I wasn’t about to give those students a lecture on altruism, activism, or any other -ism; I wasn’t there to convince them they should commit their lives to others. I had a more radical notion to share with them, a new definition of success.

I wanted them to understand that success isn’t a destination. It’s not something you pursue like a racetrack greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit. Success is something you assemble from components you discover in your soul and your imagination. Authentic success, the kind of success that will enrich your life and enlarge your spirit, the only kind of success that matters, comes from knowing and trusting the deepest aspirations of your heart. If you try to live that way, in harmony with the real needs of your spirit, then you can’t help but craft a life that will automatically make the world a better place for everyone who lives in it, and, incidentally, you will dramatically increase your chances for success on all levels. That’s the insight I most wanted those Harvard kids to hear, but I knew mere words wouldn’t carry enough weight—they didn’t know me well enough.

So I asked Jim Heskett to turn down the lights and I started to show my slides.

“Here is the place I built,” I said as an image of the Manchester Bidwell Center flashed onto the screen. I could tell it wasn’t what they expected. The image was an exterior shot, taken at night, of a sleek and striking contemporary structure. Low-slung, inviting, and subtle, the center has walls of adobe-colored block. Golden light glowed in the tall picture windows and rooftop canopies; a floodlit fountain sat at the center of a courtyard.

“This building was created by the same architect who designed the Pittsburgh International Airport,” I explained. “He was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright—a hero of mine—and I think he captured some of the magic of the master’s touch. As a kid I’d spend hours looking at these kinds of buildings in books and architecture magazines. I wanted our kids to feel they deserved to study in such a building, and now I go to work in one every day.”

The next slide took them inside the center. The soaring lobby, done in more of the earth-toned block, was flooded with light from banks of tall windows. Accents of natural wood brightened the space, and intimately arched alcoves led the way to quiet halls. I pointed out the small touches—the rich carpets, the designer tile, the handmade stained-glass inserts in the office doors, the bouquets of fresh flowers.

“This place is my idea of a perfect human shelter,” I said. “It generates order and serenity and stability and optimism, things many of our students do not enjoy in abundance in their private lives. Poor people live in a world where beauty seems impossible. We make it possible. Then the world and eventually the future look very different to them.”

As I stood at the podium facing those bright-eyed Harvard students, I knew that before I could convey the message I’d come to share with them, I’d have to overcome some assumptions that people commonly make about me.

For example, many people immediately size me up as a guru type, an urban do-gooder who has devoted his life to selflessly helping the poor. In fact, I have dedicated my life to helping other people, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished along those lines, but you can’t really understand me, or what my life has been about, unless you grasp the fact that I didn’t do any of it out of selflessness.

I did it to be myself.

I did it to enrich my own life, to deepen the quality and meaning of my own experience. I did it because it was a part of what I had to do if I genuinely wanted to be me. If the MacArthur people are right, if I have even a small shred of genius in my soul, it’s only because I have an unshakable belief that each of us has not only the potential to live a rewarding and purposeful life but also the responsibility to do so.

It’s an obligation we bear as human beings, but it’s also the source of our greatest potential. Owning up to that obligation not only makes us more human, it also connects us to the bottomless reserves of passion, vision, conviction, and commitment that I believe are present in abundance in every human heart, and that are the fuel for genuine and deeply fulfilling success.

Thirty-four years later, the center and I are both still growing, but in a much larger and more sophisticated facility.

Today, Manchester Bidwell comprises three separate buildings covering 163,000 square feet, with 150 people on staff and some 1,200 students passing through our doors each year, not counting the 2,500 young people served by the programs we operate in public school classrooms as a cooperative venture with the Pittsburgh school district.

Running such a complex organization requires a pretty high level of organizational expertise, and today I feel very comfortable wearing the hat of CEO. But I’ll never forget that Manchester Bidwell wasn’t crafted out of corporate vision or business savvy. It happened because a clueless nineteen-year-old trusted his unspoken intuition that the human spirit is remarkably resilient, and that even in damaged and disadvantaged lives, and in circumstances where the odds seem hopelessly stacked against you, there is endless potential waiting to be freed.

What I wanted those Harvard grad students to understand, what I want everyone who reads this book to embrace, are the simple principles that have guided my life and enabled my success: that all of us have the potential to make our dreams come true, and that one of the greatest obstacles blocking us from realizing that potential is that we believe, or are told, the things we want most passionately are impractical, unrealistic, or somehow beyond our reach.

The story I have to share with you is the story of the pursuit of one unrealistic, impractical, outrageous dream after another, and the remarkable consistency with which those dreams have come true. That didn’t happen by magic. It happened because I refused to be limited by what conventional wisdom, or other people, or the cautious little voice we all have in our heads told me I couldn’t do. I haven’t accomplished everything I set out to do, but I’ve accomplished a whole lot more than I would have if I’d let myself be boxed in by common sense and “sensible” expectations.

To put it in simplest terms, I left the door open to possibility and, more often than not, opportunity showed its face. They gave me a genius award for thinking like that, but it’s nothing any clear-thinking person can’t manage. Each one of us, no matter who our parents are, where we live, how much education we have, or what kinds of connections, abilities, and opportunities life may have offered us, has the potential to shape our lives in ways that will bring us the meaning, purpose, and success we long for. That’s the essential lesson of my life and of this book: that each of us can achieve the “impossible” in our lives.

I want everyone who comes to this book, no matter what their age or accomplishments or the circumstances of their lives, to rethink their assumptions about what is and isn’t possible in their lives, and to convince themselves that they have not only the right but also the responsibility, and the capacity, to dream big and to make those dreams come true.

Then I christened the place the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and opened the doors. Curious kids trickled in off the sidewalks to see what I was up to. I taught them how to use the wheels, how to center and shape the clay. I don’t know what I thought would happen. On some level, I knew I needed such a place as much as the kids did—a place where I could keep believing in the power of my own creative possibilities despite the darkness closing in all around me—and I hoped the place would shield them from all the poison that was in the streets.

At first it was enough just to see them being kids again, giggling each time one of their wobbly pots collapsed into a slippery lump. But some of them kept coming back. I worked with them until they could get the clay to rise and hold form, then work it carefully into a shape that would please the eye. It was an amazing thing to see the looks on their faces as they worked—the concentration, the sense of purpose and power, and the sudden glint of excitement as they watched the clay morph into the very pot they had pictured in their minds. I knew what that felt like—like you had the whole world in your hands. That was the magic I wanted them to feel. And I knew that, for those moments at least, the troubles of Manchester were far away.

From the start, I loved the work I was doing, the feeling it gave me to help others open their eyes and see the possibilities before them. But I had no long-term vision for the Craftsmen’s Guild. I saw it as a stopgap measure, a life raft for those kids. I certainly never thought it would lead to my life’s work. My plan was to get my education degree, then teach history to high school students. But life takes some odd twists and turns. I started hearing from teachers in nearby public schools. They noticed that the kids who came to the Craftsmen’s Guild were showing up at school more often. They were behaving better in the classroom, too. And their grades were starting to improve.

That drew people’s attention. Word soon got around that something interesting was happening on Buena Vista Street. Neighborhood leaders began to mark me as a guy who was doing some good in the community. Local artists lent us their support. I was introduced to all the right people, and sources of funding appeared before my eyes. I hired a staff and added programs. More kids walked through the door. The place was taking on a life and an energy of its own, growing rapidly in size, in complexity, and in the scope of its missions.

I had no choice but to grow with it.

And that meant developing my leadership and management skills, often on the fly.