deal with [inaudible] we hope that that you will buy the book. thank you. a combat veteran of the war in afghanistan and author of the work talks out his search for meaningful life and the people who have inspired him along the

way. he is in conversation with wendy spencer chief executive officer of the corporation for national and community service. i'm so thrilled to be here today with a quotation of national community service, and i'm so glad to talk about your book might search for the life that matters. everyone has that goal. that's what your book addresses. so, thanks for being with me today. we can talk about this great work of literature that you put together. i want just a little bit of overview about you i studied all of the role that you had. army captain, go to scholar white house fellow at the state department, international investment banker best-selling author, political and economic analyst, founder of the nonprofit support for college

freshmen by my guess you are 60-years-old. but you don't look 60 and i know that you have small children and you have been married. i don't know how that works but succumb to your mom 60 three to >> guest: not yet. >> host: but somehow you have all of this already in the accomplishments. so because of these experiences, you have been able to now articulate the experiences in life's lessons and other examples of coming you know your journey in this time and life and it's amazing. you are a talented writer and a good storyteller and this is a very good weekend read. i still thoroughly enjoyed it. and i am busy like a lot of professionals who work are but it was really worth my time to

read this. first let's talk about the book generally. why you write this book, what compelled you after your other great book what inspired you to write this? >> guest: first it is an honor to be here thank you for everything you do and i remember the conversation i had with the publisher about what turned me to the work. one of the questions we get about the other wes moore because he stops abruptly in 2010 and i wanted to get equal weight to both my story and the other wes who is in a life sentence at a correctional institution. when i thought about this idea of telling him what happened afterwards, i knew that there was no way that i could tell him about my life since then and the other wes moore because it is impossible to give equal weight to my story. i can write about his life since

2000 in one paragraph. that's his life. that's the decisions he made and the life that he is now looks forward to every single day. is it, when they said why don't you write about your time in afghanistan coming your time working in the white house come your time doing these things and what that success has meant to you in actually caused me to pause for a second the word success and what that means because i felt like over the past decade it wasn't so much an easy line to define where i was and where i would be, but it was a constant search to find something that matters and to find a sense of impact and a sense of greatness that you can latch onto and have it be all of your own so then what i try to do with the work is understand that this idea of the work isn't necessarily your occupation. you are work is when your

greatest gifts and greatest joys began to start overlapping with the the world's greatest needs and then you actually choose to do something about it. with this story i want to talk about with my adventures and misadventures to find the work but to celebrate with the word is and so many workers and people in so many different industries have found their point which makes life exciting. >> host: i think what is unique about this book as you go back and forth and have people in and out of your life that are talked about in chapters and then in your experiences one of the couple of things i want to talk about today that i really like when you talk about their work and how you can make it meaningful for your life and others is to have passion. i i'm a big believer in having passion for your work. in fact so much so that i've talked to people out of jobs because they didn't have passion for their work. and it's not that they were not

in effective contributor as an employee in the cases that i am referring to come it was the fact they didn't have a passion for the place they ran. they could move to another place and have great passion and become an outstanding contributing team member. i think about of course volunteerism is our thing americorps and senior corps and many of americans are volunteering with our support as a federal agency in partnership with nonprofit. but what about my board members at one time shot in the life of this unprecedented for initiate a great phrase that stuck with me to have passion, put your passion into action. i think that is what you are referencing often times

throughout this book where if you're passionate about something you will be successful and another thing we don't talk about to me if you find someone that's passionate crusade you sure are passionate about your work it's also saying your authentic your genuine, you are the real deal. i don't think you can fake passion. so how do you feel about some of the individuals you write about do you feel like that's true that they are authentic people? >> guest: i feel like it is one of the only unifying themes that we feature. i've come to be peeved that if you look at people that are really great at what they do and i mean really great after work at their job, at what they take on, there's only one thing all of us have in common, not where they came from it's not their family history, what part of the country or even if they are from this country.

the thing every person has in common and falls handfuls into that great category of what they do is they are incredibly passionate about it. i've never met anyone that is great at what they do and when you ask them do you enjoy it and they say it's okay i've never heard about before. it's only people who wake up in the morning thinking about it and go to bed at night thinking about what they do because it drives them and it's their lifeblood. i remember when i was leaving to head back into the world of finance, leaving my time as a white house fellow and i went to see a mentor of mine named bill brody was the former president of johns hopkins university. he asked me what are you doing next and i told him i'm going back into the world of finance and he said really? that's how the answer i was expecting. he said just tell me why did you choose to do this after that experience and i told him i feel like it's an important skill set i wanted to learn and i felt like i was good at it and i was protecting and supporting my families in ways that i've never

been able to support them before. and he said to me with him i'm never going to judge you on the decisions that you make professionally doing things best for your family. but he says the moment you feel like you can leave leave because every day you do something that you're not passionate about coming you become extraordinarily ordinary. and that hits me like a ton of bricks because we all are striving to do something special. we strive to make a long on this world so that laughter we are gone or impact is still around and it's impossible to do that if you find yourself becoming extraordinarily ordinary because you don't care about what it is that you are doing. >> host: passion turns into authenticity, caring and success. so come in our life work we need

to make sure that we land in a place that we actually care about otherwise it is and worth anyone's time for the organization that you are serving serving all your self or family members and i think that it works against you if you're not happy and you don't feel passionate. >> guest: and you become dispensable because if you are not great at what you do to become dispensable and that's what we saw with these people as well if they achieved their greatness everyone can be great because everyone can serve. and that's part of the beauty that when you lose yourself and other people when you lose yourself in this idea that i have something to contribute and i'm part of the world that is bigger than just myself, that is in many ways how people find their passion and greatness. >> host: a couple things i want to go through, but i also want to speak with one individual. his name is daniel.

in the book that you read for me there is always a moment you almost exhale and this is one of those moments so i will set this up for the viewers today. what this is about is his grandfather jewish, lithuanian his grandfather and his father and the mounties and the lithuanian people and this is pretty tragic. he comes back to his apartment complex and he sees the superintendent who is there on a regular basis and the superintendent he says there's something going on that's tragic and he doesn't know exactly what it was. you go into a description on it but i will let the readers decide that what he says it that he says it looks really bad and the superintendent says what's

going on? he says unfortunately i've got to tell the nazis who the jewish residents are and they killed all of them. and here's what the superintendent said. but i feared you because you treated me with respect. you looked me in the iso i spared you. now get your stuff and get out of here. again you'll actually goes on, the grandson goes on influenced by his parents and grandfather's story he goes on to create an organization called kind. but that is such a powerful statement because this gentle man was just being himself and he was obviously a talented individual who cared about others.

it didn't matter who it was. i imagine if we dug deep into his grandfather's life she would have been this way to people in all of his life. it's a powerful lesson about treating others with respect and generosity and kindness. to tell me a little bit more about how you feel about daniel. >> guest: daniel is such april model to me. you think about that decision come and he is also very clear i can't condone the actions because he is while he saved my family there were so many others that were then given up and were killed. but you think about how the different decision been a different decision been made by that individual, i would never have known. the world would never have known the contradictions that he is giving to this world every

single day. we don't know how much our actions are going to impact ourselves and others. i had a student once say to me are certain decisions more important than others and i thought it was a really interesting question and i told him i said my honest answer is i think yes certain decisions are bigger and others. the problem is that we don't know which ones are which. so then what happens is we have to treat every decision that we make with a kind of gravity that that decision might one day earn. so this idea do you go one direction or another, do you say hello to the person holding the door for you do you treat that person who is down on their luck with a sense of respect or apathy, what decisions do we make every day and party of the beauty this isn't just for an adolescent both of us are going to make 25 decisions before we go to bed tonight that will

determine whether or tomorrow looks like and we then have to treat every one of those decisions with a sense of gravity. i thought one of the other things that was powerful about his story as he talked about how his mother and father would tell him that story and how his mother would tell the father you know, don't tell them they are so small don't talk to kids with stories and his father would say they have to hear it. we had to live it. and it goes to show the importance of making sure that stories are then passed on to people understand the nature of what we are talking about and the humanity behind what we talk about because sometimes we think we don't share things because we are saving or we are staring. they don't need to hear that or know that. but if they don't know their own past and they don't go know their own history, how then are we supposed to keep that in a sense of context when we talk about our own future? so daniel's story in so many ways epitomized a county should

think about the past and future and story and then also be somehow kindness can truly change the world. >> host: and it makes you feel good too. i tell you i don't understand people who walk around with her life and are just down and withdrawn. it makes you feel good. i'm someone that talks to strangers, so that you know i'm the wrong one to talk to about this but it just lifts me up when you speak your view. another individual but very uplifting this is abdullah. a young afghanistan young man to think when you met him maybe in his late teens? he actually worked for an interpreter and he had an interesting and some tragic stories but it was uplifting to hear your connection with this young man and how he helped your

unit at great risk of peril to himself and other muslims i'm sure. what is so special about abdullah? >> guest: i would argue that he had more risk than even us. there was a single mission that we went on offensive or otherwise that he wasn't right there in the front with us. there wasn't a single operation that we conducted and in some petty dangerous operations that abdullah wasn't right there because we couldn't you were taught in many ways without him. he spoke all the local languages. whenever we were communicating with people he was there helping us understand what people were saying and when we have things we needed to let people know, it was him then passing on the messages. the thing message is. the thing that was really so amazing about him for us is when we were done with missions and we returned to the operating

bases, you know we had all of our soldiers around us and that kind of thing. abdullah went back home and there were these things called knight litters were and they were these letters that were literally left on the doors of people who were working for the coalition or whatever and it would say we know that you're working for the coalition and we are going to kill you and your entire family. they were left by the taliban or by whatever groups inside the area. and abdullah was getting these letters all the time because everybody knew who he was and who he was working for and every single day he showed up for work. every single day despite knowing that rescue showed up. he's a person his father was killed by the taliban. he did it because he felt like i dream of a future in this country without the taliban. i dream of the day when they are no longer a present for us and we can live our lives with a sense of freedom.

that's why he did it. he believed in something bigger. and to see the level of courage and bravery that he brought on this just remarkable to me because i deeply have a great admiration for my soldiers and paratroopers who i serve with that the admiration that i had for abdullah and always all these other people that risk their lives every day is tantamount to that as well. >> host: you didn't give yourself enough credit about your influence on his life because if we interviewed him right now i imagine he would say one of my mentors that you played a role and maybe others in the unit as well. let me shift to another theme in the book that i liked. it seemed like every individual in the book including yourself all had a guardian angel or someone in their lives that kind of helped steer them not necessarily out of trouble,

because many had lots of struggles and tribulations that you articulated so well but there was always a theme of something like my brother's keeper. president obama now talks about a lot for all young boys and girls that we need to really as adults we need to be a guardian angel for these young boys and girls. just think about a country that always has someone to guide them. i think it would make a difference and without a statistical research mentoring really has so many positive effects on individuals. now we know the width of the research it is legitimate. i think you don't give yourself credit or mention in the book but my guess is he would say yes, wes was my rock as well. >> guest: i think that we expanded the definition of

family. that's something that we all have to collectively do. family isn't just someone that you are born into were born around or someone who's dna runs through your veins. family is someone you love and protect just like anyone else. and they bring a kind of theological perspective to it as well. if we are all gods children, then by definition we are all brothers and sisters. and i think we then need to treat each other that way. >> host: and the world would be a better place. i think we are making progress. i just came from a conference here in washington and it was the largest attendance that they had since they started this summit. so that's really encouraging. and what's encouraging is now we have corporations involved in mentoring in a very structured successful curriculum-based sometimes evaluated measured way and they are doing some amazing

work with their colleagues and they are having a lot of fun doing it too. nonprofits, philanthropic leaders, some included government leaders. so we are getting a lot of people and organizations. despite the fact the community has been there for a long time and they are stepping up their game. so we are going the right direction with this. again, service, volunteerism in america is part of our dna and this is part of how we can serve others. >> guest: and how we think about it because part of it, the beauty of it is if we think about the world that we want to live in the only way that we are going to have the world we want to live in is if we have a broad more inclusive conversation where everyone feels that there's a best interest in our success, where everyone feels like they are part of the conversation.

so there's a couple things that are interesting about this idea of service. one is the best way to think about service is even if you're not doing it to the selfless to do it to be selfish because it creates a better world that your family will live in. i was talking to a friend of mine that was an engineer and wanted to speak to some kids in baltimore involved in the juvenile justice system. i said just what are we tell us what you do every day because i want wanted the kids to understand the profession and that sort of thing. he said i really admire the work but to be honest my service is i work with my my daughter is coming and he's an amazing father for his daughters. my point back to him as i completely respect that that could be honest how are you helping your daughters when they go to a school with a 54% graduation rate and how are you helping your your daughters when at a certain time it might be neat to be home because the streets are not safe and how are you helping your daughters when they will look for a partner to spend their life with and if you look at the young people and the

young men in the area for 61% are in some form of supervision by the state. if you want to help your daughters, create a society they can be self and prosperous and happy in. so if you aren't going to do it to the selfless conduits to be selfish. i talked about in the book about harry belafonte for i had a the chance to interview him on msnbc one day and it was great because he was a huge legend in my household growing up and part of it is because he's an amazing talent. but also because he made his celebrity actually mean something. a lot of people once they continue to rise the state away from controversial issues because they are afraid they want to buy my sneakers or my books. harry belafonte never did it. he was always headfirst into the controversial issues of today even the day even things that could potentially sacrifice his career. ira member i asked him that

question i said why is it that some important for you to get involved in issues that other people stay away from and he said because it helps me to live a more interesting life. he said you know some people wake up in the morning and called their accountants. i awake but in the morning and i call nelson mandela. whose life to you think is more fun. that was a ground way of thinking about it because we serve both because it's the right thing to do that we serve but we serve because it just makes life more interesting. >> host: it's so true. we actually have research linked to health benefits of the volunteerism and service. we know it makes you happier if you are volunteering at an older age actually kicks in health benefits like you live longer, you have a reduced sense of isolation and your endorphins

kick in, stress levels are reduced. it's pretty fascinating to actually study how the human body responds to volunteerism which, who would know. we do have something interesting recently because he talked about being selfless or so fish. we have new research shows if you are unemployed and do volunteer during your time of unemployment you increase the likelihood of getting a job by 27%. if you live in a rural community, that likelihood shoots up to 55%. so now i'm talking to young and old but a lot of high school graduates those in college worried about even getting a job, consider volunteering. you are going to gain your network, you will gain soft and hard skills. so i'm kind of pitching it like not only is it good for the

profit and it's good for your career as well in the kind of makes sense. >> guest: i think that some of the input and professional relationships made because of things i've done on the service side, things that you volunteer with, whatever the case may be or just the way that it helps you to think differently about something. all that stuff matters. >> host: i want to go back and continue to switch between the characters of your book and so we are going to go back to somebody that i know and admire and that is the mayor of denver. i didn't know that he was one of ten children with three sets of twins. i don't know anybody. that's just why don't. i was just with him recently we were working through a problem and he was very helpful and care

deeply about working on this particular issue and he was working with me on a solution and i never would have guessed that he was one of ten who struggled growing up his father divorced his mother and he had help from a sibling. really it is amazing that he's a mayor of a united states major city. as the talk of the public about your impressions of the mayor. >> guest: what i love about his story he had almost a singular definition of success when he was growing up because he associated everything negative about his childhood with his hometown. he thought there was almost like an inherent flaw in the city.

>> host: blaming of the community. >> guest: so as he then gets older, to think that he's the mayor of the city is amazing because what he did as he took his greatest hurt and pain and instead of spending all that time running away from them he actually turned into and did a 180 and ran right into it which goes to show not only the personal internal strength that he has has into the vision that he thought the only way i'm going to conquer this is by facing it on instead of turning away from it but the other thing i think that he realized is there are right now thousands growing up in my city. who would i be to turn my back on them. who would i be to know that i could make an impact and then i chose not to. my sister told me once she was talking about her definition of health and she said my

definition of hell be one day god showing me everything i could have accomplished had i only tried. everything i could have accomplished had i only tried. and so the mayor michael hancock says i know i can make a difference in the lives of these young people. he can relate. i know that their struggle is because you are me and i am you. and by not doing that and by not taking on that responsibility and the responsibility and making it personal for you who then would he be and how can you honestly be grateful for the opportunity that you have to overcome and elevate above it? so i loved that story because it serves as a reminder of what we are supposed to do with pain. pain and disappointment are constant companions in our lives. that's human nature. it's going to happen. if it hasn't happened it's coming. the question then becomes what

do we do with it and we can compartmentalize, we can run away from it or we can look at high tide to see who flinches first. >> host: it certainly showed me he had concussion and a leadership role in the issue that we were dealing with i know now more. i didn't know this about him but you told me -- it is amazing. let's talk about the expanded military family and our veterans today. at our agency, we have at their core to the -- americorps's and we embrace supporting not only veterans active military personnel but also their families. especially the children who are

seeing their parents, father or mother being deployed for extended periods of time and i think there's probably a larger issue than we are acknowledging throughout america that we need to address more. but one of the ways that we are trying to help housing agency is in two ways. we actually provide the organizations to support the military families, veterans, the entire extended military service personnel wherever they are or lots of ways whether that gets into the services or resources, helping them with housing security, education opportunities, whatever it is. so it's part of our service delivery. but i think almost more important, we are providing opportunities for those returning from iraq and afghanistan to become americorps members to join our forces as

members and the reason that i know it's working is because i'm talking to them and they are telling me that when they came back to stateside that it was not as easy as they thought to just jump right into a sense of normalcy and adjust right into the gainful employment or education pathway, but service in particular that gave them those steps where we could tap their leadership and organization skills to apply that to provide the service. and they could be still providing service to the country while they are trying to figure out the next step and i will take that any day. i will take a returning soldier any day giving back because we

benefit from it as well. we even have programs that the second step further where we have the veterans that are serving in the program delivering services to the veterans and military members. we have 26,000 per veterans today and several thousand more. do you think this is a worthwhile investment partnering with the local nonprofit organizations is this a worthwhile endeavor for us to pursue? >> guest: the corporation has helped to crack the nut that the country is wrestling with and that is how to prepare the country for the return of the 2.6 million people in iraq and

afghanistan and that doesn't even include in the past but then also how do we prepare the warriors for their return back home and it's interesting because i think one thing that we have to be able to accept is use a word that is so important for normalcy. there is going to be a new normal. things are going to feel different and be different and not simply saying okay now that i'm home everything is great to be all right and that becomes one of the biggest challenges of the family and community they look at you and it's like this i'm glad you're back home and that's over with. but the experience and the sight and sound and the urgency that we felt over there is not like it can easily be replicated so there is a new normalcy.

every day while you are deployed there is that sense of know about it. you wake up in the morning thinking okay what is the mission for today and how do i accomplish it and it's kind of a big deal if we accomplish the mission or not and if at the end of the night you think about it and process but you know the next morning i'm going to jump into that framework and to then go back into the job quickly if you have a job that you're coming back to but in most cases spouses or girlfriends have been dealing with everything why you've been gone so they are still trying to figure out what is my role we have to be able to help a a lot of these warriors as they are coming back home so that there will be a transition and that is going to be fine. we still need you in the fight and when i see the fight and it's the fight for the community and the society and then to see that we understand and respect your skill set.

often times people think one of the largest misconceptions people have is that it is somehow these robots like a spam no man because they don't think about the military structure. one of the things i learned is that these are some of the most entrepreneurial people that you'll ever meet because the only guarantee that we know is that tuesday will probably look nothing like monday and wednesday the look nothing like tuesday. there is a constant adaptation that has to happen in the work that we are doing while you're overseas. there is an extraordinary skill set that these men and women are bringing back home and we are doing a great service to the society when we can tap into that and we can understand how the teamwork and commits you need to support. we think about that old normal

habit .-full-stop how apply. >> host: so we are going down the right path. i feel very passionate about it. we are hearing so many amazing stories being told and i do want to -- even military spouses had the same kind of connection because they know what it's like to live the life of a military family. so they understand. >> guest: i think they have been able to because for us when we are deployed we are overseas and we have good days and bad days. but we always had each other. we support each other and we are there for each other. the spouses -- thinking through experience the families have it even tougher. they sit there and try not to watch the news and hope they

don't sharpen the phone site becomes difficult in the transition as well. >> host: queue started a new nonprofit that we feel great about. you were focused on college freshmen who are struggling. the book study in the personal and social development being able to be out on their own it's been a few years but i do remember that first year but it's also the time when you start making mistakes as well. what do you do in this

nonprofit? >> guest: we are actually doing a much better job in k-12. we had 80% for the first time in the nations history, really exciting. they are actually finishing high school. but the challenge that we have seen is that if the students start in the high year education and the numbers remain low and you think about the student persistence nationally 100% of the students start college every single year, 34% will not make it past for their sophomore year. as we know that for many students that that chokepoint is the choke point is the freshmen year if a student does well he had a higher chance of finishing and finishing on time and so basically what's create a social platform ended the price where the choke point is freshmen year then why don't we reinvent the freshmen year and completely

change the structure. both the four year schools and we say they are going to be taking classes with these institutions but only taking one or two classes at a time because we want them to focus on the subject and we want to keep them away from the heavy remedial coursework because you correctly indicated with the remedial coursework that a student taking the classes for the majority of the freshmen year paying the same amount but at the end of the year they have three credit for six credits credit or no credit because none of the classes counted. >> host: and they can't afford. >> guest: and they are burning through their financial aid. it's a so they are taking these classes in a more structured

component but in addition to that. they have mechanisms working on the transition. we have the curriculum they are teaching is everything from how do you fill out to the proper business attire to how to address the subordinate colleague versus the boss. basic skills that for so many kids they just don't have that but we somehow expect that to matriculate. the job placement crisis all at the same time while the students are getting academic credit and academic momentum and we are currently in baltimore and the success of the students that we've had for the grouping of the level of intrigue and

knowing the kind of work they want to do they have a clear sense of direction and focus and purpose and that's what we want for our students that are intruding into the creation so we continue to expand and grow. it's the same type of asset that we want to bring to each individual community and institution that we work with. >> host: that's fantastic and i will tell you something we are doing that will be a great partnership. we are in the middle of selecting in the grant process is the goal and we will be announcing the winners very soon the goal is to find at least one community in america that is willing to guarantee that every high school graduate on june first with first when they graduate first with a graduate is good to be offered one of five opportunities, to join the military which is a great place to start your career, have access to college and hopefully scholarships as well to get a

job out of high school, have one ready for them in the town, to be provided with a paid apprenticeship or stipend. so the community is going to rally around all of the hospital graduates in the community and they will carve out a pathway and a plan for every high school senior visit for the scholarships working in the business community asking can you provide a job for the high school graduates here can you provide a stipend apprenticeship if you can't do that to you contribute to the nonprofit certainly we will work with the military recruiters as well that

the idea is that they will have an opportunity waiting on them in their hometown isn't that great now we are going to have some of these students that will join that they are not as prepared as we need to be. your program could help start and help them with that journey because we are not just going to say we are going to do more, good luck. we need to stay with them at least a year to guide them and make sure they know what it's like to start a job and what you are going to need to be successful in college. so you're kind of program will be able to embrace the young high school graduates and i think that in time we are actually going to see the high school graduation rate in that

community because the ninth and tenth graders safely get you to graduation and you stay on the path, this community is going to take care that you have to get to that goal. the community is going to be helping as well. >> guest: that sounds exciting and i love it because that it is also doing is also doing is helping students to understand what is available. part of the challenge we have is that they are looking around and they don't even know what options there are. we have nationwide scored 76 kids per guidance counselor and california another 710. and again they are giving lehmann's work but they are also incredibly overwhelmed so often times your meeting with the guidance counselor once or twice during the year and it's like a ten minute meeting and they

basically ask you what are your test scores and this is where you might want to consider going to college. it's not enough. we have to be able to get to know our students and help them find out the best path for them and by providing all these options for them it can then become a much more robust conversation and personalized conversation. i also believe part of the challenge the students have when they enter higher education is that they are picking the wrong schools for them so they take away from that one semester that they are there if i'm not college material. that might not necessarily be the right to take away. maybe the right support wasn't there or maybe they don't even have the nature that you're interested in that you do not know that going into that process. we have to be able to make sure each and every student understands what options are available and which ones are the best options for them as they think of other paths. >> host: we are all trying to

steer and encourage all of our graduates to work some kind of higher education. and i think that the timing is important. like some high school seniors may be taking care of younger servings they may need a job for a dear and take some courses on the side. some might need to join the military and use their resources to go to college. i want this to be a bigger picture and i do have a goal that i share with the president and other leaders that are saying we need college education to be available to all of our high school graduates. but each situation is unique and we are trying to offer an opportunity with five different vehicles of how you get there and what it's going to take to get there. so stay tuned. this will be a lot of fun and we are going to were going to name at least one community that is going to take the mayor and the superintendent