The Commencement Address Nobody Asked For.

A gift to the Class of 2014

Three years and three days ago I was handed an expensive piece of paper.

It was my college diploma.

I’ve learned more in these three years than in all four years of college. There’s something about being thrust into the madness of the real world that no college course can replicate.

Here are a few things I’ve learned.

Lifelong happiness will not come instantly. Instead, find what makes you happy right now. Explore a new hobby. Make new friends. The transition from a college schedule to working 40+ hours a week is difficult. Do something small that makes you happy in the moment.

Do something crazy. Something that terrifies you. Visit a foreign country by yourself. Cycle across the country. Now is the time to be impulsive. As you get older it will become harder to do these things.

Don’t wait to follow your dreams. 70% of millennials want to start their own business. Why wait? If you wait for the right time, it will never come. You’ll learn infinitely more by starting your own company than you will working for an exisiting business.

Don’t listen to the naysayers. Our generation has a reputation for being narsassistic, lazy, and entitled. Every young generation has had this stigma. Take, for instance, what Socrates said in 380 BC:

The young now love only luxury…they have bad manners, contempt for authority, and show disrespect for their elders.

Learn how to communicate with candor. The world will be a more honest place if we cut the shit and get to the point. Political antics and reading between the lines are a waste of time. Be brutally honest in everything you do. It won’t be easy. But you’ll save yourself and others unnecessary headaches.

There is no such thing as failure. Only feedback. If you fail, it means you’re doing something. You’re embracing fear. Every successful person has failed. But they never gave up. You shouldn’t either. Be resilient.

Own YOU. Changing yourself is good, but focus on knowing who you are at your core. Once you are comfortable in your own skin, you will feel truly confident.

Enjoy the ride of life. Don’t hide from your emotions. Recognize that you are a beautiful human being living in an insecure world — one that is constantly changing. Those who understand this live more fulfilling lives because they embrace change and new opportunities as they unfold.

Don’t stop learning. Read a book a week. Write. Learn another language. Do something to keep your mind engaged.

Understand that everyone on this planet sees the world through a unique lens. You’ll save a lot of frustration with friends, significant others, family, and colleagues if you accept this. You have your truths and others have theirs. Rarely is one person right.

You’ll find yourself surrounded by people who seem to have it all figured out. They don’t. I get comments from friends in my hometown about how perfect of a life I seem to live in Los Angeles (thanks to my social media filter). The truth is I’m just as confused as everyone else. Comparing yourself to these seemingly flawless people is useless. You have your own shit to figure out. So figure it out. There is no timeline for success. John Grisham was an attorney working 60-70 hours a week while he wrote his first book in his early 30s (which was initially rejected by publishers). Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire in his early 20s. No story is the same. Write your own.

Want an average life? Fit in. If you want a life of impact, don’t. Be weird. Do things differently. There are unspoken rules in the world. Those who follow them rarely make a dent in the universe.

I’ll leave you with this:

When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live…inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again. — Steve Jobs.

Godspeed class of 2014.