Best Motivational Speech Compilation Ever 1 Hour of Motivation To Change Forever

you have to practice who you want to be

you know you don’t wake up one morning

and you’re suddenly who you think you

want to be you have to put some energy

into it so if you want to be an honest

person you have to be an honest person

every day

even starting at three and four and five

right if you’re going to be a hard

worker hard work doesn’t just appear you

have to practice hard work you have to

practice effort and i also encourage

them try to help them understand that

good things don’t come easy

you know with that effort you know

that’s where you grow that’s where

growth some of the best times in my life

when i’ve grown it’s when i’ve done

something hard

when i’ve overcome a fear

you don’t realize that when you’re doing

it but when you come out

on the other side you realize wow i’ve

really

stepped up so i push my girls but more

importantly i love them a lot and that’s

what i feel for all of you

i want you guys to

feel that in your lives so that you can

be excellent

because other people told me that i

might not be able to

to do well in school

for whatever reason i was always a good

student i worked hard but i thought

there was some magic

that happened

that made you really you know i didn’t

know that it was just plain old hard

work

so there were periods of doubt for sure

i think we all i have doubts today

doubts don’t go away

you just learn how to

deal with them you you start knowing

yourself and you become more confident

the more successes you have the more

chances you take

you don’t let the the failures or the

stumbles define you

you know everybody falls every now and

then some people fall a lot

and what i realized is that we have long

lives if we’re healthy and we do what

we’re supposed to do

i’m 47 years old

so think about it whatever mistake i

made when i was 13 who cares

so think about life as a long trajectory

but at the same time

you don’t want to make huge mistakes

because when you’re young

making big big mistakes can last forever

right so you want to choose wisely

but the stumbles the lessons learned

that’s part of life that that makes you

grow but i i came to know that i didn’t

know that when i was your age i thought

every every mistake was the end of the

world

i’ll never be able i’ll never get into

school i’ll never be you know of course

we all feel that way

um but just continue to work put the put

the effort in and i think

that has been

some of what’s helped me being first

lady

first of all is knowing who you are and

being confident in yourself because

there’ll be

clarissa what do you say pushing beyond

other people’s labels of you

right that’s a big part that’s what we

do to each other all the time we don’t

even know each other and we already

determined from one glance meeting one

line one word one phrase this is who you

are

so you have to know who you are

before that

and you and you live that reality and

you keep living it out no matter what

and if you’re a good have good character

and and good intentions

that that ultimately shines through but

in the end it’s hard work

and

i like to work hard and i like to do

good things

and you practice that now

and believe it or not i didn’t know it

it prepared me to be the first lady of

united states i didn’t know i guess i’m

doing okay but you know what

every day we just get up

and keep doing what we think is the

right thing

read

write

read read if the president were here

one of his greatest

strengths is reading

that’s one of the reasons why he’s a

good communicator why he’s such a good

writer he’s a voracious reader so we’re

trying to get our girls no matter what

to just be

to love reading and to challenge

themselves with what they read not just

read the gossip books but push

themselves beyond and do things that

maybe they wouldn’t do so i would

encourage you all to

to read read read just keep reading and

writing is another skill it’s practice

it’s practice the more you write the

better you get drafts

our kids are learning the first draft

means nothing you’re gonna do seven ten

drafts that’s writing it’s not failure

it’s not

not the teacher not liking you because

it’s all marked up and read

when you get to be a good writer you

mark your own stuff in red

and you rewrite and you rewrite and you

rewrite that’s what writing is

and if you come out with those skills

and then you’re confident and you can

articulate and you can stand up straight

and look anybody in the eye and say this

is who i am it’s a pleasure to meet you

that’s one of the things we try to do

with our mentoring program with young

girls

my message to them is if you can walk

into the white house

and meet the first lady and say my name

is how are you and look me in the eye

then there’s nothing you can’t do that’s

why it’s important if you guys walked

here

are sitting here in front of all these

people

standing tall asking questions using

your voice

you have to practice that

these arenas just show up again and

again and then you just get used to it

the nerves go away and you start

relaxing into your own abilities

but it’s practice

when you are struggling

and you start thinking about giving up

i want you to remember something that my

husband and i have talked about since we

first started this journey nearly a

decade ago

something that has carried us through

every moment

in this white house in every moment of

our lives

and that is the power of hope

the belief that something better

is always possible if you’re willing to

work for it and fight for it

it is our fundamental belief in the

power of hope that has allowed us to

rise above the voices of doubt and

division

of anger and fear that we have faced in

our own lives and in the life of this

country

our hope that if we work hard enough and

believe in ourselves

then we can be whatever we dream

regardless of the limitations that

others may place on us

the hope that when people see us for who

we truly are

maybe just maybe

they too will be inspired

to rise to their best possible selves

shoot it’s the hope of my

folks like my dad

got up every day

do his job at the city water plant

the hope that one day his kids

would go to college

and have opportunities he never dreamed

of

that’s the kind of hope

that every single one of us

politicians

parents preachers all of us

need to be providing for our young

people

because that is what moves this country

forward every single day

our hope for the future

and the hard work that hope inspires i

want our young people to know

that they matter

that they

belong

so don’t be afraid

[Music]

you hear me young people don’t be afraid

be focused

be determined

be hopeful

be empowered

empower yourselves with a good education

then get out there and use that

education to build a country worthy of

your boundless promise

lead by example with hope

never fear

[Music]

so i figured something out that i

thought i’d tell you about this took me

like 30 years to figure out and i

figured it out on this tour

so there’s this old idea you know that

you have to rescue your father from the

belly of the whale right from some

monster that’s deep in the abyss you see

that pinocchio for example but it’s a

very common idea and i figured out why

that is i think

so

imagine that we already know from a

clinical perspective that

you know if you set out a path towards a

goal which you want to do because you

need a goal and you need a path because

that provides you with positive emotion

right so you set up something as

valuable so that implies a hierarchy you

set up something as valuable you decide

that you’re going to do that instead of

other things so that’s kind of a

sacrifice because you’re sacrificing

everything else to pursue that and then

you experience a fair bit of positive

emotion and meaning as you watch

yourself move towards the goal and so

the implication of that is the the

better the goal the the more full and

rich your experience is going to be when

you pursue it so that’s one of the

reasons of

that’s one of the reasons for developing

a vision and for fleshing yourself out

philosophically because you want to aim

at the highest goal that you can manage

okay so you do that

and then what you’ll find is that as you

move towards the goal there are certain

things that that that you have to

accomplish that frighten you you know

maybe you have to learn to be a better

speaker a better writer a better thinker

you have to be better to people around

you or you have to learn some new skills

and you’re afraid of that whatever

because it’s going to stretch you if you

if you pursue a goal and it’s and so

that’ll put you up against challenges

okay so all the clinical

data indicates well the opposite of safe

spaces as jonathan height has been

pointing out that what you want to do

when

you identify something that someone is

avoiding that they need to do because

they’re afraid you have them voluntary

con voluntarily confronted and so you

break it down what you try to do if

you’re a behavior therapist is you break

down the thing they’re avoiding into

smaller and smaller pieces until you

find a piece that’s small enough so

they’ll do it and it doesn’t really

matter as long as they start it you know

then they can put the next piece on the

next piece and what happens is

they don’t get less afraid exactly they

get braver

they get they get it’s like there’s more

of them you can and here’s why so

imagine

you do something new

and that’s informative right there’s

information in the action and then you

can incorporate that information and

turn it into a skill and turn it into a

transformation of your perceptions so

there’s more to you because you’ve tried

something new so that’s one thing the

second thing is

and there’s good biological evidence for

this now that

if you put yourself in a new situation

then new genes code for new proteins and

build new neural structures a new

nervous system structures same thing

happens to some degree when you work out

right because your your muscles are

responding to the load but your nervous

system does that too so you imagine that

there’s a lot of potential you locked in

your genetic code

and then if you put yourself in a new

situation then then the stress that’s

the situational stress that’s produced

by that particular situation unlocks

those genes and then builds new parts of

you so that’s very cool because who

knows how much there is locked inside of

you okay so now here’s the idea

so

let’s assume that that scales as you

take on heavier and heavier loads

that more and more of you you get more

and more informed because you’re doing

more and more difficult things but more

and more of you gets unlocked

and so then

what that would imply is that

if you got to the point where you could

look at the darkest things so that would

be the abyss right that would be the

deepest abyss if you could look at the

harshest things like the most brutal

parts of the suffering of the world and

the malevolence of people and society if

you could look that

look at that

straight and and directly that that

would turn you on maximally

and so that’s the idea of rescuing your

father because imagine that you’re like

the potential composite of of all your

all the ancestral wisdom that’s locked

inside of you biologically but that’s

not going to come out at all unless you

stress yourself unless you unless you

challenge yourself and the bigger the

challenge you take on the more that’s

going to turn on and so that as you take

on a broader and broader range of

challenges and you push yourself harder

then more and more of what you could be

turns on and that’s equivalent to

transforming yourself into the ancestral

father into all because you’re you’re

like the what would you call it you’re

the consequence of all these

living beings that have come before you

and that’s all

part of your biological potentiality and

then if you can push yourself then all

that clicks on and that turns you into

who you could be that’s and that’s the

re-representation of that

positive ancestral father the point is

your best strategic position

is

how am i insufficient and how can i

rectify that

that’s what you’ve got and the thing is

you are insufficient

and you could rectify it

both of those are within your grasp if

you aim low enough one of the things why

do you see that that’s another thing you

keep saying aim low enough have a low

enough bar why do you why do you mean

that well let’s say you’ve got a kid and

you want the kid to improve you don’t

set them a bar that’s so high that it’s

impossible for them to attain it you

take a look at the kid and you think

okay this kid’s got this range of skill

here’s a challenge we can throw at him

or her that exceeds their current level

of skill but gives them a reasonable

probability of success

and so like i’m saying it

tongue-in-cheek to some degree you know

it’s like but if you’re but i’m doing it

as an aide to humility it’s like well i

don’t know how to start improving my

life someone might say that and i would

say well you’re not aiming low enough

there’s something you could do that you

are regarding as trivial

that that you could do that you would do

that would result in an actual

improvement but it’s not a big enough

improvement for you so you won’t lower

yourself enough to take the opportunity

incremental steps yes and so this is

also what is achieved through exercise

it’s one of the most important

well what do you do when you go and lift

weights you don’t go in like if you

haven’t bench pressed before you don’t

put 400 pounds on the damn bar and drop

the and drop the bar through your skull

right you know you think look when i

started working out when i was a kid i

was i was weighed about 130 pounds and i

was six foot one was a thin kid and i

smoked a lot i wasn’t in good shape i

wasn’t in good physical shape and i went

to the gym and it was bloody

embarrassing you know people would come

over and help me with the goddamn

weights here’s how you’re supposed to

use this you know it’s humiliating and

maybe i was pressing 65 pounds or

something at that point you know but

what am i going to do i’m going to lift

up 150 pounds and injure myself right

off the bat no i had to go in there and

strip down and put my skinny goddamn

self in front of the mirror and think

son of a there’s all these

monsters in the gym who’ve been lifting

weights for 10 years and i’m struggling

to get 50 pounds off the bar tough luck

for me but i could lift 50 pounds and it

wasn’t fair very long until i could lift

75 and well you know how it goes but and

i never injured myself when i was

weightlifting and the reason for that

was i never pushed myself past where i

knew i could go and i pushed myself a

lot you know i gained 35 pounds of

muscle in about three years in

university i kind of had to quit because

i was eating so goddamn much i couldn’t

stand it it’s eating like six meals a

day it was just taking up too much time

but there’s a humility in determining

what it is that the wretched creature

that you are can actually manage aim low

and i don’t mean don’t aim and i don’t

mean don’t aim up

but you have to accept the fact that

you can set yourself a goal that you can

attain and there’s not going to be much

glory in it to begin with

because if you’re not in very good shape

the goal that you could could attain

tomorrow isn’t very glorious

but it’s a hell of a lot better than

nothing and it beats the hell out of

bitterness and it’s way better than

blaming someone else it’s way less

dangerous and you could do it and what’s

cool about it

there’s a statement in the new testament

it’s called the matthew principle and

economists use it to describe how the

economy and the world works to those who

have everything more will be given from

those who have nothing everything will

be taken it’s like what’s very

pessimistic in some sense because it

means that as you start to fail you fail

more and more rapidly but it also means

that as you start to succeed you succeed

more and more rapidly and so you take an

incremental step and well now you can

lift 55 pounds instead of 52.5 pounds

you think what the hell’s that it’s like

it’s one step on a very long journey

and so it’s it and it starts to compound

on you so a small step today means puts

you in a position to take a slightly

bigger step the next day and then that

puts you in a position to take a

slightly bigger step the next day you do

that for two or three years man you’re

starting to stride

[Music]

i found that nothing in life

is worthwhile

unless you take risks

nothing

nelson mandela said there is no passion

to be found

playing small

in settling for a life that’s less

than the one you’re capable of living

now i’m sure in your experiences in

school and applying to college and

picking your major and deciding what you

want to do with life i’m sure people

have told you to make sure you have

something to fall back on make sure you

got something to fall back on honey

but i never understood that concept

having something to fall back on

if i’m going to fall

i don’t want to fall back on anything

except my faith

i want to fall forward

i figure at least this way i’ll see what

i’m going to hit

fall forward

this is what i mean

reggie jackson struck out 2600 times in

his career the most

in the history of baseball but you don’t

hear about the strikeouts people

remember the home runs

fall forward

thomas edison conducted 1 000 failed

experiments did you know that i didn’t

know that because the one thousand and

first was the light bulb

fall forward

every failed experiment is one step

closer to success you’ve got to take

risks and i’m sure you’ve probably heard

that before but i want to talk to you

about why that’s so important

first

you will fail at some point in your life

accept it you will lose you will

embarrass yourself you will suck at

something there’s no doubt about it

and i know that’s probably not a

traditional message for a graduation

ceremony but hey

i’m telling you embrace it because it’s

inevitable

and i should know

in the acting business you fail all the

time early on in my career

i auditioned for a part in a broadway

musical

perfect role for me i thought

except for the fact that i can’t sing

so

i’m i’m in the wings i’m about to go on

stage but the guy in front of me he’s

singing like

like like paparazzi he’s just wrong

and he’s just going on and on and on and

i’m just shrinking i’m getting smaller

and smaller

so they say oh thank you very much thank

you very much and you will you’ll be

hearing from us

so i come out with my little sheet music

and

it was it was uh

just my imagination by the temptations

that’s what i came up with

so i hand it to the the the accompanist

and uh she looks at it and looks at me

and looks out at the director and was

like

all right

so i i start you know that’s i’m i’m

gonna sing i’m like you know and

it’s just my imagination

once again

and then

coming

and i’m not saying anything so i’m

thinking i’m getting better so i can

start getting into it

[Music]

[Applause]

running this oh yeah

yeah thank you thank you thank you very

much mr washington thank you

so i assumed i didn’t get the job

but the next part of the audition he

called me back the next part of the

audition is the acting part of the

audition so i’m like hey okay maybe i

can’t sing but i know i can act

so they pair me with this guy and again

i didn’t know about musical theater and

musical theater is big so they can reach

everyone all the way in the back of the

stadium and i’m more from a realistic

naturalistic kind of acting where you

you know you actually talk to the person

next to you

so i don’t know what my line was my line

was well hand me the cup

and his line was well i will hand you

the cup my dear the cup will be there to

be handed to you

i said

okay

will

should i give you the cup back oh yes

you should give it back to me because

you know that is my cup and it should be

giving back

to me

i didn’t get the job

but here’s the thing

i didn’t quit

i didn’t fall back

i walked out of there to prepare for the

next audition and the next audition and

the next audition

i prayed

i prayed

and i prayed

but i continued to fail

and fail

and fail but it didn’t matter because

you know what

there’s an old saying

you hang around the barber shop long

enough sooner or later you’re going to

get a haircut

so you will catch a break and i did

catch a break

last year

i did a play called fences on broadway

[Music]

someone talked about it

won the tony award

and i didn’t have to sing by the way

but here’s the kicker

it was at the court theater

it was at the same theater that i failed

that first audition

30 years prior

the point is every graduate here today

has the training and the talent to

succeed

but do you have the guts

to fail

here’s my second point about failure if

you don’t fail

you’re not even trying

i’ll say it again if you don’t fail

you’re not even trying my wife told me

this great expression to get something

you never had you have to do something

you never did

les brown’s a motivational speaker he

made an analogy about this he says

imagine you’re on your death bed and

standing around your deathbed are the

ghosts representing your unfulfilled

potential the ghost of the ideas you

never acted on the ghost of the talents

you didn’t use and they’re standing

around your bed angry disappointed and

upset

they say we we came to you because you

could have brought us to life they say

and now we have to go to the grave

together so i ask you today

how many ghosts are going to be around

your bed when your time comes

you’ve invested you you’ve invested a

lot in your education and people have

invested in you and let me tell you the

world needs your talents man does it

ever i just got back from africa like

two days ago so if i’m rambling on it’s

cause i’m jet lagged i just got back

from south africa it’s beautiful country

but there are places there with terrible

poverty that need help and africa is

just the tip of the iceberg the middle

east needs your help japan needs your

help alabama needs your help tennessee

needs your help louisiana needs your

help philadelphia needs your help

the world needs a lot and we need it

from you

we really do we need it from you young

people i mean i’m not speaking for the

rest of us up here but i know i’m

getting a little grayer

we need it from you the young people

because remember this so you got to get

out there

you got to give it everything you got

whether it’s your time

your your your talent

your prayers

or your treasures because remember this

you will never see a u-haul

behind a hearse

you can’t take it with you

the egyptians tried it

and all they got was robbed

so the question is

what are you going to do with what you

have i’m not talking about how much you

have

some of you are business majors some of

you are theologians nurses sociologists

some of you have money some of you have

patience some of you have kindness some

of you have loved some of you have the

gift of long-suffering whatever it is

whatever your gift is

what are you going to do

with what you have

all right now here’s my last point about

failure

sometimes

it’s the best way

to figure out where you’re going

your life will never be a straight path

i began at fordham university as a

pre-med student i i

i took a course called the

cardiac morphos i still can’t say it

cardiac

cardiac morphogenesis i couldn’t read it

i couldn’t say it i sure couldn’t pass

it

so then i decided to go into pre-law

then journalism and with no academic

focus my grades took off in their own

direction

[Music]

yeah down

i was a 1.8 gpa

one semester and the university very

politely suggested that it might be

better to take some time off

i was 20 years old i was at my lowest

point

and then one day and i remember the

exact day march 27 1975 i was helping my

mother in her beauty shop my mother

owned a beauty shop up in mount vernon

and there’s there was this older woman

who was considered one of the elders in

the town and i didn’t know her

personally but i was looking in the

mirror and every time i looked in the

mirror i could see her behind me and she

was staring at me

she just kept looking at me every time i

looked at her she kept giving me these

strange looks

so she finally took the dryer off her

head and said

some she said something i’ll never

forget

first of all she said somebody give me a

piece of paper give me a piece of paper

she said young boy

i have a prophecy

a spiritual prophecy

she said you are going to travel the

world

and speak to millions of people now mind

you i’m 20 years old i’m flunked out of

school in fact like a wise ass i’m

thinking to myself maybe she’s got

something in that crystal ball about me

getting back into school next fall

[Music]

but maybe she was on to something

because later that summer while working

as a counselor at the ymca camp in

connecticut we put on a talent show for

the campers and after the show another

counselor came up to me and asked have

you ever thought about acting you’re

good at that

so when i got back to fordham that fall

i got in and i changed my major once

again

for the last time

and in the years that followed just as

that woman prophesies i have traveled

the world and i have spoken to millions

of people through my movies

millions who up until this day

couldn’t see me i who up till this day i

couldn’t see while i was talking to them

and they couldn’t see me they could only

see the movie

they couldn’t see the real me

but i see you today

and i’m encouraged by what i see

and i’m strengthened

by what i see

[Music]

and i love

what i see

[Music]

today i want to tell you three stories

from my life

that’s it no big deal

just three stories

[Music]

the first story

is about connecting the dots

[Music]

i dropped out of reed college after the

first six months but then stayed around

as a drop in for another 18 months or so

before i really quit

so why’d i drop out

it started before i was born

my biological mother was a young unwed

graduate student and she decided to put

me up for adoption

she felt very strongly that i should be

adopted by college graduates so

everything was all set for me to be

adopted at birth by a lawyer and his

wife

except that when i popped out they

decided at the last minute that they

really wanted a girl

so my parents who were on a waiting list

got a call in the middle of the night

asking

we’ve got an unexpected baby boy do you

want him

they said of course

my biological mother found out later

that my mother had never graduated from

college and that my father had never

graduated from high school

she refused to sign the final adoption

papers

she only relented a few months later

when my parents promised that i would go

to college this was the start

in my life

and 17 years later i did go to college

but i naively chose a college that was

almost as expensive as stanford

and all of my working class parents

savings were being spent on my college

tuition

after six months i couldn’t see the

value in it

i had no idea what i wanted to do with

my life and no idea how college was

going to help me figure it out

and here i was spending all the money my

parents had saved their entire life

so i decided to drop out and trust that

it would all work out okay

it was pretty scary at the time but

looking back it was one of the best

decisions i ever made

the minute i dropped out

i could stop taking the required classes

that didn’t interest me

and begin dropping in on the ones that

looked far more interesting

it wasn’t all romantic

i didn’t have a dorm room so i slept on

the floor in friends rooms

i returned coke bottles for the five

cent deposits to buy food with

and i would walk the seven miles across

town every sunday night

to get one good meal a week at the hari

krishna temple

i loved it

and much of what i stumbled into by

following my curiosity and intuition

turned out to be priceless later on

let me give you one example

reed college at that time offered

perhaps the best calligraphy instruction

in the country

throughout the campus

every poster every label on every drawer

was beautifully hand calligraphed

because i had dropped out and didn’t

have to take the normal classes

i decided to take a calligraphy class to

learn how to do this

i learned about serif and sans serif

typefaces about varying the amount of

space between different letter

combinations about what makes great

typography great

it was beautiful historical artistically

subtle in a way that science can’t

capture

and i found it fascinating

none of this had even a hope of any

practical application

in my life

but 10 years later when we were

designing the first macintosh computer

it all came back to me

and we designed it all into the mac it

was the first computer with beautiful

typography

if i had never dropped in on that single

course in college the mac would have

never had multiple typefaces or

proportionally spaced fonts

and since windows just copied the mac

it’s likely that no personal computer

would have them

if i had never dropped out i would have

never dropped in on that calligraphy

class and personal computers might not

have the wonderful typography that they

do

of course it was impossible to connect

the dots looking forward when i was in

college but it was very very clear

looking backwards ten years later

again you can’t connect the dots looking

forward you can only connect them

looking backwards

so you have to trust that the dots will

somehow connect in your future you have

to trust in something your gut destiny

life karma whatever

because believing that the dots will

connect down the road

will give you the confidence to follow

your heart

even when it leads you off the well-worn

path and that will make all the

difference

[Music]

my second story

is about love and loss

i was lucky i found what i loved to do

early in life woz and i started apple in

my parents garage when i was 20.

we worked hard and in 10 years apple had

grown from just the two of us in a

garage into a two billion dollar company

with over 4 000 employees

we just released our finest creation the

macintosh a year earlier and i just

turned 30

and then i got fired

how can you get fired from a company you

started

[Music]

well

as apple grew we hired someone who i

thought was very talented to run the

company with me and for the first year

or so things went well but then our

visions of the future began to diverge

and eventually we had a falling out

when we did our board of directors sided

with him and so at 30 i was out

and very publicly out

what had been the focus of my entire

adult life was gone and it was

devastating

i really didn’t know what to do for a

few months

i felt that i’d let the previous

generation of entrepreneurs down that i

had dropped the baton as it was being

passed to me

i met with david packard and bob noyce

and tried to apologize for screwing up

so badly

i was a very public failure and i even

thought about running away from the

valley but something slowly began to

dawn on me

i still loved what i did

the turn of events at apple had not

changed that one bit

i’d been rejected but i was still in

love

and so i decided to start over

i didn’t see it then

but it turned out that getting fired

from apple was the best thing that could

have ever happened to me

the heaviness of being successful was

replaced by the likeness of being a

beginner again less sure about

everything

it freed me to enter one of the most

creative periods of my life

during the next five years i started a

company named next another company named

pixar and fell in love with an amazing

woman who would become my wife

pixar went on to create the world’s

first computer animated feature film toy

story and is now the most successful

animation studio in the world

in a remarkable turn of events

apple bought next and i returned to

apple and the technology we developed it

next is at the heart of apple’s current

renaissance

and loreen and i have a wonderful family

together

i’m pretty sure

none of this would have happened if i

hadn’t been fired from apple

it was awful tasting medicine but i

guess the patient needed it

sometime life sometimes life’s going to

hit you in the head with a brick

don’t lose faith

i’m convinced that the only thing that

kept me going was that i loved what i

did you’ve got to find what you love and

that is as true for work as it is for

your lovers

your work is going to fill a large part

of your life and the only way to be

truly satisfied is to do what you

believe is great work and the only way

to do great work is to love what you do

if you haven’t found it yet keep looking

and don’t settle

as with all matters of the heart you’ll

know when you find it and like any great

relationship it just gets better and

better as the years roll on so keep

looking

don’t settle

my third story

is about death

when i was 17 i read a quote that went

something like

if you live each day as if it was your

last someday you’ll most certainly be

right

it made an impression on me and since

then for the past 33 years i’ve looked

in the mirror every morning and asked

myself

if today were the last day of my life

would i want to do what i am about to do

today

and whenever the answer has been no for

too many days in a row i know i need to

change something

remembering that i’ll be dead soon is

the most important tool i’ve ever

encountered to help me make the big

choices in life

because almost everything

all external expectations all pride all

fear of embarrassment or failure these

things just fall away in the face of

death

leaving only what is truly important

remembering that you are going to die is

the best way i know to avoid the trap of

thinking you have something to lose

you are already naked there is no reason

not to follow your heart

no one wants to die

even people who want to go to heaven

don’t want to die to get there

and yet

death is the destination we all share

no one has ever escaped it

and that is as it should be because

death is very likely the single best

invention of life

it’s life’s change agent it clears out

the old to make way for the new

right now the new is you

but someday not too long from now you

will gradually become the old and be

cleared away

sorry to be so dramatic but it’s quite

true

your time is limited so don’t waste it

living someone else’s life

don’t be trapped by dogma which is

living with the results of other

people’s thinking

don’t let the noise of others opinions

drown out your own inner voice and most

important have the courage to follow

your heart and intuition

they somehow already know what you truly

want to become

everything else is secondary

stay hungry stay foolish

today

i want to talk about purpose

[Music]

but i’m not here to give you the

standard commencement about finding your

purpose we’re millennials we try to do

that instinctively

instead i’m here to tell you that

finding your purpose isn’t enough

the challenge for our generation is to

create a world where everyone has a

sense of purpose

one of my favorite stories

is when jfk went to go visit the nasa

space center and he saw a janitor

holding a broom and he asked him what he

was doing and the janitor replied mr

president i’m helping put a man on the

moon

purpose

is that feeling

that you are a part of something bigger

than yourself

that you are needed and that you have

something better ahead to work for

purpose is what creates true happiness

and today i want to talk about three

ways that we can create a world where

everyone has a sense of purpose

by taking on big meaningful projects

together

by redefining equality so everyone has

the freedom to pursue their purpose

and by building community

all across the world

so first let’s take on big meaningful

projects

our generation is going to have to deal

with tens of millions of jobs replaced

by automation like self-driving cars and

trucks

but we have the potential to do so much

more than that

every generation has its defining works

more than three hundred thousand people

work to put that man on the moon

including that janitor

millions of volunteers immunize children

around the world against polio and

millions of more people built the hoover

dam and other great projects

and now it’s our generation’s turn

to do great things

now i know maybe you’re thinking i don’t

know how to build a dam

i don’t know how to get a million people

involved in anything

well

let me tell you a secret

no one does when they begin

ideas don’t come out fully formed

they only become clear as you work on

them

you just have to get started

movies and pop culture just get this all

wrong

the idea of a single eureka moment is a

dangerous lie it makes us feel

inadequate because we feel like we

haven’t had ours yet

and it prevents people with seeds of

good ideas from ever getting started in

the first place

[Music]

in our society

we often don’t take on big things

because we’re so afraid of making

mistakes

that we ignore all the things wrong

today if we do nothing

the reality is

anything we do today

is going to have some issues in the

future

but that can’t stop us from getting

started

so what are we waiting for

it is time for our generation defining

great works

how about stopping climate change before

we destroy the planet and getting

millions of people involved

manufacturing

and installing solar panels

how about curing all diseases and

getting people involved by asking

volunteers to share their health data

track their health data and share their

genomes

[Music]

these achievements are all within our

reach

let’s do them all in a way that gives

everyone in our society a role

let’s do big things not just to create

progress but to create purpose

the second is redefining

our idea of equality so everyone has the

freedom to pursue their purpose

now

many of our parents had stable jobs

throughout their careers but in our

generation we’re all a little

entrepreneurial whether we’re starting

our own projects or finding our role in

another one

and you know that’s great because our

culture of entrepreneurship is how we

create so much progress

an entrepreneurial culture thrives when

it is easy to try lots of new ideas

facebook wasn’t the first thing i built

i also built chat systems and games

study tools and music players and i’m

not alone

jk rowling got rejected 12 times before

she finally wrote and published harry

potter

the greatest successes come from having

the freedom to fail

now

today

we have a level of wealth and equality

that hurts everyone

when you don’t have the freedom

to take your idea and turn it into a

historic enterprise

we all lose

and right now today our society is way

over indexed on rewarding people when

they’re successful and we don’t do

nearly enough to make sure that everyone

can take lots of different shots

now let’s face it

there is something wrong with our system

when i can leave here and make billions

of dollars in 10 years

while millions of students can’t even

afford to pay off their loans let alone

start a business

i know a lot of entrepreneurs

and i don’t know a single person who

gave up on starting a business because

they were worried they might not make

enough money

but i know too many people who haven’t

had the chance to pursue their dreams

because they didn’t have a cushion to

fall back on if they failed

[Music]

every generation

expands its definition of equality

previous generations fought for the vote

and civil rights

they had the new deal

and great society

and now it’s time for our generation to

define a new social contract

we should have a society that measures

progress

not just by economic metrics like gdp

but by how many of us have a role we

find meaningful

we should explore ideas like universal

basic income to make sure that everyone

has a cushion to try new ideas

and we’re all going to make mistakes

so we need a society that’s less focused

on locking us up and stigmatizing us

when we do

and as our technology keeps on evolving

we need a society that is more focused

on providing continuous education

through our lives and yes

giving everyone the freedom to pursue

purpose isn’t going to be free

people like me should pay for it

and a lot of you are going to do really

well and you should too

but it’s not just about giving money

you can also give time

and i promise you

if you just take an hour to a week

that’s all it takes to give someone a

hand and help them reach their potential

now maybe you’re thinking that’s a lot

of time i’m not sure if i have that much

time

i used to think that

we can all make time to give someone a

hand

let’s give everyone the freedom to

pursue purpose not just because it’s the

right thing to do but because when more

people can turn their dreams into

something great we are all better for it

purpose doesn’t only come from work

the third way

we can create a sense of purpose for

everyone is by building community

and in our generation when we say

purpose for everyone

we mean everyone in the world

in a recent survey of millennials around

the world

asking what most defines our identity

the most popular answer wasn’t

nationality ethnicity or religion

it was citizen of the world

that’s a big deal

every generation expands the circle of

people we consider one of us

and in our generation that now includes

the whole world

we understand that the great arc of

human history bends towards people

coming together in ever greater numbers

from tribes to cities to nations to

achieve things that we could not on our

own

we get that our greatest opportunities

are now global

we can be the generation that ends

poverty

that ends disease

and we get that our greatest challenges

need global responses too

no country can fight climate change

alone or prevent pandemics

progress now requires coming together

not just as cities or nations but also

as a global community

[Music]

but we live in an unstable time

there are people left behind by

globalization

across the whole world

and it’s tough to care about people in

other places when we don’t first feel

good about our lives here at home

the purpose and stability in our own

lives

that we can start to open up and care

about everyone else too

and the best way to do that

is to start building local communities

right now

change starts local

even global change starts small with

people like us

in our generation

the struggle of whether we connect more

whether we achieve our greatest

opportunities comes down to this

your ability

to build communities

and create a world where every single

person has a sense of purpose

i i try to think what did i say that

could actually be helpful or useful to

you in the future

and uh i thought perhaps uh tell the

story of how i sort of came to be here

how did some of these things happen

and and maybe there’s some lessons there

um because i often find myself wondering

how did this happen

so

when i was young i i

i didn’t really know what i was going to

do uh when i got older

but but then eventually i thought that

the idea of inventing things would be

would be really cool

the reason i thought that was because

i i read a quote from author c clock

which said that

efficiently advanced technology is

indistinguishable from magic

and and that’s really true

if you think if you go back

say 300 years the things that we take

for granted today

would be you’d be burned at the stake

for you know being able to fly

that’s crazy

being able to see over long distances

being able to communicate having um

effectively

with with the internet

a group mind of sorts

and having access to all the world’s

information

instantly from almost anywhere in the

earth

this is stuff that that really would be

magic it would be considered magic

in times past in fact i think it

actually goes beyond that because there

are many things that we take for granted

today that weren’t even imagined

in times past they weren’t even in the

realm of magic

so that it actually goes goes beyond

that

so i thought well

you know if if i can do

some of those things basically if i can

advance technology then that’s like

magic and that would be really cool and

i always had sort of a slight

existential crisis because i was trying

to figure out what does it all mean like

what’s the purpose of things

and i came to the conclusion that if if

we can advance the the knowledge of the

world if we can do things that expand

the scope and and scale of consciousness

then we’re better able to ask the right

questions and become more enlightened

and and that’s really the only way

forward

so i i studied

physics and business because i figured

in order to do a lot of these things you

need to

know how the universe works and you need

to know how

how the economy works

and you also need to be able to bring a

lot of people together to work with you

to create something because it’s very

difficult to do something as as an

individual if it’s if it’s a significant

technology

i originally came out to to california

to

try to figure out

how to improve the

energy density of of electric vehicles

basically to try to figure out if there

was an advanced capacitor that that

could serve as an alternative to

batteries

and um that was in 95 and

that’s also when the internet

started to happen

and it i i thought well i can either

pursue this tech this technology where

success maybe may not be one of the

possible outcomes which is always tricky

or

participate in the internet and and be

part of it so i decided to to drop out

did some internet stuff what one of

which was paypal and and i think maybe

it’s helpful to

say one of the things that was important

then in the creation of paypal

was uh was kind of how it started

because

the initial thought was with paypal was

to create an agglomeration of financial

services so you have one place where

all your financial services needs would

be seamlessly integrated and and work

smoothly and then we had like a little

feature which was to do email payments

and whenever we’d show the show the

system off to someone uh we’d show the

hard part which was the um

the agglomeration of financial services

which was quite difficult to put

together nobody was interested then we’d

show people email payments which was

actually quite easy and everybody was

interested so i think it’s important to

to take feedback from your environment

you know it’s it you want to be as

closed loop as possible it’s so we focus

on email payments and really try to make

that work and that’s what really got

things to take off

but but if we hadn’t if we hadn’t

responded to what people said then we we

probably would not have been successful

so it’s important to look for things

like that and and focus on them when

when you when you see them and get

correct your prior assumptions

going from paypal

what what are some of the

the other problems that uh are likely to

most affect the future of humanity

it really wasn’t from the perspective of

what what’s the rancor best way to to

make money um which which is which is

okay but

what i think is going to most affect the

future humanity so i think the biggest

terrestrial problem we’ve got is a

sustainable energy but the production

and consumption of energy in a

sustainable manner if we don’t solve

that this the sensory is the century

we’re we’re in deep trouble

and then the the other one being the

extension of life beyond earth to make

life multi-planetary

so that’s the basis for

the latter is the basis force for spacex

and the former is the basis for

tesla and solar city and and when i

started spacex i it was actually

initially

i thought that

well there’s there’s no way one could

possibly start a rocket company i wasn’t

that crazy

but but then

i thought well what is a way to

increase nasa’s budget that was actually

my initial goal

so

i i thought well if we can do a low-cost

mission to mars something called mars

oasis which would land seeds with with

dehydrate wood with seasoned dehydrated

nutrient gel and you hydrate them upon

landing and then you’d have this great

sort of money shot of green plants on a

red background and the public tends to

respond to um

precedents and superlatives

and this would be the first life on mars

the furthest that life’s ever traveled

as far as we know

and and i thought well that that would

get people really excited

and and and therefore increase at nasa’s

budget so so obviously the financial

outcome from such a mission would

probably be zero so anything better than

that was on the upside

so i actually went to i went to russia

three times to look at buying a

refurbished icbm because that that was

the best deal

and uh i can tell you it was very weird

going there in 2000 late 2001 2002

going to the russian rocket forces and

saying i’d like to buy

two of your biggest rockets

but you can keep the nuke

that’s a lot more

um

and

that was 10 years ago i guess so

they thought i was crazy but but i did

have money so that was

that was okay

after making several trips to to russia

i came to the conclusion that

that actually uh

my initial impression was was wrong

about

because my initial thought was well

that there’s not enough will to explore

and expand beyond earth and have a mars

base and that kind of thing but i can’t

conclusion that that was wrong um in

fact there’s plenty of will particularly

in the united states

because the united states

is a nation of explorers of people who

came here from from other parts of the

world i think

the united states really

a

distillation of the spirit of human

exploration

but if people think it’s impossible then

or it’s going to completely break the

federal budget then they’re not going to

do it

so

after

my third trip i said okay

what we really need to do here is try to

solve the space transport problem

and uh and started spacex

and uh this this was against the advice

of pretty much everyone i talked to

but one friend made me sit down and

watch a bunch of videos of rockets

blowing up let me tell you he wasn’t far

wrong i think it was it was tough going

there in the beginning because i’d never

built anything physical i mean i built

like little model rockets as a kid and

that kind of thing but

um i never had a company that built

anything physical so i’d figure out how

to how to do all these things and and

bring together the right team of people

and so we we did all that and and then

failed three times um

it it was tough tough going

because thing about a rocket is that the

the passing grade is a hundred percent

and uh

you you don’t get to

actually test the rocket in the real

environment that it’s going to be in

so i think so the best analogy for for

rocket engineering is

it’s like if you want to create a really

complicated bit of software

you could you can’t run the software as

an integrated hole and you can’t run it

on the computer it’s intended to run on

but the first time you put it all

together and write it on that computer

it must run with no bugs

that’s that’s basically the essence of

it so we missed the mark there

that the first launch i was picking up

bits of rocket near the

the launch site was bizarre and uh

but we we learned with with each

successive flight and uh and were able

to with uh especially with the fourth

flight in 2008 uh reached orbit and that

was also with the last bit of money that

we had

thank goodness uh that that happened i

think the saying is fourth times the

charm

so that’s we got the falcon one two

orbit

and then

uh began to scale that up to to the

falcon 9 which is

about an order of magnitude more a

thrust it’s uh around a million pounds

of thrust

and

we managed to get that to orbit and then

uh developed dragon spacecraft

which

recently was able to dock and return to

earth from the space station

that was a white knuckled event

so yeah it’s a huge relief still can’t

quite believe it actually happened

but there’s a lot more that that that

must happen beyond this in order for

humanity to be to become a space faring

civilization ultimately

a multi-planet species and that’s

something i think it’s it’s it’s vitally

important and and i hope um

that that some of you will will

participate in in that either at spacex

or at other companies because it’s just

really one of the

the most important things for the

preservation and extension of

consciousness

it’s worth noting as i’m sure people are

aware that the earth has been around for

four billion years

and civilization at least in terms of

having

writing has been around for 10 000 years

and that’s been generous and i think um

i’m actually i’m actually fairly

optimistic about the future of earth so

i don’t want to

i don’t want to sort of people to have

the wrong impression that i think we’re

all about to die

i think things will most likely be okay

for a lo for a long time on earth

but not not for sure but most likely

but but even if it’s if it’s sort of 99

likely one a one percent chance is still

it’s still worth spending a fair bit of

effort to ensure that we have um we’ve

backed up the biosphere you know

planetary redundancy if you will

and so i think i think it’s really

really quite important and in order to

do that

there’s a breakthrough that needs to

occur which is to create a rapidly and

completely reusable um transport system

to mars which which is one of those

things that’s right on the borderline of

of impossible

um but that that’s sort of the the thing

that we’re

we’re going to try to achieve there with

with with spacex

and then on the on the on the tesla

front uh the goal with tesla was really

to try to show that what electric cars

can do because people had the wrong

impression we had to change people’s

perception of an electric vehicle

because they used to think of it as

something that was slow and

ugly and had low range and like a golf

cart

and and so that’s why we created the

tesla roadster to show that you can be

fast

attractive and and long range and it’s

amazing how

even though you can show that something

works on paper you know and the

calculations are very clear

until you actually have the physical

object and they can they can drive it it

doesn’t really sink in for people

um and so that that i think is is

something worth noting if if you’re

gonna create a company the first thing

you should try to do is create a working

prototype

um you know everything everything looks

great on powerpoint but if you have if

you have an actual demonstration article

even if it’s in primitive form that’s

much much more effective for convincing

people

i i think the the overarching point i

want to make is that um

you guys are the magicians of the 21st

century they’re like anything holds you

back imagination is is the limit

um and

go out there and create some magic thank

you

[Music]

you