True self discovery begins where your comfort zone ends.

And I think that that's when you get in touch with this sense of purpose and this kind of level of self awareness that we've been talking about

is when you discover that there was something latent within you that was just rusting there, that is so true and kind of core and fundamental to who you are,

that was completely dormant until this thing happened.

And there's absolutely no way to discover that unless you get outside of your comfort zone.

And so that's always the first step that I encourage people to find ways to leave your comfort zone, to get into some area of potential discomfort, potential struggle.

And that's when you learn not just what you are in terms of your job or your husband or wife of person X but really at your core who you are.

And then it's your responsibility to start to kind of peel back the layers of that onion and try and see what is it that actually at the root of it makes me feel.

So, a lover and love with this feeling that I'm experiencing in this new arena and the more you dig you start to find at your core kind of why you believe you're here and what your gifts are that you need to bring to the broader world.

That's Adam Braun, this week on the Retro podcast.

It's no secret that certain aspects of our current education system are really antiquated, broken and in desperate need of an upgrade,

whether it's access to quality education in the developing world or properly training people to meet the rapidly changing workforce needs of our quickly evolving modern culture.

And doing it in a way that avoids the crippling student loan debt that onerously burdens millions of young people here in the United States.

My name is Rich Roll. Welcome to my podcast where this week I sit down with a very bright, very enterprising young guy called Adam Braun.

This is a guy who has really devoted his life to solving these problems through new and highly innovative ways both in the nonprofit sector or as Adam likes to call it the for purpose sector, as well as in the for profit technology space.

His backstory is really quite amazing. This is a guy with a degree from Brown who was pursuing a bright, burgeoning career and finance when an extended backpacking trip across the developing world forever changed his perspective.

And really inspired a call to service that motivated him to completely walk away from Wall Street in 2008 and launch something called pencils of promise a for purpose endeavor with the mission of building schools and countries across the world.

And pencils of promise was a massive success. It's built not only 400 schools to date. It's one of a handful of modern charitable organizations that I think has fundamentally changed how we think about it.

How we think about and practice philanthropy and giving. He wrote an amazing book about pencils of promise and his remarkable journey. It's called the promise of a pencil.

And it's a really powerful story of awakening of action showing how one person can make a huge difference in a short period of time.

It debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list and it went on to become a number one national bestseller. It's even found its way into college curriculums and it's a favored book by many a business leader. I strongly recommend you guys check it out. Really wonderful book.

And now Adam has shifted his focus to higher education with a brand new and quite ambitious startup called mission you. It's a for profit for purpose venture backed organization founded to become a college alternative that sends students into the workforce.

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