys are going to be facing San but %HESITATION what I want to take
you through it there these these five phrases that have guided me %HESITATION at at various points in my life at twenty one twenty three twenty five twenty seven and now as a four days ago twenty nine %HESITATION and so %HESITATION you know my upbringing was one where %HESITATION there's a clear path ahead I once written finance my entire childhood I wanted to work on Wall Street
I was competitive and you know I played sports in mathematics or %HESITATION the subject that I was most interested in and so wanting to work on Wall Street it's it's a very neatly defined path are from you know New England up bringing one school to then moved to New York and I saw a film when I was twenty one that's called out Baraka and it was
shot twenty four countries around the world and hopefully %HESITATION I can start with with the first phrase that really resonated %HESITATION with me which was to get out of your comfort zone I I saw %HESITATION this this site this talk and this person sure these wonderful stories of traveling all around the world and at the age twenty one I got this phrase in my head get
out your comfort zone for for one time in my life I wanted to be uncomfortable I hope that resonates with someone via it's it's a strange feeling but when I thought about the greatest art the greatest creations that that came out of either you know music can and painting and sculpture don't seem to be that the artists produce those those pieces in an era of struggle
nightmares of complacency and so I thought just once in my life I want to know who I am and I feel like I can you know find that when I when I get out of my comfort zone and I discovered this program called semester at sea secure shipping goes around the world and he stopped and ten countries and you know you're able to explore and backpack
%HESITATION countries across the developing world for four to six days and I said that's it that's how to be uncomfortable %HESITATION I'm gonna go and I'm gonna travel the developing world and I'm gonna do so without knowing single person and so I withdrew from school I put the bass while team %HESITATION and Intel single person I knew outside of my parents and I said I'm gone
semester at say and we left from Vancouver %HESITATION in early two thousand five and %HESITATION we cross the north Pacific for the first time in the history of the voyage in winter they've always gone the other way but that a new ship my ear and I'm not sure how many of you will remember this by nine January two thousand five a thousand person cruise ship was
struck head on by sixty foot rope wave nine hundred miles from land in the dead of winter with hypothermic water all around that was my ship and so on a show you guys a video that surfaced on YouTube sense %HESITATION throughout a minute long and so what you're gonna see here is the captain looking out on what our forty foot swells and again we're about nine
so now you'll see the actual way as it strikes are shed so here's the way Mrs our ship the water came mayday I got over the loudspeakers children up stares among and there's a feeling of it wasn't when you're faced this deaths but I'm is no longer crush our the what but the and why am I here and thirty I felt this overwhelming because I knew
without a shot I doubt that it was not a new he wanted to and in that moment I found in the most power anyone of us can of belonging that you having me here in this the next thing that I needed to to face unfortunately I'm here we survived %HESITATION through mass hysteria you can match the whole room flipping side is numb I panicked but we
didn't go down %HESITATION and so %HESITATION forced to survive then and now I had this renewed sense of of commitment to purpose and the next thing that I experienced was backpacking for the very first time in the developing world and I would ended up traveling over the next few years through more than fifty countries as a backpacker because I felt that that I could you know
discover this purpose by immersing myself and new experiences and for you guys as college students there's nothing that I can advocate more than to get out your comfort zone while you can and immerse yourself in something radically new the 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 have anything what would you want most and when I was in India where the poverty was at its most extreme that I never witnessed this on what was going on the streets I said if you have anything what would you want they look to many said up pencil and that was actually in need of anything and he said a pencil on it was so profoundly
powerful and immediately illuminates in me that this was the plight of millions of children right now is about sixty one million children who do not have access to any form of education no schooling and and I suddenly realized this is this is my mission is is to eradicate pests global injustice and so %HESITATION at the age of twenty three I had a graduate I traveled a
fair amount and like I said I want to work on Wall Street and I got this new phase in my head challenger assumptions so that you can find your truths and I think inside of each of us know we have a kind of different ideas spinning there had we have these truths that are internal that they come from the heart they come from the soul and
when you follow those truths you will never be led wrong I I've made a career best now %HESITATION and they're these inherent truth and they're different for each of us but they're there and they only come when you break down the walls of assumptions that each of us have been raised upon and taught by by traditional society %HESITATION and so I ended up saying aren't you
know something everyone else is going off and working straight out %HESITATION in a job and I'd always been Ochsner side started several businesses and I I took my money and I I when I backpack %HESITATION Latin America for for four months just before I I started working in New York City and I just wanna share one story from that experience that led to me finding my
true %HESITATION I I was in of of remote remote area of Guatemala %HESITATION and I looked up one day and there's a man his name as well walk this is VOA %HESITATION and he came up to me and he asked me if I would come stay with him in his village and at that point time that was a crazy idea I'm kind of by myself in
the middle of nowhere and bottom on this man is saying come stay with me in my home and I said well I don't really know you were speaking broken Spanish and I said why and he said well I I mean 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 that I can teach English to my children and it was such a profoundly powerful idea that he wasn't asking for a handout 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 %HESITATION but yeah I'm gonna do this and I thought shuttle buses the shuttle buses that other buses to this remote town where %HESITATION there were no phones nothing as the first gringo and in the history of that the village %HESITATION and I got two calls home and this is this is my my supplies there is the Bible he had shockingly
a pamphlet called raising kids who don't smoke %HESITATION AMNH I don't know how we had that he had his dictionary %HESITATION this large tape recorder that I read into %HESITATION for the next three days and because I have a bad stomach I brought peanut butter jelly and a loaf of bread and that's all it for the next three days so you can see my my butter
knife and %HESITATION and what I I I found when I got there was it was just well with him in his wife %HESITATION and so they set me up on this lovely bad with my backpack you can see back in the day and I what I didn't know was that on the other side of the room was oil and his wife in the same room it
was only a one room home but I lived with him for three days I read English %HESITATION into his tape recorder and %HESITATION witnessing how else commitment to his children's education informed this broader philosophy on how an organization could be built there was about empowering locals that wasn't about handing out gifts from the top but was a ground up approach to %HESITATION finding leadership within communities
that was truly dedicated to their children's education and then empowering them to to spread that to their communities and beyond %HESITATION and so I ended up moving into New York City and I started working at what what I thought was the top corporate training not confined to one they start an organization that would truly affect global education and that was my working at painting company %HESITATION
top your consulting firm and I work the pain for a few years and I learned how fortune five hundred companies were advised to become even better was leery that that the best business training possible but I found that was kind of losing my my passion for service work for education and you know when you go out to a bar or somewhere social function in some pieces
what do you do and you say woman management consultant on your twenty four is all it's it's not an inspiring conversation wasn't for me because I feel like I was speaking the language of the person I sought to be I wanted to become somebody who's gonna start a nonprofit or an organization that was in effect well education and so this is the third phrase it was
speak the language the person that you seek to become and I sought to become somebody who started this and so I started just changing the language by which I spoke and I really believe when you start a project ideas into the universe the universe starts to manifest around that they're eventuality and so I started saying my name is Adam etcetera well what I do I've written
something but I'm going to start an organization that's gonna build one school and we're gonna start to affect global education and so I got this big idea and my head I said on the sign my job on trying to find a way of bill one school %HESITATION my grandmother who was a Holocaust survivor is getting old I want to build once gone dedicated to her and
%HESITATION I was turning twenty five and so I went to the bank and I said I wanna I'm this big dream but but big dreams they start with small unreasonable acts incisive my big dream is to build on school all how do I start and a bank of America they said well you have to start by opening up an account with twenty five dollars I said
well who okay that's a good sign I'm turning twenty five this month so here is the bank deposits left on October first two thousand eight when I put twenty five dollars into a bank account and started officially pencils of promise %HESITATION this organization napping pastel pencils because that one child in India John and I ended up throwing a birthday party and born on Halloween and I
I just don't think that I needed more gifts so ask friends to go small donations at the door and through a series of small events with twenty somethings we're able to raise the money to build our very first school on I I took a sabbatical I left my job and I went out %HESITATION Laos when the poorest countries in Southeast Asia %HESITATION and I was riding
a motorbike everyday out to this this remote village callpath town and I turned around one day we just broke ground on this very for school and %HESITATION again I could tell you guys a million stories about how the organization is built by our focus on the lessons today so I turned around and I see these two beautiful young girls three girls actually many just you know
means one thing and I mean nothing to smile in the come on Justin young needs all so you see now is there's an existing primary school but we are building a preschool and I just met these girls living this moment it kind of hits me and you're going to be our first preschool students sounds good I don't think there is a its announcement now I'm just
totally in love not just with the idea of building a school but I I have these girls whose lives to truly change and what was incredibly I personally transformational was months later when I got this this picture and I'd Facebook was just kind of getting lags at this point time and so I got posted this and I posted this picture which is near to net now
in their very first classroom and this this language that I'd been speaking became real right it was no longer just an idea it was incredibly real %HESITATION and so I came back to my job and I had to make this critical decision do I return to man after I took a sabbatical or or do I pursue and the person I really genuinely believe I'm on on