I felt a deep sense of responsibility to achieve the promise that the monks saw in me. When I returned to the States, I launched the non-profit Schiller Center as a platform to help organizational leaders manage change and create better futures. I knew that the realities of the 21st century would require very different perspectives and skills and vowed to help organizational leaders with positive intentions take a proactive stance toward the future. I hoped that I could achieve my own potential by helping others achieve theirs.

Eighteen years later, another assignment took me to Yangon, Burma. Several of the democratic opposition leaders of the country gave me a carefully wrapped tube as a gift of appreciation. When I returned home and unwrapped it, I discovered a beautiful oil painting of a lotus blossom, fully bloomed.