Make the Impossible Possible

"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.

BILL STRICKLAND is CEO of Manchester Bidwell, a jobs training center and community arts program. At Manchester Craftsmen Guild, he offers programs in ceramics, photography, and painting to hundreds of kids a year, ninety percent of whom get high school diplomas and enroll in college. And at the Bidwell Training Center, adults receive training in professional careers such as the culinary arts, pharmacology, and horticultural technology, through partnerships with major corporations in the area. The center 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. As a result of his work, Strickland has received a MacArthur Fellowship "genius” grant, has lectured at Harvard Graduate School of Education, has served on the board of the National Endowment for the Arts, and he and Manchester Bidwell have been the subject of three Harvard Business School case studies. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.