“Ultimately if you can put a wall up, if you can paint, if you can work with other people and, most important, if you find out what you are good at, that’s the key.”

– British chef Jamie Oliver, in the New York Times Magazine, challenging the myth that a traditional education is the only way to be successful.  Today Oliver’s hyperactivity is his trademark but as a child he was branded “special needs” and pulled from regular classes to learn to read and write amidst classmates’ taunting. “We’re not supposed to be all academic. What is education? A bunch of stuff that people think we should know.”

Oliver, who was working in the kitchen of his father’s pub by age 13, recommends starting early. “Kids can do detailed, technical things, and they can do them well. Have you seen them on skateboards and surfing? It doesn’t have to be a BMX, it can be a pot and a pan and a knife.” Time to put your young ones to work in the kitchen! –Jessica Shambora

“No one’s born being good at things. You become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice.”

–President Obama, in his “back-to-school” speech to kids today. The President’s rallying cry reminded us of wisdom divvied out by Fortune’s Geoff Colvin in his book, Talent is Overrated. There–and in his Guest Post on Postcards–Geoff details how exceptionally successful people got that way not by innate talent, but rather, by working really hard.

“The truth is, being successful is hard,” Obama told students today and left them with a higher calling. “If you quit on school,” he said, “you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.” –Jessica Shambora

On April 21, President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. What better day than today to spotlight businesses that reflect the late Senator’s mission to expand national service. More and more companies–IBM (IBM), UPS (UPS), Target (TGT), General Electric (GE), Citigroup (C) and Pfizer (PFE), among them–are aiding not-for-profits by having their employees share skills. Done right, this sort of volunteerism can be win-win-win: image-enhancing for the company, morale-boosting for employees, and generally good for the world.

A Billion + Change (“Great Talent for the Greater Good”) is the national program through which corporations pledge to expand their volunteered professional services to the nonprofit sector. Another member, besides the companies above, is Deloitte, whose CEO is committed personally. Here’s Deloitte CEO Barry Salzberg’s take on the value of volunteerism:

Photo Courtesy of Deloitte LLP

Recently, I was sitting with several dozen inner-city teens, talking with them about college and careers. It was a free-wheeling conversation. I was peppered with questions–including, “How can I get your job?”

I left absolutely convinced that as a result of that session, at least one kid who otherwise would have missed going to college will, in fact, be going. Let me tell you, it made my day, if not my week.

And it reminded me of an often overlooked way to meet people’s needs, particularly in these hard times as non-profit organizations are seeing double-digit drops in funding–as demand goes through the roof. I’m talking about skills-based volunteerism. That is, donating high-value, professional skills–for free.

Our company, Deloitte, recently conducted a survey on corporate volunteering. We found that 91% of respondents agreed that skills-based volunteering would add value to training and development, especially in fostering leadership and business skills. But only 16% of companies offer skills-based volunteering as an option for employees. Only one out of six.

Given the obvious need out there and also given President Obama’s impassioned call for national service, we’ve gone way beyond surveying about volunteerism. We’ve pledged $50 million in services–that’s right, $50 million worth of our employees’ time–over three years to help non-profit organizations boost their effectiveness.

Deloitte employees are donating skills in such areas as IT, marketing and personnel management at all sorts of non-profit organizations. For me, education is a special passion. I wasn’t the first in my family ever to go to college–my older sister claimed that honor. But I know what a profound difference it made in my life and in the lives of my two sons. So I work with a non-profit called College Summit.

College Summit, in fact, brought me and those inner-city kids together. The organization’s goal: to take kids–many from families in which nobody has ever gone to college—and get them into college. The approach: Create a ‘college-going culture’ in high schools where college-going rates are low. We provide cash, lots of volunteer hours from our people, and pro bono work on systems that give principals and schools districts much better data about their students’ progress.

Through personal experience, I’ve learned that skills-based volunteerism is one of those double bottom-line investments. It helps non-profits build capacity to serve more people with greater efficiency–which makes the non-profit more attractive for corporate support. That’s the no-brainer benefit. The less obvious benefit is the real-world training for our people, especially our younger people. We do valuable, low-cost training and we also do some good for the world.

Barry Salzberg, with Deloitte for 32 years, has been CEO since 2007.

You never know who your summer intern will turn out to be. In 1980, Ursula Burns was a summer intern in mechanical engineering at Xerox (XRX). Last month, she became CEO there. In 1985, Sallie Krawcheck was a summer intern at Fortune. She later climbed to the top tier of Citigroup (C), where she served as CFO and ran a $13 billion wealth management unit. Last week, Krawcheck moved to Bank of America (BAC) to head its global wealth and investment management business.

So, treat your intern well. He or she could be your boss someday. As we mention in the current Fortune, smart bosses employ interns to learn how the world is changing. Morgan Stanley (MS) recently published a report on digital media that was written by a 15-year-old summer intern. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CTO Phillip McKinney has interns live with him–to help him understand young consumers.

Another company that manages interns well is Siemens Hearing Instruments, a unit of German-based Siemens AG (SI). Here’s Christi Pedra, president and CEO of Siemens Hearing, with some advice for giving interns the best summer experience and getting value in return:

When I attended college (could it really be 30 years ago?), we picked majors that were suitable to a lifetime career in one field. With one position in mind. You could be an accountant or a nurse or a teacher. If you graduated with a general business degree, you hoped for a long career at IBM (IBM), Xerox or some financial institution.

Steadfast and secure. That was then.

This is now. It’s acceptable to change jobs frequently, or pursue a totally new career. With life expectancy approaching 80, you could easily have three or four successful and distinct careers.

As CEO of Siemens Hearing, how can I help young people navigate the bridge from college to career?

When I joined Siemens Hearing in 2007, I launched a summer intern program–and in designing it, I took input from my nieces and my son who were in the midst of internships (good and bad). One of my nieces had a great experience at a PR firm in New York City. The CEO invited all the interns to a reception in his home midway through the summer. In contrast, my other niece complained about getting an assignment that her supervisor assumed would take several days. When she finished the project early, there was no one to ask for the next assignment–because her manager went on vacation for three days. The better part of her week was spent browsing the Internet, trying to look busy!

We used these lessons, along with ideas from our employees, to shape our program, which has turned out to be really successful. A few ideas I’ll share:

First of all, we make a big deal for our managers to get interns. Department managers submit a proposal for a project that can be completed in 10 weeks. It must have a measurable outcome and benefit to the business. The best proposals are granted interns. HR helps in the sourcing and selection process. For the last three summers, we’ve hired 12 to 16 interns in their third or fourth year of college, and we pay them attractive wages–on average $18 an hour.

Second, we make it challenging. We give interns assignments that matter to them and to us.  This is not a shadow experience. The interns report to a department manager and are assigned a mentor. They’re assigned tasks as part of a cross-functional project team and manage assignments against a time line. I’ve had interns co-author a research paper, redesign a manufacturing line that resulted in a 24% productivity improvement, conduct and publish interviews for on-line media, and create video marketing segments.

Third, we make it real. Each year, we have our interns present their assignments. It used to be that the audience consisted of intern supervisors and me. But over the past couple of years, interest grew so much that we opened it up to all managers and department colleagues. Last year, intern presentation day was standing room only; this year, we reconfigured our training room to accommodate more than 30 attendees. Once again, the intern projects far exceeded expectations. For example, our interns simplified manufacturing tool kits, audited and redefined work instructions, developed internal communication campaigns and validated software. Ten weeks ago, they entered Siemens Hearing Instruments as students, and now they will be leaving us as professionals.

The results have been truly rewarding. We’ve offered permanent employment to at least one intern from each summer program. We’ve hired these interns in sales support, web marketing and finance. A win-win for all. And this year, we expect to extend two intern assignments into the fall and hire another two interns into permanent positions.

I kind of wish I were 22 again.

Unlike the job-hopping young people she writes about, Pedra has been with Siemens for more than 20 years. She graduated from Montclair State University and earned her MBA at Rutgers.

Leadership, essentially, is about inspiring others to carry on a mission. The leadership opportunity compounds in a connected, viral, global community.

Here’s how leadership can spread: In 2006, Fortune and the U.S. State Department launched the Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Every year since then, we’ve selected two dozen or more of the best and brightest young women leaders in developing countries and invited them to the U.S. to shadow women who attend the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Mentor/CEOs like Andrea Jung of Avon (AVP), Ellen Kullman of DuPont (DD), Ann Moore of Time Inc. (TWX), and Ursula Burns and Anne Mulcahy (now chairman) of Xerox (XRX)–plus top women execs at companies like Wal-Mart (WMT) and Exxon-Mobil–have hosted these international women. Ideally, the mentees return home and apply what they learned to improve their own community.

To reward the mentees who most effectively pay it forward, so to speak, Fortune has partnered with Goldman Sachs (GS)–which has created its own program, 10,000 Women, to educate and mentor rising-star businesswomen in emerging markets. Last Thursday, a team of judges convened to select a winner of the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Mentoring Award.

It was really difficult to choose among the 26 nominees.

There was Maria Pacheco, a 2006 mentee who, after completing her month-long stint in the Fortune-U.S. State Department program, went home to Guatemala and built a network that today connects 1,000 rural craftswomen to markets. With help from United Nations Foundation COO Kathy Bushkin Calvin, who was her mentor, and an ever-expanding web of contacts in the U.S. and Guatemalan governments, Maria recently launched a U.S. company, Wakami World, to distribute the craftswomen’s products.

There was Maria Gabriella Hoch, the head of a Buenos Aires communications consulting firm and a 2007 mentee at NBC Universal. Maria connected with Clarissa Eseiza and Lorena Piazze–fellow Argentinians who had participated in last year’s program. Together, they set up a multi-faceted mentoring and leadership training program for women in their country.

And there was Lucy Kanu, a 2008 mentee at Exxon-Mobil (XOM) who returned to Nigeria and drew more than 500 women to her “Women Mentoring Women Walk.” Lucy modeled the event on a Mentors Walk that Gerry Laybourne, the media entrepreneur, started doing in New York’s Central Park when she was CEO of Oxygen Media. Laybourne invites the Fortune-U.S. State Department mentees to her home each year when they’re all in New York City for the close of their month-long visit. The stories she shares are infectious. Inspired by Laybourne–and by Lucy Kanu in Nigeria–alums of the mentoring program have staged “Women Mentoring Women Walks” in Kenya, Ghana, Serbia, Argentina and Peru.

Laybourne was one of the judges who helped select the winner of the $50,000 Goldman Sachs-Fortune award last week. She told me that she wept as she read the 115-pages of nominations and mentors’ endorsements.

Choosing a winner was difficult, as I said. But the judges settled on two women who have extraordinary stories and compelling plans to use the money–$25,000 each–to improve their communities.

Brigitte Dzogbenuku is one of the winners. Last year, she was the mentee of WNBA President Donna Orender. Brigitte, now 40, went back to her country, Ghana, and created not only a Mentors Walk but also a program called Hoop Sistas, which is a basketball club to teach girls teamwork and self-esteem. Brigitte, who is take-charge and charismatic, plans to use the award money to expand Hoop Sistas beyond Accra to four other cities in Ghana.

The other winner is Penelope Machipi, an alum of Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women program in Zambia. Penelope is a shining example of what mentoring can do. A decade ago, when she was 14, she had lost her parents and her family property. She quit school and turned to prostitution to support herself and her brother. With the help of Camfed, a U.S.-based non-profit than fights poverty and HIV/AIDS in rural Africa by educating girls, Penelope got back into school and started a business selling maize. She applied to Goldman’s 10,000 Women and graduated this year.

Now trained in IT, Penelope is managing a computer resource center in Samfya, a remote spot in northern Zambia. The center has nine “green” terminals, an Internet connection, a printer and a photocopier. It’s managed by a team of women, and about 200 girls and women use the center each month.

That’s Penelope’s day job. Her real passion is film-making. Partnering with 22 other women in Samfya, she made a film called Nasange Inshila, meaning “I Have Found My Way,” and the group–calling themselves Samfya Women Filmmakers–has screened it in communities across rural Zambia. They’re planning to make a documentary about gender-based violence.

Penelope and Brigitte will come to the U.S. next month to attend the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein will be on hand opening night to present the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Mentoring Award to each of these two remarkable women. Dina Powell, a former assistant Secretary of State who is now a Goldman managing director overseeing 10,000 Women, will be there too. She and I, sitting in her State Department office one day in the summer of 2005, dreamed up this Fortune-U.S. State Department Mentoring program. We hardly imagined the global power of one small idea.

P.S. Thanks to Vital Voices for helping Fortune and the State Department bring the mentees to the U.S. and for helping them pay it forward. Thanks to Lisa Clucas for managing the mentoring program for Fortune. Thanks to award judges Gerry Laybourne, Dina Powell, Molly Ashby of Solera Capital, Alyse Nelson of Vital Voices, and the IRC’s Carrie Welch, who chairs the mentoring program with me. And thanks to the mentors!

I had breakfast today with some extraordinary college students — all women, all majoring in the sciences. That alone makes them extraordinary. After all, women constitute 46% of the U.S. workforce today. But women hold only 26% of the jobs in engineering science and technology. Fewer than 10% of American engineers are women.

The young women whom I met this morning are trying to change that, and we’re cheering them on. They make up the first class of participants in the National Math + Science Young Leaders Program, a new partnership between Fortune, ExxonMobil (XOM), and the National Math + Science Initiative.

If you read Postcards regularly, you know about the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership, which is another offshoot of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. That global mentoring program, launched in 2006, is a remarkable success: 32 rising stars from 23 developing countries came to the U.S. for a month this spring and were mentored by America’s top women execs. This new mentoring venture is aimed at filling a glaring gap here at home.

We already have an impressive lineup of mentors. Three of ExxonMobil’s senior women — VP of global marketing Margaret Mattix, VP of Engineering Sara Ortwein, and VP of Geoscience Pam Darwin — are mentoring college students in Texas, close to their offices. The other mentors are venture capitalist Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad, Kendle International (KNDL) CEO Candace Kendle, and Kathy Button Bell, chief marketing officer at Emerson (EMR), the $25 billion manufacturing and technology company.

And there’s one “mentor-at-large” who coaches via National Math + Science Young Leaders webinars: Sally Ride. Yes, the astronaut. Ride, a regular at the Most Powerful Women Summit, now has a company, Sally Ride Science, and has dedicated her post-orbit life to encouraging girls to go into science and math.

The young women who bravely venture in that direction — and help to ease a tech talent drought that’s only worsening — need role models more than ever. Mentee Stephanie Ren, who is an electrical engineering major and computer science minor at University of California Berkeley, noted this morning that guys outnumber girls by close to 10 to 1 in her computer science classes. Ren also said that after spending a day in Silicon Valley with Winblad recently — and meeting some of the veteran VC’s high-powered pals — she came to believe that she has a shot at living her dream: to work at Google (GOOG) someday.

Incidentally, Ren said that after Google, she envisions becoming an elementary school teacher. (I tell everyone “Don’t plan your career” — and said the same to these young women at breakfast — but I applaud Ren for aiming to “pay it forward” to the next generation of techies.)

At the least, this new National Math + Science Young Leaders Program will give smart young women a little more confidence to be pioneers. Another mentee, Therica Grosshans, who’s a geology major at the University of Houston, said this morning that visiting ExxonMobil and getting to know her mentor, Pam Darwin, changed her outlook on her own career. Says Grosshans, “She made me feel that I can get that far.”

“Right now, nothing is more important than a nimble, agile leader, who is comfortable with ambiguity and figuring it out as they go along.”

–Avon (AVP) President Liz Smith, in a discussion led by Pattie Sellers at NYU today. The panel, which also included Cece Sutton, Morgan Stanley’s (MS) new retail banking president, was hosted by Forte Foundation. (To view video of the dialogue, click here.)

Smith and Sutton, both on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list, talked about how the global recession has altered what they seek in the talent they recruit. Smith values flexibility and a certain comfort with not knowing what tomorrow will bring–because more than ever, who can predict? Management, she said, has become “less strategic planning than scenario planning: ‘If this, then what?’”

It’s also more important than ever to be “completely transparent in order to take your people along on the journey,” Smith said. Sutton agreed, adding: “People who are successful now are great operators: Know the business and be in the weeds.” –Jessica Shambora

by Jessica Shambora

Raises may be up in smoke, and those perks we loved too. But talk is cheap–which may be why Time Inc. (TWX), my employer, has started doing in-house training seminars, taught by its own senior execs and veteran editors.

I’ve been trying out Time Inc. University’s “Learn from a Leader” classes. People Managing Editor Larry Hackett has led “The Cover Selection.” Vivek Shah, who used to oversee Fortune and now is the digital boss for Time Inc.’s News group, taught “How to Monetize a Website.” We’ve even got Pattie Sellers — Fortune Editor at Large as well as Postcards‘ founder and boss — doing a course on, of all things, powerful women. Go figure!

Company-sponsored classes can be an awful waste of time. But actually, I learned a lot the other day when I went to “The Anatomy  of a Digital Startup,” led by Time Inc. SVP Andy Blau. He’s the GM of advertising sales and marketing and also president of Life (but today brought news that he returning to the News Business Unit as SVP and Group General Manager).

Remember Life? After briefly reincarnating as a Sunday supplement a few years ago, the once-great magazine is back again –now in digital form as Life.com. Blau and Life managing editor Bill Shapiro partnered with Google (GOOG) to scan millions of photos dating back to the 1850s — only 3% of which ever appeared in Life magazine — and struck an ad revenue-sharing deal to pay for that work, which took more than two years. Time Inc. also partnered with Getty Images to collect photos and build the site. It launched on March 31, with 7 million photos, plus 3,000 new photos from Getty added daily.

Most people would have bet against it. But Life sprung back to life. With hardly any promotion, Life.com exceeded one million page views on each of its first two days. On the third day, the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, the site featured never before seen photos from the day he was slain; traffic jumped to 10 million page views, from media mentions and lots of buzz. Controversy helps: The first week of June, Life.com logged 46 million page views, thanks in part to color photos of Hitler. Unearthed photos of Marilyn Monroe also drew millions of page views.

“Now the hard work begins,” Blau sighs, explaining how the team will use search engine optimization,  partnerships and viral drivers to attract eyeballs to Life.com. One lesson they learned: Keep it simple. Life  is alive again online partly because it’s user-friendly. You can easily search for photos by topic, time period, interest or photographer. You can buy framed prints. And soon you’ll be to create personal life timelines through photos of news events and pop-culture moments–and publish books and magazines.

I’ll try those features as Life.com evolves. Next week I’m heading to “How to Land the Big Interview,” taught by Entertainment Weekly managing editor Jess Cagle. Hmm, I wonder if Jess will tell me how to get Angelina to tell her real story to Fortune.

“Every time you celebrate an achievement, be thankful to those who made it possible.”

–Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, in his address to Harvard grads Thursday. Chu encouraged students to give a shout out to parents, friends and inspirational professors. “Especially thank the other professors whose less-than-brilliant lectures forced you to teach yourself. Going forward, the ability to teach yourself is the hallmark of a great liberal arts education and will be the key to your success.”

Chu compared the structure of his speech to a “classical sonata.” The final movement was a plea for the new crop of Crimson alum to take on the threat of climate change. “As our future intellectual leaders, take the time to learn more about what’s at stake, and then act on that knowledge. As future scientists and engineers, I ask you to give us better technology solutions. As future economists and political scientists, I ask you to create better policy options. As future business leaders, I ask that you make sustainability an integral part of your business.” Music to our ears. –Jessica Shambora

Here’s the third and final segment of Tom Freston’s 2007 commencement speech at Emerson College. In earlier posts, Viacom’s (VIAB) former CEO shared career lessons and detailed the first two “things you’re going to want to be able to say you’ve done if ever you are called upon to impart wisdom upon the young.” Here are Nos. 3 and 4 on that list, along with Freston’s warning about what could happen if grads don’t follow his advice.

No. 3: You’re going to want to say that your passport is well worn and filled-to-the-brim with stamps and visas. Because all those exotic stamps from far away places are the kind of tattoos that you won’t regret when you’re older. Travel is the best and probably cheapest graduate school you can buy.

I learned way more from my travels than I ever did in business school. My experiences overseas gave me the self-confidence and international perspective to build MTV and Nickelodeon into global brands early on. We were the first to do that.

A good adventure can change your life – and why would you put that off? It’s too late for you people to drop out of college now, but there are still plenty of things you can drop out of: Just get on a plane and go. Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially.

We, as Americans, have so much to learn here. We have a shockingly low level of global awareness and familiarity and little idea of how the world sees us. And those disturbing facts keep getting us into a lot of trouble.

The flatter the world, the more you need to be globally attuned and conversant. And you will find that the diversity of friends, interests, and thinking that this will bring you will broaden your scope and enrich your life here at home.

Fourth and last: Forty-years from now, you DO NOT want to say you are still only listening to The Shins and Arcade Fire, or LCD. To do that, you must very consciously maintain your curiosity, broaden your interests and continue to follow the cultural flow wherever it goes. Refuse to get too comfortable with what you already know. People’s tastes and attitudes tend to freeze up in their late ‘20’s. There are plenty of people my age whose cultural preferences were cryogenically sealed in 1974. It’s amazing and it’s not pretty. Many guys my age are still exclusively rocking out to Foghat.

What I have seen over my many years in the media and entertainment business, where I know a lot of you are headed, is that the most successful people – writers, executives, whatever – have many interests, an encyclopedic knowledge about them, and an undying curiosity about social trends and the endless parade of “next new things.”

They are always growing.

So my advice to you: Stave off obsolescence and prolong adolescence. Stay a young thinker. Read, listen to and watch everything you can. Explore the corners of popular culture and the arts. And, of course, these days you have to stay maniacally plugged in to the cutting edge of whatever technology is taking your profession into the future – otherwise you’re toast.

I know you just got done cramming for finals. But most of what you have to learn in life is yet to come. At Emerson you have been immersed to your eyeballs in the mix of today’s culture, and you have all thrived. But it will become increasingly hard to maintain that edge as you get older. Your responsibilities pile up. But learning is never the wrong choice…those who stop learning are the only people who really ever grow old.

Now, I don’t want to scare you but these guidelines I offer are to be ignored at your own peril. If you don’t show maniacal passion for something, if you don’t immerse yourself fully in the world by traveling or living abroad, if you don’t stay curious, if you never change your mind or develop a healthy sense of self-awareness, there is a real danger that you might end up as the President of the United States. [Bush was President when Freston delivered this speech.]

But if you take this very basic advice to heart – to follow your heart and never settle for less, to reincarnate when necessary, to live on our whole planet and revel in all of it and to keep learning always – maybe you will have the kind of career and life that no guidance counselor could have predicted for you.

And maybe, 40 years from now, you will find yourself at a commencement podium passing along the wisdom you acquired. And, if you are especially blessed, you will look out into that sea of graduates and see your own son or daughter in cap and gown.

So, Class of 2007, congratulations on all your hard work. You should feel very proud. Enjoy your accomplishments today and prepare for the great ride that starts tomorrow. Relax – you’re gonna be OK. The fun is just beginning. Best to you always and Godspeed!

For more on Freston, read Pattie’s exclusive profile in the February 16 issue of Fortune, “The Most Wanted Man on the Planet.” Freston built MTV and rose to be CEO of Viacom, only to be dumped by Sumner Redstone, Viacom’s chairman, on Labor Day 2006. More recently he’s been trotting the globe –Afghanistan, Burma, Rwanda; helping Oprah build her new TV network, OWN; and joining U2 frontman Bono on his mission to reduce global poverty and AIDS.

Here’s part two of Tom Freston’s 2007 commencement speech at Emerson College. In yesterday’s post, the former Viacom (VIAB) CEO shared the story of the sudden turn in his storied media career. Here Freston explains the first two things “you’re going to want to be able to say you’ve done if ever you are called upon to impart wisdom upon the young.”

One. First and foremost: You’re going to want to be able to say that – “but for Joseph Campbell, my life would have been one of quiet desperation.”

And if you don’t know who Joseph Campbell is, don’t worry, I am about to tell you. For those of you who have not read his books or don’t watch a lot of PBS, he was a scholar, philosopher-guru, and the author of the Power of the Myth who famously pleaded with students to “follow your bliss.”

I am under no illusion that anything I might tell you could improve upon that. He believed that by pursuing the thing you love, you actually put yourself on the path that has always been intended for you and that you were therefore destined to succeed on that path.

Boy, there is so much truth in that! And sadly, most people never get this guiding principle. I had my first Joseph Campbell moment on the deck of a houseboat floating in Kashmir, India. I was on the tail end of my year-long travel odyssey, still tormented with the question “What would I love to do?”

Advertising had not been it. This time I did not want to settle for anything less than true love. It was such a beautiful evening and, looking out upon the incredible landscape, my bliss revealed itself to me: I loved India! I felt so alive there. Even though I was just a kid from Connecticut who had arrived on the subcontinent practically by mistake, I felt this strong connection to the people. And somehow I was certain I wanted to make a life there.

It seemed to offer everything I needed. Also, as luck would have it, the recent introduction of the 747 and low air-freight costs created all kinds of exciting import-export opportunities to explore. I took it as a sign.

Now, in choosing Emerson and being more focused, most of you are closer to your “bliss” than your average graduate at other colleges. Use that advantage to your maximum advantage. You’re at a place in your life where you can do any of a million things, but find what you can do better than anyone else. You may have to bob and weave a bit — and you may find yourself waiting tables at some point — but never settle for less than what you love.

Everything good in your life will spring from this. Talent is the gift God gave you and you have spent the last 20 years making that gift your own. Each of you was lucky to receive it and from here on out, the harder you work, the luckier you will become. Only true love can fuel the hard work that awaits you. When Joseph Campbell said to follow your bliss, I’m sure he meant: Don’t walk after it, but run.

So be prepared to sweat.

Two. You’re also going to want to say your path included a couple of sharp left turns. Or even better yet, an illegal U-turn.

Asia, travel and entrepreneurship, as it turned out, were just the first in a series of blisses for me. As you may or may not have learned about love by now, sometimes you change your mind and other times, someone changes it for you. Then what?

I came home from India only to be professionally reincarnated. It was a big blow to me, but I methodically sought out another “bliss” of mine: music. It was something I knew a lot about, cared a lot about, and had a passion for. Knowing I had transferable skills from my last career, I sold my entrepreneurial track record to a young outfit that needed entrepreneurs, MTV.

People often say that a bad event is a “blessing in disguise.” Trust me, experience will teach you that some are unbelievably well disguised. Everyone gets fired, or decides to make a radical change at some point. Everyone suffers setbacks. Bad days await you, I can promise you that.

But as careers unfold, you might just find you have another “bliss…and it’s OK.” You are certain to change with time and there’s a chance your bliss may evolve too. Not to worry: The skills you acquire can always be effectively redeployed. You will look back on setbacks and be grateful for a catalyst that came not a moment too soon.

Look at Al Gore. He won an election for the Presidency, only to immediately be told that, actually, there was a mistake and he wasn’t President after all. He got fired before he was even finished being hired. But look at what he’s accomplished since then: working hard to save a planet, for God’s sake, and even winning Academy Awards. Not to mention that he also guest-starred on Futurama. Now that’s an inspirational career adjustment!

Tomorrow, the third and final segment of Tom Freston’s speech: two more mandates for life, and a warning about what could happen if grads don’t follow his advice.

For more on Freston, read Pattie’s exclusive profile in the February 16 issue of Fortune, “The Most Wanted Man on the Planet.” Freston built MTV and rose to be CEO of Viacom, only to be dumped by Sumner Redstone, Viacom’s chairman, on Labor Day 2006. More recently he’s been trotting the globe – Afghanistan, Burma, Rwanda; helping Oprah build her new TV network, OWN. He’s also working with U2 frontman Bono on his mission to reduce global poverty and AIDS.

It’s that time of year, so we’re sharing one of our favorite commencement speeches with you: Tom Freston’s 2007  address at Emerson College.

Pattie Sellers’ exclusive profile of Freston, “The Most Wanted Man on the Planet,” tells the story of a man who had built MTV and Viacom’s (VIAB) vast cable empire, got fired by chairman Sumner Redstone, walked away with $60 million in severance –  and actually knew what do do with the money. Today, when he’s not trotting the globe — Afghanistan, Burma, Rwanda, and beyond — Freston, 63, is helping Oprah Winfrey build her new TV network, OWN. He’s also working with U2 frontman Bono on his mission to reduce global poverty and AIDS.

This talk — which Freston gave at Emerson when his son Andrew was graduating — strikes us as one of the best commencement speeches we’ve heard besides Steve Jobs’ address at Stanford in 2005. Unlike that unforgettable speech by Apple’s (AAPL) founder, Freston’s talk has not been publicly circulated. Until now. We’ll post it on Postcards in three parts — today, tomorrow and Friday.

Good afternoon President Liebergott, distinguished faculty, fellow trustees, beaming parents and soon-to-be recent graduates of Emerson College. I am thrilled to be here and thank you for asking me to share with you one of the most important days of your lives. I feel like the proud father to all of you in general, and to one of you in particular. Hello Andrew. I remember how embarrassed I was when my father spoke at sixth grade Career Day, so I can imagine how you feel right now.

In preparing for these remarks, it dawned on me that it was exactly 40 years ago — almost to the day — that I graduated college and sat where you sit today. That was 1967, and it was a much different world. We were losing a senseless war in a far-away land. As a result of this war, anti-Americanism was rampant throughout the world. And here at home, this war had made our President wildly unpopular, to the point that the mere mention of his name would make crowds hiss and boo.

And it was right around this time in the upcoming presidential campaign that a lot of young people like me began rallying behind a Midwestern, anti-war senator who gave voice to our concerns. I know it’s hard to believe, but that’s how different the world really was back then.

We had a commencement speaker at my graduation too — but of course, I cannot remember who it was or what this person said. Those words were drowned out by my own interior monologue. That I can still remember, word for word: “Dear God, what the hell am I going to do now?”

On the other side of that door that you are all about to walk through is the wild road of life. And that life is hardly ever what you expect. A career path is rarely a path at all. A more interesting life is usual a more crooked, winding path of missteps, luck and vigorous work. It is almost always a clumsy balance between the things you try to make happen and the things that happen to you.

Not only do I believe that, I have the resume to prove it. Down on the bottom of that resume are all the many random jobs I had early on: bartender, bellhop, waiter, mailman, burger flipper, house painter, dishwasher, lawn mower, store clerk, snow shoveler, deliveryman and more. I always hustled to make money and pay for school. I was never afraid of hard work. After college I went to business school.

After that I put some more odd jobs on my resume, traveled a bit, and ended up working in an ad agency on the G.I. Joe account at the height of the Vietnam War. It was like something from a Joseph Heller novel.

Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I was told I was about to be assigned to a new account and it could be Charmin Toilet Paper. Hearing that, I quit, took my $4000 of savings, headed to Paris, and began a year-long Bohemian odyssey that took me through Europe and North Africa. I ended up in India and Afghanistan — just about as far away from toilet paper as I could get. I stayed there and started a clothing-for-export company. Those years were both complicated and exhilarating. However, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and some other unforeseen complications put an abrupt end to what had been a great adventure. Eight years after I left New York and built a good business, I came home deep in debt.

Back in the states, I set out to change my luck. And my luck kicked in on the day I landed a job at an embryonic venture in cable television — the Internet start-up of its day — at a company that went on to be called MTV. MTV begot Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land, and so on, until they collectively became MTV Networks.

I stayed at MTV Networks, then Viacom, Paramount, and the rest of it for a full 26 years, building those creative businesses into huge global operations. I did that until last fall when the ax fell and, just like that, I no longer worked there. In any career, some days are better than others – and that day was an “other.” It’s ironic: Here I am giving a commencement speech when I’m back right where I started, wondering, like you, “Dear God – what the hell am I going to do now?”

So that’s my career story and how I ended up on this podium today. Sadly, since I was too busy having a panic attack when I was receiving the commencement speech at my graduation, I will never know if I missed out on any wise words I could have used in the 40 years since. Or the good example I could have put to use right now, on how to give a commencement speech.

And maybe something like this might happen to someone in this class 40 years from now. It could be you giving a commencement speech. Or you. Or you.

It could happen and, if it did, what would you say to the many confused faces staring back at you? So, for the benefit of whichever of you may someday follow in my footsteps as a commencement speaker, I’ve put together the shortest list possible…so timeless that it’s guaranteed to stay Mentos-fresh for the next 40 years. Some things you’re going to want to be able to say you’ve done if ever you are called upon to impart wisdom upon the young. So let’s start with the most basic and most important…

Tomorrow, the second segment of Freston’s speech: two pieces of advice for the next 40 years.

“How should you behave? Well, do things in a group. Don’t do things by yourself. Groups are stronger, groups are faster. None of us is as smart as all of us.”

– Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt in his address to Carnegie Mellon 112th graduating class on Sunday. Schmidt’s theory about the wisdom of the crowd has been widely shared. What other advice did he have for the grads? Be prepared when opportunity strikes. “You cannot plan innovation. You cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be at the right place and be ready.” — Jessica Shambora

“Find someone to be successful for.”

– Barack Obama in his speech to Arizona State University grads on Wednesday in Tempe, Arizona. He borrowed the phrase from an ASU engineering student who said that watching video of the people who would benefit from the medical devices she was designing, “made us want to be successful for them.”

The President acknowledged that while many graduates might not know what they are going to do with their lives, they have an important role to play in the lives of others: children, senior citizens and the homeless. “None of them care how much money is in your bank account, or whether you’re important at work, or famous around town – they just know that you’re someone who cares, someone who makes a difference in their lives.” A powerful reminder for the rest of us too. –Jessica Shambora

by Esther Wojcicki, journalism teacher and newspaper adviser at Palo Alto High School

Reading the newspaper these days makes me sad about journalism. “The American Press on Suicide Watch” was the headline of Frank Rich’s New York Times column this past Sunday. “Legendary brands from the Los Angeles Times to the Philadelphia Inquirer are teetering,” Rich said, adding that the New York Times Co. (NYT) might shutter the Boston Globe. Maureen Dowd riffed too about “The Future of Journalism” — which was the title of last week’s Congressional hearing chaired by Senator John Kerry. Journalists, Kerry said, are “an endangered species.”

The crisis isn’t simply that consumers are no longer willing to pay real money to support real journalism. Consumers truly don’t care enough about the product. A Pew Research Center survey in March found that 42% of readers said they wouldn’t miss their city paper.  Most of these readers, as you might guess, were under 40 years old.

I care a lot because I teach journalism at Palo Alto High School, in California. I’ve been teaching high school journalism for 25 years. Starting with 19 students, I’ve built our journalism program into the largest high school journalism program in the country, with six publications, four journalism teachers, and about 400 students. In the advanced journalism class, I teach 70 juniors and seniors. I also teach freshman English.

I decided to poll my journalism students: “How do you prefer to get your news, online or in print format?”

The popular answer may surprise you. About 70% of the students said they prefer “print format” — a hard copy of the paper. They said it’s easier to read this way — especially if a story is long. Long stories online give you headaches and eyestrain, they told me.

When I asked how many get breaking news online, almost everyone raised their hands. They prefer online for breaking news and sports news as well. But they prefer the hard-copy newspaper for features, opinion pieces, and columns, as well as long news stories.

“Who prefers to read magazines online?” When I asked that question, no one raised their hand. Makes sense to me. I can’t imagine reading magazines online.

My students say that they read a greater variety of stories in print. Online they tend to seek specific stories or subscribe to RSS feeds that they know they’re interested in. This is why I urge them strongly to read the hard-copy newspaper. How can you expand your world and your knowledge base if you read only what you’re already interested in?

Yes, it’s ironic, these kids who live in the heart of Silicon Valley recognize the value of traditional print journalism. In February, I took 50 of my students to New York City to visit several publications. The New York Times was one of them. The editors there posed this question: “How many of you read the New York Times in print?” The majority of hands went up. The editors were very surprised.

As one of my students said, “Who wants to have breakfast reading your computer if you can avoid it?”

So here’s the reality: It’s not necessarily that people enjoy getting their news online. It’s just that it’s faster and more efficient — and free.

This is the rub: Readers aren’t willing to pay for news online. They expect it to be free. The standard was set back in the 90’s, and it’s now part of the culture of the Internet. Ads, they said…the ads should pay for it. So far, that strategy has had mixed results. And now we see Amazon.com (AMZN), with the Kindle, and other e-book innovators asking consumers to pay subscription fees for newspapers delivered wirelessly.

How will this story evolve? I’m not sure whether there is a solution to help pay for real journalism. I told one of my sources close to the industry about the results of my poll. “We are in a transition period,” he said. “Wait until the netbooks become ubiquitous. Then kids won’t mind taking their netbooks everywhere and accessing all their news online. It is just a matter of time.”

I wonder if it really is a matter of time. Not for me. Nothing can replace reading the New York Times on Sunday morning. I’ll pay for that pleasure, even though news about the future of journalism is bad.

Esther Wojcicki is a journalism teacher and newspaper adviser at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, California. In 2002, she was named California Teacher of the Year by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.  Starting in 1984, she built one of the largest high school journalism programs in the nation — about 400 students currently. One of her students a decade ago: my Postcards colleague Jessica Shambora. And we featured two of her daughters – Susan, VP of Product Management at Google (GOOG), and Anne, co-founder of genetic analysis startup 23andMe, in “The New Valley Girls,” a feature about Silicon Valley’s rising-star women in Fortune’s Most Powerful Women issue last October. Wojcicki’s other daughter, Janet, is Professor of Pediatrics at University of California Medical Center.

“Woj,” as Wojcicki is known to her friends and students, this year was named Board Chair of Creative Commons, a group dedicated to providing free licenses and other legal tools to facilitate sharing, remixing and using of creative works of all kinds.

“There’s always going to be someone out there like that movie critic, who doesn’t believe in you or who thinks your head is too big or you’re not smart enough or whatever. But those are the people you need to ignore, and those are the times you need to just keep doing what you love doing.”

– Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s (GE) Late Night and SNL alum, in a commencement address at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY on Saturday. Fallon also picked up a bachelor’s degree in communications, 17 years after first enrolling in classes at Saint Rose in 1992. He presented college officials with a portfolio of his TV and film work since he dropped out of college in 1995 — just one semester short of graduating — to pursue comedy in Los Angeles. “Finally, I convinced them that I’ve done enough communicating to get my communications degree,” Fallon said. –Jessica Shambora

by Jessica Shambora

It’s a given that when corporations suffer, so do the charitable groups that rely on them for support.

Amidst the financial crisis, many strapped non-profits face funding losses as the need for their services rises. And unlike their counterparts at for-profit corporations, not-for-profit execs haven’t had the proper leadership training do what’s needed — restructuring, staff cuts, even mergers with other organizations. A recent study by Bridgespan Group shows a major talent deficit in the non-profit sector: It anticipates job openings for 24,000 senior managers throughout 2009. It’ll be harder than ever to fill the holes, Bridgespan contends.

Fortunately, leadership advice is universal — applicable to non-profits and corporations alike — and American Express (AXP) CEO Ken Chenault is happy to hand it out. Chenault, chief since 2001 and on the boards of Procter & Gamble (PG) and IBM (IBM), is one of Warren Buffett’s favorite leaders; Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) owns 13.1% of American Express.

In late April Amex held its second non-profit leadership academy, a week-long program that offers training and development courses to 24 rising stars from non-profits nationwide. Participants included leaders from the American Red Cross, Feeding America, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I had the chance to hear Chenault address these leaders-in-training.

When I arrived at American Express headquarters in lower Manhattan, the participants were in the midst of a role play, practicing their “influence tactics.” Using strategies like “coalition-building, legitimizing and rationalization,” they attempted to win a fictional $50 million endowment. The exercise led to some insightful observations: “The business world uses all nine strategies, while the non-profit world tends to use a personal approach,” one participant noted.

Once Chenault arrived, he perched comfortably on a stool among the academy’s attendees and began by explaining that he knew a thing or two about leading through crisis. Only nine months into his stint as CEO, with the World Trade Center across the street from American Express’s headquarters, 9/11 happened. Chenault’s leadership skills were put to the test. He proved himself then and again recently: Last Friday the government announced that American Express had passed the bank stress test and was well-capitalized enough to survive the recession.

Leadership is one of the most written about subjects, but it doesn’t need to be complicated, Chenault says. He abides by a quote from Napoleon that he summarizes this way: “The role of a leader is to define reality and give hope.” In other words, Chenault says, “How do I construct a vision to engender hope and motivate people to reach challenging objectives?”

To start, Chenault emphasizes that during times of crisis leaders must be visible, communicate constantly and maintain their composure.

Born leaders do exist, he believes, but if you don’t work at it, you can’t attain the followership needed to be successful. You get there through feedback and training. Recalling his first 360-degree review at Amex, Chenault said it was humbling to learn that he had work to do on his listening skills, a trait he says he’s praised for today.

Chenault also shared what he looks for in a leader:

• Integrity is critical in uncertain times. “Not just being honest, but a consistency of actions and words.” Chenault advises avoiding those who shade what they say depending on who they’re talking to.
• Encourage people to speak up and state their point of view. “I look for those who let people see they can disagree and give different perspectives. You want open dialogue and constructive confrontation or you risk group-think.”
• Be a team player and collaborate. This is often misunderstood. “It’s not just about being nice. A good teammate says ‘Here’s what I’m going to do to help you to improve.’” It’s about putting the team ahead of individual egos.
• Execute. “Be personally accountable. Don’t have a long list of excuses why you couldn’t execute an idea.”
• Engage people by demonstrating authentic concern. “The different decisions you make impact the success of the organization and the livelihood of employees. They want to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
• Adaptability. Chenault looks for willingness to change the business model. He cites another favorite quote from Darwin: “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptive to change.”

“I can’t think of a more important role than to be a leader of a nonprofit,” Chenault told the group in closing. “Your resources are limited, and the most valuable resource you have are your people.”

“If you can see the possibility of change in your life — see the possibility of what you can become and not just what you are — you will be a huge success.”

– Oprah Winfrey in her address to Duke University grads on Sunday. After picking up an honorary doctor of human letters, Oprah began by quipping: “I’m gonna have everyone call me ‘doctor’ now.”

How did Duke score the media mogul (No. 8 on Fortune’s 2008 Most Powerful Women list) for its commencement ceremony? William Bumpus, Oprah’s godson and son of best friend Gayle King, was among the 4,400 graduates. Some might remember that Oprah spoke at his sister Kirby’s graduation from Stanford last year. You can download both speeches for free from iTunes, where you’ll also find the addresses given by former General Motors (GM) CEO Rick Wagoner at Duke in 2007 and Apple (AAPL) founder and CEO Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005, among others. What’s your favorite commencement speech? –Jessica Shambora

“I learned that life is an adventure and that the best course through life is to approach all of life as an adventure…Getting lost is an adventure from which we can learn uncommon and uncommonly important life lessons.”

– Carleton College President Robert Oden in a college application essay in the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal’s request, the presidents of 10 colleges and universities answered an essay question from their own school’s application–a grueling ritual high-school seniors endure every year. By now, most students have received their acceptance (and rejection) letters for the coming fall and face the dilemma of which school to attend.

The essay prompt for Carleton’s Oden: “Evaluate a significant experience, acheivement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.” Oden wrote about getting lost in Cairo while living there as a student. No sooner had he begun to panic than Oden realized he was safe and stumbled upon one of life’s greatest lessons about the value of the journey. –Jessica Shambora

“You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if you don’t have a pencil and pad by the bed to write it down, it will be completely gone the next morning? Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!”

–Google (GOOG) co-founder Larry Page in a commencement address given at his alma mater, the University of Michigan, on Saturday. The speech was an ode to the school that spawned him–his parents met there as students in 1962–and later educated him. Page’s central theme was the importance of family: He shared several heartfelt anecdotes about his late father and referenced the impending birth of his own first child. “Just like me, your families brought you here, and you brought them here. Please keep them close and remember: they are what really matters in life.”

But Page also had some stories for the grads about seizing moments of inspiration: “I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: What if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links and… I grabbed a pen and started writing!” Obviously that idea never panned out, but another one did. “Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking webpages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born.” The world would be a much different place if that idea had never been written down, wouldn’t it? –Jessica Shambora