Yesterday I gave a speech to 500 high school kids in Seattle. The 20 minute speech was about service and selflessness, about working hard and taking risks to solve public problems. I told those kids that they would add meaning to their own lives by making life better for others.

I hit a chord with that speech. Those kids leaned forward in their chairs. They listened. Afterwards they cheered.

Driving home, I realized that what I’d just told those teenagers was what was missing in the national debate on the bailout. No offense to this country’s leadership, but some things are just true at any age. How did we get into this mess except by the near-absence of a concept of working for the common good?

I wish I could give this speech on the floor of the Stock Exchange and in Congress. Those people need to hear it more than the kids do. Here it is. Send it to a politician or financier or CEO that you know:

University Prep, Seattle WA

September 24, 2008

Speech by John Graham

Ask yourself this question: What do I care about? Family? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Religious faith? Good grades? Making the team? Earning people’s respect? Perhaps it’s something you can buy?

This is not a dumb question or a trick question.  In fact, it could be the most important question you ever ask. Because in asking what you care about you’re really asking: what’s meaningful to me? What are my priorities? You’re really asking,“Who am I?”

And there’s nothing more important to ask yourself than that.

That’s true for you and me; it’s true for everybody. Wise people have been telling us for thousands of years that there’s no deeper human need and no more powerful wish than to do things that we know are meaningful to us. We all want to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and know that what we’re doing counts, that we're not just on this planet to take up space.

And there’s a great deal of pleasure in doing things that you know are really meaningful. Look to your own experiences—your activities at school, activities out of school, your relationships with other people. Isn’t it true that the more meaning you find in these things, the happier and more aliveyou feel? You may work hard and there may be obstacles you have to overcome, but there's also an energy, a sense of fun and excitement. You do your best work on things that you care about, that are meaningful to you. That’s also when you’re inspiring to other people, and they're attracted to join you, to help you, to follow your lead.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

Look at the adults in your life. Think of the ones that seem to really care about what they’re doing. They’re upbeat and inspiring. They talk about their lives and their work with an excitement that makes you think, “I hope I feel that way about something when I’m that age.”

If meaning is that important, then let’s ask where meaning comes from.

I grew up in Tacoma. When I was your age, I was pretty sure what made my life meaningful. It was adventure, and the bigger and the riskier the better. I shipped out on a freighter when I was seventeen. I crossed the Pacific Ocean and spent a summer in the Far East with a bunch of seamen, in wild, colorful places that sure didn’t look anything like Tacoma. A few years later I was part of a team that made the first direct ascent of the north wall of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, a climb so dangerous that it’s never been repeated. At 22, I hitchhiked around the world, alone, through places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then I worked in the U.S. Foreign Service as an American diplomat for fifteen years. Most of what I did was connected to some kind of risk and violence. I was in the middle of the revolution in Libya and the war in Vietnam. I was smart and tough and I stayed alive and got promoted rapidly.

But even after the promotions,what I was doing for a living began to sit like a bad meal in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong. Something was missing. You see, mixed in with all the tough guy stuff I was doing was a set of dreams, of ideals—about peace, about fairness in the world, about ending the suffering caused by wars and revolutions and poverty. It was a small, nagging voice from my heart and I ignored it for many years.

Then, in the late 70’s, the Foreign Service sent me to the US Mission to the United Nations in New York. Part of my job was representing the US on the UN Security Council committee that oversaw the arms embargo on South Africa. That embargo was passed by the UN to keep people from sending guns and military equipment to South Africa military and police. Why? Because guns and military equipment sold to the white South African Government in those years were used to oppress black people in a brutal racist system called apartheid.

But the embargo leaked like a sieve. Why? Because there were huge amounts of money to be made in the arms trade, and the gun dealers had their friends in Europe and in our own Congress. So the guns and other military equipment slipped through to the South African police and army, and were used to oppress blacks. The situation stunk of greed and hypocrisy, and our country, despite our wonderful words on human rights, was right in the middle of it.

My own timid government told me that it was useless to try to correct this evil.

I ignored that advice and I worked secretly for months on my own to tighten the embargo. I did that by helping some African and Asian countries at the United Nations increase their pressure against the United States. I even helped some of those countries write their attacks on my own government. Once I saw an angry message from an African Foreign minister to the US Secretary of State; in the middle of that message was a paragraph tht I had helped write two weeks before.

I waited until this pressure had built, then I went to my own bosses and told them that the situation was now so intense that the US had no choice but to agree to a tougher embargo. It worked.  That tougher embargo was passed in the spring of 1980, and, in time, that helped end apartheid.

At any time in this process I could and should have been fired—and almost was.

Why did I do this? Why did I risk a career that was very important to me? I did it because of one afternoon in South Africa that started in the poverty and oppression of Soweto, a black ghetto outside Johannesburg. I walked down dusty, garbage-strewn streets and felt dozens o fangry black eyes boring into the back of my white head. As a US diplomat, I was invited that evening to a fancy cocktail party in Johannesburg’s richest white suburb, in a mansion protected by iron fences and guard dogs. Apartheid stank.

Why did I take those risks? Because, after that day, helping end apartheid meant something to me at the deepest place in my soul. I took those risks for something I finally believed in more than adventure or power. It was also not lost on me that I’d just had the best adventure of my life and it had nothing to do with dodging bullets or hanging off a cliff by a rope. It had to do with finding what gave my life meaning and then going for it with everything I had.

The experience was like learning to swim. I couldn’t forget what I’d done or how I’d done it. I couldn’t forget how happy and fulfilled I felt in making a difference like that.

I’d found the meaning for my life and I’d found it in service, in making life better for other people, in helping solve a significant public problem. The lesson to me, repeated many times since, is that nothing is more important than finding meaning for our lives and that the surest path to a meaningful life is service.

When I left the Foreign Service I joined the Giraffe Heroes Project. We find people sticking their necks out in service to others (we call them “Giraffes”) and we tell their stories in our publications, on our website, in schools, and in the media. People see or hear about Giraffes and are inspired to take on the challenges theysee, from cleaning up a wetland to helping end hunger and homelessness. The Giraffes we honor are people like Neto Villareal. Here is his story:

There’s a small town in Idaho named Marsing, and in that town, football is everything. On Friday nights, hundreds of people from the town and the farms around it would come to watch the Marsing Huskies play. Ernesto "Neto" Villareal was a star player on the high school team, good enough to be considered for a college scholarship.

It was the fans in Marsing that were the problem. When the players did something good, everyone cheered. But when they made a mistake, something else happened. If the player was Latino, like Neto, people shouted insults like, "Stupid Mexican!" It happened a lot, and people seemed not to notice. But the Latino players noticed. Neto led them in deciding that they wouldn't play anymore unless the insults stopped. Their coach told them they would only make things worse by refusing to play—the team couldn't win the state championship if they stopped playing. Neto also knew that if the team stopped playing he could lose his chance at a football scholarship.

But stopping the insults meant more than a scholarship. Neto talked to the student body president, who then talked to the principal. When the principal  refused to do anything, the other Latino players were ready to give up and resume playing. Not Neto. He went over the principal's head to theSchool Board, even though he'd seen one of the School Board members himself shouting insults at Latino players.

The student body president, inspired by Neto's courage, wrote a letter on behalf of all the students,asking adults to stop the insults, and asking school officials to throw people out of the stadium if they didn't stop. Led by Neto, the Latino players agreed to play only if the letter was read over the loudspeaker at the game.

That next game was the big one—the homecoming game, with a parade, music and floats. The principal refused to read the letter, but the school superintendent overruled him and directed that the letter be read. Whe nit was, people in the stadium stood and cheered. And the insults stopped. Neto Villareal had scored a touchdown for tolerance.

There are now over 1,000 Giraffes, all taking risks like Neto Villareal. They are young and old, every color in the rainbow, working on many different problems.

But why do Giraffes likeNeto do what they do, taking risks and working hard to help other people? When we ask Giraffes this question, many of them tell us, in so many words, that this is a foolish question. The problem was right in front of them, they’ll say, and nobody else was acting—so what else were they supposed to do?

The more you talk to them the clearer it gets that Giraffes are motivated by a strong sense that what they’re doing is meaningful to them—that is, that it satisfies a personal sense of purpose at the core of their being. And that meaning comes from being of service, of helping solve tough public problems, making life better for other people. It is exactly the same lesson I learned at the United Nations, fighting against racism in South Africa.

It is the same lesson for you. Nothing is more important than living a meaningful life. The surest way to a meaningful life is to be of service, to care for other people, to help solve problems that hurt them.

How can you serve?

There are plenty of problems to work on. Look around. There is hunger and homelessness in your community. There are environmental problems, like the pollution in Puget Sound.

Work with your classmates on projects organized here at school.  Or create projects after school with family members, after-school groups or church groups.

I don’t know what specific problems you should work on. You have to find them yourself. But I’m convinced that every one of us has and will have unique opportunities to make a difference, if only in small and quiet ways. A successful life is about spotting those opportunities and acting on them.

What I tell my own kids and now grandkids is that the only mistake you can make is to ignore this search, to just look out for Number One,to live your life without every having at least tried to make a difference.

Service is not a one-shot deal. It’s a lifetime thing. And it’s a lot more than just volunteering or working for a nonprofit group.

You might someday, for example be of service by working in government to help solve public problems. You might serve in business, making good, needed products that are produced by employees who are treated fairly.You might serve as a scientist, a teacher, or an artist. I hope you serve as a member of a community and as a citizen. You can serve anywhere.

You may end up making a lot of money and becoming powerful. Good for you. But it’s my experience, and the experience of many Giraffes, that you won’t find the meaning you seek in money or power. You’ll find meaning in using your wealth and power—and skills and experience—to be of service, to help solve important public problems, to make life better for other people.

Of course, all along the way there will be enormous temptations to ignore all this stuff about meaning and service. It’s easy to see a problem and just hope that somebody else will fix it. It’s easy to get distracted by shallow things—our lives can get so busy and so cluttered.

And you can get overwhelmed by a commercial culture that seems to say that we are important only because of what we can buy.  All around you, every day, there are constant messages that your life will be perfect if you have this cool car, that knock-em-dead shirt, the right music—always something you have to buy.

Other messages tell you that what’s important is what celebrities do.

There’s just a lot of clutter that can knock you off focus.

Don’t let that happen. Look beyond what is loud and shallow.Find the problems that concern you, large or small.Ask what can you do about them, with the skills, resources and energy you have, not in twenty years, but now.  Tackle the problems that you’ve found with everything you’ve got. See the impact you can make.

Do it to help solve problems, to make life better for other people. But also do it for you, because it will add to the joy and excitement of living a meaningful life.

There is a poet named Mary Oliver and she puts the challenge this way: “Tell me,” she asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Not long ago I went back for a high school reunion in Tacoma. Nearly all my classmates were leading comfortable lives in business or the professions.  They worried about the stock market and college tuitions for their kids. To be honest, I was bored.

Except for one man. His name was Tom. He’d been the slowest kid in class; we’d all made jokes about him. Well, Tom had for 30 years been directing a social service agency that ran programs for drug addicts in the worst area of Tacoma. It was tough, risky work.

Tom was fascinating. He spoke with the energy and peace of mind of a person who’d truly found his calling and was answering it with everything he had.

What will you see in yourself and your classmates when you come back here for your reunions? When you come back here, how will you have answered Mary Oliver’s question “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”