What does "great" mean to you?

It's graduation season! With graduation season comes graduation speeches. Long, short, inspiring, uninspiring, they come in all shapes, sizes and levels of effectiveness. No matter the speaker, all graduation messages carry one central theme: leave inspired to do something great.

I've worked in higher education for many years, so I've come to look forward to graduation season and my annual dose of motivation and inspiration. (I'm attending a graduation today!) As I get older, the importance of the message feels stronger: leave inspired to do something great.

It's a message that isn't reserved for the graduates alone. It's a message that all of us should heed:

leave inspired to do something great.

It's a message that all of us should come back to and think about year after year. It can help keep us all in check and on track. It can ensure that we're all living our best life possible.

As life changes, so do our motivations and our desires. What we felt inspired and called to do or be 10 years ago, might be very different to how we feel today.

Today I encourage you to imagine that it's your graduation day. You are the graduate sitting in a stadium and listening to an inspiring speech. What do you hear? And what do you choose to do?

Self-reflection:

What is the speaker asking of you?

What do you feel inspired to do moving forward?

How is that different from what you're doing now?

What does "do something great" mean to you?