Then presidential aspirant, Senator Barrack Obama stood in for Senator Edward Kennedy, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and Barrack delivered an inspiring commencement speech to the 2008 graduating class at Wesleyan University. He implored them to be of service to their community and make the world a better place.
Barack Obama’s 2008 Commencement Speech Transcript at Wesleyan University.
Thank you, President Roth, for that generous introduction, and congratulations on your first year at the helm of Wesleyan. Congratulations also to the class of 2008, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of your graduation.
I have the distinct honor today of pinch-hitting for one of my personal heroes and a hero to this country, Senator Edward Kennedy. Teddy wanted to be here very much, but as you know, he’s had a very long week and is taking some much-needed rest. He called me up a few days ago and I said that I’d be happy to be his stand-in, even if there was no way I could fill his shoes.
I did, however, get the chance to glance at the speech he planned on delivering today, and I’d like to start by passing along a message from him: “To all those praying for my return to good health, I offer my heartfelt thanks. And to any who’d rather have a different result, I say, don’t get your hopes up just yet!”
Andrew Carnegie (November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist, steel magnate, and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history.
The Carnegie family had left their home in Scotland and come to America when Andrew was 13. Andrew worked first in an American textile factory, then as a Morse code telegrapher, and then for the railroads. He served as an assistant on the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1850s while still in his 20s. There, he learned sophisticated business management techniques—dealing with distributed assets, levels of trustworthiness, strict accountability, unforeseen problems, and cost-effectiveness. He showed a great talent for buying successful stocks, taking advantage of what we now call insider trading, which was then legal.
Most of us live our lives like we would be alive forever, but the truth is that we are all living on borrowed limited time. The Buddha once said that the challenge is that we think we have time. When we hear someone DIE especially if they are young, like Kobe Bryant or Chadwick Boseman, we reflect for a minute about how short life is and how one needs to have a sense of urgency. Still, that reflection does not usually last for many of us as we go back to our lives of quiet desperation.
We continue to perform for the world as we have always done in most of our adult life, spend 4-5 years of our lives studying a course we are not passionate about and would not use for work eventually, we eventually get a job we are not excited about, and we keep jumping from one job to the other with perks such as promotions, health and dental benefits, salary to pay for our mortgage and hence we do not follow our bliss. We give a shit about what people think about us and edit our performance for their validation; what would my family members say or think? How would my co-workers look at me? How would the social media platforms algorithms validate this?
When you’re 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking about you. When you’re 40, you don’t give a darn what anybody thinks of you. When you’re 60, you realize that nobody has been thinking about you at all!
We say to ourselves, I would start the business when I have gathered enough money, start traveling when the kids leave the house, volunteer for great initiatives when I retire, and read more books when I leave paid employment. It follows the same pattern: Someday, I’ll...When I get here, I will do this.
We all start the day with the same amount of time: 86,400 seconds, 1,440 minutes, 24 hours. The billionaire, the homeless, the politician, the celebrity, the entrepreneur, and the 9-5er. We all start the same way but what determines how successful we become is our use of time, which invariably determines our decision making, choices, and routine. Imagine your time like a bank account with credits of $86,400 each morning, and it is carried over no balance from day-to-day.
Each of us has such a bank. It’s name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today
In his very thought-provoking 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, the late CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, advised that we find what we love to do and live every day like it could be our last as our time here is limited:
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
We are all on a journey in this world and having a sense of urgency can not be overemphasized cos Life is very short. Most of us do not understand this very profound message of life until we lose a loved one, escape a ghastly motor accident, survive a terminal diagnosis, or endure a boiling point moment. Depending on which part of the world you are in, let’s use the USA as a reference country which has a life expectancy of 79 years.
We spend at least one third of our lives sleeping, and spend another one third of that working. After spending 2/3rd of our lives working and sleeping. After factoring in grooming, schooling, commuting, gossiping, watching TV, Social Media, Whatsapp, we have just like 10 years left to be really productive and try to leave a legacy in the world.
The moment you realize that your time here is limited, you begin to re-order your priorities. Instead of viewing 90 minutes of soccer, you view the highlights instead, most times; it does not feel like the time is much, but when you add 4 hours of viewing premier league soccer, midweek and weekends; it eventually adds up that is 200 hours (8-10 days) of soccer per year, in 36 years, you would have used one year of your precious life to view soccer.
Your time here is limited, don’t waste it performing for others, follow your bliss, have fun, get things done, be remarkable, exceptional and leave a legacy in the process.
All the Best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.
Aaron Sorkin ’83, screenwriter of the Social Network, used his particular blend of wit and principles to deliver a stirring commencement address for the Syracuse University 158th graduation ceremony on Sunday, 13 May 2012.
“Being your own story means you can always choose the tone. It also means that you can invent the language to say who you are and what you mean.”
The renowned and prolific author, who was the first African American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Toni Morrison delivered a thought provoking and inspiring commencement speech to the Wellesley Class of 2004.
I have to confess to all of you, Madame President, Board of Trustees, members of the faculty, relatives, friends, students. I have had some conflicted feelings about accepting this invitation to deliver the Commencement Address to Wellesley’s Class of 2004. My initial response, of course, was glee, a very strong sense of pleasure at, you know, participating personally and formally in the rites of an institution with this reputation: 125 years of history in women’s education, an enviable rostrum of graduates, its commitment sustained over the years in making a difference in the world, and its successful resistance to challenges that women’s colleges have faced from the beginning and throughout the years. An extraordinary record—and I was delighted to be asked to participate and return to this campus.
But my second response was not so happy. I was very anxious about having to figure out something to say to this particular class at this particular time, because I was really troubled by what could be honestly said in 2004 to over 500 elegantly educated women, or to relatives and friends who are relieved at this moment, but hopeful as well as apprehensive. And to a college faculty and administration dedicated to leadership and knowledgeable about what that entails. Well, of course, I could be sure of the relatives and the friends, just tell them that youth is always insulting because it manages generation after generation not only to survive and replace us, but to triumph over us completely.
There is a great story that teaches the power of focus:
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Like the story above, when you change what you focus on, what you focus on changes. If you focus on the bad things in your life, it expands, and if you focus on the good things, the good things expand.
Peter: Awesome, thanks Sam for inviting me, thanks for having me.
I sort of have a single idée fixe that I’m completely obsessed with on the business side which is that if you’re starting a company, if you’re the founder, entrepreneur, starting a company you always want to aim for monopoly and you want to always avoid competition. And so hence competition is for losers, something we’ll be talking about today.
I’d like to start by saying something about the basic idea of when you start one of these companies, how do you go about creating value? What makes a business valuable? And I want to suggest there’s basically a very simple formula, that if you have a valuable company two things are true. Number one, that it creates “X” dollars of value for the world. Number two, that you capture “Y” percent of “X.” And the critical thing that I think people always miss in this sort of analysis is that “X” and “Y” are completely independent variables, and so “X” can be very big and “Y” can be very small. “X” can be an intermediate size and if “Y” is reasonably big, you can still have a very big business.
Your attitude determines your altitude; we all go through challenging times in life, peaks and valley, ups and down, frowns and smiles. Life is a fight for territory. There is no problem-free life, and the way to get through whatever you are going through in life is to have a positive attitude and believe there will be a brighter day, this too shall pass; it is not being pollyanna but holding on to hope.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer
In his book, “Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work.”, Author John C. Maxwell, believes attitude is
It is the “advance man” of our true selves.
Its roots are inward but its fruit is outward.
It is our best friend or our worst enemy.
It is more honest and more consistent than our words.
It is an outward look based on past experiences.
It is a thing that draws people to us or repels them.
It is never content until it is expressed.
It is the librarian of our past.
It is the speaker of our present.
It is the prophet of our future
Here are some great quotes on having a positive attitude:
“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.” – Alexander the Great
“THE TOP PRIORITY OF ANY MANAGER IS THE WELL-BEING AND SUCCESS OF HER PEOPLE.”
In the Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell, the authors shared one of Bil Campbell’s dictates for getting the most out of people; he had developed the manifesto while he was at Intuit and often repeated it practically verbatim to his coachees.
Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering deep relationships with Silicon Valley visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt.
“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” – Josh Billings
Anytime you say: “yes” to one request, you might have to defend it over time with 100 NOs. There is always a trade-off. If you say yes to mindless social media scrolling or picking up your phone to check WhatsApp messages every 15 minutes, you are saying NO invariably to your dream of writing a book or a blog post article. Many of us find it hard to say NO to people’s requests because we do not have clear goals, values, priorities, and boundaries.
The key to saying NO is to say it graciously and with utmost sincerity. You can say something like: Thank you for the offer/invitation but due to my other commitments, I can not do this right now. Honesty is the best policy, mean what you say and say what you mean. No need to promise people what you know you are not going to do, this eventually leads to resentment and loss of trust in the relationship.
“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”- Theodor Seuss Geisel
You are either living a storm, going through a storm, or entering a new storm. Whatever would go wrong would always go wrong (Murphy’s Law). Life happens to all of us. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: ” The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”- Viktor E. Frankl
Life is a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs, twists and turns; sometimes you are down, sometimes you are up, sometimes you want to smile, but the tears come rolling. At one point in our lives, we are going to be faced with challenges and tribulations. There is no trouble-free life, life is in seasons, and whatever is happening to you right now, it has not come to stay; this too shall pass.
The road to success is not straight. There is a curve called Failure, a loop called confusion, speed bumps called Friends, red light called Enemies, caution lights called Family, You will have flat tires called Jobs, but if you have a spare called Determination, an engine called Perseverance, a driver called willpower, you will make it to a place called Success.
Daniel Pink is one of my favorite authors; his 2001 book Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself, changed my worldview about the future of work and freelancing. After reading the book, for a funny reason, I tried to be ambidextrous but had to give it up after a while.
New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink in his Masterclass Session shares tactics for becoming a stronger motivator and communicator- all drawn from behavioral science for effective selling.
Daniel Pink has been exercising the art of persuasion for decades, first as a law school student, and later as a political speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. His bestselling books draw on behavioral science to better understand how humans are motivated and gain more effective and ethical selling in dramatically changing business environments.
Named one of the most influential management thinkers in the world by London-based Thinkers 50, Daniel is the author of six books on business and human behavior, including two No. 1 New York Times bestsellers: Drive and To Sell Is Human.
Texas native Matthew McConaughey, an Academy Award-winning actor, delivered a very inspiring and thought-provoking commencement speech to the 2015 graduating students of the University of Houston at TDECU Stadium on Friday, May 15.
Matthew McConaughey’s 2015 University of Houston Commencement Speech Transcript
Can you hear me? Can you hear me? You hear me? Okay. Congratulations class of 2015. You guys and girls, and young men and women are the reason I’m here. I’m really looking forward to talking with you all tonight. You heard my dad played football here and I believe he even graduated from here. That was some extra incentive for me to come. Short and sweet or long and salty? A sugar doughnut or some oatmeal?
Now, out of respect for you and your efforts in getting your degree, I thought long and hard about what I could share with you tonight. Did I want to stand up here at a podium and read you your rights? Did I want to come up here and just share some funny stories. I thought about what you would want, I thought about what you might need. I also thought about what I want to say and what I need to say. Hopefully, we’re both going to be happy on both accounts. As the saying goes, take what you like, leave the rest. Thank you for having me
So before I share with you some what I do knows, I want to talk with you about what I don’t know. I have two older brothers. One was in high school in the early 1970s. And this was a time when a high school GED got you a job, and the college degree was exemplary. My other brother, Pat, was in high school in the early 80s.
And by this time, the GED wasn’t enough to guarantee employment. He needed a college degree. And if you got one, you had a pretty good chance of getting the kind of job that you wanted after you graduated. Me, I graduated high school in 1988. Got my college degree in 1993. And that college degree in ’93 did not mean much. It was not a ticket. It was not a voucher. It was not a free pass go to anything. So I asked the question, what does your college degree mean?
It means you got an education, means you have more knowledge in a specific subject, vocation, means you may have more expertise in “what your degree” is in.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
Purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. He who has a strong WHY can deal with anyhow. With purpose, you go the extra mile because you have a compelling vision and why you are doing whatever it is you are doing. It gives you direction, drive, unrelenting perseverance, and resilience. Your purpose keeps you going when times are tough because you have a clear vision of the future.
Purpose is the straightest path to power and the ultimate source of personal strength—strength of conviction and strength to persevere.
The prescription for extraordinary results is knowing what matters to you and taking daily doses of actions in alignment with it. When you have a definite purpose for your life, clarity comes faster, which leads to more conviction in your direction, which usually leads to faster decisions.
When you make faster decisions, you’ll often be the one who makes the first decisions and winds up with the best choices. And when you have the best choices, you have the opportunity for the best experiences. This is how knowing where you’re going helps lead you to the best possible outcomes and experiences life has to offer.
“Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”— Abraham Lincoln
Purpose also helps you when things don’t go your way. Life gets tough at times and there’s no way around that. Aim high enough, live long enough, and you’ll encounter your share of tough times.
That’s okay. We all experience this. Knowing why you’re doing something provides the inspiration and motivation to give the extra perspiration needed to persevere when things go south. Sticking with something long enough for success to show up is a fundamental requirement for achieving extra-ordinary results.”
Purpose provides the ultimate glue that can help you stick to the path you’ve set. When what you do matches your purpose, your life just feels in rhythm, and the path you beat with your feet seems to match the sound in your head and heart. Live with purpose and don’t be surprised if you actually hum more and even whistle while you work.
When you ask yourself, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do in my life that would mean the most to me and the world, such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” you’re using the power of The ONE Thing to bring purpose to your life.
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” – Viktor Frankl
The Catalyst by Jonah Berger is a great and transformative book for me personally as I have tendencies of wanting to change people (Messiah Syndrome); for example, whenever I finish a book, watch a documentary, or get exposed to new information, I want to share it with everybody but have come to realize people are at different levels and period in their lives (they change when they are ready). Anytime I want to get frustrated with people and change, I remind myself that first: I might be wrong and I remember the words of Author John C. Maxwell on Change:
“People change when they … Hurt enough that they have to, Learn enough that they want to, and Receive enough that they are able to.” – John C. Maxwell
Berger shares a great framework called REDUCE (Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, and Corroborating Evidence) for effecting change, and I absolutely love it.
The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind introduces a revolutionary approach to change. Successful change isn’t about pushing harder or exerting more energy. It’s about removing barriers. Overcoming resistance by reducing friction and lowering the hurdles to action. Discover the five hidden factors that impede change, and how by mitigating them, you can change anything.
Books Theme:
How to overcome inertia, incite action, and change minds—not by being more persuasive, or pushing harder, but by being a catalyst. By removing the barriers to change. Identifying what is blocking or preventing change. And eliminating these obstacles to action.
The book is about finding the parking brakes. Discovering the hidden barriers preventing change. Identifying the root or core issues that are thwarting action and learning how to mitigate them.
