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