This past weekend I was in Florida and got to spend the entire weekend with my 83-year old grandmother, Ma. She doesn’t tell people this often, but she was born in Hungary and forced into Auschwitz at the age of 14. In many ways she was my motivation for starting Pencils of Promise, as I found myself living a life of self-absorption in late 2008 and decided to change my ways by focusing on honoring her through the creation of our first school.
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In one hour it will be 12:01 am on October 31st, 2012, and it’ll be my 29th birthday. My apartment has no power, no access to internet, and my cell phone has no service. Hurricane Sandy has attacked NYC and the northeast coastlines, and for the past two days normal life has been put on hold.
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My 29th birthday ask, help me build a school!This year I’m returning to where PoP started, with a birthday request to help build a school.
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It’s the Friday that kicks of Labor Day 2012, and once again I find myself plugging away on a busy workday. I’ve watched a lot of funky things happen lately on the web and in the physical world, and I’ve realized that it might be a good idea to start sharing my thoughts and observations.
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12 Actions to Discover Your Purpose and Become Unstoppable
This is actually a guest post from Nick, a reader of The Promise of a Pencil:I just turned 30, am working in a well-paying but emotionally bankrupt job and have found my life lacking the purpose or compelling mission that I so desperately want.
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I'm gearing up for some upcoming travels and it got me thinking. As someone who's traveled relentlessly since my early 20's, I have a tremendous appreciation for great travel gear.
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We each know the sensation. You struggle to come up with that big idea that will solve all your current problems, and then one day it suddenly appears.I call them “lightening moments” and they’re one of the best feelings in the world.It almost feels like a bolt of energy hits you all at once, and suddenly you’re unstoppable.
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Millennials have been on my mind a lot lately, so I’m rolling out a series of posts about them and their leadership skills.You can read the first part in the series here: Social Consciousness and Why Millennials Prove InvaluableIn my career I have ONLY managed Millennials.
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3 Steps to Turn $25 Into the Company of Your Dreams
In October 2008, I opened a new bank account with just $25. In six years we bootstrapped that meager deposit into an organization that raises millions annually and has broken ground on more than 250 schools around the world. How did it happen? How do you turn $25 into the company of your dreams?
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The most important iPhone feature you had no idea exists.
Are there certain phrases, addresses, or numbers that you find yourself consistently typing into your iPhone? How many times per week do you enter your email into a form field, or send someone your office address including the floor number and exact cross streets?
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Last month, I noticed a few people on my Facebook feed sharing a link to a Reddit post that announced the launch of something called the Pineapple Fund. The person behind it wrote that they’d been an early investor in Bitcoin and felt as though at a certain point, enough money is enough, and he or she now wanted to donate $86M in Bitcoin to charities.
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When my friend Dan Teicher sent me the music video above, it did just that. For years he's been telling me about his desire to craft a music video using the years of footage he has of his grandparents' life together.
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The Most Important Daily Ritual You're Missing Out On
It's not every day that you have the opportunity to meet one of your real life heroes. Not a mainstream celebrity, but someone who you've watched and admired from a distance thinking, "Am I the only one who is so transfixed by this individual?"
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Every so often you come across a clip that's just so insane you have to share it. This crew of "urban skiers" prove that you can pursue your passion in any environment. Using wooden crates, cinder blocks and snow, they create ramps out of abandoned buildings, rooftops and anything else you can imagine.This clip is well worth all 10 minutes.
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Sometimes you see news headlines proclaiming miracles that seem too extraordinary to believe. “Man reunited with lost love fifty years later,” or “Child falls thirty floors and only suffers a broken leg,” they read. I’ve always questioned the truth of these tall tales, but for the first time in my life I read one of those headlines last night and when I clicked to watch the local news story, I saw a member of my own family being profiled.
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It’s the Friday that kicks of Labor Day 2012, and once again I find myself plugging away on a busy workday. I’ve watched a lot of funky things happen lately on the web and in the physical world, and I’ve realized that it might be a good idea to start sharing my thoughts and observations.
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Have you ever had someone directly criticize you in public? It’s humiliating right? Earlier this month I hopped on a flight to give a talk at a college that chose The Promise of a Pencil as the common read for all their students.
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Anytime you publish a book, there are many rounds of drafts, iterations and edits. If your book is put out by a major house, as I experienced with Simon & Schuster, you have several “passes” at the manuscript until there comes the daunting day when they essentially say, “Once you email your approval, there can be no more changes, the book will go to the printers and into the world.”
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Lately I've been thinking a lot about how much competition drives people. Would you describe yourself as personally competitive? How are you viewing competition?
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Which State has the Highest Concentration of Influencers?
In today’s culture, the phrase “influencer” is thrown around quite frequently. It usually describes an individual who has an outsized impact on the lives of others. These people are often quantified through the size of their followings on social media or the depth of engagement we see when they share a new piece of content.
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3 Lessons from an Unannounced Louis CK Performance Just Days before Hosting SNL
Three weeks ago I went to the underground Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village with my fiancé for a Friday night of laughs. It was the week that The Promise of a Pencil launched, so I figured there’s no better way to take the edge off than with my lady and some laughter.
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The Common Place Where Everyone Draws Their True Strength
Yesterday I found out that The Promise of a Pencil will be spending its second week on the New York Times Bestseller list. It debuted at #2 last week and within five days completely sold out all of Amazon and BN.com’s stock nationwide.This week it’s at #8, joining a list of authors in the Top 10 that includes Arianna Huffington, President Jimmy Carter, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill O’Reilly, Chelsea Handler and Sheryl Sandberg.
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