John Graham went to sea on a cargo ship in Asia when he was seventeen, took part in the first (and to date only) direct ascent of Mt. McKinley's North Wall in Alaska at twenty, and hitchhiked around the world at twenty-two, covering every war along the way for the Boston Globe.

A U.S. Foreign...

John Graham went to sea on a cargo ship in Asia when he was seventeen, took part in the first (and to date only) direct ascent of Mt. McKinley's North Wall in Alaska at twenty, and hitchhiked around the world at twenty-two, covering every war along the way for the Boston Globe.

A U.S. Foreign Service Officer for fifteen years, he was in Libya during the 1969 revolution and served in the war in Vietnam. For three years in the mid-seventies, he was a member of NATO's top-secret Nuclear Planning Group, then served as a foreign policy advisor at the U.S. Congress for Senator John Glenn. During a posting at the United Nations, however, his life began to turn. He became deeply involved in U.S. human rights initiatives, including the fight against apartheid in South Africa.

Still, something was missing. In 1980, a close brush with death aboard a burning cruise ship in a typhoon in the North Pacific forced him to accept a deeper meaning for his life. Now out of the Foreign Service, he began teaching better ways of handling challenge and conflict.

Since 1983 he's been a leader of the Giraffe Heroes Project, a global nonprofit moving people to stick their necks out for the common good—and giving them the tools to succeed. The Project finds ordinary people acting with extraordinary courage on a broad range of important issues—then gets their stories told on the web, in schools and in both traditional and social media (www.giraffe.org).

Graham has been part of major peace-building efforts in the Middle East and Africa. He now directs Giraffes Heroes International (GHI), helping citizens in the developing world solve difficult public problems, such as poverty, violence, corruption and poor leadership (www.giraffe.org/ghi). GHI's latest initiatives have been in Egypt, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Graham's speeches move people into action, inspiring them to solve the public problems that concern them most. His workshops are practical trainings in getting the job done. His blog pieces most recently included a firsthand account of Chinese oppression in Tibet. He is the author of Outdoor Leadership, Stick Your Neck Out—A Street-smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond, and a memoir, On the Edge. He does TV and radio all over the world. Graham has degrees from both Harvard and Stanford, neither of which he ever intends to use.

He believes: "A full life demands passionate involvement, and that often means taking risks. The key is knowing what to take risks for, and how to take them well."