I’m February 4th of 2015 my husband of
24
years committed suicide his suicide was
a complete shock to me and everybody who
knew him he was highly intelligent he
had a great job
his health was great he seemed to have
everything he was afraid
unfortunately he was overtaken by his
fears and none of the us even those of
us who were closest to him could see
that his mind was crumbling none of us
could see that fear was overtaking his
life I don’t remember much of what
happened that night I don’t remember all
the traumatic events but I do remember
calling 9-1-1 I remember the paramedics
streaming into my apartment I remember
her forming CPR and then I remember
because the paramedics came in calling
three of my closest friends one of whom
was a lot in law enforcement and as
people continued to stream into my
apartment the scene became very chaotic
but at the same time time Stood Still
later that night one of my friends took
me to her apartment and put me into her
bed I know I didn’t sleep much that
night I was shaking the next morning
when we got out of bed friends continued
to come over to her apartment and my
rabbi came over there were decisions to
be made people to call and a funeral to
plan you can imagine I was in complete
and total shock I really couldn’t think
in the days and weeks that followed I
felt a lot of confusion I don’t remember
as I said much of it but I do remember
really struggling with
some of the most basic things in life I
remember that a friend emailed me an
article about dealing with grief and I
remember trying to read the email trying
to read the article and I couldn’t focus
on the words on the page I didn’t know
how to make sense of what had just
happened
I was afraid even the simplest things
like getting out of bed scared me two
days after my husband’s death my uncle
who is my number one mentor and coach in
life and I’ll come back to that concept
later came over to my apartment and said
I want 30 minutes alone with you and I
kind of looked at him and said can you
give me a break and so we sat alone in
my bedroom just the two of us and he
looked at me and he said I want you back
at work on Monday I want you to go back
to your office and I want you to begin
working again let’s at him and Mike
thought and as I was about to say
something to him like are you kidding he
continued and he said you’re an
entrepreneur you’ve started from scratch
before 15 years ago you have an idea
you’ve put everything you had into this
idea you’ve been courageous you’ve been
fearless you’ve thought big you’ve let
your mind wander and you’ve built
something beautiful and so from that
moment I wasn’t really ready but I knew
that it was time to begin again
two weeks after David’s death I was
faced with a choice and I was faced with
the choice of going on a business trip
that was planned well in advance of his
death or canceling the trip and the trip
was going to be a big trip for me I was
hoping that I was going to go and visit
with a prospective client and close on
what would be my biggest deal ever but I
also knew that I was scared and that I
was feeling very vulnerable
I knew that I still wasn’t thinking
clearly how was I going to go stand in
front of a very successful CEO and his
leadership team and inspire confidence
and strength all the while knowing that
I really felt very vulnerable and I
thought about my uncle’s words and I
thought about how much it meant to me to
be an entrepreneur and I thought about
the last 15 years of my life and how
much time I had spent building my
business and the business that I was so
proud of and so I went on the trip and I
stood there in that meeting and I gave
my presentation and I tried to inspire
confidence in this company in this team
of leaders who were looking at me and
ready to hand to me a very important
piece of their business something
critical to the future of their business
and what I knew and what I learned in
that moment was vulnerability didn’t
make me weak showing my vulnerability
was not a weakness that I could be a
strong and successful businessperson and
I could be vulnerable at the same time
and that what they saw in front of them
wasn’t weakness what they saw was me and
it what ended up coming out of that
meeting was a great trust and
understanding between us because I was
honest with them I didn’t have a choice
of whether or not to show my
vulnerability I was vulnerable that day
they awarded me the piece of business I
really didn’t expect to go into that
meeting and get the business what I
really wanted that Dave was just to make
it out of there without crumbling and as
I came out of that meeting something
struck me my mind started to reengage
and this concept a concept from my past
came back to me and it was this idea of
big thinking thinking about what I could
be and I spent the next week or so of my
trip thinking about big thinking
that sounds funny to say thinking about
big thinking but I was thinking about
think big thinking and I was thinking
about my own comeback and I began to
think about this gift that I had been
given this gift of being able to build a
brand new life and it struck me in that
moment that I felt like I did in high
school I felt like I had all of these
choices in front of me and sometimes
they were overwhelming and I didn’t know
what to do with all of these choices and
I realized that in those moments I had
to come up with some themes for myself
some tools some tools in my tool belt to
pull out in these moments of
vulnerability and fear and that’s
surrounding myself with really smart
people with thoughtful people with
people that cared about me would be one
of the keys to my beginning again and to
my own successful comeback as an
entrepreneur so I would encourage you as
I was feeling like a high schooler and
as you are today to surround yourself
with people who care about you to
surround yourself with really smart
people people who can add to your life
people who can add value thought a lot
about listening I listen to a lot of
people I asked a lot of questions and
when I was done asking questions I asked
more questions and I started listening
to people tell their stories of triumphs
and pain in their lives
and what I learned was that those people
who had triumph those people who had
come back they weren’t defined by the
hard things that had happened to them in
life those things made them stronger but
successful people aren’t defined by the
hardships in their past I learned to say
yes here I was this strong woman and I
thought being independent and showing
myself to the world as a strong woman
was what mattered and in those moments
and in the months after his death I was
physically and mentally weak
I had to say yes I had to let people
help me even with the simplest things I
remember one day I let two of my friends
come over to clean out my refrigerator
in my freezer and here it was this
simple task and I wasn’t even capable of
that simple task but what I realized was
that as people we want to help other
people and I realized in that moment
that helping other people would help me
and I continued this theme of thinking
big and this became for me a dominant
theme and along with that came this
notion of overwhelming effort that for
so many of us who want to succeed for
all of you who are going to go on to
hopefully college or some other form of
higher education overwhelming effort is
what it takes to get through tough times
I want to tell you a story now about
overwhelming effort my brother Jeff and
I he was my big brother we’re in
business together we were entrepreneurs
we started a real estate business and we
considered ourselves successful
entrepreneurs together we were learning
the business we managed to pull thousand
apartments here in the city of Chicago
and about a half million square feet of
industrial and retail space we have
faced a lot of challenges but we were
thinking big we believed that we had
already built a great business and that
we would continue to do so there was a
time when we wanted to buy a big
building in downtown Chicago and the
building was in bankruptcy and it was a
complicated messy process and we knew
that it was going to be hard and we
would basically have to wrestle this
building to the ground to get it but we
were up for the challenge and we knew we
had each other and we knew we could do
it together he was my big thinking
mentor we had faced a lot of adversity
as kids together and so we had this bond
along with our sister and this notion
that our pasts didn’t define us that the
hardships in our life didn’t define us
and that if we thought big we could
succeed well we were in high school our
father was in federal prison from a lot
of people that I talked to in the months
and years after what I learned and what
I’m constantly reminded about and I hope
I can impart this wisdom on you today is
that we are not defined by the hardships
in our past
Kasey’s not defined by the hardships in
our past
siki wasn’t defined by the hardships in
her past and I wasn’t defined by the
fact that my father was a convicted
felon I could think big six years ago
my big brother Jeff that’s him with his
two beautiful babies two of his three
beautiful babies was killed in a plane
crash the 20 seconds from takeoff to
crash changed the course of my life and
my family’s life forever
my brother was a big thinker he was a
joyful guy he loved life he travelled
around the world literally a couple of
times and so I think a lot today about
the kindness and the thoughtfulness of
my brother and his other traits big
thinking and he was a mentor he was a
mentor to me and he was a mentor to so
many around him and I think about how
important that is for all of us
my brother was married with three
beautiful young children he lived a
joyful life he lived a big life he was a
big thinker and he was kind most of all
my brother was courageous on the screen
is one of my favorite quotes life
shrinks or expands in proportions to one
in proportion to one’s courage
unfortunately through a lot of hardships
I’ve learned to be courageous so many of
us have faced losses even all of you at
your young ages so many of you have had
to face these things and there’s three
pieces of wisdom I want to try to talk
about today to help those of you who
face loss and those of you who
unfortunately someday will which is all
of us unfortunately first get through
the pain there’s no easy way there’s no
recipe there’s no formula lots of good
people are going to tell you what you
should do there are no shoulds you just
have to get through the pain second move
forward almost immediately I knew that I
had to keep moving forward and I did and
third take from the people who helped
you in those moments and help other
people the thing that has been the most
fulfilling for me and probably the best
tool I’ve had in moving forward with my
life has been helping other people and
much of that comes in the form of meant
in coaching so how do you design your
life how do you think big how do you in
the face of adversity in the face of
tough times in the face of the of the
hardships we’ve had in our past how do
you design your life well for me I build
stuff I’m an entrepreneur this is a bill
a picture of a building in the
stockyards area in the city of Chicago
so for those of you don’t know where the
stockyards are this is the historic
meatpacking area and the stockyards are
a really next door to the back of the
yards neighborhood so near southwest
side when I built this building in 2011
for a company called testa produce this
was at the time the most
energy-efficient building that have ever
been built in the United States it was
the first building in the city of
Chicago to be powered by a wind turbine
by the way that wind turbine is 240 feet
tall and if you are at guaranteed rate
field and getting used to saying the new
name of where the White Sox play and you
look up you’ll see our wind turbine this
is another building that we just
finished building this is a hundred and
eighty eight thousand square foot pizza
warehouse in Romeoville Illinois so that
warehouse stores about five million
pounds of pizza every day and if five
million pounds of Pizza sounds really
great to you it is really cool and by
the way it’s really cool it’s minus 10
degrees in there so this is what it
looks it looks like inside of that
building this is Pete the pizzas are put
it packed into cases and put into this
racking and then you can kind of see in
the background there there’s a forklift
that comes up and down and pulls those
pallets out to ship the pizza
so we’ve talked a little about hardships
and not being defined by things and and
for me so much of being an entrepreneur
has being about it has been about
overcoming my fears so I say to you
today what would you do if you had no
fear this is a picture of the very first
building that I built and the story
behind it is that one of my friends came
to me and he said he owned a pizza
manufacturing business so if you can
think about the pizzas that you see in
the deli section of your grocery store
the pizzas that or the pizzas you see at
a convenience store that come in a brown
box take him home cook them for 12 to 15
minutes this is what they make make a
million pounds of these per day and he
came to me and said my business is
growing I need a new building can you
build it for me and I looked at him and
I said you know Greg you and I both know
I’ve never done that before he said I
know so but you’re a lifelong learner
you’ll figure it out boy was I afraid we
shook hands and I agreed to build them
this building my brother and I went out
and bought some land in Romeoville in
Romeoville Illinois and we started the
planning process for building the
building and we started moving dirt on
what had been a farmland and I put all
of my savings and everything I had into
this project and I went out and got some
people to invest in this project and I
lined up a lender to lend money to me to
build this building and we were off and
running and then 2009 came along known
as the Great Recession and in one day
all of my backers and my banker walked
away from the project in one day
everything I had spent 15 years building
was going to be gone tell you that that
that day I shed a lot of tears but I dug
deep and I realized that I needed to go
back to my big thinking and that I
needed to be fearless and then I needed
to be courageous and so I called
everyone I knew and I told them the
story of this building and thankfully we
were able to raise the money and
convince people to believe in what we
were doing and to remind them that I had
been a successful entrepreneur and that
these setbacks weren’t going to define
me that my successes would define me
that while the failures were inevitable
they weren’t going to define my future
so we built the building and today that
building still manufactures just over a
million pounds of pizza per day it’s
hard to understand what that means but
that’s about 400 pizzas a minute what I
learned from that was not to be afraid
and I’m no longer afraid despite the
setbacks I’ve had I’m not afraid one of
the reasons I’ve not I’m not afraid is
that I have been fortunate even though I
came to it much much later in life to
understand the power of mentors and
coaches so one or two of you Kirra may
recognize someone in this picture these
are some of my mentors coaches advisors
I’ve learned to surround myself with
these people I have learned that these
people want to help me I’ve learned that
these people care about me and I’ve
learned the importance of surrounding
myself this is one of my favorite
mentors and advisors and a couple of
days after my husband died I was taking
a nap and I had said to my family they
were in my
and I said just going to sleep for an
hour and I went into my bedroom and I
think I passed out for about three hours
and when I woke up sitting in a chair in
my bedroom was this woman our ‘no and in
my sort of haze of waking up I looked at
ARLA and I said how did you get here as
though I had sort of conjured her up and
she likes me and she said I’m an
airplane and then she started talking to
me listening to my story and she looked
at me and she said I want to know what
you are going to do to move on with your
life I want to know what you’re going to
do to start immediately
moving forward hard words to hear in the
days after you’ve just lost to someone
but because she was my mentor because I
knew she cared deeply about me I heard
her words and I started to listen to
them and I knew that I would have to be
courageous and I didn’t know how but I
knew that I would be able to move
forward from there so here’s my offer to
all of you I didn’t come to understand
the power of mentors coaches and
advisers until late in life today I
understand it today at any given time my
mentor four or five young people
different ages and I’m ready to take out
a few more so we’re going to make an
offer to you and we’re going to work
with your amazing teachers and
principals administrative staff here by
the way they are a great source of
helping you find mentors and coaches ask
for help
but we’re going to work with all of them
at your different schools here with
young and the other high schools that
are here to offer a few opportunities to
mentor some of you
so I hope that you will take us up on
that and what I want to leave you with
today is the thought that predominates
my thinking today and that is that big
thinking proceeds great achievement
thank you thanks
[Music]
[Applause]
24
years committed suicide his suicide was
a complete shock to me and everybody who
knew him he was highly intelligent he
had a great job
his health was great he seemed to have
everything he was afraid
unfortunately he was overtaken by his
fears and none of the us even those of
us who were closest to him could see
that his mind was crumbling none of us
could see that fear was overtaking his
life I don’t remember much of what
happened that night I don’t remember all
the traumatic events but I do remember
calling 9-1-1 I remember the paramedics
streaming into my apartment I remember
her forming CPR and then I remember
because the paramedics came in calling
three of my closest friends one of whom
was a lot in law enforcement and as
people continued to stream into my
apartment the scene became very chaotic
but at the same time time Stood Still
later that night one of my friends took
me to her apartment and put me into her
bed I know I didn’t sleep much that
night I was shaking the next morning
when we got out of bed friends continued
to come over to her apartment and my
rabbi came over there were decisions to
be made people to call and a funeral to
plan you can imagine I was in complete
and total shock I really couldn’t think
in the days and weeks that followed I
felt a lot of confusion I don’t remember
as I said much of it but I do remember
really struggling with
some of the most basic things in life I
remember that a friend emailed me an
article about dealing with grief and I
remember trying to read the email trying
to read the article and I couldn’t focus
on the words on the page I didn’t know
how to make sense of what had just
happened
I was afraid even the simplest things
like getting out of bed scared me two
days after my husband’s death my uncle
who is my number one mentor and coach in
life and I’ll come back to that concept
later came over to my apartment and said
I want 30 minutes alone with you and I
kind of looked at him and said can you
give me a break and so we sat alone in
my bedroom just the two of us and he
looked at me and he said I want you back
at work on Monday I want you to go back
to your office and I want you to begin
working again let’s at him and Mike
thought and as I was about to say
something to him like are you kidding he
continued and he said you’re an
entrepreneur you’ve started from scratch
before 15 years ago you have an idea
you’ve put everything you had into this
idea you’ve been courageous you’ve been
fearless you’ve thought big you’ve let
your mind wander and you’ve built
something beautiful and so from that
moment I wasn’t really ready but I knew
that it was time to begin again
two weeks after David’s death I was
faced with a choice and I was faced with
the choice of going on a business trip
that was planned well in advance of his
death or canceling the trip and the trip
was going to be a big trip for me I was
hoping that I was going to go and visit
with a prospective client and close on
what would be my biggest deal ever but I
also knew that I was scared and that I
was feeling very vulnerable
I knew that I still wasn’t thinking
clearly how was I going to go stand in
front of a very successful CEO and his
leadership team and inspire confidence
and strength all the while knowing that
I really felt very vulnerable and I
thought about my uncle’s words and I
thought about how much it meant to me to
be an entrepreneur and I thought about
the last 15 years of my life and how
much time I had spent building my
business and the business that I was so
proud of and so I went on the trip and I
stood there in that meeting and I gave
my presentation and I tried to inspire
confidence in this company in this team
of leaders who were looking at me and
ready to hand to me a very important
piece of their business something
critical to the future of their business
and what I knew and what I learned in
that moment was vulnerability didn’t
make me weak showing my vulnerability
was not a weakness that I could be a
strong and successful businessperson and
I could be vulnerable at the same time
and that what they saw in front of them
wasn’t weakness what they saw was me and
it what ended up coming out of that
meeting was a great trust and
understanding between us because I was
honest with them I didn’t have a choice
of whether or not to show my
vulnerability I was vulnerable that day
they awarded me the piece of business I
really didn’t expect to go into that
meeting and get the business what I
really wanted that Dave was just to make
it out of there without crumbling and as
I came out of that meeting something
struck me my mind started to reengage
and this concept a concept from my past
came back to me and it was this idea of
big thinking thinking about what I could
be and I spent the next week or so of my
trip thinking about big thinking
that sounds funny to say thinking about
big thinking but I was thinking about
think big thinking and I was thinking
about my own comeback and I began to
think about this gift that I had been
given this gift of being able to build a
brand new life and it struck me in that
moment that I felt like I did in high
school I felt like I had all of these
choices in front of me and sometimes
they were overwhelming and I didn’t know
what to do with all of these choices and
I realized that in those moments I had
to come up with some themes for myself
some tools some tools in my tool belt to
pull out in these moments of
vulnerability and fear and that’s
surrounding myself with really smart
people with thoughtful people with
people that cared about me would be one
of the keys to my beginning again and to
my own successful comeback as an
entrepreneur so I would encourage you as
I was feeling like a high schooler and
as you are today to surround yourself
with people who care about you to
surround yourself with really smart
people people who can add to your life
people who can add value thought a lot
about listening I listen to a lot of
people I asked a lot of questions and
when I was done asking questions I asked
more questions and I started listening
to people tell their stories of triumphs
and pain in their lives
and what I learned was that those people
who had triumph those people who had
come back they weren’t defined by the
hard things that had happened to them in
life those things made them stronger but
successful people aren’t defined by the
hardships in their past I learned to say
yes here I was this strong woman and I
thought being independent and showing
myself to the world as a strong woman
was what mattered and in those moments
and in the months after his death I was
physically and mentally weak
I had to say yes I had to let people
help me even with the simplest things I
remember one day I let two of my friends
come over to clean out my refrigerator
in my freezer and here it was this
simple task and I wasn’t even capable of
that simple task but what I realized was
that as people we want to help other
people and I realized in that moment
that helping other people would help me
and I continued this theme of thinking
big and this became for me a dominant
theme and along with that came this
notion of overwhelming effort that for
so many of us who want to succeed for
all of you who are going to go on to
hopefully college or some other form of
higher education overwhelming effort is
what it takes to get through tough times
I want to tell you a story now about
overwhelming effort my brother Jeff and
I he was my big brother we’re in
business together we were entrepreneurs
we started a real estate business and we
considered ourselves successful
entrepreneurs together we were learning
the business we managed to pull thousand
apartments here in the city of Chicago
and about a half million square feet of
industrial and retail space we have
faced a lot of challenges but we were
thinking big we believed that we had
already built a great business and that
we would continue to do so there was a
time when we wanted to buy a big
building in downtown Chicago and the
building was in bankruptcy and it was a
complicated messy process and we knew
that it was going to be hard and we
would basically have to wrestle this
building to the ground to get it but we
were up for the challenge and we knew we
had each other and we knew we could do
it together he was my big thinking
mentor we had faced a lot of adversity
as kids together and so we had this bond
along with our sister and this notion
that our pasts didn’t define us that the
hardships in our life didn’t define us
and that if we thought big we could
succeed well we were in high school our
father was in federal prison from a lot
of people that I talked to in the months
and years after what I learned and what
I’m constantly reminded about and I hope
I can impart this wisdom on you today is
that we are not defined by the hardships
in our past
Kasey’s not defined by the hardships in
our past
siki wasn’t defined by the hardships in
her past and I wasn’t defined by the
fact that my father was a convicted
felon I could think big six years ago
my big brother Jeff that’s him with his
two beautiful babies two of his three
beautiful babies was killed in a plane
crash the 20 seconds from takeoff to
crash changed the course of my life and
my family’s life forever
my brother was a big thinker he was a
joyful guy he loved life he travelled
around the world literally a couple of
times and so I think a lot today about
the kindness and the thoughtfulness of
my brother and his other traits big
thinking and he was a mentor he was a
mentor to me and he was a mentor to so
many around him and I think about how
important that is for all of us
my brother was married with three
beautiful young children he lived a
joyful life he lived a big life he was a
big thinker and he was kind most of all
my brother was courageous on the screen
is one of my favorite quotes life
shrinks or expands in proportions to one
in proportion to one’s courage
unfortunately through a lot of hardships
I’ve learned to be courageous so many of
us have faced losses even all of you at
your young ages so many of you have had
to face these things and there’s three
pieces of wisdom I want to try to talk
about today to help those of you who
face loss and those of you who
unfortunately someday will which is all
of us unfortunately first get through
the pain there’s no easy way there’s no
recipe there’s no formula lots of good
people are going to tell you what you
should do there are no shoulds you just
have to get through the pain second move
forward almost immediately I knew that I
had to keep moving forward and I did and
third take from the people who helped
you in those moments and help other
people the thing that has been the most
fulfilling for me and probably the best
tool I’ve had in moving forward with my
life has been helping other people and
much of that comes in the form of meant
in coaching so how do you design your
life how do you think big how do you in
the face of adversity in the face of
tough times in the face of the of the
hardships we’ve had in our past how do
you design your life well for me I build
stuff I’m an entrepreneur this is a bill
a picture of a building in the
stockyards area in the city of Chicago
so for those of you don’t know where the
stockyards are this is the historic
meatpacking area and the stockyards are
a really next door to the back of the
yards neighborhood so near southwest
side when I built this building in 2011
for a company called testa produce this
was at the time the most
energy-efficient building that have ever
been built in the United States it was
the first building in the city of
Chicago to be powered by a wind turbine
by the way that wind turbine is 240 feet
tall and if you are at guaranteed rate
field and getting used to saying the new
name of where the White Sox play and you
look up you’ll see our wind turbine this
is another building that we just
finished building this is a hundred and
eighty eight thousand square foot pizza
warehouse in Romeoville Illinois so that
warehouse stores about five million
pounds of pizza every day and if five
million pounds of Pizza sounds really
great to you it is really cool and by
the way it’s really cool it’s minus 10
degrees in there so this is what it
looks it looks like inside of that
building this is Pete the pizzas are put
it packed into cases and put into this
racking and then you can kind of see in
the background there there’s a forklift
that comes up and down and pulls those
pallets out to ship the pizza
so we’ve talked a little about hardships
and not being defined by things and and
for me so much of being an entrepreneur
has being about it has been about
overcoming my fears so I say to you
today what would you do if you had no
fear this is a picture of the very first
building that I built and the story
behind it is that one of my friends came
to me and he said he owned a pizza
manufacturing business so if you can
think about the pizzas that you see in
the deli section of your grocery store
the pizzas that or the pizzas you see at
a convenience store that come in a brown
box take him home cook them for 12 to 15
minutes this is what they make make a
million pounds of these per day and he
came to me and said my business is
growing I need a new building can you
build it for me and I looked at him and
I said you know Greg you and I both know
I’ve never done that before he said I
know so but you’re a lifelong learner
you’ll figure it out boy was I afraid we
shook hands and I agreed to build them
this building my brother and I went out
and bought some land in Romeoville in
Romeoville Illinois and we started the
planning process for building the
building and we started moving dirt on
what had been a farmland and I put all
of my savings and everything I had into
this project and I went out and got some
people to invest in this project and I
lined up a lender to lend money to me to
build this building and we were off and
running and then 2009 came along known
as the Great Recession and in one day
all of my backers and my banker walked
away from the project in one day
everything I had spent 15 years building
was going to be gone tell you that that
that day I shed a lot of tears but I dug
deep and I realized that I needed to go
back to my big thinking and that I
needed to be fearless and then I needed
to be courageous and so I called
everyone I knew and I told them the
story of this building and thankfully we
were able to raise the money and
convince people to believe in what we
were doing and to remind them that I had
been a successful entrepreneur and that
these setbacks weren’t going to define
me that my successes would define me
that while the failures were inevitable
they weren’t going to define my future
so we built the building and today that
building still manufactures just over a
million pounds of pizza per day it’s
hard to understand what that means but
that’s about 400 pizzas a minute what I
learned from that was not to be afraid
and I’m no longer afraid despite the
setbacks I’ve had I’m not afraid one of
the reasons I’ve not I’m not afraid is
that I have been fortunate even though I
came to it much much later in life to
understand the power of mentors and
coaches so one or two of you Kirra may
recognize someone in this picture these
are some of my mentors coaches advisors
I’ve learned to surround myself with
these people I have learned that these
people want to help me I’ve learned that
these people care about me and I’ve
learned the importance of surrounding
myself this is one of my favorite
mentors and advisors and a couple of
days after my husband died I was taking
a nap and I had said to my family they
were in my
and I said just going to sleep for an
hour and I went into my bedroom and I
think I passed out for about three hours
and when I woke up sitting in a chair in
my bedroom was this woman our ‘no and in
my sort of haze of waking up I looked at
ARLA and I said how did you get here as
though I had sort of conjured her up and
she likes me and she said I’m an
airplane and then she started talking to
me listening to my story and she looked
at me and she said I want to know what
you are going to do to move on with your
life I want to know what you’re going to
do to start immediately
moving forward hard words to hear in the
days after you’ve just lost to someone
but because she was my mentor because I
knew she cared deeply about me I heard
her words and I started to listen to
them and I knew that I would have to be
courageous and I didn’t know how but I
knew that I would be able to move
forward from there so here’s my offer to
all of you I didn’t come to understand
the power of mentors coaches and
advisers until late in life today I
understand it today at any given time my
mentor four or five young people
different ages and I’m ready to take out
a few more so we’re going to make an
offer to you and we’re going to work
with your amazing teachers and
principals administrative staff here by
the way they are a great source of
helping you find mentors and coaches ask
for help
but we’re going to work with all of them
at your different schools here with
young and the other high schools that
are here to offer a few opportunities to
mentor some of you
so I hope that you will take us up on
that and what I want to leave you with
today is the thought that predominates
my thinking today and that is that big
thinking proceeds great achievement
thank you thanks
[Music]
[Applause]
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