Brené Brown: 'it will not be on your terms and it will not be on your timeline,' University of Texas - 2020

Thank you. Graduates, I again, I wish I was with you. I wish we were together. I wish we were in front of that tower, and I know that we will be in short order. Tonight, we're going to do this virtually. Got some words I've put together for you. I'm going to read it to you. I'm going to look at you. I'm going to give you some weird Zoom eye along the way, probably as I go back and forth. But this is for you.

I believe that what starts at UT changes the world. I know it's true because I've lived it. I also know that this is not how you and your family wanted to spend commencement. The best way I can honor you and everything that you've accomplished at UT during your time is to be very honest and tell you about the hard and wonderful and windy path of building a life and work that has the power to actually change the world.

What starts here changes the world, but it will not be on your terms and it will not be on your timeline. As we can see right now more than ever, the world does not ready itself for our plans. Your ability to live a life that's full of love and meaning, to make the world a braver and kinder place, to disrupt and reshape the future, has very little to do with the greatness of your plan. It depends completely on your ability to get back up and begin again when your plan fails. What starts here changes the world if you're committed to getting back up and beginning again, the exact same number of times that you fall, trip, and get pushed down.

When we see people myself included, when we see people that have achieved great things, who have set big goals and met them, we're often too quick to jump into comparison. Their path was easier. Their job was different. Everything was a lot less difficult. Fewer obstacles. We also make up stories about their efforts and obstacles that mostly highlight our fears and the worries we have about our own self-worth. Who am I to dream this? Who am I to believe I can change the world? Who am I to think I can overcome the challenges in front of me? Even the ones right now in May of 2020, in this world, in this pandemic.

I want to tell you who I think you are, who we all are by sharing a little bit more of who I am and my story. Two of my prize possessions growing up were a Bevo rug and a Bevo metal trash can. I loved these two things so much, wherever we moved, they went with me. There was no question in my mind that I would be a Longhorn. In 1982, my fall semester, senior year, I was accepted into the University of Texas and I got actually a room assigned to Kinsolving. And that was exactly how I had planned it. What I had not planned for was my family falling apart. My parents, after 20 years of marriage were on the brink of a divorce, and my father had taken early retirement from the company where he had spent his career and invested everything we had in an oil-related construction company.

Again, 1982, that was a huge crisis, oil glut crisis. And we lost everything. Paying for college came off the table, the divorce was imminent and I took my rage and grief and disillusionment and confusion and got as far away from Houston as I could get. I spent six months hitchhiking through Europe, came back to Texas, moved to San Antonio and spent several years in and out of college, doing every odd job you can imagine, including cleaning houses. It was the first and only job I've ever been fired from. I thought I made this table in their dining room really shiny, with some spray stuff and so I decided to pledge all the hardwood floors. But it turns out that wasn't a good idea because the owner came home and slid seven or eight feet through the entryway and then did a triple gainer and seriously injured their tailbone. And then I was, I guess what we would call today, gently coached out of that profession.

I finally settled into a full-time job at AT&T, it was going to be the perfect job for me because I could go to school during the day and this job was from 4:00 PM to 1:00 AM. The only tricky part was that I had to take all the calls in Spanish. Now, I had four years of high school French behind me, and two years of severe telenovela addiction. I'd watched two or three telenovelas with my roommates in San Antonio for two years. So I thought that would be enough. I actually did okay. I kind of winged it as I went.

The only problem I had were technical terms. Back then your telephone would plug into the wall in a jack and my first kind of full day out of training, I got a call from a woman who was panicked because she thought her phone was broken and we were trying to figure out whether it was the phone or the jack. And I didn't really know how to say jack, but I thought, well, Jack's a nickname for John and John and Spanish is Juan. So I told her to plug her phone into Juan, which happened to be her husband's name, which got really confusing. It turns out that telephone jack in Spanish isn't [inaudible 00:06:35] I loved my work at AT&T and to this day, I will tell you that it remains probably the most diverse, inclusive organization that I've ever been inside of.

I was led, mentored and coached by people who looked different than me, were raised different than me, thought different than me. I learned to trust people that were different from me. And I learned to be trusted by people who were different from me. I learned how to listen and believe people's stories, even though they didn't resonate or match my story. It was an incredible experience. About a year in I was offered a promotion. I took it. About six months later I was offered another promotion and I took it. This time I became a trainer, which is when I fell in love with teaching. I flew all over the country training people for AT&T. And then I received another promotion. And this promotion was kind of, I had to go to headquarters. I had to go to New Jersey. And I was so tempted because I loved my work and I would be close to New York and it sound incredible, but I couldn't stop thinking about the trash can and the hook rug with Bevo's picture.

So I went into my boss and said, "I'm turning down the promotion and I'm going to resign from the company." And she looked at me and said, "Are you going to be a VJ on MTV, on Headbangers Ball?" Which had been apparently not so secretive an ambition, but it turned out I did not get a job offer from MTV to be a VJ on Headbangers Ball. And I said, "No." And she said, "Are you going back to school full-time? Are you going to UT?" And I said, "I am." I wasn't too worried about the 1.1 GPA that I had accumulated over the years past, because that was a long time ago and I'd had a successful career at AT&T for several years. I had a lot of recommendations, I had a lot of confidence. And I went to the Dean of Students office at Admissions and I said, "Here's my story, and I'd love to come here and I've done this great work." And UT would have no part of it.

I don't remember his name, but he was in either to the Dean of Students or our admissions, maybe somewhere between. And he said, "I'll need to see two semesters of really good grades from you at a community college before I consider letting you into the University of Texas." And I said, "Okay." I moved to Houston. I had not been back since my parents had divorced. I lived with my mom, her new husband, my 16 year old twin sisters. And I got a job waiting tables at Pappadeaux. And I went to community college. A year later, I had taken 27 hours of transferable credit, I had a 4.0, and I sat in the waiting room of the same guy's office at UT. I was puffy and proud and ready. He looked at my transcript and he congratulated me on my grades and said, "I'm sorry. I'll need to see another semester of strong grades before I can let you into the University of Texas."

And I just remember bursting into tears and walking down 26th Street. I don't think it was called Dean Keeton then, but walking down 26th Street toward where my car was parked. And there used to be a convenience station there. And I found the quarters and called my mom on the payphone and told her, "They said no. They said no. They won't let me in." And as she assured me that I could come back to Houston and take more classes, I looked across the street at my car. I think it was probably illegally parked. And it was filled to the very top of the ceiling of that car. Because I had packed all my belongings. Because I wasn't coming home. This was it. This was my time.

So I took a deep breath and I cried for a couple more days. I called my mom 500 times during those two days. I wasn't sure I could do it. Wasn't what I had planned. It wasn't my timeline. It wasn't what I wanted. But I registered at ACC. I stayed in Austin. I transferred to the Pappadeaux on 35. And I made the grades and I went back and I thought to myself the same thing I still think to myself today when things are hard, and when I fall, because I still fall. Get back up, begin again. I will never forget the day that I took my transcripts back to this guy's office. He looked at them and he stood up and he looked across his big oak desk at me and said, "Welcome to the University of Texas at Austin." And like this, I started crying and I don't know what came over me because it was like I was in bootcamp and he was a drill sergeant because the only thing I could think to say at the time was "Hook them horns, sir." I think I startled him a little bit.

I married Steve who had just graduated from UT. He started medical school in San Antonio at UT Medical School. I worked in a residential treatment facility in the Hill Country between San Antonio and Austin. I kept waiting tables. I worked on my bachelor's degree in Social Work at UT. I did an internship at the state hospital and another internship at child protective services. And I graduated. I went straight into my MSW. Steve and I ended up in Houston. I started my PhD program at the University of Houston. I was 32 or 33 at the time. We were ready to have a baby. I got pregnant. I remember coming to school and letting people know, and some people were happy for me. And I think some people were, one person said to me, "God we really thought you'd have a career." And I said, "Look, it's a baby, not a lobotomy. We're good."

It turned out I had Hyperemesis and I got really sick and I had to take a leave of absence from school for a semester. Get back up, begin again. I got out and graduated with my PhD. I wrote a book and I was really excited about it. It was rejected from every single person. I could wallpaper [inaudible 00:13:01] with rejection letters. Get back up, begin again. Borrowed money from my parents. Self-published. The self-published book was a big hit. Penguin, big, proper publisher bought it. That book failed. Get back up, begin again. This is the rhythm of my life. And these are the seasons of every single person I know who has actually changed the world. I've collected over 400,000 pieces of data over 20 years. And I've never seen a single person who's built a life, a family or a career that did not have to scratch their way up from a fall and begin again a hundred times.

What starts here changes the world, but it will not be on your terms and it will not be on your timeline. The world will not ready itself for our plans. What starts here will change the world but it'll take your commitment to get back up and begin again the exact same number of times you fall, trip or get pushed down. So what's the key to getting back up and beginning again? Vulnerability. Now you all didn't think I was going to get through this whole thing without mentioning vulnerability, right? Come on. You knew it was coming. Getting back up and beginning again are risky. They both require courage and curiosity and courage and curiosity are born of vulnerability. Are you willing to show up and be all in when you don't know how it's going to end? The definition of vulnerability is simple. It's uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. We're raised to believe that vulnerability is weakness, but that's the greatest myth of all. It is not. It is actually the most accurate way to measure courage.

We've asked tens of thousands of people around the world, from special forces soldiers to professional athletes, to students and teachers, "Give me a single example. One example of courage in your life or in the life of someone else that did not require vulnerability. A single example of courage that did not require uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure." No one can. One day I found myself on base, military base in the Midwest talking to troops. I asked this question, "Give me an example of courage that didn't require vulnerability." There was silence. People buried their head in their hands. And finally, one young man stood up and said, "Three tours ma'am. There is no courage without vulnerability." A week later, I was with the CLC Hawks, asked them the same question, "No, not on the field or off. There is no courage without vulnerability."

If you can't manage, own, and lean into your vulnerability, you can't change the world. To get back up from a fall, to get back up from a setback, to get back up from what we're in right now, you have to acknowledge you're down, that you've fallen, failed, made a mistake. You have to be brave enough to acknowledge that you're hurting. That you're sad, disappointed, grieving, feeling shame, whatever feeling you're in, you have to own it. You cannot, we cannot begin again when we're dragging unspoken and unexplored emotions behind us. We have to be brave and curious and to dig into the feelings of a fall. And that's hard when[inaudible 00:16:35].

Emotional stoicism is not tough. Pretending that you don't have feelings isn't strength. Self-awareness is power. Acknowledging emotion and feeling doesn't give emotion and feeling power. It gives you power. You own the emotions or they own you. You own your hurt or your hurt owns you and you end up working it out on other people, or you take it out on your own self-worth. Once you get back up and acknowledge your hurt, that's when we're free to begin again. But beginning again also takes curiosity and courage. What have I learned from this fall that I can take with me as I begin again? And, does beginning again mean that there's a possibility of falling again? Yeah, it does. That's why they call it courage.

As I wrap up, let me tell you about the secret gift of being forced off the path, falling, getting back up and beginning again. Nothing wasted, muscles built. What I feared would be a shaming return home to Houston to go to community college, turned out to be an incredible opportunity to reconnect with my family. It was that Hill Country residential treatment facility that I worked in while I was working my way through UT, where I learned about the concept of shame. That defined my career. My falls have taught me a hundred times more about who I am than any of my achievements ever have, ever could, or ever will. I owe a hundred percent of my accomplishments to taking smart risks and trusting myself. While every fall is different and every learning is new, I'm not afraid to fall anymore because I've built the skills to get back up.

I've learned more about being human, how we think, feel, and behave from bartending and waiting tables and my weird odd jobs than I ever could in a classroom. Not a minute of that time was wasted. Not a minute. I learned more about the issues that are important to me like inclusion and diversity and leadership, living into those principles at a job that I never in a million years was a part of my plan. So what happens in the classroom, when I was a student or where I teach, that's where we learn to think critically. That's where we learn to connect the dots of our seemingly unconnected experiences. That's where we learn how to make meaning, how we learn to understand what struggle means and why we can't have anything without it. That's where we build muscles on top of muscles.

I spend 90% of my time working with leaders inside the organizations where many of you want to work. Three, six, 12 months from now when the job market is back and it will be back, my guess is that you'll end up being asked this question during one of your interviews. "I see you're a 2020 graduate. That was tough. How did you handle it? What did you do that summer for those six months after graduation?" My suggestion and my hope for you is that you do whatever it takes to be able to honestly say, "It was tough and disappointing. But it taught me about the importance of resetting. It taught me how to get back up and begin again. I spent the summer driving a truck for my dad's company. I volunteered. I took an online course. I got experience in this area. I got back up and began again."

It will not be on your terms or on your timeline. The world does not ready itself for our plans. But make no mistake. What starts at the University of Texas changes the world. And for every individual person listening to this, I'm not talking to your class right now. I'm talking to you. Hearts open, curiosity and courage on, horns up. You've done it.

William H McRaven: 'What starts here changes the world', University of Texas - 2015

17 May 2015, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA

Admiral William H. McRaven is the ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and a graduate of The University of Texas

President Powers, Provost Fenves, Deans, members of the faculty, family and friends and most importantly, the class of 2014. Congratulations on your achievement.

It's been almost 37 years to the day that I graduated from UT. I remember a lot of things about that day. I remember I had throbbing headache from a party the night before. I remember I had a serious girlfriend, whom I later married — that's important to remember by the way — and I remember that I was getting commissioned in the Navy that day.

But of all the things I remember, I don't have a clue who the commencement speaker was that evening, and I certainly don't remember anything they said. So, acknowledging that fact, if I can't make this commencement speech memorable, I will at least try to make it short.

The University's slogan is, "What starts here changes the world." I have to admit — I kinda like it. "What starts here changes the world."

Tonight there are almost 8,000 students graduating from UT. That great paragon of analytical rigor, Ask.Com, says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime. That's a lot of folks. But, if every one of you changed the lives of just 10 people — and each one of those folks changed the lives of another 10 people — just 10 — then in five generations — 125 years — the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people.

800 million people — think of it — over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation and you can change the entire population of the world — eight billion people.

If you think it's hard to change the lives of 10 people — change their lives forever — you're wrong. I saw it happen every day in Iraq and Afghanistan: A young Army officer makes a decision to go left instead of right down a road in Baghdad and the 10 soldiers in his squad are saved from close-in ambush. In Kandahar province, Afghanistan, a non-commissioned officer from the Female Engagement Team senses something isn't right and directs the infantry platoon away from a 500-pound IED, saving the lives of a dozen soldiers.

But, if you think about it, not only were these soldiers saved by the decisions of one person, but their children yet unborn were also saved. And their children's children were saved. Generations were saved by one decision, by one person.

But changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it. So, what starts here can indeed change the world, but the question is — what will the world look like after you change it?

Well, I am confident that it will look much, much better. But if you will humor this old sailor for just a moment, I have a few suggestions that may help you on your way to a better a world. And while these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform. It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation or your social status.

Our struggles in this world are similar, and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward — changing ourselves and the world around us — will apply equally to all.

I have been a Navy SEAL for 36 years. But it all began when I left UT for Basic SEAL training in Coronado, California. Basic SEAL training is six months of long torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable. It is six months of being constantly harrassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL.

But, the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure and hardships. To me basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into six months.

So, here are the 10 lessons I learned from basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life.

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack — that's Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task — mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

During SEAL training the students are broken down into boat crews. Each crew is seven students — three on each side of a small rubber boat and one coxswain to help guide the dingy. Every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through the surfzone and paddle several miles down the coast. In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to be 8 to 10 feet high and it is exceedingly difficult to paddle through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in. Every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the coxswain. Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously tossed back on the beach.

For the boat to make it to its destination, everyone must paddle. You can't change the world alone — you will need some help — and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them.

If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.

Over a few weeks of difficult training my SEAL class, which started with 150 men, was down to just 35. There were now six boat crews of seven men each. I was in the boat with the tall guys, but the best boat crew we had was made up of the the little guys — the munchkin crew we called them — no one was over about five-foot-five.

The munchkin boat crew had one American Indian, one African American, one Polish American, one Greek American, one Italian American, and two tough kids from the midwest. They out-paddled, out-ran and out-swam all the other boat crews. The big men in the other boat crews would always make good-natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim. But somehow these little guys, from every corner of the nation and the world, always had the last laugh — swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us.

SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education and not your social status. 

If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers.

Several times a week, the instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection. It was exceptionally thorough. Your hat had to be perfectly starched, your uniform immaculately pressed and your belt buckle shiny and void of any smudges. But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat, or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle — it just wasn't good enough. The instructors would find "something" wrong.

For failing the uniform inspection, the student had to run, fully clothed into the surfzone and then, wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a "sugar cookie." You stayed in that uniform the rest of the day — cold, wet and sandy.

There were many a student who just couldn't accept the fact that all their effort was in vain. That no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, it was unappreciated. Those students didn't make it through training. Those students didn't understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform.

Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie. It's just the way life is sometimes.

If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.

Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events — long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics — something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards — times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards your name was posted on a list, and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to a "circus." A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit.

No one wanted a circus.

A circus meant that for that day you didn't measure up. A circus meant more fatigue — and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult — and more circuses were likely. But at some time during SEAL training, everyone — everyone — made the circus list.

But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students — who did two hours of extra calisthenics — got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength, built physical resiliency.

Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core.

But if you want to change the world, don't be afraid of the circuses.

At least twice a week, the trainees were required to run the obstacle course. The obstacle course contained 25 obstacles including a 10-foot high wall, a 30-foot cargo net and a barbed wire crawl, to name a few. But the most challenging obstacle was the slide for life. It had a three-level 30-foot tower at one end and a one-level tower at the other. In between was a 200-foot-long rope. You had to climb the three-tiered tower and once at the top, you grabbed the rope, swung underneath the rope and pulled yourself hand over hand until you got to the other end. 

The record for the obstacle course had stood for years when my class began training in 1977. The record seemed unbeatable, until one day, a student decided to go down the slide for life head first. Instead of swinging his body underneath the rope and inching his way down, he bravely mounted the TOP of the rope and thrust himself forward.

It was a dangerous move — seemingly foolish, and fraught with risk. Failure could mean injury and being dropped from the training. Without hesitation the student slid down the rope perilously fast. Instead of several minutes, it only took him half that time and by the end of the course he had broken the record.

If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.

During the land warfare phase of training, the students are flown out to San Clemente Island which lies off the coast of San Diego. The waters off San Clemente are a breeding ground for the great white sharks. To pass SEAL training there are a series of long swims that must be completed. One is the night swim.

Before the swim the instructors joyfully brief the trainees on all the species of sharks that inhabit the waters off San Clemente. They assure you, however, that no student has ever been eaten by a shark — at least not recently. But, you are also taught that if a shark begins to circle your position — stand your ground. Do not swim away. Do not act afraid. And if the shark, hungry for a midnight snack, darts towards you — then summon up all your strength and punch him in the snout, and he will turn and swim away.

There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them.

So, if you want to change the world, don't back down from the sharks.

As Navy SEALs one of our jobs is to conduct underwater attacks against enemy shipping. We practiced this technique extensively during basic training. The ship attack mission is where a pair of SEAL divers is dropped off outside an enemy harbor and then swims well over two miles — underwater — using nothing but a depth gauge and a compass to get to their target.

During the entire swim, even well below the surface, there is some light that comes through. It is comforting to know that there is open water above you. But as you approach the ship, which is tied to a pier, the light begins to fade. The steel structure of the ship blocks the moonlight, it blocks the surrounding street lamps, it blocks all ambient light.

To be successful in your mission, you have to swim under the ship and find the keel — the centerline and the deepest part of the ship. This is your objective. But the keel is also the darkest part of the ship — where you cannot see your hand in front of your face, where the noise from the ship's machinery is deafening and where it is easy to get disoriented and fail.

Every SEAL knows that under the keel, at the darkest moment of the mission, is the time when you must be calm, composed — when all your tactical skills, your physical power and all your inner strength must be brought to bear.

If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment.

The ninth week of training is referred to as "Hell Week." It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment, and one special day at the Mud Flats. The Mud Flats are area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slues, a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you.

It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors. As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some "egregious infraction of the rules" was ordered into the mud. 

The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit — just five men — and we could get out of the oppressive cold. Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up — eight more hours of bone-chilling cold.

The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night, one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing. We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.

The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singingbut the singing persisted. And somehow the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala — one person can change the world by giving people hope.

So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud.

Finally, in SEAL training there is a bell. A brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see. All you have to do to quit is ring the bell. 

Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o'clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT — and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training. Just ring the bell.

If you want to change the world don't ever, ever ring the bell.

To the graduating class of 2014, you are moments away from graduating. Moments away from beginning your journey through life. Moments away from starting to change the world — for the better. It will not be easy. 

But, YOU are the class of 2014, the class that can affect the lives of 800 million people in the next century.

Start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone.

Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. But if take you take some risks, step up when the times are toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never, ever give up — if you do these things, then the next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today.

And what started here will indeed have changed the world — for the better.

Thank you very much. Hook 'em horns.