Issue Date: October 8, 2006

Past articles: Isaiah Washington lends a hand Marysol Castro on why volunteering is important to her "Katrina cottage" house giveaway

Good Morning America is the exclusive broadcast partner for USA WEEKEND's Make A Difference Day 2006. Read inspirational words from the show's anchors and correspondents.

Some things are just meant to be. Or maybe they're not meant to be, but they come about anyway because someone puts a goal or an ideal or a challenge out in front of you and you rise to meet it. If you've achieved any kind of real and lasting success, if you've made any kind of difference, it's more than likely there was someone there to help point the way.

Years ago, I met a woman named Ruth Green at my mother's beauty shop. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was home from college. And in the spring of 1975, I was home a lot. I had been asked to take a leave from Fordham University, where I guess things weren't going as well as I had thought. I passed a lot of time by moping around, deciding what I wanted to do with my life. That's just what I was doing when I kept catching this woman's eye in the mirror as she sat beneath one of my mother's hair dryers. I knew her to say hello, but that was about it, and yet it seemed like she was staring at me. Then, all of a sudden, she shot up and out from underneath the dryer and said, "Somebody get me a pen."

She said she'd had a prophecy, and she wanted to put it down on paper. What she had seen, she said, was that I was bound to accomplish something. She told me I would speak to millions. She told me I would travel the world. She told me I would make a positive difference.

And she wrote all this down on a little piece of paper that I still carry with me. Why? Because her words are a constant reminder of what has grown to be a profound exchange.

At one time, I wanted to be a preacher, like my father, and I thought maybe Mrs. Green was picking up on that, but now I realize she was talking about something else. At each stage in my life, going forward from that moment in my mother's beauty shop, her words have meant something different, depending on what was going on in my career at the time.

And each time, they gave me something to shoot for, something to live up to. Something to be.

Now that I've had some success as an actor, traveled the world and made a couple of movies that contributed in a small part to the way we all look out on that world, I see the power of Ruth Green's words.

I think we all have a responsibility to give something back, to leave this world a better place for our having been there. If you ask me, being successful means helping others.