ENGLISH SPEECH JOHN KRASINSKI Find Your People English Subtitles
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great.
Guys, this is insane.
What is happening?
Why am I up here?
Truly.
No, I’m dead serious, why am I up here?
To be asked to come back to this place, to
speak to a graduating class of an institution
that truly meant the world to me and still
is the leading aspect of my entire life and
career, it is the cornerstone of my life and
career, is an astonishing honor.
So thank you for being here, I mean that.
I really really do.
It is also an honor that I almost immediately
regretted saying yes to.
Because look at this.
Look at this church.
Look at these people.
Supposedly there are more people on the green.
They only just told me that.
Yes.
There’s people in Solomon?
No, no engine 93?
Okay.
Nothing for Solomon.
All right.
I love you Solomon.
Luckily a few days after I said yes, a rescue
call was sent.
I was to get on the phone with one of our
phenomenal hosts of today’s incredible ceremony,
the one that only Reverend Janet Cooper Nelson,
is down here.
Yep.
Rockstar, put this all together.
Her job was pretty simple, to harness any
and all spiritual guidance.
Reach out over that phone, metaphorically
grabbed me by the hand and weighed me through
the rough waters of sheer terror.
The end result, she made things way worse.
Janet, I love you, but in attempting to give
me advice and pointers on what I should say
in my speech, she started referencing these
indelible speeches from other people who had
already spoken.
Yeah.
You want to know what you led off with?
“I remember when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was here”.
I don’t mind telling you I peed a little.
I did.
The class of 2002 had a Supreme court justice
talk to them.
Okay.
And as I was checking my pants to see if they
need to dry cleaning, I heard her say, or
maybe the funniest moment had to be when the
Dalai Lama was here, and I blacked out.
I mean, full unconscious blacked out.
Head hit the table out because let me be honest
guys, the Dalai Lama spoke.
Okay.
I mean, he was the funniest?
I can’t contend with the Lama on a bad day,
but to know that he brought his A game.
He had a tight 15 minute comedy set?
No.
No, thank you.
So I’d like to start here today by addressing
the parents of the class of 2019.
And to you, I would like to say I hear you.
Don’t worry.
I have already had the T-shirts made up.
My kid just graduated from Brown and all I
got was the dude from the office.
Good.
Glad you think that’s funny.
That’s really funny.
Let me tell you what’s really funny.
The Notorious RBG, his holiness, they didn’t
go to Brown, not smart enough.
You know who did go to Brown?
The dude from the office.
It’s me.
That’s ridiculous.
It actually sounded awful just coming out.
And because of that I am specifically and
acutely aware of just what an astounding honor
it is to be here today.
So to the graduates of the class of 2019 tomorrow,
I say thank you.
Thank you for letting me be here today.
Truly thank you for letting me be a part of
your day.
This is your day and you are graduating tomorrow.
How cray is that?
Does anyone say cray anymore?
Okay.
I’m ancient.
Who’s nervous?
Let me see a show of hands of people in the
… Really?
A lot of outliers here.
Well, I look forward to your world domination.
I was terrified because all the people came
up to me and said, the future belongs to you.
Whoa.
What!
I am currently searching for an apartment
trying to keep the number of roommates in
single digit.
Literally nothing belongs to me.
Take a deep breath.
Let’s all take a breath.
Wow, you actually did it.
You’re going to be great.
There are many sides to being nervous and
a whole lot of them are wildly useful and
for the ones that aren’t so useful, well,
let me see if I can walk you through some
of those.
Believe it or not, they asked me to come up
with the title of this speech.
Yes.
Just characterized, it says a speech and yes,
they think it’s good enough to come up with
a name.
What’s so hard to understand?
The name I came up with off the top of my
head was, what do I know?
Pretty good.
And oddly enough, that line went from being
some jokey device I was using to deflect my
own fears of being up here to a genuine challenge
to myself.
What do I know that I can tell you guys about
that could possibly illuminate the future
that stands in front of you?
Well, I know that tomorrow you’ve all received
a piece of paper that says you’ve gotten one
of the best educations there is to get period.
I also know that that education did not necessarily
happen in the classroom.
The funniest thing about me is my getting
into Brown, I didn’t feel I deserve to get
in.
So I made it my mission to deserve to graduate.
That was my thing.
I came to Brown as a midyear.
I don’t know if that program exists anymore,
but yes, one person?
Nope.
Okay.
It’s gotten smaller since I was here, but
I was one of 32 kids that were not accepted
in the fall with everyone else.
Thanks.
Anyway.
But rather we came in alone, hungry and cold
in January.
I remember immediately trying to find my place,
to find a group, to find my people.
There was a moment where I even thought I
might try to play basketball here.
Don’t laugh yet, don’t laugh yet.
My brother Paul was actually the captain of
the basketball team, so I had communicated
with the coach a couple of times about potentially
walking on, still no laughter, please.
And it was January, so it was mid season.
I walked up to the gym one day to meet with
the coach.
I opened the door as the door swung open,
by the time it reached the end, and it was
coming back, I went, no.
Nope.
These dudes were too big.
They were too good and it was just after lunch
and they were on their second practice.
No, thank you.
No, thank you.
So I turned around and walked straight through
the campus toward my dorm.
When something caught my eye.
I saw a flyer for a sketch comedy group called
Out of Bounds.
Yes, you can all clap for them.
That’s how big we were too.
It’s funny because I think the flyer caught
my eye because it was nailed to a tree.
And I remember thinking like, “Whoa, I haven’t
been at Brown very long, but protecting trees
is kind of like one of your things”.
So I went in for the audition and my entire
life changed.
Nope, not because I got in, not because I
started acting.
It was through that group that I found my
way into this community.
It was through that group that I met my people
and all of a sudden I was surrounded by the
most inspiring peers.
I mean, every single one of them seemed way
smarter than me, way cooler than me, way more
interesting.
And one of the best decisions I made in my
life was just to lean all the way in.
Nope, not to acting.
Are you kidding.
I mean, I really wasn’t good enough to be
here.
I don’t know if you’re listening.
These kids were amazing.
Truly by the end of senior year, the only
parts I had ever gotten were like arm guard
number four or terrified hostage guest number
two.
Yeah, that’s right.
When I was at Brown, we did die hard the musical.
Yep.
You guys really missed out.
I can promise you that.
My parents were right here.
They’ll tell you, you missed out.
They didn’t miss out.
It was ridiculous.
Okay.
You still have your shirts that say, my kid
went to Brown and all I got was diehard to
musical.
That seems harsh, but we’ll talk about it
later.
No, I didn’t get to throw everything in acting,
but I did throw everything I had into this
unparalleled pool of brilliant people.
People often ask me how I got into acting.
The truth is I didn’t get into acting.
I got into everything.
Believe it or not.
When I got to Brown, I really hadn’t listened
to any music that wasn’t on the radio, seen
any movie that wasn’t in the multiplex.
One day I asked a small group of friends to
each give me, one of their favorite movies,
favorite albums, and they did, every single
week for four years.
Yeah.
Cry.
Okay, I’m back.
It was the experience of my life.
One of the most mind blowing, mind expanding
experiences and no drugs were necessary.
It was without a doubt the beginning of everything.
For the next four years I wanted to be a part
of it all.
I formed a new way of thinking, a new way
of executing those thoughts.
I leaped out of my comfort zone, then stayed
there and then left again.
I experienced firsthand the powerful shift
in doing something out of love rather than
out of necessity.
I learned what it meant to believe.
I took chances, I failed and I took more chances.
So yes, in the classroom I received one of
the greatest educations one can possibly get,
true, but the piece of paper I got at graduation
also represents that education.
The piece of paper I got not only says where
I was educated, but who I was educated with
and it declares that I am a member of that
community of people to be relied upon, to
take risks, provoke thought, and to be committed
participants in this world.
The piece of paper I got represented every
facet of my experience and the piece of paper
I got is the exact same piece of paper you’re
going to get tomorrow.
The piece of paper I got, I live my life every
single day by, because when looking at this
sense of nervous that you’re feeling now,
ask yourself, what’s it based in?
Is it based in the unknown?
Because my question to you is up until now,
how else have you approached each new tomorrow?
And if your nerves are based in fear of failure,
well, my question is up until now, how have
you defined success because in this community,
without the presence of financial gain, isn’t
success simply defined as you’re just being
onto something, taking an idea farther that
it never been before?
Why does it ever need to change?
It doesn’t.
Or if your nerves are based on something bigger,
a fear of something bigger.
The world at large.
Well, to that I do say yes, it’s true there
are right.
The future does indeed belong to you, but
the abstract weight of responsibility to change
it over night very much does not.
Real change is organic.
You’re the only responsibility you all have
is to hold fast to everything that you have
lived right here.
To not conform.
To realize that when you’re out there, you’ve
done all this before, right in here.
Remember fondly the discomfort you felt when
you were asked to push yourself farther than
you were ever.
Sure.
You could go.
In the wash of elation when you finally got
there.
Remember to be scared.
You’ve been there, scared before.
You’ll be scared again.
Find more of your people.
Lean all the way in.
Take chances, fail big and take chances again,
listen to music.
Remember to believe in something and fall
in love as many times as it takes.
And remember before you do something special,
just do something.
The truth can almost seem too simple, but
the simple truth is the program you ran here
is the same program.
Just run it again and again and again.
That’s what I know.
Thank you to this class, to this institution
is my honor.
Thank you.