Sonoma State Commencement 2023

I was honored to give the commencement address at Sonoma State University this year!

Here is a link to a video of my speech (starts at min 42)

2023 SSU Commencement - (Blair Kellison address at minute 42)

Sonoma State Commencement 2023

I’d like to thank Sonoma State for the opportunity to be part of your commencement today.

I moved to Sonoma County in 2008 and very quickly got involved in Sonoma State from guest lecturing to helping shape the SBE – I’d like to thank the university for letting me hang around all these years - it has brought me tremendous joy to help shape and mentor you – the next generation of leaders.

?I hope my speech inspires you today, but as you listen, please don’t be inspired to be like me – be inspired to be like you.

I’ve been told there are about 100,000 books on Amazon on leadership, time management and living a balanced life. Overall, I avoid business books – they are each about 200 pages long with about 4 pages of really useful information.

I’ll probably never write a business book but if I did here are my four pages.

I have a high school daughter who volunteers at the Robert Ferguson Observatory in Kenwood.?A few times a year we go to events and she volunteers and I hang around and look through the telescopes.?The last time I was there I was looking at a supernova that was something like 18,000 light years away – and there are 4.8 trillion miles in a light year.?You can do the math on that.?Going there reminds of the vastness of the universe and the absolute randomness that there is life here on earth.?So here we are at your graduation and all the immediacy of today while at the same time we’re hurling through the vastness of space at 80,000 miles an hour.???

Damn.?And people honk at the car in front of them for not going immediately when the light turns green? Really?

So, we get to have this life on earth but we also want it to be fair?

Next time you think life is unfair to you think about the billions of people that think it’s pretty unfair that you have a college education and they have no access to such privilege.?And if you ever find yourself so wound up about life that you’re honking at the car in front of you, take a deep breath and get some perspective on just how overly fair life has been to you.

Life is grand and amazing - but it will also disappoint you when you least expect it.?Please know it will but it’s not what happens to you in life but how you react to it.?I get to be the fancy commencement speaker today looking all successful up here.?I am here to tell you my path here was not a straight line

It’s a favorite pastime of people to dream about what they’d do if they won the lottery.?I am here to tell all of you graduates that you have won life’s lottery by being able to sit here today.?

And your lottery winnings are education which is not only more valuable than money but you can never lose it!?You can’t go to Vegas and put your college education on red 32 on the roulette wheel and lose it all.?You can lose all your money in this life but you can never lose any of your education.?And the number one determinant for one’s net worth is their level of education.?

Mark Twain famously said – the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why you were born.?

Today is a momentous day in your life but what is even more important is what you plan to do with all your knowledge.

Always remember, at every job, no matter your age, you get two paychecks – one is money and one is experience.?Always take the job with the biggest experience paycheck.?Experience and education together will enable you to do anything you set out to do in this life.?

My Essential 4 P’s for career success

Persistence, Patience, Pasion, and Purpose

Persistence – you already have that to get through school

Patience – the secret ingredient no one talks about.?Patience evokes thoughtfulness, logic, and trust

Passion – put your heart into it – care about what you do

Purpose – what is your reason for being??What is your why?

Do you know your purpose – you why? (I sure didn’t at your age but you will find it over time)

Forget trying to find work/life balance.?That’s impossible. Instead of a work/life balance create a great life centered on all the things you love.

I love my family, my job, my friends, my civic activities like giving this talk today.?I’m not Pollyannaish…I am aligned and that gives me my balance.?

So much is written about time management but very little is written about first deciding what you should spend your time on.?Yes, it’s good to be efficient with your time.?But most important to spend that time on your why.?Ask yourself - Why am I allocating time to these activities – is this job the best use of my skills and my passion and my purpose in life.?Is this job aligned with my personal values?

And this applies equally to your personal life.?You’ll meet a lot of wonderful people out there, some you’ll even fall in love with – but are they aligned with who you are? Across the long arc of time, it is values alignment and alignment with your why in your career and personal life that make it all work.?

My number one career advice is the same as my number one dating advice – be picky!?You are a very special person with unique qualities.?Where and how you apply those qualities in both life and love are the most important decisions you will make on your journey to true happiness.?There is no outcome or goal that makes a person happy and certainly no amount of money.?Don’t ever get caught up in the “I just have to get through this rough patch or get this promotion or raise” and then I will be happy. You have to be in love with whatever you are doing while in the rough patch.?Myley Cyrus got it right, it's all about the climb – it’s all we will ever remember – not the other side.?

Success has never ever led anyone to long term happiness but happiness will almost guarantee you long term success.?But you have to determine what success means to you. And if you don’t society (friends, family, social norms) will define it for you and I can guarantee you that you will not be happy.

As Taylor Swift sings “People like to throw rocks at things that shine”.?Unhappy people spend their life trying to make happy people unhappy like them. (With a 15-year-old daughter, I know a lot more Taylor Swift songs than I care to admit!)

The single greatest career move I made to find happiness in my journey was at 30 I took a 75% pay cut and left my job at Nestle, the world’s largest food company and moved to Sonoma County to work for a fledgling veggie burger company.?That led me to tremendous happiness – that job was nothing but a rough patch – it was in the 1990’s and on every sales call the retail stores would ask me what the hell is a veggies burger?

But I absolutely fell in love with that job. I loved everything about it especially all the social and environmental good we were doing to replace beef.?Even with a 75% pay cut I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to do something I loved that much.?

But I also redefined success to mean putting my accounting degree and MBA to work to change our food system.?I found my people and my passion and my why.?And in the end, it did lead to financial rewards as well.

And today I get to be on the board of companies like Straus Family Creamery, Hen House Brewery, and Sambazon Acai. All because when I was young, I had the courage to follow my heart to that veggie burger company.

This is the most important question I have for you today…

Did you wake up this morning to be an okay version of yourself? Or did you wake up this morning to be the best damn version possible??I have come to believe that above all else, life is about each of us becoming the best version of ourselves.?It’s a life-long exercise that does not end until our last day.?It is not about being better than the person sitting next to you – it is about being a better version of the person you were yesterday.

You are each very special people – make the most of who you are and you will find uncommon happiness in this life.

To date life has mainly been about you and what you can do individually.?That will all change in the next 5 years as your career will eventually be all about you getting things done through others – this is leadership

?With your degrees today, some may call you privileged - I call you the next generation of leaders.?You have a huge responsibility on your shoulders - you’ve got to find your why and then spend every waking hour personally and professionally becoming your very best self.

?Do not try to lead like the person in a book you just read.?Leadership is about harnessing and leveraging that special something that resides inside of you. Every leader is unique.?Lead like you.

?As a leader, you don’t need a map to get to where you are going, you need a compass.?A moral compass. ?

?Good leaders are never satisfied – they are always striving to be a better version of themselves and in turn better leaders.?Barack Obama was president for eight years – do you think for even one night he went up to the family quarters after work and said Michele, I’m just killing it as president?

?A lack of courage and conviction is the number one reason people never reach their full potential.?Don’t end up like so many super smart people that only ever developed into an ok version of themselves and never reached their full potential.

?When things aren’t going so well, Believe in the lessons your parents taught you, believe in the love they have for you, believe in what you learned at Sonoma State, and never, ever stop believing in yourself.?

I will conclude by saying - Every generation is sure the next generation wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it fell on their head.?(Your parents are guilty of this) Yet every generation reinvents everything about the generation before them.?

In the nicest, kindest, most respectful way, get on your bulldozers and plow over everything about your parent’s generation and create a sustainable world for all. ?

?Thank you for allowing me to be part of one of the best days of your life.

?You’re all awesome!