The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (9 page)

I clearly needed to change things fast, and I couldn’t do so by waiting around for someone else to clean up my act. I needed to take charge of my own fate. I started by focusing on my health, spending less time at bars and a lot more time at the gym. My energy levels increased, and I found myself feeling more confident and alert in meetings. When another opportunity arose to work on a case with the leading nonprofit delivering poverty services within New York City, this time I didn’t ask.

I sought out the person managing the case, my friend Priya, whom I used to prank all the time, and told her outright that I was going to join her team. I was serious about the work, and there would be no fooling around when it came to delivering results. When I told her I was prepared to start showing up in team meetings whether I was assigned to the case or not, she knew that she had no choice.

Asking for permission opens the door for denial, and in this instance I would not be denied. The willingness to aggressively go after what I wanted most had become the other personality trait that I was known for at the company, so she was aware that I would do whatever it took to get on the case. I guess stealing a steak off a partner’s plate earns you that reputation.

In the months ahead, working alongside Priya to help improve the operations of an organization that I wanted to see succeed allowed me to put everything I’d learned at Bain into action. The late nights building Excel models paid off, as did all those meetings where I reluctantly took notes. I now knew how to quickly crunch numbers and present effectively in front of others. I could feel my old sense of self start to reemerge. My work wasn’t perfectly aligned with my passion yet, but I now knew that when an opportunity presented itself, I would seize it without hesitation.

J
ust as I started to settle into the rhythm of New York City living, I found out that I was nearly eligible to apply for the Bain “externship,” a six-month leave where I could work at a company of my choice and then return to the security of my job at Bain. I wouldn’t be an official Bain employee during my leave; I would be paid by the company that hired me for those six months, but having a safety net to return to gave me all the confidence I needed to step out on a limb and try something new.

While most people externed at start-ups, hedge funds, or private equity firms, some did use their time to work at nonprofits. This could be my chance to work more formally with Scott Neeson at the Cambodian Children’s Fund. In addition to expanding its child-sponsorship program, I could use part of my time away from Bain to backpack throughout Southeast Asia. This was exactly the type of life I’d been dreaming about, and
I became completely focused on getting everything in order to secure my externship.

As my attention started shifting away from Bain, I started looking more deeply at my life beyond work. I was meeting some extraordinary people in New York and having more inspired conversations. My friend Dennis from SAS had put me in touch with his friend Jen Williams, who was working at a nonprofit. Dennis thought we would become fast friends, so on a Saturday morning in late September, Jen and I met for brunch. She told me about her work with the Linus Foundation, a nonprofit started by students in the Washington University class of 2006 to offer service and support to homeless youth. Over a stack of pancakes and orange juice, she explained how she managed teams across seventeen campus chapters via monthly board calls.

“How many employees do you have?” I asked.

“No, this isn’t my job,” she clarified. “I work in marketing at a strategic PR firm. Linus is something I do on the side.”

“Oh. But what about the guys who started it? Don’t they do this full-time?”

“No, this is on the side for them too. Everyone has a regular, full-time job. We do it as volunteers because we love it.”

This was a revolutionary idea to me. Since I’d moved into New York City, my life had consisted of working at Bain and drinking after hours. Sometimes those two overlapped, but I’d never considered doing anything else. The concept of having any kind of extracurricular life had been buried after college. I didn’t do clubs. Or take classes. Or engage in anything besides work and play.

“How can I get involved?” I asked.

*  *  *

After brunch, I met up with Dennis to walk through Central Park. It was a beautiful, warm September afternoon, the last gasp of summer; the leaves had yet to change. But a tense feeling was in the city. We were on the cusp of a total economic meltdown. Lehman Brothers had declared bankruptcy, and Bear Stearns had gone under months earlier. Layoffs were rampant. Some of my friends who had just started working were getting fired and returning home to live with their parents.

Dennis had chosen to leave his job at Bank of New York to build a start-up that allowed individuals to crowdsource funding for movie-studio films. He and Zach, the two friends I had traveled to Southeast Asia with years earlier, had successfully raised money from venture capital investors to chase their dream.

“I admire your courage to leave a secure job,” I said as we meandered through the park. “But my plan is to work for the next twenty years, make as much money as possible, and then use that affluence and network to build schools throughout the developing world. But I’ll only take the risk once I’m financially set.” I was convinced I had it all figured out.

“You’re looking at it all wrong,” Dennis said. “Now is the time to take a risk. Twenty years from now you’ll have a family and a mortgage. That’s when you won’t be able to take on risk. You’ll have too much responsibility. Now is the time to take a chance, when we’re young.” He had a point, but he wasn’t stopping there. “Besides, there’s no better time to start something than when the economy is as bad as it is right now. The way I see it, at least I’m taking a shot at creating something great that will also give me executive experience—that has to be better than the guy who’s about to spend twelve months on unemployment.”

Dennis was right. Now was the time to take a risk.

*  *  *

That evening I was invited to the New York Philharmonic. Though I had grown up so close to New York I had never been to the symphony before.

The collective sounds of the symphony were mesmerizing, but I became even more intrigued when everyone left the stage to a rousing ovation, and an enormous man sat down alone at the grand piano. The program said that he would be playing Rachmaninoff, one of the few composers I actually knew. I wondered if just one person could stir the same emotional response from the audience that the entire symphony had just evoked.

The pianist began playing the concerto, starting with soft melodies that soon became soaring harmonies. Thunderous sounds poured from the piano. This man was crushing the keys and swaying with such force that the few hairs on his head flew from side to side. As an audience, we hung on his every note. I closed my eyes and could hear the passion he brought to his craft. I thought,
If I could feel as strongly about any one thing in the world as this man feels about his piano,
I know that I would be fulfilled.

I began to contemplate my desire to start something bigger than myself, something that could move others as well. I also thought about the revelation from Jen about creating a volunteer force and Dennis’s words about taking risks while young. 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. I thought about the joy I’d felt while sharing those pencils across the developing world, my desire to build a school one day, and suddenly a name shot across my mind.

Pencils of Promise.

It felt as if a bolt of lightning went right through me.
Pencils
symbolized the ability to self-educate that I believed in so strongly, and
promise
had the dual meanings of making an oath or commitment to another, as well as the untapped potential we all possess. My mind surged with ideas, and my fists clenched with excitement.

At certain moments in your life you just know that everything after will change. You can ignore these moments by not acting on the new set of possibilities they enable, and your life will stay the same. But if you say yes to their reverberating potential, your life path alters permanently. This was one of those unique moments that was about to change everything. I could feel it in my bones.

*  *  *

I was turning twenty-five the next month, and for the past four years I had thrown my birthday-party fundraiser for the Cambodian Children’s Fund. This year I could ask for $20 per person and raise $5,000, I thought. Then I could organize a holiday party to raise $4,000 to $5,000 more and eventually raise the needed funds to build a full school.

At that moment the stage at Lincoln Center went dark and the lights turned on over the audience. It was intermission.

I found my friend Ren in the aisles. “I have to go,” I said.

“But it’s only intermission,” he replied, completely confused.

“I know, but I have to leave. Something’s happened and now everything is different. I have to get to my laptop to start writing down ideas.”

Ren convinced me to stay to the end of the symphony, and I sat through the second half, my mind spinning. I had planned to stop by two parties after the performance, but when I got outside Avery Fisher Hall, I texted my friends,
Not going to make it out tonight. Something big happened, I’ll call you tomorrow.

I texted my parents too:
I’m coming home tomorrow. We need to talk. I came up with an idea tonight and I need to make it happen.

They responded,
Calm down. See you in the morning.

Everything was coming together. I would use the externship to launch the organization, get it going during my six-month leave, then return to Bain and continue running it on the side just as Jen and her friends did theirs. I wouldn’t have to leave my job to start something meaningful, nor would I have to wait a few decades to do so. Perhaps most important, after living selfishly for so long, I would build and dedicate the school to Ma. It would let her know how much she meant to me and ensure that she’d leave a legacy behind that would impact others for generations.

I rushed back to my apartment and stayed up all night writing a lengthy charter document. It began with a mission statement that included some of the following:

Pencils of Promise intends to become a nonprofit organization with the goal of building primary education schools in areas of poverty within developing nations. Each community must display an extreme willingness to work in conjunction with the organization, as we hope to be partners in the creation of each facility. The ultimate goal for each school will be self-sustenance by the local community within five years of creation.

We firmly believe that education is the single most powerful tool in the fight against poverty and disease, and that the point of greatest impact is at the primary education level where simply placing a pencil in a child’s hand is the first step toward unlocking the promise of self-empowerment and a higher quality of life.

I banged out a list of possible locations for the school, potential fundraising events, and listed:

Next Steps

• Website

• Incorporate

• Speak with lawyer

• Speak with accountant

• Determine location of School 1

• Hire graphic designer to create logo

• Business cards

• Stationery/envelopes

The sun rose, and I hadn’t slept at all. I took the train back to Greenwich to tell my parents about my epiphany. For years they had shot down my crazy ideas, which made me respect their opinion more than anyone else’s. I knew that they were always looking out for my best interests and would give me brutal honesty. If I could win them over, the idea was a go.

After I spent twenty minutes explaining everything in detail, my mom was the first to speak: “Oh, this is crazy, but if it’s for your externship, this isn’t the worst idea you’ve had. I guess it actually kind of makes sense.”

We spent the next several hours pulling the idea apart. Where would this first school be built? How would I rally funds? Who would join the initial team? The questions went on and on, but they were thorough and important. I had a lot on my plate, but the first step was clear. Someone had to put the founding deposit into a bank account.