“You mean you go off into the deep, dark forest and save poor children who are lost?”

“Well, yeah, sort of . . . sometimes. Other times we spend hours looking for a lost kid who is actually just playing video games in his own basement.”

I was in love.

But I digress. Jump ahead a couple of years. We’re married and trying out our 123rd restaurant in the greater Denver area. What started out as a totally casual, impromptu discussion turned into, well, a book.

I’m not sure who started the conversation, but we talked about how great it feels to do something for someone else without asking for anything in return. Whenever we can use a little pick me up, volunteering or a simple good deed is just the ticket.

Each of us in our own way found volunteerism to be the ultimate self-help method before we even met. No matter what was going on in our personal lives, we would feel awesome after just a few hours of helping someone else. Being of service to others was transformational.

That night at our 123rd Denver restaurant, we agreed that volunteerism brought meaning to our lives—and it also made us slightly more interesting when we went on dates.

We decided right then to start asking others why they volunteer. Was it because they felt like they should, or was there more to it than that? Did they have the same transformational experience we had, or were we just sappy creative types who attached too much meaning to stuff?

Over the next few weeks, we posed the following questions to family members and friends: Why do you volunteer? What do you get out of it? Why do you do it? Has it changed your life?

The answers have been nothing less than inspirational. So we widened the circle. At this moment, we’ve contacted over forty people from all over the country—and one person in England—and they all love to tell us about what volunteerism has done for them.

They are very shy about whether or not they’ve made a difference in the world, though. Almost every single person we have polled says, “Oh, there are so many people who do more than I do. Why are you asking me?” But they are equally uniform in their response to the question about how volunteering has changed their lives. There is a brief moment of silence; then sometimes a tear or a cough; then they always say, “I can’t even begin to tell you . . .”

We’re not even halfway through the research for this book, and we have been floored every single time when we listen to someone’s story. Conducting these interviews has been one of the most utterly joyful experiences we’ve ever had.

But Houston, we’ve got a problem. Every time we finish an interview, we want to go right out and join the cause! We can’t possibly try all of these volunteer opportunities. That would be crazy! There’s no time! Make it stop.

On the other hand, we have made it to 123 restaurants in Denver. Maybe we could check out some of these volunteer opportunities, too. I mean, I guess the real question is how much joy can we stand?

I encourage you to browse through the Volunteer! tab on this website. Find out about some of these outstanding people and organizations. Get a little shot of joy when you read about what ordinary people are doing to reach out and connect with their communities and their world. It’s shocking. It’s revolutionary. Maybe you should give it a try.