Make the most of your life.
Commit to life-long learning.
Don’t be afraid to take risks and learn from your failures.
We’ve likely all heard dozens of graduation speeches like that before.
How many of them do we remember?
As a professional speaker, I study speakers of all kinds – there is always something to learn. But after carefully listening to the commencement speaker at a recent college graduation, I remembered very little content seven hours later. Afterwards, I asked a few graduates about the speech we had just heard, and they couldn’t recall much of what was said either – almost nothing. One graduate told me,
“I honestly don’t remember the speech. It all happened in the blink of an eye.”
I would be surprised if you can remember any details of your graduation commencement speaker. You probably tuned most of it out. Odds are, if your graduation was more than a few years ago, you don’t even remember the speaker’s name.
Think about the welcome or orientation at your first job. Do you remember that? Probably not.
What about the speech at your first company or association event? Unless it was truly special, you don’t remember that either.
Likely some of the graduates who heard recent speeches will be starting their first post-college job in your organization soon. They will be hearing a lot of presentations – during orientation, at departmental meetings, attending annual conferences, and more.
You’ll want them to remember the content of those presentations for much longer than they remembered the content of their graduation speeches.
