Our Favorite Commencement Speeches, Just in Time for Graduation Season

Graduation season is upon us. I have a fascination with graduation speeches, because I always find it interesting what luminaries will tell young adults just entering the fray of real adult life. In fact, I bookmark the best of them. Yes, I’m strange.

To that end, however, I’d like to recap three of my favorite commencement speeches. These are ABSOLUTELY worth reading/watching, whether you’re a recent graduate, a not-so-recent graduate, or just a curious human being who appreciates the wisdom and lessons of those who walk a different path. I could go on and on with links to speeches like this, but for now, we’ll start with three. (The one I won’t mention in-depth here, only because it has been dissected thirty-seven trillion times, is Steve Jobs’ iconic commencement address to the 2005 Stanford graduating seniors. If you haven’t read that, start there.)

So, up first: David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech to the 2005 Kenyon College graduating class. This is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite. I read it at least once every few months. It’s up there with the Jobs speech.

The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in, day out” really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration.

More recently, here’s Naval Adm. William H. McRaven, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, speaking to the 2014 graduating class at the University of Texas. To me, the most interesting part of the speech is where he talks about what lessons his Navy SEAL training imparted to him for everyday life:

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam 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—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 finally, in the interest of time and word count, is Jimmy Iovine, a music producer and mega-entrepreneur, speaking to the 2013 seniors at the University of Southern California. What makes this interesting is that Iovine never had the chance to attend college, and he got his education in another way:

I went back to the hotel where we were all staying, and I told Jon Landau, “I quit, I’ve done nothing but support this guy, and now he’s embarrassing me.” Looking back, I was just a beginner in the record-making process, but in the arrogance of my Brooklyn youth, I felt as if I had already arrived — that I knew everything. Boy, was I wrong.

Bruce’s manager looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Hang on, Jimmy, I’m going to tell you something that will go against every instinct you have about how to react in a situation like this:

“This is not about you”

Then Bruce’s manager said: “I want you to understand something called ‘The Big Picture.’ I’d never heard about this Big Picture. In my mother’s house, I was The Big Picture.”

Bruce’s manager continued: “And at a moment like this, it’s not about how you feel, Jimmy. It’s about Bruce Springsteen and his album. That’s the big picture — not your feelings, or anyone’s feelings.”

Inside, I had absolutely no idea what Jon meant. I wanted to scream. I wanted to argue. I wanted to walk. But for reasons I’m still thinking about three decades later, I did the opposite. I didn’t protect my ego. Instead, I paused for just a moment and listened to someone who might actually know better. So I told Jon, “You got it” because I did want to learn and this advice sounded like Aristotle to me. I had no idea who Aristotle was, but I liked the sound of his name. Jon told me, “I want you to walk in that room and tell Bruce Springsteen, ‘ “I am here to support you. I will do whatever you need me to do.’ ”

So that’s what I did.

If you want more, check out Graduation Wisdom, or even NPR’s searchable database of 300 of the most famous commencement speeches of all time.

These are like mini-biographies to me, small, bite-size lessons in life wisdom from people with whom I’ve love to sit down and have a beer. And until that day comes, these speeches will have to suffice.

Have a great weekend, everyone.