“Success is the point where your most authentic talents,
passion, values, and experiences intersect with the chance to
contribute to some greater good.”
--Bill Strickland
According to MacArthur Fellowship “genius” award winner Bill
Strickland, a successful life is not something you simply pursue,
it is something that you create, moment by moment. It is a
realization Strickland first came to when, as a poor kid growing up
in a rough neighborhood of Pittsburgh, he encountered a high school
ceramics teacher who took him under his wing and went on to
transform his life.
Over the past thirty years, Bill Strickland has been transforming
the lives of thousands of people through the creation of Manchester
Bidwell, a jobs training center and community arts program. Working
with corporations, community leaders, and schools, he and his staff
strive to give disadvantaged kids and adults the opportunities and
tools they need to envision and built a better, brighter
future.
Strickland believes that every one of us has the potential for
remarkable achievement. Every one of us can accomplish the
impossible in our lives if given the right inspiration and
motivation to do so. We all make ourselves “poor” in one way or
another when we accept that we are not smart enough, experienced
enough, or talented enough to accomplish something. Bill Strickland
works with the least advantaged among us, and if he can help them
achieve the impossible in their lives, think what each of us can
do.
Among Bill Strickland’s beliefs:
People are born into this world as assets, not liabilities. It’s
all in the way we treat people and ourselves that determines a
person’s outcome
The sand in the hourglass flows only one way. Stop going through
the motions of living--savor each and every day. Life is here and
now, not something waiting for you in the future.
You don’t have to travel far to change the life you’re living.
Bill grew up in the Pittsburgh ghetto, four blocks from where he
came to build one of the foremost job training centers in the
world. He now speaks before CEOs and political leaders, church
congregations and civic leaders. You only need to change your
thinking to remake your world.
Through lessons from his own life experiences, and those of
countless others who have overcome their circumstances and turned
their lives around, Make the Impossible Possible shows how all of
us can build on our passions and strengths, dream bigger and set
the bar higher, achieve meaningful success and help mentor and
inspire the lives of others.
關於作者:
BILL STRICKLAND is president and CEO of Manchester Craftsmen
Guild and Bidwell Training Center. Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild
today offers programs in ceramics, photography, digital arts and
painting to over 500 kids a year, as well as 3,400 additional
students in the Pittsburgh inner-city school district. Ninety
percent of the students receive high school diplomas of which 85%
go on enroll in college or secondary education. Bidwell Training
Center trains more than 600 adults each semester for professional
careers like the culinary arts, pharmacology, and horticultural
technology. Through partnerships with major corporations in the
area, Bidwell Training Center has helped 73% of its graduates land
meaningful full-time employment. Manchester Bidwell is now a
breathtaking facility that includes a 350-seat jazz auditorium, a
40,000-square-foot greenhouse covering half a city block, a
state-of-the-art chemistry lab, a full-scale ceramics department,
and a culinary institute. He has received a MacArthur Foundation
“genius” grant, lectured at Harvard Graduate School of Education,
and served on the board of the National Endowment for the Arts. He
lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.