Chicken Soup for the Soul

Rick Little's Quest 
At 5 am, Rick Little fell asleep at the wheel of his car, hurtled over a 
ten-foot embankment and crashed into a tree. He spent the next six 
months in traction with a broken back. Rick found himself with a lot of 
time to think deeply about his life—something for which the thirteen 
years of his education had not prepared him. Only two weeks after he 
was dismissed from the hospital, he returned home one afternoon to find 
his mother lying semiconscious on the floor from an overdose of 
sleeping pills. Rick confronted once again the inadequacy of his formal 
education in preparing him to deal with the social and emotional issues 
of his life. 
During the following months Rick began to formulate an idea—the 
development of a course that would equip students with high self-
esteem, relationship skills and conflict management skills. As Rick 
began to research what such a course should contain, he ran across a 
study by the National Institute of Education in which 1,000 30-year-olds 
had been asked if they felt their high school education had equipped 
them with the skills they needed for the real world. Over 80 percent 
responded, "Absolutely not." 
These 30-year-olds were also asked what skills they now wish they had 
been taught. The top answers were relationship skills: How to get along 
better with the people you live with. How to find and keep a job. How 
to handle conflict. How to be a good parent. How to understand the 
normal development of a child. How to handle financial management. 
And how to intuit the meaning of life. 
Inspired by his vision of creating a class that might teach these things, 
Rick dropped out of college and set across the country to interview high 
school students. In his quest for information on what should be included 
in the course, he asked over 2,000 students in 120 high schools the same 
two questions: 
1. If you were to develop a program for your high school to help you 
cope with what you're meeting now and what you think you'll be 
meeting in the future, what would that program include? 
2. List the top ten problems in your life that you wish were dealt with 
better at home and in school. 
Whether the students were from wealthy private schools or inner city 
ghettos, rural or suburban, the answers were surprisingly the same. 

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Loneliness and not liking themselves topped the list of problems. In 
addition, they had the same list of skills they wished they were taught as 
the ones compiled by the 30-year-olds. 
Rick slept in his car for two months, living on a total of $60.00. Most 
days he ate peanut butter on crackers. Some days he didn't eat at all. 
Rick had few resources but he was committed to his dream. 
His next step was to make a list of the nation's top educators and leaders 
in counseling and psychology. He set out to visit everyone on his list to 
ask for their expertise and support. While they were impressed with his 
approach—asking students directly what they wanted to learn —they 
offered little help. "You're too young. Go back to college. Get your 
degree. Go to graduate school, then you can pursue this." They were 
less than encouraging. 
Yet Rick persisted. By the time he turned 20, he had sold his car, his 
clothes, had borrowed from friends and was $32,000 in debt. Someone 
suggested he go to a foundation and ask for money. 
His first appointment at a local foundation was a huge disappointment. 
As he walked into the office, Rick was literally shaking with fear. The 
vice president of the foundation was a huge dark-haired man with a cold 
stern face. For a half hour he sat without uttering a word while Rick 
poured his heart out about his mother, the two thousand kids and plans 
for a new kind of course for high school kids. 
When he was through, the vice-president pushed up a stack of folders. 
"Son," he said, "I've been here nearly 20 years. We've funded all these 
education programs. And they all failed. Yours will, too. The reasons? 
They're obvious. You're 20 years old, you have no experience, no 
money, no college degree. Nothing!" 
As he left the foundation office, Rick vowed to prove this man wrong. 
Rick began a study of which foundations were interested in funding 
projects for teenagers. He then spent months writing grant proposals—
working from early morning until late at night. Rick worked for over a 
year laboriously writing grant proposals, each one carefully tailored to 
the interests and requirements of the individual foundations. Each one 
went out with high hopes and each one came back—rejected. 
Proposal after proposal was sent out and rejected. Finally, after the 
155th grant proposal had been turned down, all of Rick's support began 
to crumble. 
Rick's parents were begging him to go back to college and Ken Greene, 
an educator who had left his job to help Rick write proposals, said, 

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"Rick, I have no money left and I have a wife and kids to support. I'll 
wait for one more proposal. But if it's a turndown, I'll have to go back to 
Toledo and to teaching." 
Rick had one last chance. Activated by desperation and conviction, he 
managed to talk himself past several secretaries and he secured a lunch 
date with Dr. Russ Mawby, President of the Kellogg Foundation. On 
their way to lunch they passed an ice cream stand. "Would you like 
one?" Mawby asked. Rick nodded. But his anxiety got the better of him. 
He crushed the cone in his hand and, with chocolate ice cream running 
between his fingers, he made a surreptitious but frantic effort to shake it 
loose before Dr. Mawby could note what had happened. But Mawby did 
see it, and bursting into laughter, he went back to the vendor and 
brought Rick a bunch of paper napkins. 
The young man climbed into the car, red-faced and miserable. How 
could he request funding for a new educational program when he 
couldn't even handle an ice cream cone? 
Two weeks later Mawby phoned. "You asked for $55,000. We're sorry, 
but the trustees voted against it." Rick felt tears pressing behind his 
eyes. For two years he had been working for a dream; which would now 
go down the drain. 
"However," said Mawby, "the trustees did vote unanimously to give you 
$130,000." 
The tears came then. Rick could hardly even stammer out a thank you. 
Since that time Rick Little has raised over $100,000,000 to fund his 
dream. The Quest Skills Programs are currently taught in over 30,000 
schools in all 50 states and 32 countries. Three million kids per year are 
being taught important life skills because one 19-year-old refused to 
take "no" for an answer. 
In 1989, because of the incredible success of Quest, Rick Little 
expanded his dream and was granted $65,000,000, the second largest 
grant ever given in U.S. history, to create The International Youth 
Foundation. The purpose of this foundation is to identify and expand 
successful youth programs all over the world. 
Rick Little's life is a testament to the power of commitment to a high 
vision, coupled with a willingness to keep on asking until one manifests 
the dream. 
Adapted from Peggy Mann 

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