Tips for Tough Decisions

[Applause]

how many of you associate the word

becoming

with the future becoming is not what you

will be in the future it’s what you are

right now i mean isn’t the future just

a series of present moments and this

present is the result

of countless decisions you’ve already

made in the past

you all have condos bank accounts and

you have a life quantum too

good decisions deposits

bad ones withdrawals the real bad ones

can leave you bankrupt decisions about

career

partner children money what you eat

and how much taken individually

insignificant but cumulatively they’re

huge

they’re your life your parents probably

said the same thing many times while you

did the big eye roll

[Music]

and inwardly groaned enough already

the war in vietnam was at its peak as i

left high school

the prospect of becoming a soldier

trapping through jungles was not really

an attractive career prop

decision i chose to enter the navy

instead

after 16 years i left to try some other

professions

emergency medical airlift pilot project

manager in a software startup firm

and finally as an investigator for the

department of defense

in stuttgart

after retiring from those professions i

grew restless

i needed another career

i didn’t realize that what i was to

become

was similar to luke skywalker’s father

descending

into the darkness that became darth

vader

yeah pretty bad

one day i saw a strange advertisement in

the local newspaper

wanted native english speaker

with some knowledge of child psychology

must be capable of and willing to

inflict

intense mental suffering on human

subjects

when required and so i became

a math teacher

[Applause]

endure 16 hours of pain i mean

instruction

each day and then they come to me for

more

go figure since i can’t teach math to

read a ted talk

can i share a few tips that have helped

me make

difficult decisions in my life

the us air force one’s had a recruiting

slogan aim high

that’s found its way into different

posters

that’s actually game high indeed

my parents never counseled me that one

career was better than another

but they did encourage me to set my

goals high

my own two sons as they grew up asked me

countless times

daddy is that a good job

i always answered them the same way when

you wake up in the morning

open your eyes and can’t wait to begin

your day

that’s a good job

now here’s an exercise in gold said i’ll

say two things

and you note the reading on your

possibility

as you compare the two climb the nearby

hill above

that sky or climb the highest mountain

in africa

achieve a passing grade in theory of

knowledge do you okay

or achieve a six or better in ib

mathematics

now how many of you thought to

yourselves well hill spetsgard is easy

but

mount kilimanjaro or

passing tea okay no sweat

a six in mouth no way

others may have thought the hill bus

gets

spet’s is a piece of cake so with a

little training

why not a mountain and then a bigger

mountain

a six in math is tough but how many

others have done it before me

so why can’t i i was blessed

with a dad who saw life from the

perspective

of why he could solve a problem achieve

a goal

do the impossible his first thoughts

were nearly always

i can instead if i can’t

when my older son proposed that his

brother and i

should all climb knock kind of a jar my

immediate answer was

sure let’s do it yeah i can so i have my

brain kicked in

yeah kelly is one of the seven summons

hey it’s not everest

then the evil mathematician side of me

took over

and i began to run the numbers

starting with everest base camp to a

summit

about 3 500 meters kili base camp to

summit

4 200 meters suddenly

i wasn’t quite sure of myself

negative thoughts like those are what

the motivational speaker zig ziglar

called stinking thinking

the i eye can slide in my brain

finally went out and all three of us

agree

it was a life-changing experience

aim high it’s tough to swim upstream

try it in the rhine river sometime going

against the flow isn’t easy

especially when there’s peer pressure

and that isn’t just

a teenager thing i was a new incident in

a squadron aboard an aircraft carrier

now an ensign is the very bottom

of the naval officer food chain

our ship came off station and was headed

for a few days of rest and relaxation in

hong kong

before we arrived the commanding officer

or co who by the way a new junior

officer

views really as god

he asked the squadron officers if there

were any objections to using our

wardrobe fund

to pay for a hotel room and to stock up

the clues

meaning enough alcohol to flow to ship

now to know where the story is going

imagine your math teacher

asking you if you have any questions

about the lesson just covered

no one dares raise your hand lest they

be thought of as

dumb uncool a scraper

you get it so there are was

slipping sideways glances around a room

filled with 40 guys who

regardless of whether or not they agreed

with the ceo’s proposal or not

we’re going to go with the flow talk

about

peer pressure i

slowly raised my hand and offered that

perhaps just those officers who wanted

to use the hotel room

could contribute individually and we

could save the fund

for its original purposes what’s notable

is that i didn’t need to justify my

comment by saying i don’t drink alcohol

the co who i liked and respected

immensely paused

but only for a second and without asking

for other comments

said that we would do as i had suggested

afterward several other junior officers

thanked me

for having the courage to voice what

they also felt

conventional wisdom let’s call it cw

says we must generally fall into step or

go with the flow of what the world’s

notions of

normal sane and reasonable are

when i left the navy eight years shy of

a guaranteed retirement pension my

fellow officers thought i was crazy

i had no job and no prospects for one

what my wife karen and i had was a dream

to travel around the world

we’d figure out the rest when we

returned

cw says that to be successful we need to

fast track

do whatever it takes take no

prisoners and no points

for second place

where in the world did all that come

from

and why does it receive so much emphasis

at the expense

of the kinder gentler side of our

natures

did you ever once hear of cw allowing

you

to just chill to be a child

even when you’re an adult

abandon the popular notion that you have

to climb on

and over others to achieve your

ambitions

if you help enough others reach their

goals

you’ll have everything you want in life

and

need 30 years ago conventional wisdom

was that

fathers were the breadwinners

when i decided to stay at home for the

first four years of my son’s life

it was not easy when others asked what i

did for work

my answer full-time dad often brought

a pause to a conversation especially

with women

they sometimes had no response at all or

eeked out

oh how nice

i was the only man at the bus stop to

see my boy off to school in the morning

and the only one there when he returned

in the afternoon

it was without question one of the best

decisions

i’ve ever made and i wouldn’t change it

for anything

cw says you don’t jump off cliffs

without reasonable assurance of a soft

landing

but the hard landings remind us that

life could be dull

if we don’t take some chances

in the military there is an expression

rhip

rank has its privilege

rank has its responsibility

as i already mentioned a moment ago a

commanding officer

is like god he enjoys privilege

and like no other but when something

goes wrong he pays

a steep price if his ship runs the

ground or collides with another vessel

the very first thing a u.s navy captain

does after ensuring the

ship and crew are out of danger is to

pack a suitcase

he can count on being off that ship and

relieved of his command

probably within the day now

you might think that seems harsh and

arbitrary

what if the accident wasn’t his fault

it doesn’t matter

final accountability rests with him or

else no one aboard that ship will be

certain of who’s really in command

when there’s a life or death decision to

be made

the same holds true for a business even

if the chairman of volkswagen

had not known about the defeat devices

deployed on

its automobiles he was responsible

we live in a world where individual

accountability seems to be an

anachronism

a world in which bad decisions avoidable

mistakes and just

plain unacceptable behavior

are are attributed to circumstances

beyond

a person’s control to societal factors

instead of individual shortcomings

during the last financial crisis

taxpayer money rescued corporations and

other banks

too big to fail and yet those

responsible for decisions and actions

that affected millions of people and

their life savings

simply walked away with no consequences

is that a world you agree with and want

to live in

remember that life conto be prepared to

live with your decisions and accept

responsibility for them

question and sometimes challenge

authority

ah i can see i have the full attention

of parents teachers and mentors

one evening i was paired to fly with an

officer two ranks above me

that’s one below god in the reading room

his breath leaked up alcohol

sprang fair boat aboard u.s navy ships

before the briefing began i drew him

aside and respectfully told him

he needed to remove himself from the

flight

because i wouldn’t fly with him landing

on an aircraft carrier at night is

difficult enough when you’re sober

and i wasn’t about to discover if he was

up to the challenge after a few

cocktails

my life was worth more than his rank or

pride

young men of my generation willingly

follow their political military leaders

we trusted them to act in the best

interest of our nation and its people

sadly that was not always the case

our leaders hid the terrible costs of

the vietnam war

from the public for years in the 60s

most men my age thought that

conscientious objectives to the war were

cowards

too weak to answer our call to duty

i realize now that many of those men and

women

were just as brave as the more than two

million americans who went to vietnam

and served

they made decisions that cost them

nearly at the time

some were incarcerated in prison others

had to flee the country

yet ultimately their convictions

and the demonstrations of millions of

americans

help to end that conflict

unless you live on a deserted island

someone will always be telling you how

to live your life

learn how to recognize when questioning

their direction

will be worth the outcome swallow your

self-righteousness

but have the courage to take a stand

when your conscience said you must

well i hope i’ve left you with a few

ideas to help you deal with difficult

decisions in your life

aim high in the words of the third u.s

president thomas jefferson

if you want something you never had you

have to do

what you’ve never done swim upstream

and question conventional wisdom if i

could remember only one piece of advice

from my dad

it would be sun don’t follow the herd

question even challenge authority

but know what battles to pick so you

survive to fight another day

take responsibility when you make a

mistake

admit it correct it and learn from it

and one more i haven’t mentioned before

perhaps the most important in my life

ask yourself

what would my hero do

i didn’t need action figure superheroes

growing up

spiderman superman batman

i had the real deal my dad

was he perfect is any parent

but he and my mom gave me the greatest

gifts any parents

can give a child their time their love

their values they shape the man i’ve

become

and i still listen for their inspiration

when faced with tough decisions today

thank you all

you