[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
okay so to start I want everybody to
closer us
I know super awkward but close your eyes
I want you to imagine that you just won
a really important award you’re standing
on stage it’s streaming live so millions
of people are watching you this is your
first huge reward and everyone saying
you’ve made it who is the first person
you think now open your eyes now I’m
going to add some strange question I
want you to raise your hand if the
person you said you would think was
yourself well you see I asked that
question because often times when we see
someone who we feel is successful we
wonder hmm
I wonder what they did to get to where
they are but when we are awarded for our
accomplishments our first instinct is to
thank those who helped us along the way
so let me tell you a little bit about
myself I’m a 24 year old undergraduate
student I’m older than most everyone in
my classes I don’t really feel
successful however statistics will say
that I definitely am I grew up in
poverty fatherless and the daughter of
an incarcerated mother my grandmother
who raised me as a young child was
crippled with arthritis and incredibly
poor though I really didn’t realize it
at the time many of my relatives were
arrested fights were normal death was –
my oldest sister was murdered in 2001 I
was eight years old when they found her
body in the Arkansas River after she’d
been strangled to death by a man who
worked in the apartment complex where
she lived many of the women I knew had
been sexually assaulted and most either
never married or were divorced stability
was abnormal to me I was used to dis fun
and brokenness nobody in my immediate
family graduated from college I thought
success was making $15,000 a year at
some blue-collar job I never had loving
parents I never knew what that felt like
and for a long time that was normal to
me the strange thing is is I’ve had
people tell me they’re inspired by me
but when they do I think of the people
who helped me get to where I am because
I can’t take full responsibility for
getting here so to talk about where I am
I guess I should tell you a little bit
about where I’ve been so when I first
entered elementary school a woman named
Gabriel and her husband adopted our
family so Gabriel and her husband would
choose a low-income family to help each
year and for that entire year they would
buy everything that family needed so for
every holiday in every changing season
Gabriel would come when all of the
things that she bought for our family at
the time my grandmother was raised in my
younger sister and I alone
my grandfather had previously helped her
but he disappeared I never knew why but
I have my suspicions she was crippled
with arthritis so walking was becoming
difficult for her so caring for her
caring for us alone was hard for her
especially with such little income the
year that Gabriel decided to adopt our
family we lived in this tiny
roach-infested one-bedroom home I
remember times where I ate bread with
butter and corn syrup I didn’t think
anything of it until Gabriel came with
all of these things things I didn’t even
realize we needed she brought things
like school supplies and seasonal foods
I remember Christmas that year being one
of the best holidays from our early
childhood because we got so many gifts I
used to think Gabriel was literally an
angel and I still do today I haven’t
seen her since I was young
but I still remember everything she did
to help our family that year so some
years later during my senior year of
high school I was physically assaulted
by my mother this was nothing new as
this type of behavior happened
throughout my adolescence but this time
was different because we were in public
in a her car right down the street from
my school
two years prior to that my appendix
ruptured and the doctors waited five
months before they took it out talk
about a near-death experience I
literally almost died
the toxins affected my intestines and I
still have sensitivities to this day
neither she nor I realized it at the
time and on that specific day she was
called to pick me up from school because
I was sick and I wasn’t feeling well
well when she arrived at school she was
angry with me she told me it was my
fault I was sick because I ate too much
out of anger and frustration that she
didn’t seem to care about my well-being
I swore at her see normally I would just
keep my mouth shut but the resentment
that I was having toward her was slowly
building and at the time I felt like she
would not understand how I felt if I
didn’t well she stopped her car and
started attacking me I opened the door
and ran out leaving my jacket that she
was clinging on to with her fists she
didn’t open her door and started to yell
threats at me she told me not to come
home or else needless to say I didn’t go
home that day so I ran to my school
counselor where I was told I needed to
follow a police report I was still
pretty sick and now I had nowhere to go
I remember sitting in the counselor’s
office for hours before they just gave
up and decided to send me back to class
until they could find me a place to say
one of my best friends at the time was
living in a foster home I knew their
parents because they preached at the
church I’d just begun visiting they
offered me their home temporarily and I
stayed with them until I graduated from
Highschool my mom did not help me
prepare for my high school graduation
they did my mom did not attend the
scholarship award ceremony at my school
they did they helped me pick out clothes
and they cheered for me at my high
school graduation I don’t know what
would have happened if they hadn’t taken
the time to help me I’m not sure if I
would have been able to walk across the
stage and get my high school diploma and
to this day I’m not sure they even know
how much that means to me those stories
are just two of many many stories I can
tell you about the people who’ve helped
me become Who I am today there’s this
thing about success people think that
it’s something everyone can get but for
me my opportunities were always limited
it’s important that I say that because
people use stories like mine as
justification they might say things like
well look at her she came from this
poorer african-american home so what’s
your Excuse well let me tell you they
didn’t have help I was lucky because
someone reached out to me and that made
all of the difference
thanks to the people who’ve helped me in
my life I’m now able to see the world
from a totally new perspective as I
approach graduation I get to see the
world through professional lenses now
but still I see evidence of the
importance of helping people and how
that not only shapes lives and gets
people like me to places like Harding
University but also how vital that is in
the workplace so this past summer I
interned at Ketchum Ketchum is one of
the largest public relations agencies in
the world and if you would have told me
at 18 when I was sitting in that
counselor’s office that I would have
spent a summer in San Francisco working
with some of the best in communications
I wouldn’t have believed
you to be honest I didn’t even know what
public relations was when I was 18 years
old but if it’s one thing that I learned
from that summer is that even the best
and brightest need help
Ketchum has some of the best campaigns
and public relations but that’s not the
result of one person one person cannot
take full responsibility for check their
achievements but many people working
together can create something incredible
and often do our success stories are not
a one-man show they feature all of the
people who’ve helped us along the way
you may not realize it now but you are
part of somebody else’s success story so
next month when I get ready to graduate
and walk across that stage I have you
and you and you to credit as well
because I didn’t get here on my own I
had a little help
thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
[Music]
okay so to start I want everybody to
closer us
I know super awkward but close your eyes
I want you to imagine that you just won
a really important award you’re standing
on stage it’s streaming live so millions
of people are watching you this is your
first huge reward and everyone saying
you’ve made it who is the first person
you think now open your eyes now I’m
going to add some strange question I
want you to raise your hand if the
person you said you would think was
yourself well you see I asked that
question because often times when we see
someone who we feel is successful we
wonder hmm
I wonder what they did to get to where
they are but when we are awarded for our
accomplishments our first instinct is to
thank those who helped us along the way
so let me tell you a little bit about
myself I’m a 24 year old undergraduate
student I’m older than most everyone in
my classes I don’t really feel
successful however statistics will say
that I definitely am I grew up in
poverty fatherless and the daughter of
an incarcerated mother my grandmother
who raised me as a young child was
crippled with arthritis and incredibly
poor though I really didn’t realize it
at the time many of my relatives were
arrested fights were normal death was –
my oldest sister was murdered in 2001 I
was eight years old when they found her
body in the Arkansas River after she’d
been strangled to death by a man who
worked in the apartment complex where
she lived many of the women I knew had
been sexually assaulted and most either
never married or were divorced stability
was abnormal to me I was used to dis fun
and brokenness nobody in my immediate
family graduated from college I thought
success was making $15,000 a year at
some blue-collar job I never had loving
parents I never knew what that felt like
and for a long time that was normal to
me the strange thing is is I’ve had
people tell me they’re inspired by me
but when they do I think of the people
who helped me get to where I am because
I can’t take full responsibility for
getting here so to talk about where I am
I guess I should tell you a little bit
about where I’ve been so when I first
entered elementary school a woman named
Gabriel and her husband adopted our
family so Gabriel and her husband would
choose a low-income family to help each
year and for that entire year they would
buy everything that family needed so for
every holiday in every changing season
Gabriel would come when all of the
things that she bought for our family at
the time my grandmother was raised in my
younger sister and I alone
my grandfather had previously helped her
but he disappeared I never knew why but
I have my suspicions she was crippled
with arthritis so walking was becoming
difficult for her so caring for her
caring for us alone was hard for her
especially with such little income the
year that Gabriel decided to adopt our
family we lived in this tiny
roach-infested one-bedroom home I
remember times where I ate bread with
butter and corn syrup I didn’t think
anything of it until Gabriel came with
all of these things things I didn’t even
realize we needed she brought things
like school supplies and seasonal foods
I remember Christmas that year being one
of the best holidays from our early
childhood because we got so many gifts I
used to think Gabriel was literally an
angel and I still do today I haven’t
seen her since I was young
but I still remember everything she did
to help our family that year so some
years later during my senior year of
high school I was physically assaulted
by my mother this was nothing new as
this type of behavior happened
throughout my adolescence but this time
was different because we were in public
in a her car right down the street from
my school
two years prior to that my appendix
ruptured and the doctors waited five
months before they took it out talk
about a near-death experience I
literally almost died
the toxins affected my intestines and I
still have sensitivities to this day
neither she nor I realized it at the
time and on that specific day she was
called to pick me up from school because
I was sick and I wasn’t feeling well
well when she arrived at school she was
angry with me she told me it was my
fault I was sick because I ate too much
out of anger and frustration that she
didn’t seem to care about my well-being
I swore at her see normally I would just
keep my mouth shut but the resentment
that I was having toward her was slowly
building and at the time I felt like she
would not understand how I felt if I
didn’t well she stopped her car and
started attacking me I opened the door
and ran out leaving my jacket that she
was clinging on to with her fists she
didn’t open her door and started to yell
threats at me she told me not to come
home or else needless to say I didn’t go
home that day so I ran to my school
counselor where I was told I needed to
follow a police report I was still
pretty sick and now I had nowhere to go
I remember sitting in the counselor’s
office for hours before they just gave
up and decided to send me back to class
until they could find me a place to say
one of my best friends at the time was
living in a foster home I knew their
parents because they preached at the
church I’d just begun visiting they
offered me their home temporarily and I
stayed with them until I graduated from
Highschool my mom did not help me
prepare for my high school graduation
they did my mom did not attend the
scholarship award ceremony at my school
they did they helped me pick out clothes
and they cheered for me at my high
school graduation I don’t know what
would have happened if they hadn’t taken
the time to help me I’m not sure if I
would have been able to walk across the
stage and get my high school diploma and
to this day I’m not sure they even know
how much that means to me those stories
are just two of many many stories I can
tell you about the people who’ve helped
me become Who I am today there’s this
thing about success people think that
it’s something everyone can get but for
me my opportunities were always limited
it’s important that I say that because
people use stories like mine as
justification they might say things like
well look at her she came from this
poorer african-american home so what’s
your Excuse well let me tell you they
didn’t have help I was lucky because
someone reached out to me and that made
all of the difference
thanks to the people who’ve helped me in
my life I’m now able to see the world
from a totally new perspective as I
approach graduation I get to see the
world through professional lenses now
but still I see evidence of the
importance of helping people and how
that not only shapes lives and gets
people like me to places like Harding
University but also how vital that is in
the workplace so this past summer I
interned at Ketchum Ketchum is one of
the largest public relations agencies in
the world and if you would have told me
at 18 when I was sitting in that
counselor’s office that I would have
spent a summer in San Francisco working
with some of the best in communications
I wouldn’t have believed
you to be honest I didn’t even know what
public relations was when I was 18 years
old but if it’s one thing that I learned
from that summer is that even the best
and brightest need help
Ketchum has some of the best campaigns
and public relations but that’s not the
result of one person one person cannot
take full responsibility for check their
achievements but many people working
together can create something incredible
and often do our success stories are not
a one-man show they feature all of the
people who’ve helped us along the way
you may not realize it now but you are
part of somebody else’s success story so
next month when I get ready to graduate
and walk across that stage I have you
and you and you to credit as well
because I didn’t get here on my own I
had a little help
thank you
[Applause]
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