Lessons From 4 of the Best Commencement Speeches Ever!

It is the right of passage that occurs at the end of every academic year. Graduating college seniors come together with their classmates, friends, families, and faculty to celebrate the culmination of one phase of their lives and the beginning of another.

The right of passage of which I am speaking? College graduation, also known as commencement.

As anyone who has attended a commencement ceremony will tell you, these ceremonies are often highlighted by a speech from someone famous, or not so famous who sends the graduates off with some sage words of wisdom and advice.

And as anyone who has attended a commencement ceremony will also tell you, many times these speeches are long, boring and those attending are hoping someone will come in with one of those big hooks you see in cartoons to yank the speaker off stage.

But, now and again…

those attending are treated to one of the best commencement speeches they have ever heard, which leaves a lasting impression on them.

Which brings us to today’s blog post. Yours truly has scoured the internet and found…

4 of the best commencement speeches ever!

And I will share the lessons learned from each. I have also embedded the videos in case you are interested in watching them.

Most speeches are intended to impart wisdom and advice that the attendees can utilize right away. However, there is the rare case when a lesson can be learned from a speech years later…

Which leads me to share a quick personal story…

…from a commencement ceremony that I attended – before we get to the 4 best commencement speeches ever.

Let me set the stage by taking you back to my own commencement from graduate school way back in the early 2000s. This was around the time when the whole Enron scandal was all over the news. To jog your memory – it was the accounting scandal which was filled with corruption and mismanagement by Enron executives which rocked Wall Street and Corporate America to its core.

And it was an obvious topic for our commencement speaker to base his address to a bunch of aspiring business students. Being so long ago, I don’t remember the whole speech, but I do recall his main message.

Who was the speaker? What was the message? And why am I sharing this story? You will have to wait until the end of the blog post to find out!

Let’s now continue and review 4 of the best commencement speeches ever, well at least in my humble opinion!

(1)  Robert De Niro – NYU Tisch School of the Arts – 2015

The first of the 4 best commencement speeches we will look at comes from actor, producer and, director Robert De Niro, who gave an incredible speech to the graduates at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU back in 2015.

DeNiro began his speech by congratulating them and then telling them ‘You made it and you’re f***ed!”, meaning that unlike other disciplines, these students would have a harder time finding jobs.

He went on to sarcastically share one piece of advice that he had given to his own kids, which was, ‘to never attend the Tisch School for Arts’ and to study accounting instead.

This led to his main message which revolved around rejection. He told the graduates that they would face it over and over, in both their professional and personal lives. Speaking primarily to those who will fail at times when pursuing acting jobs, his advice applies to those in all disciplines and to all of us.  ‘Rejection may sting, but a lot of times it has nothing to do with you, as many times they simply have someone else in mind.’

He went on to conclude by saying, ‘it’s not personal’ and that you cannot take it personally, ‘you just have to keep working’. Every time you get rejected you just need to move on and tell yourself, ‘Next!’

(2)  Randy Pausch – Carnegie Mellon – 2008

The next commencement address is one that was given by former Carnegie Mellon Professor and NY Times Bestselling author of “The Last Lecture”, Randy Pausch.

Pausch began his speech by telling the audience that he had been told that he had three to six months left to live and that he was now at month nine.

He shared that someone, having heard he had already surpassed the doctor’s predictions, had recently commented to him that ‘wow you are really beating the Grim Reaper!’

His response contained the first lessons of his speech, “We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer, we beat the Reaper by living well and living fully. For the Reaper will come for all of us, the question is what do we do between the time we are born and the time he shows up?”

Pausch concluded his speech with two pieces of advice on how to live your life well.

The first being that it’s not the things we have done that we regret on our deathbed, it’s the things we have not done. When you have a chance to do something cool – DO IT!

The second being that you will need to find your passion and to never give up on finding it. He suggested that you will never find your passion in things or in money. Passion comes from what fuels you from the inside. Otherwise, you are just waiting for the Reaper to come.  Passion is grounded in people and your relationships with people and what they think of you when the time comes.

(3)  Admiral William H. McRaven – University of Texas – 2014

The third commencement speech is one given by Admiral William H. McRaven, the ninth commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command. McRaven gives some amazing advice to the UT graduating class of 2014 on how to change the world based on his 36 years of experience as a Navy SEAL.

McRaven’s speech consists of lessons he learned in the military that can be applied anywhere by anyone. He states that it doesn’t matter your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, your social status or whether you have served – all of our struggles are similar and the lessons he gives to overcome them will apply equally to everyone.

His 10 lessons gleaned from SEAL training are as follows:

(i) Make your bed

According to Mc Raven, making your bed gives you your first accomplishment of the day and will encourage you to complete more and more tasks. That first task completed will soon turn into many tasks completed. It also demonstrates that the little things in life matter – if you can’t do the little things right, you won’t be able to do the big things right.

(ii) Find people to help you through life

Next, he told a story of everyone in a boat during SEAL training needing to row together or else the boat would not move successfully. The lesson being that no one can be successful alone, you need to surround yourself with good people.

(iii) Be respectful of everyone

He then shared a story about how during training there were 6 boat crews, made up of aspiring SEALS. He was on the boat crew with the ‘tall guys’ but the best crew was the one with the little guys, all under 5’5”, who they called ‘the Munchkin crew’. The Munchkins proceeded to out paddle, outswim and outrun all the big guys. Nothing mattered but their will to succeed. His message – measure someone by the size of their heart, not by the size of their flippers!

(iv) Learn to move on

Another story he shared was when they were put into a situation where it was impossible to succeed by design. Which was a lesson to the aspiring SEALS from their leaders that sometimes no matter what you do, things won’t work out and you need to just accept it and move on.

(v) Everyone fails many times during their life

But those failures make you stronger, they build inner strength and resiliency. Failure will test you to your inner core but don’t be afraid of failing, it will help you grow.

(vi) The need to sometimes take risks

McRaven told a story about how during an obstacle course, a student went down a rope head first, which had never been done and which was fraught with risk. But in the end, he did it and ended up breaking the time record. The lesson – sometimes you need to go at your obstacles head first!

(vii) Don’t back down from or be intimidated by others

During training, they had to complete a night swim where there was a chance they would be confronted by sharks. The advice they were given from their superiors was to never back down, hold your ground and if they come at you, punch them in the snout. McRaven says the same goes for life, we will all be confronted by sharks and bullies, the advice he gives is to never back down and to hold your ground.

(viii) You need to be your best at the darkest moments

Another story had to do with them conducting an extremely challenging mission on an abandoned ship with barely any light. The takeaway was you need to stay calm and step up in the toughest times to pull through and succeed.

(ix) Always be hopeful and spread hope

One time they were doing an exercise in the freezing cold mud which was borderline unbearable. The instructors made them a deal and told them they could all be done on one condition, 5 of them would have to quit. Instead of quitting, one started singing, then another until they were all singing which they used as a catalyst to keep going until they all stuck it out. The lesson being the importance of not only having hope but spreading hope to others.

(x) Don’t ever give up

His speech concluded with him telling the audience about a bell that any aspiring SEAL could ring to quit and get out. It meant they wouldn’t have to do any more swims in the freezing cold water, they wouldn’t have to get up early, they wouldn’t have to do any more crazy stuff and ensure the hardships of training – it also meant they would NEVER be a SEAL. The final lesson is – If you want to do great things in life, don’t EVER ring the bell!

(4) Rick Rigsby – Cal State University Military Academy – 2017

The last of the 4 best commencement speeches was given to the graduating class of Cal State University Military Academy by someone I had never heard of…a man named Rick Rigsby.

Rigsby is a former journalist and college professor at Texas A&M. Apparently, I was not the only one who was wowed by his speech as over 130 million people watched it worldwide as it went viral in a matter of days!

He began the speech by telling the graduates that the wisest person he has ever met was a 3rd-grade dropout.

The 3rd-grade dropout turned out to be his father who was ‘a simple cook’ who taught himself how to read and how to write.

Some of the lessons he shared from his father were:

Aim high: “I have no problem if you aim high and miss, but I will have a problem if you aim low and hit.”

Be on-time: “Son you would rather be an hour early than a minute late.”

As Aristotle said…Excellence is a habit: When asked by his wife why he left the house at 3:45 am each am, his Dad replied, “maybe one day my boys will catch me in the act of excellence”.

The importance of kindness: “I know you are tough but always remember to be kind.”

Do the right things: “Never embarrass Mama.”

Keep your ego in check: “Son, make sure your servant’s towel is bigger than your ego.” And “ego is anesthesia that dulls the pain of stupidity, pride is the burden of a foolish person”.

Lead by example: His Dad told him how despite being in the middle of his championship run at UCLA, basketball coach John Wooden would be found in the middle of the week sweeping the court himself. The advice, “[If] you want to make an impact, find your broom, [if] you want to grow your influence find your broom.”

Doing things right: “If you are going to do a job, do it right!”

Keep improving: “Good isn’t good enough if it can be better, better isn’t good enough if it can be best.”

He closed with a personal story that teaches a final lesson. I cannot do it justice by describing it, so I will instead encourage you to watch the video above. It went viral for a reason, it’s amazing!

Before we go…

Back to the Speech at My Commencement

Although obvious, the message given revolving corporate scandals was a good and timely one, which was to ‘always do the right thing.’

The problem was that not long after giving the speech, the speaker did not take his own advice.

You see, the speaker was none other than former North Carolina senator and vice-presidential and presidential candidate John Edwards.  Several years later, Edwards admitted to having an extramarital affair with a young filmmaker who was hired to work on his presidential campaign. After initially denying the affair and that he fathered a child with the woman, Edwards eventually admitted to both.

So, while the message of his speech to ‘always do the right thing’ was a good one, the lesson I took away came years later when I heard about the affair and reflected back to the advice he gave us on that December afternoon.

The lesson being, if you are going to give advice and share wisdom, you need to practice that advice and wisdom yourself, otherwise, you lose your credibility and integrity.

Until next time, the tassel is worth the hassle, and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

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References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards 
https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/14/us/john-edwards-fast-facts/index.html