你该不该放弃办公室工作？

    财富网(Fortune.com)定期从网站“250字”(250 Words)挑选最引人入胜的短文、趣闻轶事和作者访谈。美国西蒙与舒斯国际出版公司(Simon & Schuster)开发了网站，旨在探讨世界各地最新出版的商业佳作。

    Fortune.com selects the most compelling short essays, anecdotes, and author interviews from "250 Words," a site developed by Simon & Schuster to explore the best new business books—wherever they may be published..

    本期，“250字”的山姆•麦克纳尼将与亚当•布劳恩促膝而谈。亚当•布劳恩是足迹遍及全球200多所学校的非盈利机构“希望的铅笔”（Pencils of Promise）创始人。布劳恩的新书《希望的铅笔：普通人带来非凡改变》（The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change）于本周由Scribner出版社出版。

    For this installment, 250 Words' Sam McNerney sits down with Adam Braun, the founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning nonprofit organization that has broken ground on more than 200 schools around the world. Braun is the author of the new book The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change, published this week by Scribner.

    麦克纳尼：在《希望的铅笔》开头，你记录了自己早期环游世界的旅程。每到一个国家，你都会问当地的一个孩子：“如果你可以要世界上任何东西，你最想要什么？”请跟我们分享一下，什么样的答案让你决定创建“希望的铅笔”？

    布劳恩：最初决定环球旅行的时候，我希望把自己认为已知的所有东西抛在身后，敞开心胸去体验我所接触的不同文化。我在印度遇到一个乞讨的男孩，对于我的问题，他的回答非常简单但却出人意料——他的回答是“一支铅笔”。这个答案给我带来的震惊难以用言语解释。当时我便下定决心，给孩子提供接受教育的机会，比任何东西更能帮助他们挖掘自己的潜力。

    McNerney: In the beginning of The Promise of a Pencil you document some of your early travels around the world. In each country that you visited you asked one child, "If you could have anything in the world, what would you want most?" Tell us about the answer that became the impetus for PoP.

    Braun: When I initially decided to travel around the world, my driving force was the desire to leave everything that I thought knew behind, opening myself fully to experience the different cultures in which I was going to come into contact with. I encountered a young boy begging in India, and he had such a simple and unexpected answer to my question. His reply was "a pencil," and it struck me in a way that I cannot explain. I decided then and there that offering children the opportunity of education would help them reach their potential far more than anything else that they could be given.