"Christopher is doing King Lear at Stratford, and I'd like us to go." That's how Mum put it when she canvassed her children for our interest in joining her.

This was no ordinary query. If not quite Lear's test of his daughter's love, it was certainly much more than an...

"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." That's one of my favorites, and it comes from the thoughtful (not to mention hilarious) George Carlin.

For years, I've been collecting great quotes. They're words to live by. And they're invaluable...

That our world is in trouble is not news.

This morning, I flipped through the two daily newspapers that appear on my doorstep before dawn.

Protests in Iran as anger over the election rises (and is met with violence).

New details about the British MPs spending scandal.

Did you read Nicholas D. Kristof's "Bullets Over Beijing," his account of being in Tiananmen Square on that fateful night twenty years ago?

Uniformed army troops massed on the far end of the square, periodically raising their assault rifles and firing volleys directly at the crowd...

Last week's column posed the question, "Is making a difference only for the rich?" A friend sent me a link to an article from the Guardian newspaper about a super-private meeting of the world's richest people that took place recently - so that they could talk about the world's problems....

It was a Friday afternoon. In a huge room in an overly-air-conditioned convention center, several hundred people were wrapping up their conference with an inspiring message from a guest speaker. It's difficult for many of us to get up, go to the microphone, and ask a question in the Q&A...

A photograph of me circa 1977 hangs over my desk. It was taken by Toni Beatty, an American photographer I met when we shared adjoining villas and a garden in Tepotzlan, Mexico.

"Why didn't you include artists in your book?" she wrote in an email after reading...

I watched a man with a white cane find his way along the street yesterday, and wondered whether I should offer to help. He seemed to be doing just fine -- so I opted to marvel and applaud silently. What must it be like to not be able to see?...

4:00pm, Thursday. I am on my back on my couch, encouraging the muscles that run between my frozen shoulder and my vertebrae to relax. Everything is inflamed because I have been traveling again, talking about the New Radicals. Sitting is impossible, and lying on my back is the only...

Does Speaker's Corner still exist in London's Hyde Park? When I was a teenager in the early 70s, our family lived in Europe, and seeing a young man atop a soapbox holding court with an audience of Londoners left a strong impression.

So, today, I want to use this...

"To be successful, you only have to work half a day. And it doesn't matter if it's the first twelve hours or the second."

I wish I knew who wrote that line - it's one that a successful entrepreneur shared with me many years ago, and it's been a constant...

Johann Koss knows something about play. When I caught up with him, this four-time Olympic gold medalist in speed skating was packing for a trip to Africa.

Before we began talking about how he became a New Radical (that is, someone who has leveraged the skills acquired in his...

Whenever I interview someone - or am being briefed by a client for whom I'm writing a speech - I always ask, "What are you reading?" It helps to know the kinds of things they're interested in, whom they admire, and the ideas that have helped shape their thinking.

Recently,...

Crooked into the arm of one of the world's oldest universities, a group of compassionate human beings met this week to talk not about history, not about the body of knowledge one usually hears in an academic environment, but what's going on right this minute and what the future might...

First, let's deal with your question: you may be wondering "what the heck is a New Radical?" In short, it's someone who has found a way to put the skills acquired in their career to work on some of the world's greatest challenges (see previous posts for more about...

I wonder if a woman who once raced motorcycles ever imagined herself running an ambulance service in the heart of Africa... Yet that's just what Andrea Coleman is doing.

Andrea is a former motorcycle racer and operations director for Team Castrol-Herron. Her husband, Barry, was a journalist for the Guardian,...

Dear Jeff Skoll,

I always had you pegged as an ideas guy. I mean, co-founder of eBay, how cool is that?

But lately I've been starting to see you as a man of the people. The idea at the core of eBay was empowering, wasn't it? The revolutionary notion that...

Kevin Jones is one of the good guys.

Not the kind with the white Stetson pushed back on his head ambling into town to save the day. A modern-day hero who's leading us out of the wild west and into the new world.

Kevin is a social entrepreneur. What's that?...

With all the bad news about, you may feel like pulling the covers up over your head and waiting until it's over. That thought has certainly crossed my mind.

But if we do that, we'll miss a huge opportunity: People around the world are sitting on the edges of their...

Looking for a great movie for Valentine's Day? Something to help you believe again in the power of love to save people's lives and change the world?

You can't go wrong with the 1967 classic, "To Sir, With Love", starring Sidney Poitier. I saw it recently and highly recommend it.