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Oh, the people I meet
Posted by Kevin Salwen on 02.11.2011Share

What fills my days with a bit of happy? Speaking about giving -- and listening to others circle back around to tell their own stories.

In just the past few weeks, I have met:

-- a woman in suburban Chicago who sold her house and moved into a much smaller one several communities away because she couldn't stand the rampant consumerism infecting her children. "As much as I tried to teach my kids at home about what would make them really happy, at school and in the neighborhood they would hear and see such different lessons," she told me over dinner. The demand was always there for the North Face jacket or the Ugg boots. So, she put her house on the market and moved the family (with some obvious resistance) to a more modest community. "I read your book, and it was so influential to me," she said (as I blushed). Her summation of her move: "Our family is so much more grounded now."

-- kids of all stripes, eager to change the world. On Monday night, I was in Scottsdale, AZ, speaking at the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center to a group of more than 100 teenagers. These were post-Bar Mitzvah teens eager to take what they had learned from their service and philanthropy projects (required for each Bar Mitzvah) and carry it forward. After my talk, a number of them came to the signing table, not to ask me to sign their books but to talk proudly -- okay, maybe even boast a little -- about what they are doing.

This morning I spoke to more than 500 kids at Christ the King School in Atlanta. From my spot at the altar, I could see their faces absolutely riveted when I told them Hannah's story of the homeless man and the Mercedes. And they grew excited when I asked them if they could define "power" they way Hannah had -- the power to make a difference, to change the world for the better.

-- the next generation of world changers. On Tuesday, I swung by the offices of Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix at the invitation of my amazing friend Alicia and the volunteer director Lauren. I could describe the response there, but I couldn't say it any better than Jessica White did in this wonderful blog post. My fave lines: "... we can all downsize a bit, and work at defining our value by what we do, not what we have. Read the book. Make a change. Dare you."

Frankly, hearing Jessica's passion makes me flat-out giddy about what the 20-somethings will do when they really start taking over the reins.

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