Video Transcript:
Professor: Who would like this twenty-dollar bill?
Class: Me!!!
Professor: Okay, I’m going to give it to one of you, but first let me to do this (crushes the bill). Okay, now who still wants it?
Class: I do!!!
Professor: What if I do this? (step and crumble the bill) Who wants it now?
Class: I do!!!
Professor: My dear students, I just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to this money you still want it. Cause it never loses its worth. It’s still worth 20 dollars. While there’re many times in our lives where we feel like Life has crumbles us up and ground us into the dirt.
We may make some bad decision, or have to deal with some poor circumstances, and sometimes Life could make us feel worthless.
But no matter what has happened, no matter what will happen, you never lose your worth, you never lose your value. Don’t ever forget that.
Video Transcript:
I’ve never found anybody that didn’t want to help me if I asked them for help. I called up Bill Hewlett when I was 12 years old. And he lived in Palo Alto, his number was still in the phone book. And he answered the phone himself! – Yes? I said, Hi I’m Steve Jobs, I’m 12 years old, I’m a student in high school and I wanna build a frequency counter, and I was wondering if you had any spare parts I could have.
And he laughed and he gave me the spare parts, to build this frequency counter, and he gave me a job that summer at Hewlett Packard, working on the assembly line, putting nuts and bolts together on frequency counters. He got me a job in the place that built them. And I was in heaven.
Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. And that’s what separates sometimes the people that do things from the people that just dream about them.
Transcript:
Dear future generations, I think I speak for the rest of us when I say, sorry.
Sorry we left you with our mess of a planet. Sorry that we were too caught up in our own doings to do something. Sorry we listened to people who made excuses to do nothing.
I hope you forgive us; we just didn’t realize how special the earth was. Like a marriage gone wrong, we didn’t know what we had until it was gone.
For example, I’m guessing you probably know what is the Amazon desert. Right? Well believe it or not, it was once called the Amazon rainforest. There were billions of trees there, all of them gorgeous and… Oh… You don’t know much about trees do you? Well let me tell you, trees are amazing, I mean, we literally breathe the air they are creating. They clean up our pollution, our carbon, they store & purify water, give us medicine that cure our diseases, food that feeds us.
Which is why I’m so sorry, to tell you that, we burned them down. Cut them down with brutal machines, horrific. At a rate of 40 football fields every minute, that’s 50% of all the trees in the world gone in the last hundred years. Why? For this.
And that wouldn’t make me so sad, if there weren’t so many pictures of leaves on it. You know, when I was a child, I read how the Native Americans had such consideration for the planet that they felt responsible for how the left the land for the next 7 generations.
Which brings me great sorrow because most of us today, don’t even care about tomorrow. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we put profit above people, greed above need, rule of gold above Golden Rule. I’m sorry we used nature as a credit card with no spending limit. Over drafting animals to extinction, stealing your chance to ever see their uniqueness, or become friends with them.
Sorry we poisoned the oceans so much that you can’t even swim in them. But most of all, I’m sorry about our mind set. Cause we had the nerve to call this destruction – Progress.
Hey Fox News, if you don’t think climate change is a threat, I dare you to interview the thousands of homeless people in Bangladesh. See while… While you were in your penthouse nestled, their homes were literally washed away beneath their feet, due to rising sea levels.
And Sarah Palin, you said that you love the smell of fossil fuels, well I urge you to talk to the kids of Beijing, who were forced to wear pollution masks just to go to school. See, you can ignore this, but the thing about truth is… It can be denied, not avoided.
So I’m sorry future generations. I’m sorry that our footprint became a sinkhole and not a garden. I’m sorry that we paid so much attention to ISIS, and very little to how fast the ice is melting in the Arctic. I’m sorry we doomed you. And I’m sorry we couldn’t find another planet in time to move to. I am s-.
You know what, cut the beat. I’m not sorry. This future, I do not accept it. Because an error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. We can redirect this. How? Let me suggest that, if a farmer sees a tree that is unhealthy, they don’t look at the branches to diagnose it. They look at the root. So like that farmer, we must look at the root and not to the branches of government. Not to the politicians run by corporations. We are the root. We are the foundation.
This generation. It is up to US to take care of this planet. It is our only home. We must globally warm our hearts, and change the climate of our souls, and realize that, we are not apart from nature, we a part of nature. And to betray nature, is to betray us. To save nature, is to save us. Because, whatever you’re fighting for, racism or poverty, feminism, gay rights, or any type of equality, it won’t matter in the least.
Because if we don’t all work together to save the environment… we will be equally extinct. Sorry.
Video Transcript: If everybody could become an expert at anything at a drop of a hat, would there be any rewards for it? I think you have the answer, even as I ask the question.
Got a couple of good buddies that used to live down in South Alabama. Their names were Bernard Haygood and Jimmy Glenn. One day they’re out riding through the South Alabama foothills and they got a little thirsty. Bernard was the driver. He’s also the athletic one, so he hopped out of the car, he ran around to this old abandoned pump there in the back of this old farmhouse.
He grabbed the handle of the pump and he started to pump. Now let me say that when old Bernard grabbed that handle and started to pump you know, since it was August and brutally hot that day, he was anxious to get some water out. So he really got after it, he was just pumping away. And after a couple of minutes he said, “Jimmy, you better get that old bucket over there and dip some water out of the creek. We gonna have to prime this pump.” All that really means is that you gotta put something in here before you can expect to get anything out, here.
The pump is really saying in another way what we’ve said so many times, and that is that you gotta be and do, before you can have. Too many people stand in front of the stove of life, and they say, “Stove now, you give me some heat, and then I’ll put some wood in you.” So many times the employee goes to the employer and says, “Now give me a raise. And when you give me the raise I’ll start coming to work on time. I’ll start doing the things you really want me to do.” What they’re saying is, “Reward me now and then later I’ll perform.” That’s not the way it works. First you’ve gotta put something in before you can expect to get anything out.
Well old Bernard wanted to drink water. But the question is, just how much pumping are you willing to do in order to get that drink of water? And after a few minutes he said, “Jimmy I just don’t believe there’s any water down there.” And Jimmy said, “Yes it is, Bernard. You know in South Alabama the wells are deep.” We’re glad they are, aren’t we? Because you see, the deeper the well, the cleaner, the sweeter, the purer, the better tasting the water is. Isn’t that another lesson the pump can teach us?
Isn’t it true that those things which have value, I mean real value, are those things which we have to work for over a period of time? Yes, it’s absolutely true. But those things which have value, which have real value, are those things which we make that honest effort to acquire. We work at it and we do a little sweating in the process. And by now, old Bernard is really beginning to sweat. I mean, it’s August, it’s hot. Finally, he just threw up his hands and he said, “Jimmy, there just ain’t no water down there.”
Jimmy said, “Don’t stop Bernard, don’t stop. If you stop, that water’s gonna go all the way back down, and then you’re gonna have to start all over.” And isn’t that the story of life?
Isn’t it true that so many people lose out on a lot of effort they’ve expended in the past, because they don’t do just a little bit more?
Transcript:
Alright, everyone looking forward, please. Good morning Year Elevens. Today’s assembly is about the start of a journey. The start of the rest of your lives. In 2 years’ time all of you will be finishing your A Levels. In 3 years’ time you’ll be studying across the world, studying at the university of your choice. In 5 years’ time you’ll have started your careers.
Many of you will be in this room working for the top institutions across the globe. You will then get married, you then may buy a house. In 10 yeas’ time your life will be set for you. In 15 years you’ll be 30 and from then on your path, your life will be set.
I’m sorry Mr. Headmaster, let me tell you why that approach may fail you. I know people who graduated at 21 and didn’t get a job until they were 27. I know people who graduated late at 25 and they found work immediately. I know people who never went to university, but found what they love at 18.
I know people who found a job straight out of college making decent money, but hate what they do. I know people who took gap years and found their purpose.
I know people who were so sure about what they were going to do at 16, they change their mind at 26. I know people who have children but are single, and I know people who are married but had to wait 8 to 10 years to have children. I know people in relationships who love someone else. I know people who love each other but aren’t together.
So my point is everything in life happens according to our time, our clock. You may look at some of your friends and think that they’re ahead of you, maybe some of them you feel are behind, but everything happens at their own pace. They have their own time and clock and so do you. Be patient.
At age 25, Mark Cuban was a bartender in Dallas. It took till 32 for J.K. Rowling to be published for Harry Potter after being rejected by 12 publishers. Ortega launched Zara when he was 39. Jack Ma started Alibaba when he was 35. Morgan Freeman got his big break at 52. Steve Carell only got his break after 40 years old. Virgin was started by Richard Branson at 34.
Getting your degree after 25 is still an achievement. Not being married at 30 but still happy is beautiful. Starting a family after 35 is still possible, and buying a house after 40 is still great. Don’t let anyone rush you with their timelines. Because as Einstein said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that’s counted truly counts.”
And this is the most important thing, I want you to be able to create meaningful, purposeful, fulfilling lives for yourselves, and learn how to use that to make an impact and a difference in the lives of others. That, will be true success.
