What Really Matters

There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

     Oprah Winfrey 

As graduation season has just passed, we want to share excerpts from five of our favorite speeches to the college graduates of 2013.  These excerpts remind and challenge us all with some of the more important lessons for living a good and fulfilling life.  These are lessons and values we hold closely:  

• Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ, speaks of the regret he had in not paying attention a vibrant life that was right in front of him, until it was too late;
• Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, addresses the truth that fostering and nurturing deep human connection is the purpose and result of a meaningful life;
• Laura Linney, award-winning actress, expresses the hope that we will not allow the critics among us to gain power over our life’s work and to define what is true for us;
• Stephen Cobert,  host of the Colbert Report, encourages not shying away from choosing the hard path that leads to the life and world we want;
• Oprah Winfrey, media mogul and entrepreneur, affirms the need for redefining failure, learning from our life’s mistakes and developing an internal moral and emotional GPS to show us the way to go.

Cory Booker, at Yale University

There was a group of kids that used to hang in the lobby of my building. … One in particular, he reminded me of my dad. He had that quick wit, that great swagger…

One month into my time as mayor, I got another call for a shooting. It was on Court Street in our city, and I go down there and I do the same thing. I’m going to people, telling them about our plans, telling them that we had to pull together, that we were going to fight through this crime that we were going to drive down the violence. I barely paid attention to the dead body on the sidewalk and another one being rolled into an ambulance.

After that night of being important, of being mayor of New Jersey’s biggest city, I went back to my home in the high-rises of Brick Towers. I sat there with my BlackBerry reviewing the incident reports of the day, and then it came to that shooting on Court Street. And I looked at that BlackBerry, and I saw the name of the murder victim. It was the kid from my lobby. It was the young man who was my father. It was this smart and charismatic young man who God had put in front of me every single day.

I looked at my BlackBerry praying that the name would somehow change, praying that it was a mistake or maybe not the same young man, but it was him. … How could we all crowd a funeral home for his death? Where were we for his life? God had put him right in front of my face, but I was charging off, to do important things. I could not see what was right in front of me.

Melinda Gates, at Duke University

Of course, all the hype about how connected you are has contributed to a counternarrative — that, in fact, your generation is increasingly disconnected from the things that matter. The arguments go something like this: Instead of spending time with friends, you spend it alone, collecting friend requests. Rather than savoring your food, you take pictures of it and post them on Facebook.

I want to encourage you to reject the cynics who say technology is flattening your experience of the world. …

Technology is just a tool. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s just a tool. Deep human connection is very different. It’s not a tool. It’s not a means to an end. It is the end — the purpose and the result of a meaningful life — and it will inspire the most amazing acts of love, generosity and humanity. … I want you to connect because I believe it will inspire you to do something, to make a difference in the world. Humanity in the abstract will never inspire you in the same way as the human beings you meet. Poverty is not going to motivate you. But people will motivate you.

Laura Linney, at Juilliard

All of you are moving into a world ever ready to remind that you aren’t in school anymore, a world that demands results quickly and cares very little about how you produce them. It’s true, you are not in school anymore. But now, the school is in you. …

I wish you perspective when situations or people seem more important than they really are, and the ability to detect those people or events who have much to offer but don’t inherently draw your attention. In other words, charisma is not character. This is also very good dating advice.

I hope you never give anyone the power to tell anyone how to feel about your own work. That is your responsibility alone. Critics are in a different profession than we are. Don’t look to them for your truth.

Stephen Colbert, at the University of Virginia

On the one hand, in Jefferson’s public life as a founding father, we often see him as the embodiment of the white male patriarchy. But in his private life, he was known for, shall we say, embracing diversity — very affirmative in his actions. … You are his intellectual heirs. In fact, some of you may be his actual heirs — we’re still testing the DNA.

If you must find your own path, and we have left you no easy path, then decide now to choose the hard path that leads to the life and the world you want. And don’t worry if we don’t approve of your choices. In our benign self-absorption, I believe we have given you a gift, a particular form of independence, because you do not owe the previous generation anything. Thanks to us, you owe it to the Chinese.

Oprah Winfrey, at Harvard University 

If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages — not to mention the myth of Icarus — predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

Now, when you’re down there in the hole, it looks like failure. So this past year I had to spoon-feed those words to myself. And when you’re down in the hole, when that moment comes, it’s really O.K. to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost, but then here’s the key: Learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter and particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are. And then figure out what is the next right move. And the key to life is to develop an internal moral, emotional GPS that can tell you which way to go.

To read more excerpts from notable speakers click here for the New York Times.

Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash