Lessons from five 2024 commencement speeches

The familiar sight of rows of folding chairs filled with capped and gowned graduating seniors brought a degree of calm to the upheaval that characterized many university and college campuses across the US this spring. As my friend and colleague Michael Birshan recently observed, we are in ‘an age of volatility, with new shocks on top of old shocks on top of enduring disruptive trends’, and it’s an age that demands courage from all of us if we are to navigate it successfully.

To get a sense of where exceptional and experienced thinkers believe the new generation should set their compasses, it's helpful to turn to the most traditional of American liturgies: the commencement address.

The few speeches that caught my attention this year had remarkably common themes: Work hard for what you want. Be ready for setbacks and awkwardness. It’s often smart to change your plan. Strive for the best version of yourself, stick to your principles and harness your critical thinking. Surround yourself with people who you can trust, appreciate, and love and who feels the same about you. And clearly, all advice comes in groups of three.

I am sharing my notes from this year’s speeches in this month’s newsletter in the hope that these insights will be useful to others.

Read on and let me know which advice best resonated with you.

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Melinda French Gates ’s three lessons about transitions (Stanford University):

1.???? Enter these moments with radical openheartedness.

“During a transition, we step out of our familiar surroundings and into a big, open space where everything is new. There are two ways to encounter these spaces. You can keep your head down and focus on finding the?shortest possible distance?to the?next familiar thing. Or you can find the courage to?linger?in that liminal space and see what it has to tell you. That, to me, is what practicing openheartedness means… leave some room for those plans to?change. Resist the idea that anything you’ve done here at Stanford has already locked you into?any one path?– or?any one kind?of life or career.”

2.???? Find someone to help you see things differently.

“Someone who can help you imagine yourself as the person you want to become. And just as important, there is someone here who needs you to serve that role for them in return.”

3.???? Build a web of deserved trust.

“That beautiful phrase comes from the legendary businessman Charlie Munger… Charlie famously said that the, ‘highest form which civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust … totally reliable people correctly trusting each other…. What a thing to aspire to.’”

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Jerry Seinfeld’s advice (Duke University):

1.???? Bust your ass.

“Make an effort. Effort always yields a positive value even if the outcome of the effort is the absolute failure of the desired result.” We should, “Learn to enjoy the expenditure of energy that may or may not be on the correct path.” ?

2.???? Pay attention.

“If you’re in a small submersible that looks like a giant kazoo and going to visit the Titanic, seven miles down at the bottom of the ocean, and the captain of the vessel is using a Game Boy controller, pay attention to that.”

3.???? Fall in love.

“Fall in love with anything and everything, every chance you get.”

Seinfeld did break the three-lesson rule with some further advice that caught my ear. He encouraged the Duke graduates to recognize the value of their education and be proud of it: “My point is we are embarrassed by things we should be proud of and proud by things we should be embarrassed by.”

Above all he riffed on what he views as the most important thing he knows about life: “The slightly uncomfortable feeling of awkward humor is okay. Do not lose your sense of humor. You have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through. Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor. You gotta laugh. Humor is the most powerful, most survival-essential quality you will ever have or need to navigate through the human experience.”

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Roger Federer’s lessons from Tennis (Dartmouth University)

1.???? Effortless is a myth

“It used to frustrate me when people said he barely broke a sweat. The truth is, I had to work hard to make it look easy. I got to where I got to by outworking my opponents. Yes, talent matters. I'm not going to stand here and tell you it doesn't. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it's not about having a gift; it's about having grit. Discipline is also a talent, and so is patience. Trusting yourself is a talent. Embracing the process is a talent…some people are born with them, everyone has to work at them.”

2.???? It’s only a point.

“Some defeats hurt more than others. But I knew what I had to do. Keep working and keep competing. In tennis perfection is impossible… I won 80% of matches but only 54% of the points. When you lost every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on it… When you play a point, it has to the most important thing in the world. But when it’s behind you it’s behind. This mindset is crucial because it frees you to focus on the next point. Negative energy is wasted energy. Become a master at overcoming hard moments. The best in the world know they lose again and again and learned how to deal with that.”

3.???? Life is bigger than the court

“I never lost my appetite to see this very big world. I learned to love a life on the move. l realized pretty early that I want to serve other people in other countries. All of you have so much to give, and I hope you find your unique ways to make a difference.”

Maria Ressa’s three lessons from her experience at Rappler (Harvard University) ?

1.???? Choose your best self.

“Set and stay focused on your goals but know the values you live by. The only thing you can control in the world is you… remember that character is created in the sum of the little choices we make.”

2.???? Turn crisis into opportunity.

“Accept that crisis is here to stay. In Rappler…we learned to embrace the worst scenarios we could imagine. We will have to struggle harder for agency, for independent thought.”

3.???? Be vulnerable

“It is hard to trust… but in order to move forward and accomplish anything meaningful, someone lowers their shield first, brings down their ego, their defence mechanism and others follow. Let that person be you.”

It’s worth watching this address more broadly to see Maria Ressa 's tremendous courage and commitment to truth-telling. She points out that, "Without facts, you can't have truth. Without truth, you can't have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality, no rule of law, no democracy.” As I have written here – I also recommend her 2022 book.

John List ’s three little secrets to change the world (UChicago)

1.???? Being monomaniacal.

“To be monomaniacal you must love what you are doing and usually that means you specialize in your comparative advantage… those with brilliant uniqueness will be in constant demand – this is especially true in today’s labor market.”

2.???? Optimal quitting.

“Quitting is repugnant, society has taught us that. That’s society’s problem… the other reason why we don’t quit enough is our problem. We have a cognitive bias that causes us to ignore the opportunity cost of time…we tend to ignore our outside options until life gets soiled… I urge you in good times and bad to explore constantly your opportunity set in life… Embrace the chance to pivot.” ?

3.???? Critical thinking skills.

“You have learned how to think, not what to think. Every push in society is to speed you up…slow down and be a UChicago [independent and critical] thinker. Such skills are cherished because they transcend boundaries, encourage innovation, and stimulate problem-solving... Never lose the inner scientist… the power of not knowing makes you constantly curious. Take that inner scientist to the world, not only in your job but in life.”