It’s graduation season and every year there are great commencement speeches. We’ve talked about this before on the show including speeches from Tom Hanks to Steve Jobs to name a few.
Today we’ll share another inspiring story told at a recent graduation.
Former Nebraska football coach, athletic director and Congressperson, Tom Osborne, gave the keynote address for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s 2021 graduating class.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3-Tips-on-Leading-From-Where-You-Are-blog-post-image-1.png430448George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2025-05-18 12:19:282025-05-18 12:19:373 Tips on Leading From Where You Are
It’s graduation season. We love this time of year. So many young people passing into adulthood. The excitement of new beginnings. Hope for the future.
We love commencement speeches. We are often inspired and challenged by the messages delivered from the brightest minds in the world. We’ve covered commencement speeches before on The BIGG Success Show. For example:
Today, we’re going to talk about the best commencement address at the best school – Larry Gies, CEO of Madison Industries, speaking to the Class of 2019 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – on how to find your why.
We’ve known Larry for about 25 years. He’s a true entrepreneur, building his $5 billion business one acquisition at a time. He treats his people like people, not drones. And he and his wife, Beth, have given away millions of dollars, including a $150 million donation to the University of Illinois – the largest in its history.
So here are our takeaways from Larry’s commencement speech, 3 lessons on how to find your why.
A man died in our next-door neighbor’s front yard a while back. He was forty-two years old.
Another neighbor, who happened to be driving by, saw the man lying on the ground. He approached him and saw that he wasn’t breathing. He called 911.
Firefighters responded first and began to perform CPR. Before long, an ambulance arrived. They tried and tried to get him to respond, but to no avail.
He was riding his bike and apparently had a heart attack. A different neighbor had seen him wandering around but thought he was waiting for the bus. That’s about all we know.
Life is precious. It is a gift.
The Lesson of the Five Balls
So we want to share a life-giving story that we love. It’s a story that’s been told for years. But Bryan Dyson popularized it in his commencement address to the graduating class at Georgia Tech University in 1991. He was the CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises at that time.
(A similar version of this story was published in Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson about ten years later. In that version, “integrity” was used instead of “spirit”.)
“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls: Work, family, health, friends and spirit. You’re keeping all of these in the air and you will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it’ll bounce back; but the other four balls are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, damaged, or even shattered. They’ll never be the same. You must understand that and strive for the balance in your life.”
Dyson goes on with some suggestions on how to do this:
“Don’t take for granted the things that are closest to your heart, because without them life is meaningless.
Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give.
Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risk.
Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been but also where you’re going.
Don’t be afraid to learn.
Don’t use time or words carelessly; neither can be retrieved.”
We’ll close with a quote, part of which we’ve seen attributed to Bryan Dyson:
“Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift; that is why we call it the present.”
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2011-11-04 07:00:132011-10-31 22:47:11It Takes Five Balls to Be a Success
His point, in his own words:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
We didn’t know Steve Jobs personally. Yet he personally affected us. Such is the nature of real entrepreneurs.
They impact the lives of hundreds, or thousands, or even millions of people. Not as an individual, but through their business.
Steve Jobs was the epitome of an entrepreneur. Not just in business, but in his attitude about life.
You see that in one of our favorite quotes by the man we’ll never forget:
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do….”
This year, Tom Hanks address to Yale grads caught our ear. He talked about fear and faith. The context led up to a call to action – to help our returning troops as they transition from soldier back to citizen.
But the message is ripe with timely advice for all of us. We can’t say it any better. Here is Tom Hanks in his own words:
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Fear-and-Faith-and-Success-in-Your-Career-blog-post-image-1-e1747586046195.png421448George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2011-06-14 07:00:482025-05-18 11:34:53Fear and Faith and Success in Your Career
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
