How do you describe it? The impact volunteering has—not on the person who receives the help, but on the volunteer. Volunteering is good for your health, good for your resume, but there is also an emotional charge that comes with service which can uplift you in profound and transformative ways. That feeling is at the heart of one of the stories a young volunteer named Kevin told me.

I kept what Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, calls a growth mindset (as opposed to a fixed mindset). I understood that success would be built on lots of failures as part of the learning experience, but eventually I would become technically savvy. With each new thing I accomplished, I amazed my kids… How did Mom do that?

Here is an excellent book for anyone interested in change, whether it is social change, organizational change, or even change at the individual level. The book is: SWITCH: How to Change Things When Change is Hard By Chip and Dan Heath This book is a good summation of recent findings in behavioral psychology about how…