毕业典礼老师三分钟激励英语演讲稿范文（通用31篇）
Life is short, before you realize it, you have missed the opportunity to accompany those important people in your life, and more importantly, to let them sense your love and gratitude towards them.
When I was young, like any other young people who aspire to explore the outside world, I joined a multinational company, upon graduation. I subsequently moved to Hong Kong to work and eventually settled down in Singapore and started my own family. Over the years I indeed saw many parts of the world, especially in my current job. The preparation for icebreaker speech last night allowed me to take a reflection on whether I havedone enough for these important people while I am constantly shuttling here andthere to satiate my own desire.
You’re about to hear a fine student response at the end of today’s program. (I know that because I get a sneak peek at those remarks.) But I wish you could also have heard the two talks given at last December’s winter commencements.
Jordan Cebulla told of being a poor student in high school here locally who almost abandoned any idea of higher education. But, told by a family friend that Lafayette is, quote, “a gritty town full of gritty people,” he gave Ivy Tech a try. And four years later, he is a Purdue alum. He told his classmates, “In the end, if we quit on ourselves, everyone else will quit on us, too.”
In his response speech, Seon Shoopman confided that, out of sixteen schools he applied to, Purdue was the only one to admit him, provided he attend our summer boot camp. Three and a half years later, he, too, earned his Purdue degree, with honors, becoming the first in his family to graduate from college. Seon said that, more than any other motive, he wanted to do it for the mother who had pushed him all the way. “When I wanted to quit, she told me not to. When I wanted to leave school, she told me not to. She told me to fight, be strong, and make something of myself.”
Some in today’s world think they have discovered something new in the concept of “grit.” A Harvard Business School article just last fall was titled “Organizational Grit,” and reported that, quote, “High achievers have extraordinary stamina. ... When easier paths beckon, their commitment is steadfast. Grit predicts who will accomplish challenging goals.” So that’s why a Harvard MBA costs 200 grand.
english is a useful language all over the world. why are we began to learn english when we were little children beacause it is very important for us to learn it.in the world, if you cannot speak english you will lose half a chance to success. i began to learn english when i was 8 years old.at that moment,i do not like english.i connot remember all the words which i have learnt.i think it is very difficult for me to learn it well.so i cannot read english loudly and i never answer the questions in the english classes.
now, i like english very well and i still use the ways he tells me.i know i must learn english even hard.
these good jobs? mrs. mcmahon: you have raised an incredibly great point. an enormous problem. this is something that reallyhas the administration been informed by the private sector. when they tell us one of their single bill gives challenges is the skills gap. they have available jobs they are unable to fill because people don't have adequate training. time and time again we hear this. it is all the more problematic for the smaller employers who don't have the benefits and can't be as competitive, competing for those same jobs that limited people had to fill. we have been in ormislead focused on technical education, skills-based education.the president signed an executive order where he is going todramatically expand apprenticeship in this country. it has beensuccessful around the world. try giving people skills-basededucation, creating industrywide certification and credentialing so people like in the industry like yours can have a recognizedcredential that is portable and they can take with them, that recognizes they are trained in the areas employers need them.one of the things we found that is successful, the teeming ofindustry and the community colleges and technical schools.many employers are working with community colleges, helping them develop curriculums that train their students. they employ them on the other side. that is something that has been workingon the private sector and we are looking to fuel and scale at a national level.
About the common stuff about entrepreneurship, I'd read too much from books and talks. So, I'm going to share my own opinion. Something special, I think.
At the beginning of the talk, he told that he's really intense because it is his first time to present in front of a crowd of academics. He suggested the students should complete the academic study, and don't give up.
If I had the chance to take all the wealth and so called fame and glory that I have right now, and buy back 15 years of life, but keep the knowledge that I have now, and relive the physique I had 15 years ago and trade places with you right now, I would make that trade in a heartbeat.
The problem with these stories is that they show what the data shows: women systematically underestimate their own abilities. If you test men and women, and you ask them questions on totally objective criteria like GPAs, men get it wrong slightly high, and women get it wrong slightly low. Women do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce. A study in the last two years of people entering the workforce out of college showed that 57 percent of boys entering, or men, I guess, are negotiating their first salary, and only seven percent of women. And most importantly, men attribute their success to themselves, and women attribute it to other external factors. If you ask men why they did a good job,they'll say, "I'm awesome. Obviously. Why are you even asking?" If you ask women why they did a good job, what they'll say is someone helped them, they got lucky, they worked really hard.
Leaders with the academic preparation to solve mind-bending technological challenges. With the moral character to help society navigate times of blurringly fast change, in ways that are ethical, equitable, and humanistic. Most of all, with the inner strength to take on the burdens of high responsibility, and the heat, envy, and hostility that comes with them, and deliver the positive change that human progress requires.
You showed the quality of grit before you arrived here. That’s why we admitted you. I hope that your days here, with a faculty that pushed and stretched you, and classmates like Jordan and Seon to inspire you, built your reserves of resilience.
then others will look to you, not with pity but with HOPE, because your strength will become their HOPE, their strength.
You really can be that powerful.
You can ditch the victim story, you can leave the pain behind and FOCUS on how you will react next. How you will react positively.
Read. Read all you can read to get your mind in a positive place.
Take steps to ensure you will be in a better position next time – whatever pain you are suffering – how can you ensure it won’t show again – Take little steps… and soon you will be at the top of the stair case.
Don’t give up
You are worthy
You are more than worthy!
You deserve to experience how great life can be – and you owe it to the world to be that positive change for others. To inspire others – who will look to you and say – he did it, she did it, and I can do it too.
Don't give up. You are worthy. You are MORE than worthy!
we should learn to stick to our life no matter how difficult the life is and we should learn to love others .it is the flim tellsx me .
it is a story talks about a black girl named precious .precious isx fat and not beautiful. her bad temped mother never workx, always cheated others to relieve her ,and atex while watching tv all day.what is worse ,precious was only 16,but she had pregnant for twice .out of assumption ,her child is her farther
a poet said “to see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour. several days ago, i had a chance to listen to a lecture. i learnt a lot there. id like to share it with all of you. lets show our right palms. we can see three lines that show how our love.career and life is. i have a short line of life. what about yours i wondered whether we could see our future in this way. well, lets make a fist. where is our future where is our love, career, and life tell me.yeah, it is in our hands. it is held in ourselves.
I should know: In the acting business, you fail all the time.
Early in my career, I auditioned for a part in a Broadway musical. A perfect role for me, I thought—except for the fact that I can’t sing.
So I’m in the wings, about to go on stage but the guy in front of me is singing like Pavarotti and I am just shrinking getting smaller and smaller...
So I come out with my little sheet music and it was “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations, that’s what I came up with.
So I hand it to the accompanist, and she looks at it and looks at me and looks at the director, so I start to sing and they’re not saying anything. I think I must be getting better, so I start getting into it.
But after the first verse, the director cuts me off: “Thank you. Thank you very much, you’ll be hearing from me.”
The next part of the audition is the acting part. I figure, I can’t sing, but I know I can act.
But the guy I was paired with to do the scene couldn’t be more overdramatic and over-the top.
Suffice to say, I didn’t get the part.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t quit. I didn’t fall back.
I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition, and the next audition, and the next one. I prayed and I prayed, but I continued to fail, and I failed, and I failed.
But it didn’t matter. Because you know what? You hang around a barbershop long enough—sooner or later you will get a haircut.
You will catch a break.
Last year I did a play called Fences on Broadway and I won a Tony Award. And I didn’t have to sing for it, by the way.
And here’s the kicker—it was at the Court Theater, the same theater where I failed that first audition 30 years prior.
The point is, every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed.
But do you have guts to fail?
Here’s my second point about failure:
If you don’t fail… you’re not even trying.
My wife told me this expression: “To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.”
Les Brown, a motivational speaker, made an analogy about this.
Imagine you’re on your deathbed—and standing around your bed are the ghosts representing your unfilled potential.
The ghosts of the ideas you never acted on. The ghosts of the talents you didn’t use.
And they’re standing around your bed. Angry. Disappointed. Upset.
“We came to you because you could have brought us to life,” they say. “And now we go to the grave together.”
So I ask you today: How many ghosts are going to be around your bed when your time comes?
You invested a lot in your education. And people invested in you.
And let me tell you, the world needs your talents.
Man, does it ever.
I just got back from four months of filming in South Africa—beautiful country, but there are places with terrible poverty that need help.
And Africa is just the tip of the iceberg.
I applaud Prime Minister Abe for expanding paid family leave here in Japan, an important step in addressing the modern challenges of working families and maintaining women’s attachment to the workforce.
This year, for the first time ever, the President’s Budget included a proposal to establish a nationwide paid family leave program. We know this will take time, but we are deeply committed to working with members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, to get it done and deliver more pro-family solutions to hardworking Americans.
Third, in this age of rapid technology, we must also confront the challenges of workforce development.
It is critical as we look toward the future, that we don’t allow women in the United States and around the world to be left behind by the 4th Industrial Revolution – a revolution that’s integrating robotics, computer programing, artificial intelligence, social media, and cutting-edge technologies into every aspect of our society.
As technology transforms every industry, we must work to ensure that women have access to the same education and industry opportunities as men.
Female and minority participation in STEM fields is moving in the wrong direction. Women today represent only 13 percent of engineers and 24 percent of Computer Science professionals, down from 35 percent in 1990. We must create equal participation in these traditionally male-dominated sectors of our economy, which are among the fastest-growing and most lucrative industries in the world. Over the coming decades, technologies such as automation and robotics will transform the way we work, and we want to make sure that women can lead in the economy of the future. Otherwise, not only will we fail in closing the persistent gender wage gap, we will risk reversing the hard-fought progress we have made in this fight.
my name is richard daphne. i have over 30 years in different sizebusinesses, with many ups and downs. my question is for ivanka.what do you feel has been your biggest challenge, most exciting success? mrs.
as an entrepreneur you try to balance yourown time, energy, focus, especially when you think big. you sometimes have to slow yourself down. so, to not -- to impose thediscipline on yourself to enable you to achieve the growth youwant, especially in the early days, you have limited people. you arejust launching a product or a service. you hopefully feel thatearly momentum. when you are an entrepreneur you have to be a visionary. we also have to be an secured her. successfulentrepreneurs are both. they dream big. they think big. they also are highly pragmatic, able to execute at the task at hand.sometimes there is an imbalance. i think for anyone to besuccessful, they have to reconcile those things. ultimately we were talking about it, in terms of recruitment, you are as good as your people. investing in your teams, your employees, making sureyou have cultivated a group that complements you, that pushesyou , that will enable you to succeed. for me, success that is scaled and done tremendously well is because they have a great team and great people.
thank you for doing this work today. we are a marketing publicengagement firm. we are a serviced a bold veteran small business. we have been based in northern virginia for many years. virginia is the number one state for veteran owned businesses. our right to pursue the american dream is something i hold dear to my heart.i'm curious, i'm sure you have had the opportunity to meet greatentrepreneurs. is there one story that is the most inspirational story?
it is been incredible to hear so many stories.during the two years prior campaigning, traveling around the country. one of the unique things about this experience, my father was running for president. people would come up to youwherever you were and tell you their stories. with suchtremendous detail, and tell you of their hardest challenges, and share with you things in a way they neither -- never would have.they would never open themselves up to you in the same way theydo during the process of a campaign. now today, being part of this administration. i feel blessed for the candor in which people share their ideas and personal stories. linda and i were together in baltimore just days after the inauguration. we did a roundtable with small business owners, predominantly female, hosted by the national urban league. one of those women who actually i brought her to the white house a few months later is named lisa phillips. she had a small's ness. she told me her storyand i think -- we were all crying. it was so amazing. she started out homeless. she is now engaged. this spring she got her mastersdegree. she has a small but thriving small business and party planning. she is volunteering with homeless youth in baltimore. so this is -- these types of stories forever change you. it is unbelievable to hear the purser variants, the grant, the energy. i know she is going to make an enormous impact not just in her business but her community. we talk about small business, how it is going to grow our economy and benefit american workers, butthe amount of philanthropy being done on the local level by small business is a norm is enormous. i'm sure each of you can share your own stories just about how you are able to give act and you do in such a tremendous way. lisa story was moving to me.
Last December, we said goodbye to a great man. A great man, but a typical Boilermaker. In his 94 years, Fred Fehsenfeld built a series of businesses that employed and enriched thousands of people around Indiana and the world. A model for what we now call lifelong learning, he was always on top of the latest technology, always conceiving large new projects and looking far into a future he could not possibly live to see. And modest about his achievements every step of the way.
He almost didn’t get the chance to do any of that. On his 18th birthday, in 1942, he left his freshman dorm room in Cary Hall and enlisted in the Army. He flew 86 missions over Europe with a storied unit in which almost half his fellow pilots were killed in action.
In an oral history of his experiences, Fred told of his first close-air dogfight combat. He was low to the ground, with bullets everywhere, and death perhaps an instant away. The interviewer asked, “What were you thinking at a moment like that?” Fred answered, “I was thinking, I finally got a chance to make some German pay for yanking me out of Purdue University.” He survived the war, came back, still younger than most of you, to finish his M.E. degree and lead a life of epic accomplishment.
Good morning, my name Cindy, it is really a great honor to have this opportunity for a interview, i would like to answer whatever you may raise, and i hope i can make a good performance today, eventually enroll in this prestigious university in september. now i will introduce myself briefly,I am 23 years old,born in province ,and i am curruently a senior student at beijing university.my major is.and I will receive my bachelor degree after my graduation in june.in the past 4 years,i spend most of my time on study,i have passed CET6 with a ease. and i have acquired basic knowledge of packaging and publishing both in theory and in practice. besides, i have attend
several packaging exhibition hold in Beijing, this is our advantage study here, I have taken a tour to some big factory and company. through these I have a deeply understanding of domestic packaging industry. compared to developed countries such as us, unfortunately, although we have made extraordinary progress since 1978,our packaging industry are still underdeveloped, mess, unstable, the situation of employees in this field are awkard. but I have full confidence in a bright future if only our economy can keep the growth pace still.
I guess you maybe interested in the reason itch to law, and what is my plan during graduate study life,I would like to tell you that pursue law is one of my lifelong goal,I like my major packaging and I wont give up,if I can pursue my master degree here I will combine law with my former education.
I will work hard in thesefields ,patent ,trademark, copyright, on the base of my years study in department of p&p, my character? i cannot describe it well, but i know I am optimistic and confident. sometimes i prefer to stay alone, reading, listening to music, but I am not lonely, i like to chat with my classmates, almost talk everything ,my favorite pastime is valleyball,playing cards or surf online. through college life,I learn how to balance between study and entertainment. by the way, I was a actor of our amazing drama club. i had a few glorious memory on stage. that is my pride.
“Good morning, sir. My name is…”打招呼和过场基本是必须的。
“I’m , I’m , and I’m very .”按照我们的传统思维，自我夸耀一番也是难以避免的。但是这真的好吗?
如果说自我夸耀是正常的，那么就有99%的人在面试时这么做了。然而，那么多人都用一样的措辞自夸，真的会有积极的效果?就怕非但没有积极效果，反而让人觉得你很浮夸，尽说大话很不可靠。而且，老外们对此更加在意，一听到某些单词，说不定就触碰到“雷区”，马上say “Good bye”了。
这里有10个单词，不适合在面试的时候形容自己。看看你有没有如此自夸的习惯吧。
1. generous(宽宏大量的)
肚量是看在旁人眼里的，并不是喊出来的，尤其是不适合从自己的嘴巴里喊出来。真正心胸开阔的人，从不会炫耀，也不会索取别人的称赞。他们就不认为自己的心胸气度如此广阔，因为他们觉得他们还能做得更多。
2. humble(谦恭的)
认为自己很谦虚的人其实并不谦虚，因为真正谦虚的人从不称赞自己谦虚。如果你真要让别人了解自己有多谦虚，就在言语中表现出自己的谦和吧，千万不要直接就说“其实啊，我这个人很谦虚的”。你听到别人这么说，会怎么想?
3. self-disciplined(严格自律的)
自律是好事，但是如果自律过了头，会给别人什么印象?不懂变通，缺乏弹性，死脑筋，不好相处……你身边有没有对待自己特别严格的人?你觉不觉得这样的人太硬不太好相处呢?所以别说自我要求特别严格了，职场不如军队，不需要铁一般的纪律，这样反而会让人觉得你缺乏人性化的变通，也难以沟通。
4. passionate(充满激情的)
热情从来不是喊出来的，而是在实际工作中做出来的。说得好听比做什么都容易，千万别让人觉得你只是嘴巴上特别有干劲而已。另外，热爱工作是好事，但是太过于热爱工作，会让人担心你是否会做出什么过激的举动。而且，如果让别人觉得你动不动就满怀激情地工作，这样你的同事也会很累。
5. witty(机智幽默的)
一般很机智又有幽默感的人，是不会刻意这么称赞自己的，除非他擅长说冷笑话。想想，如果一个人对你说“你知道吗?我是个很机智幽默的人”，你的反应一定是两个字——呵呵。真正机智幽默的人，在谈吐间就能让别人感受到了，用得着挑明了说吗?这反而是愚笨的自夸。
We also have another problem, which is that women face harder choices between professional success and personal fulfillment. A recent study in the U.S. showed that, of married senior managers, two-thirds of the married men had children and only one-third of the married women had children. A couple of years ago, I was in New York, and I was pitching a deal, and I was in one of those fancy New York private equity offices you can picture. And I'm in the meeting — it's about a three-hour meeting — and two hours in, there needs to be that bio break, and everyone stands up, and the partner running the meeting starts looking really embarrassed. And I realized he doesn't know where the women's room is in his office. So I start looking around for moving boxes, figuring they just moved in, but I don't see any. And so I said, "Did you just move into this office?" And he said, "No, we've been here about a year." And I said, "Are you telling me that I am the only woman to have pitched a deal in this office in a year?" And he looked at me, and he said, "Yeah. Or maybe you're the only one who had to go to the bathroom."So the question is, how are we going to fix this? How do we change these numbers at the top? How do we make this different?
last year,, this year, during national small -- smallbusiness week there was a company just outside of austin, texas.their company was all about electronics and small circuit boards. you have a warehouse of all of these intricate circuit boards and electronic equipment. the river flooded and came in and just flooded their entire operation. water was deep. med. ithink it destroyed a third of their inventory. everybody they hadnot processed. the gentleman who was the proprietor of thiscompany said what was so amazing, sba was able to come in with a $2 million disaster relief loan. he talked about how his employees would come and work all hours. they had to take cloths andwhite down all of the wires and cables and clean the circuitboards that were salvageable. they spent hours doing this. in six weeks they were back up and running. many couldn't come in and work during that time. he continued to pay his employees andtheir benefits through that entire time and helped with donations in the community as well. it lets you know the heart ofentrepreneurs. they are risk takers but they are on 24/7. that is why they will always have a special place in my heart . i know what that is like. we all started small.
wonderful stories just like many in this room. we have time for one more.
i'm the owner of the newtown athletic club in pennsylvania. i'malso cochair of the largest trade organization for fitnessindustry, and an advocate through my business of the right to try bill. i would like to ask both of you, what are the experiences you have had that you would like to share, some of the do's anddon'ts that would be beneficial to us today?
every entrepreneur goes into business knowing they are taking a risk. you have to manage the downside risk. one of the ups and downs, i have been bankrupt. my house was auctioned in my car repossessed. seven months pregnant with our second child. when i talked to entrepreneurs with failing businesses, some referred to it as a bad patch. they are determined to come back. one of the most inspirational things to me is to listen to entrepreneurs, how they get through thetough times. i've often said it is not how you fall, it is how you get back up. mrs.
Maybe this is all revelatory at Harvard. But in our part of the country, it’s not news. The slogan of the Whiteland (Indiana) High School Class of 1930 was “Grit Wins.” It could be a slogan at Purdue every year. I’m tempted to call Roget’s Thesaurus and let them know the antonym of “snowflake” is “Boilermaker.”
Just as physical strength is built through hard exercise, emotional fortitude is enhanced by adversity and conflict. Every great achievement requires a confrontation with stress, a conquest of fear. Our engineers know, there is no traction without friction. Wilbur Wright, father of the aviation world Purdue now leads, wrote, “No bird soars in a calm.” Your strength of intellect and character will give you opportunities to lead, but it will be your strength of purpose, your resilience, your grit that will enable you to lead successfully, and by your example, to give new heart and strength to those around you.
There’s one sure way to minimize stress and difficulty in life: attempt nothing that’s bold, challenge nothing that’s wrong, risk nothing that’s dangerous. Those endeavors always bring disappointment, frustration, criticism, setbacks. But they also are the source of the achievements that make life fulfilling, and the even greater grit that will get you ready for the next challenge.
From opposite ends of life’s continuum, and I offer you two closing examples of the qualities I hope you have built here at this institution. Both stories involve Purdue students even younger than you are today.
W Ar Th World ,W Ar Th Fuur
Somon sid “w r rdin h firs vrs of h firs chpr of book, whos ps r infini”. I don’ know who wro hs words, bu I’v lwys likd hm s rmindr h h fuur cn b nyhin w wn i o b. W r ll in h posiion of h frmrs. If w pln ood sd ,w rp ood hrvs. If w pln nohin ll, w hrvs nohin ll.
W r youn. “How o spnd h youh?” I is mninful qusion. To nswr i, firs I hv o sk “wh do you undrsnd by h word youh?” Youh is no im of lif, i’s s of mind. I’s no mr of rosy chks, rd lips or suppl kns. I’s h mr of h will. I’s h frshnss of h dp sprin of lif.
A po sid “To s world in rin of snd, nd hvn in wild flowr, hold infiniy in h plm of your hnd, nd rniy in n hour. Svrl dys o, I hd chnc o lisn o lcur. I lrn lo hr. I’d lik o shr i wih ll of you. L’s show our rih plms. W cn s hr lins h show how our lov.crr nd lif is. I hv shor lin of lif. Wh bou yours? I wondrd whhr w could s our fuur in his wy. Wll, l’s mk fis. Whr is our fuur? Whr is our lov, crr, nd lif? Tll m.Yh, i is in our hnds. I is hld in ourslvs.
W ll wn h fuur o b br hn h ps. Bu h fuur cn o br islf.
Integrating and empowering women is not just good corporate policy, it’s good business.
Second, in addition to changing the corporate culture, we must advance public policies that address the composition of our modern workforce.
In the United States, while single women without children make 95 cents for each dollar earned by a man, married mothers earn only 81 cents. Too many women in the United States are forced to leave the workforce following the birth of a child.
We must ensure that federal policies support working mothers and enable them to reach their full potential. This is how we will create an environment where closely bonded families can flourish and our economy can grow at unprecedented levels.
That is why in the United States, we are working to pass sweeping and long over-due tax reform that will afford families much needed relief. We are seeking to simplify the tax code, lower rates, expand the child tax credit, eliminate the marriage penalty, and put more money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans.
Our administration is working to address the high cost of childcare in the United States which currently outstrips housing expenses and state college tuition in much of the Country. It cannot be too expensive for the modern working family to have children.
God willing, none of you will face at any age the kind of dangers and fears that Fred and Tyler did. But they, and so many others like them, have left us all a legacy that provides perspective and proportion for those inevitable moments when the pressures and disappointments of life get us down.
Don’t misunderstand this, but I wish for you many such tough moments. You can easily avoid them; just lead a safely inconsequential life: run no risks, confront no injustice, accept no roles of leadership. But that’s not the path we expect you to choose. You are about to become graduates of Purdue University, which, throughout its history, has supplied leaders to a world that needs them now as rarely before.
Long after you leave us, your senior year will be remembered as the year of Tyler Trent. His is a story I need not recount; everyone here knows who he was, and how he faced a situation for which words like “adversity” and “stress” don’t come close. He impacted more people, and left deeper footprints, than most who will enjoy lives several times longer than his. We’ll never forget you, Tyler.
you will no longer fear making new sounds, showing new facial expressions, using your body in new ways,approaching new people, and asking new questions. you will live every single day of your life with absolute passion, and you will show your passion through the words you speak and the actions you take. you will focus all your time and effort on the most important goals of your life. you will never succumb to challenges of hardships. you will never waver in your pursuit of excellence. after all,you are the best, and you deserve the best!
as your coach and friend, i can assure you the door to all the best things in the world will open to you, but the key to that door is in your hand. you must do your part, you must faithfully follow the plans you make and take the actions you plan, you must never quit, you must never fear. i know you must do it, you can do it, you will do it, and you will succeed!
is this working? ok. great. thank you for sharingthe stage with me today. i must apologize in advance for my voice.my voice keeps going in and out. a little bit of laryngitis on theroad. i'm so delighted to be here this afternoon. as the ministrydo for the small business administration. we will celebrate our65th anniversary next year. we are kicking off this year ofreimagining the sba. we might even cheat a little bit. nationals not -- small business week year. because, i found out about the second week i was in office sba is one of the best-kept secrets in the country. you think sba, what do you think? so much more than loans. it's counseling. access to capital, which businesses need to start. cash is king. then i found out that the counselingand mentoring aspect that comes along is as important oralmost as important as the cash. we have components of access,government contracting, which grows many small as mrs.. then we have disaster relief. what happens when a disaster hits an area? homes are lost. it's one of the few times sba is involved in the home mortgage market as well as business loans. it's our goal to give businesses up and running. they are not only the engine of our economy, but they are the glue for theircommunities. those communities need to come back online. sba isthere working with fema, the first people on the line. we want to get everybody back up, paying taxes. it is an all-encompassingorganization. it's my goal to make sure a year from now, if notsooner, sba is no longer a secret. [applause]
thank you. have great champions of the smallbusiness community along with president trump. we want to hear from the community. if you have a question, please raise yourhand. you can ask a question to the administrator or ivanka.
i'm a firefighter from wisconsin. i have been a firefighter for 20 years. i recently invented a new style of compass to save firefighters lives. what i'm struggling with is the ins and outs to run that business. what advice do you have to get over that hurdle?
So, I’m not just asking you, I’m advising you to anticipate defeat, strongly advising it. Don’t be surprised when it comes your way. Acknowledge it. Engage with inquisitive abandon and leave indelible fingerprints wherever you may go. Search for environments that may give you grief but they may also help you to grow.
Now, no one taught me the importance of that existential exploration better than my parents. And it was my father who showed me that in fact, it is in discomfort that we find our most defining moments.
My dad became a doctor because he knew the circumstances were not the same for everybody, that some people were not as fortunate as our family was. And as he put it, he wanted to eliminate “dis-ease.” Are you with me, graduates? “Dis-ease.” That’s exactly how he said it to me.
When I was a little girl, I would go on house calls with him. The patients all knew and loved him and I saw how much he prided himself on being a caretaker, someone who did his very best to reverse their compromised positions of his patients – to put their mind and bodies at ease.
But there was one house call I remember in particular. It’s seared in the back of my brain as if it happened yesterday. His diabetic patient was having a hypoglycemic attack. He told me to get the orange juice. I did, and I watched him save a woman’s life that day.
Why does this matter? Boy, it matters a lot. Because no one gets to the corner office by sitting on the side, not at the table, and no one gets the promotion if they don't think they deserve their success, or they don't even understand their own success.I wish the answer were easy. I wish I could go tell all the young women I work for, these fabulous women,"Believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself. Own your own success." I wish I could tell that to my daughter. But it's not that simple. Because what the data shows, above all else, is one thing, which is that success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. And everyone's nodding, because we all know this to be true.There's a really good study that shows this really well. There's a famous Harvard Business School studyon a woman named Heidi Roizen. And she's an operator in a company in Silicon Valley, and she uses her contacts to become a very successful venture capitalist.
And I use the term porn deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we're objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, "Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person."But what if you are that person? I've lost count of the number of times that I've been approached by strangers wanting to tell me that they think I'm brave or inspirational, and this was long before my work had any kind of public profile. They were just kind of congratulating me for managing to get up in the morning and remember my own name. (Laughter) And it is objectifying. These images,those images objectify disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people.They are there so that you can look at them and think that things aren't so bad for you, to put your worries into perspective.
Here’s what I mean:
Reggie Jackson struck out twenty-six-hundred times in his career—the most in the history of baseball.
But you don’t hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs.
Fall forward.
Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that?
I didn’t either—because1,001was the light bulb.
Fall forward.
Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.
You’ve got to take risks. And I’m sure you’ve probably heard that before.
But I want to talk about why it’s so important.
I’ve got three reasons—and then you can pick up your iPhones.
First… you will fail at some point in your life. Accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There is no doubt about it.
That’s probably not a traditional message for a graduation ceremony. But, hey, I’m telling you—embrace it.
Because it’s inevitable.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
in a recent mimicking study at the university of clermont-ferrand in france, subjects were asked to determine whether a smile was real or fake while holding a pencil in their mouth to repress smiling muscles. without the pencil, subjects were excellent judges, but with the pencil in their mouth, when they could not mimic the smile they saw, their judgment was impaired.in addition to theorizing on evolution in the origin of species, charles darwin also wrote the facial feedback response theory. his theory states that the act of smiling itself actually makes us feel better -- rather than smiling being merely a result of feeling good. in his study, darwin actually cited a french neurologist, guillaume duchenne, who used electric jolts to facial muscles to induce and stimulate smiles. please, dont try this at home.
Dress me up in army fatigues. Throw me on top of a moving train. Ask me to play Malcolm X, Rubin Hurricane Carter, Alonzo from Training Day: I can do all that.
But a commencement speech? It’s a very serious affair. Different ballgame. There’s literally thousands and thousands of people here.
And for those who say—you’re a movie star, millions of people watch you speak all the time…
… Yes, that’s technically true. But I’m not actually there in the theater—watching them watching me.
I’m not there when they cough… or fidget… or pull out their iPhone and text their boyfriend… or scratch their behinds.
From up here: I can see every single one of you. And that makes me uncomfortable.
So please, don’t pull out your iPhone and text your boyfriend until after I’m done.
But if you need to scratch your behinds, go right ahead. I’ll understand.
Thinking about the speech, I figured the best way to keep your attention would be to talk about some really, juicy Hollywood stuff.
I thought I could start with me and Russell Crowe getting into some arguments on the set of American Gangster…
… but no. You’re a group of high-minded intellectuals. You’re not interested in that.
Or how about that “private” moment I had with Angelina Jolie half naked in her dressing room backstage at the Oscars?… Who wants to hear about that?
I don’t think so. This is an Ivy League school. Angelina Jolie in her dressing room…?
what that experience taught me wasn’t just that she was right – that adversity is a certainty – but the only person’s behavior that you can govern is your own. And just as importantly, what doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
I’m still standing. Somebody say amen.
With my parents’ advice, I decided to be better...to work harder to overcome the preconceived notions and to prove I could not just perform at that school – but I could excel – at that school. And while my efforts may have been lost on my classmates, they were not lost on the Admissions Office here at Duke University.
I know no women, whether they're at home or whether they're in the workforce,who don't feel that sometimes. So I'm not saying that staying in the workforce is the right thing for everyone.My talk today is about what the messages are if you do want to stay in the workforce, and I think there are three. One, sit at the table. Two, make your partner a real partner. And three, don't leave before you leave. Number one: sit at the table. Just a couple weeks ago at Facebook, we hosted a very senior government official, and he came in to meet with senior execs from around Silicon Valley. And everyone kind of sat at the table. He had these two women who were traveling with him pretty senior in his department, and I kind of said to them, "Sit at the table. Come on, sit at the table," and they sat on the side of the room. When I was in college, my senior year, I took a course called European Intellectual History. Don't you love that kind of thing from college?