Last Saturday, I had the privilege to give a speech to a group of graduating students.
Apparently, my speech was well received and touched a cord with many members of the audience. I had a student and a parent who came up to me afterwards to thank me for the inspiring message. Among other appreciative students and lecturers, one lecturer even requested for the transcript of the speech for her daughter whom she felt would be inspired by the content.
This being the case, I thought I might as well share it here also:
“Dear graduands, you are the stars of today’s event. We are here today to celebrate your achievements.
As I was preparing this speech for you, I asked myself this question: ‘If I am at your age again, what would I focus on?’
On that note, please allow me to share with you 3 thoughts for you to consider as you celebrate another milestone in your life. Do not accept everything that I am about share, but I submit to you to consider some of the key ideas.
Number One: Know Yourself
Get know who you are. I will say it again; get to know who you really, really are. What is your interest and passion? What makes you come alive? What gets you to jump out of bed every day even on a Monday morning? Do you know what you are talented at?
I strongly believe that every one of you sitting here today is born with talents. Talents are a combination of our inborn and recurring patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour. Some of you are natural with relating to people. Some of you are more comfortable working with numbers and data. Some of you are deep thinkers. Some of you prefer to work according to processes and structure.
I urge you to invest the time and perhaps money to discover what your talents are and to make the effort to develop your talents and turn them into strengths. Your strengths are the unique combination of talents, knowledge, and skills.
With a couple of talented students who performed at the graduation ceremony
Learn to appreciate who you are and do not be afraid to be different from the so-called mainstream. Choose your further education and personal development by taking into consideration not only your interest but also your talents.
Many people go through their entire lives not really knowing what makes them unique and therefore not are living up to their maximum potential.
Do not simply rely on others to make decisions for you or just flow along with whatever opportunities that may come alone. Live your life with intention, focus and according to your unique design.
According to a survey, 76% of workers in Singapore are disengaged with their work. This is one of the highest rates of disengagement in the world. When you live your live according to your design, chances are you become more engaged in every aspects of your life.
At the beginning of this speech, I described you as the stars of today’s event. What is a star? A star has pointed edges and valleys. The pointed edges represent your talents. The valleys represent your weaknesses. The key to success is to manage your valley so that they are not too deep and focus on developing your pointed edges.
Just by trying to fix your weakness alone is not going to help you achieve greatness. Fixing your weaknesses will only make you averagely good or not so weak.
Larry Bird, a former NBA basketball star with the Boston Celtics said: ‘a winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.’
There is no one else in this world exactly like you. So get to know you and become the star you are meant to be.
Number Two: Know Your Environment
Today, the world today is changing at a very fast pace. To be successful in this ultra-fast changing world: you need to constantly adapt, reinvent yourself, learn, unlearn and re-lean so that you continue to remain relevant.
Do not be comfortable with what you have always been used to doing and remain stagnant. Have the courage to stretch your limits and explore the areas that may be unknown to you. Learn not only to embrace change, but also to foresee change and lead the change.
Some of the subjects you have studied in your Diploma education are fundamentals and will always be relevant no matter how much the world changes. However, there are subjects that may completely change in a couple of years down the road. One example is mass communications and media studies.
I came across an interesting 2006 journal from the University of Alberta by an author named Phil McRae. The title of the journal is “The Death of Television and the Birth of Digital Convergence: (Re)shaping Media in the 21 st Century.”
Allow me to quote directly from the abstract:
‘Television is not ‘television’ anymore. It is a complex and rapidly evolving medium that is moving from a space defined by broadcast to one struggling for interactivity, mobility and digital convergence. The very nature of this digital convergence is occurring at breakneck speed, so fast in fact that this revolution in entertainment will not be ‘televised’. It may be suggested that with the advent of the Internet, television is increasingly being identified as a push technology geared only for the masses and lacking personal (and democratic) choice. Indeed, recent North American research confirms that experienced Internet users are sacrificing their television viewing time for that of the Internet.’
Therefore, you need to constantly update your knowledge and skills in your chosen niche and become a bigger and better you.
Number Three: Know Your Values
While our world may be rapidly changing, there is one area in your life that should remain a constant and be an anchor in everything that you do. These are your values. Values are your principles or standards of behaviour; your judgement of what is important in life.
What is truly important in your life? All of us have but one life and believe it or not life pass by very quickly. I am 45 years old this year. 45 years probably sound like a very long time to some of you. When I was your age, I thought so too. Today standing here and looking back, these 45 years seem to have passed by in a blink of an eye. It’s like I have been teleported from where you are sitting to where I am standing instantly. Sometimes, I have panic attacks just thinking about how fast life pass by.
Realizing that our life is short and at some point our journey in this world will come to an end is to me a useful exercise to help us to consider what are truly important in our lives. I would like to propose to you two values that we should seriously consider.
The first is living a life of integrity.
You may have read in newspapers of very successful man or women who have become very wealthy and famous but through dishonest means such as exploiting the money of the ignorant, evading taxes that they should have paid, cheating or taking bribes and are now serving prison sentences. Others engaged in immoral behavours and have caused deep hurt to their family.
The problem lies not in wealth and fame. But, in your quest for success, however you define success for yourself, do not compromise on your integrity. Pay attention to your daily habits, such as what you say; whether they are truths or half-truths and how you treat other people. Your habits reflect your values. It is very easy to be tempted by what the world can offer. None of us is immune. Therefore, we need to pay close attention to our daily habits.
There is a wise saying in the Christian holy book that goes something like this: ‘What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet lose their soul?’
The second value to consider is showing gratitude to others.
Do not forget the people who have helped you become successful. Whether they are friends, colleagues, ex-colleagues, bosses, ex-bosses or family members.
Yes, even ex-bosses. My first boss was very demanding. But I learned some of the best lessons in life from him. He once told us the story of the eagle. Till this day, I cannot substantiate this story with scientific evidences. Perhaps he invented the story and tried to pull a fast one on us. But it was nonetheless a nice story:
“The eagle is a majestic creature. Every once in a while, other birds will fly towards it and try to rattle the eagle and unsettle it. Guess what the eagle will do? It will defy gravity by rocketing upwards and then swish down towards the birds and ripe them in halves! No, that is not how the story went. The eagle will actually soar upwards higher and higher until the other birds are left far behind.”
What is the moral of this story? It is about excellence isn’t it? When you know your strengths and use them; and live a life of integrity, no one can find faults with you.
Today, many of you have come with your family members. You may be the stars of today’s event. But your family members are really your unsung heroes. Please appreciate them for their sacrifices and contributions in helping you attain your achievements today. Some of your families may not be here today for whatever reasons, appreciate them by sending them a message to express your gratitude later on today.
You should realized that both the values of living a life of integrity and showing gratitude to others focus on others rather than yourself. This is not a question of being an introvert or extrovert. But in this life, we are not meant to live only for ourselves but to serve others.
To conclude, I would like to remind you again that you have but one life. Discover who you are. Adapt to your environment. Stand firm on your values. And you will live your life with little regrets.
I wish you all the best. Thank You.”