so I am here to talk
opportunity to be with some of your
students last weekend at a PGA event
talking about a dream that is bigger
than me and one of the students asked if
I could come and share not message again
here today and so it’s a privilege to be
with you tonight as I said I am an
educator I have been an educator in the
k-12 system for almost 26 years now and
part of my talk is really about how with
wetting blood to do and and as you think
about a career especially if you are in
high school and high school students you
okay most of my curves the middle school
in high school but as you think about a
career and you think about your life
beyond high school I’m going to
challenge you today to think about
dreaming a dream that’s bigger than this
stuff bigger than the big house of the
next car and the six-figure salary but
thinking about dreaming a dream that
will really impact your world whether
that one’s is your neighborhood
the world is your community the worlds
of the state of Washington I want you to
be thinking about today as I talk how
can you use the skills and talent that
you have to make a difference in the
world that will not just put food on the
table for your family but will really
make a lifetime of difference
so this first picture is of my campaign
as she mentioned in the
bye-bye oh I am the first
african-american woman to run for a
statewide office and executive office so
those offices are things like governor
lieutenant governor Secretary of State
and this is one of my favorite picture
and partly because men have you they’re
gonna do the guy with the strongest copy
but one of the things I believe is we
can’t ever do anything great by
ourselves that as we think about our
future eyes we think about whatever work
we decided to take on you need a team
behind you and I love this
representation of my campaign because it
shows you the team and people this is
just a small fraction of the team and
people but I really got into this race
not to be in charge of anyone but
because I have believed sometimes 18
years old that I had a destiny to be a
champion for kids that is my wife and I
love yet how I ended up in the teaching
field that’s not about what I thought
Erica is going to do but as an adult I
do I want to be a champion for change
and so I decided to run for office not
because I’ve ever wanted to be political
but because I believed that the skills
of talents that I develop there
almost 46 years I can best leverage by
running for office educator I want to
talk to you about kind of how I got to
this placement and the lesson that I’ve
learned in the last almost 46 years of
life and how I want you to think about
applying it to whatever you decide to do
with your life so there are three
lessons that I talk about anytime I talk
to get people in by the way since I lost
my election I’ve spoken to over 35,000
students when you’re wired big enough
losing the not stuffy and so I want to
challenge you to think about that as
well there are three lessons that I want
you all to think analogous you use think
about whatever you’re going to do in
your careers those of you who are adults
I even want to challenge you to think
about this number one it doesn’t matter
race started – we finish number two
every choice you make matters and every
greatness is really not about being rich
and famous greatness is about using the
talents that you have Kiana’s just
acquiring stuff for yourself really
investing those talents and those skills
and those gifts that you’ve been given
into your community and so what I want
to do is in a brief segment tell you my
story and how I learned those lessons
along the way so when you look at me
today
see a woman who has been to the White
House I met President Obama and then
received an award from President Obama I
met people like Richard Sherman and Pete
Carroll I played basketball the guy
named dr. J I don’t know if any of you
played basketball in here but one of the
greatest NBA superstars and I’ve met
pregnancy but I’ve had the opportunity
to sing with some pretty amazing people
and so I’ve done a lot of work but my
realities I started like as a foster hit
so this is the first picture that I have
as me but this is actually not my birth
father my birth father was a black
period and my mother was a white woman
and she was not allowed to keep me so I
started life as an orphan that’s why the
first lesson is it doesn’t matter where
you started my research I think a lot of
times we make excuses for why I can’t
Sequeira greatness because of this or
that and parents got divorced and
something happened somebody died on my
family and what I want to tell you is
not that these things don’t matter but
don’t ever allow something that happened
last year or 10 years are going to stop
you from being great this year or next
year and so this guy and his wife
decided to adopt me here’s my mom they
look so much like her but these two who
had seen black people from a distance
but had never actually met a black
person before made a very conscious
choice to adopt children that no one
wanted and that would be and then about
a year and a half later that was my
little brother he’s not my biological
siblings of but he and I were were both
adopted both unwanted kids and you know
when I think about adoption today I’m
going to talk to young people who’ve
been adopted I was chosen by family and
I see that incredible gifts and so we
became the only black children and our
entire county so imagine all of King
County two of us people wanted to touch
our hair all the time and by the way do
not ever touch a black person’s hair
there we go no guess okay
great imagine being the only one who
looks like you all the time is a very
difficult thing of the brain difficult
thing for my parents and so when I was a
really young child my father came home
from work one day he was a seventh grade
math teacher and he announced to our
family
we’re moving to the Netherlands you know
as a five year old I want you to imagine
being fine when I heard Netherlands
I heard Neverland so if y’all going on
talking about Peter Pan right that
sounds like a great place to move to
that’s not where we’re moving we’re
moving to the country at the Netherlands
but when you’re fine you have no idea
you know my mother tried to explain
where this place was across the ocean
when you’re in Minnesota you don’t know
what an ocean is you don’t know what
Europe is and so we just got on a plane
for 15 hours and ended up in this place
that we had never seen before my parents
have never left the United States before
and suddenly here we were in this other
country and it became an incredible
experience for us what my father didn’t
know when he took that job as a teacher
at the American School of The Hague that
is one of the best schools in the world
and today that school for kindergarten
costs $35,000 a year but I went for free
and my brother went for free because my
father was a teacher there and so we
have this incredible gift to be able to
sit next to really powerful people’s
children and it was an event that would
take place next nine years we’ll have to
change the rest of my life and still
inform the item today whatever nine
years old
the princess of the country of Egypt
came to live in high school and she came
to talk about peace because Egypt was
not at peace at all at the time and she
wanted to challenge young people to
begin to think about becoming world
changers and so she came to our school
she shared her story and by the way her
husband was assassinated
later but she had this dream of
challenging young people to think about
pithan and once you’ve done speaking the
fourth-grade teacher picked three little
kids to have lunch with her and I got
chosen to eat lunch of the princess
abusers and Here I am a little
nine-year-old kid mistake down to lunch
and she’s sitting right next to me she
said so Aaron how are you going to
change the world that may seem like an
odd question tonkin nine-year-old and
most of my girls wouldn’t have an answer
to that question but I did because in my
class at that time that nine-year-old is
a little girl from Israel and in the
prospects for today is a little boy from
Palestine and I can started teaching
myself Arabic and Hebrew at 9 years old
because I knew that I wanted to fix the
problem in their country and I knew
instinctively that I was going to fix
their puzzle I needed to speak their
language and so here I was at 9 years
old sitting and princess of Egypt
telling her I’m learning Arabic and even
and I’m going to change the middle-east
and here’s what she said to me she
pointed at me and she said
and our world changing there’s no type
as a nine-year-old little girl when I
press s points that use it you are a
world changer gets when you believe her
and I believe that princess Saturday and
I went back to my fourth grade teacher
and I said to him is impregnated okay
probably the princess of Egypt just told
me I’m a world changer what do I need to
do new and my teacher who I know mail
had no idea what to say
went into her desk drawer and she pulled
out a packet of 50 pages infraction and
she gave it to me
and I was so serious about with the
princess attack but I came home is it
all fifty pages of fractions that made
my kid back the next day and I said okay
what now and she was like you did all
six it really said you told me that’s
how we’re going to change the world and
she gave me another pack if it’s a
pencil brush and here’s a lesson that I
learned in that ten by the way by the
end of fourth grade and I sent over
occasional project as serious about
changing the world so here’s the lesson
that I learned that I want you to take
away with you being average is
absolutely simple anyone can be average
be great require stood with others will
not do and so instead of think of the
playground out here I made a decision
I’m going to become a great competition
and that would open the door to places
like Princeton later down the road and
open the door taking college math
classes at the high school student and
that would open doors for me
and so here is this little nine-year-old
girl who said to me is all about to to
the world an 18 I came to America to go
to college and I ended up at at Bryn
Mawr College which is a assistance
Milton Princeton University I got
accepted at Princeton by bring our
gaming for money the longer that Lincoln
where you’re going to college to me and
for those of you in high school do not
go to a college you have not visited I
did not have money to visit this college
and it was not a place that was quite
ready for me I learned but but but I’ll
be real with you
when I got to my college in 1989 there
was a sign right off campus at the golf
course right next door that said no
coloreds or Jews allow acute nineteen
eighty and by the way the Sun came down
in 2004 and I want you to imagine being
a color girl and every time I left
campus being reminded we don’t really
want your car
here and that was a very difficult thing
for me I came to America planning to go
to a great college and go back home to
the United Nations and change the world
and in my first year of college I
thought about killing myself I didn’t
know how to deal with having people
represent believing me but something
would happen that freshman year that
would again it changed my life it was
the summer after my question of college
when I really felt like maybe I’m a
mistake maybe I’m dumb Polly as smart as
I think I am baby and the black
probability can’t change the world and
one day I went for a walk in my
community and I ended up walking outside
of my college town into a little tiny
town with the black community and all
the people in that community would serve
as Maine some servants and house boys
and drivers for the white people who
lived in the mansions and my college
town and right in the middle of that
community that day a guy named dr. day
is playing basketball with his since
midnight I haven’t worked and they
stopped me come in and they said it was
like well are we doin work and my place
would change not on that back him up
but afterwards on the sidelines but I
stopped the six young black boys not one
of them still in high school not one of
them plans to go back to high school and
when I asked each of these boys what do
you plan to do with your life as an
adult and not one of those boys believe
she was going to live to be 21 it was on
the sidelines that day when I read I
have so much to offer the world
and I know exactly how I’m going to
change the world I know that I would
make black and whites European and
American athlete an academic for a
reason and I made a decision on the side
of that basketball court that day I will
use my life to make sure that everything
in this country gets better education to
be a tune in for kids and since then I
married my husband mrs. lips that said
and this is my husband and if you all
live in this community and watched
television he promising his brother
Jesse Jones Cairo news and that’s my
husband’s older little brother and these
are mom and dad now these are my kids
and I message for my kids and my kids
have each have their own struggles like
my oldest son is has something called
dysgraphia he can translate with
– paper my youngest son has something
called Asperger’s and really struggles
with social interaction my daughter
who’s right up front and was abandoned
by her mother and then her mother died
when she was 9 years old her father just
got remember after 27 years my kids have
had every reason to not be successful
and again I’m going to go back to my
first lesson it doesn’t matter where you
start about as we finish when my son was
in 10th grade
he’s a mom I have all these images in my
head that I want to draw but I am how to
draw can i take an art class so this is
from his very first art project whoops
well we’re going to there’s this very
first art project and it’s called a
brainstorm and if you like to lighting
video things and playing video games
better so he let it’s video things you
don’t just play they advance he designs
they again
and this is the story of how he creates
them he makes them this guy at rings on
to the ground and his characters are
coming up a diagram and here comes one
of his four hundred characters that he
created he is now Harvey by college on a
fifteen thousand dollar scholarship
studying computer science and
mathematics my daughter who I told you
lost her mother at nine years old this
is her on her way she had she had the
opportunity to go to Broadway and
perform in a competition
at 17 years old she is now a junior in
college this little girl who lost her
mother and his father was in prison for
27 years and now I’m talking about
graduate school it is a very start and
matters being finished and your choices
absolutely matter my oldest son who
unfortunately was called stupid
to Windows 8 because he couldn’t break
this is him on his way to audition for
the show the voice with the producers in
Los Angeles and he’s also had the
opportunity to sing an operetta at
Carnegie Hall News 14 your choices
absolutely matter each one of you and
each one of you has greatness inside of
me and so I wanna challenge you today
and think about how can you take that
greatness and allow it to impact your
world one of the ways that I got to
impact my world
basketball I played basketball farm is
41 years and it love sees it as a
vehicle to inspire and encourage young
people I’m going to encourage each of
you to find a picture of someone who
motivates you someone that you aspire to
be like if this guy next to me is a was
the Secretary of Education for armed for
President Obama when I got my award
dependent that you know what this is a
dog that once a day so I see this
picture everything it’s my reminder
here’s my life in a dream a dream this
bigger than me doesn’t be shaken the end
of a value might have
look again right this is not about rich
and famous it’s not you guys you could
have all many of the world’s how are you
investing it they sent some of the
people I’ve had the opportunity to meet
you are investing and their community
Stevie Wonder the back is made fresh
pensive out there this is Tatyana Ali
the guns with the sister these are some
young ladies too
I met when they were freshmen in high
school who are now they’re all
first-generation college students and
all on full rights ownership cicadas
today because they decided to not allow
the past to define who they would be in
the future they all made a decision we
are going to invest it ourselves and
then we’re going to invest back in our
community and the last picture I think
is just a friend than somebody who might
know that I had the opportunity to meet
about three weeks before they want to
sick of all here’s where I have this
picture and I am an athlete and I
athletics but I think just because
you’re a great athlete doesn’t make you
a great question the reason I have this
picture is Richard Sherman the scheduled
to come to my high school and two of our
boys are football players where the
father was killed the night before
Richard Sherman was scheduled to come to
school and when Richard Sherman heard
that these two boys were football
players had lost their father he made a
conscious choice to come an hour early
before his presentation and just love on
these two boys and invest in them he
gives away hundreds of thousands of his
own dollars to feed and clothe students
and became community and that’s who I
want to challenge you to whatever it is
that your gift is whatever your
greatness is you all have it I’m going
to challenge you to think about how can
you reinvest that back in your community
again it’s not about the stuff not about
having the big house how could you dream
a drink that’s bigger than you doesn’t
matter where you start imagine a finish
every choice you make that and again
greatness is not about reimbursing
things it’s about choosing to invest
yourself and your community
thank you
[Applause]
opportunity to be with some of your
students last weekend at a PGA event
talking about a dream that is bigger
than me and one of the students asked if
I could come and share not message again
here today and so it’s a privilege to be
with you tonight as I said I am an
educator I have been an educator in the
k-12 system for almost 26 years now and
part of my talk is really about how with
wetting blood to do and and as you think
about a career especially if you are in
high school and high school students you
okay most of my curves the middle school
in high school but as you think about a
career and you think about your life
beyond high school I’m going to
challenge you today to think about
dreaming a dream that’s bigger than this
stuff bigger than the big house of the
next car and the six-figure salary but
thinking about dreaming a dream that
will really impact your world whether
that one’s is your neighborhood
the world is your community the worlds
of the state of Washington I want you to
be thinking about today as I talk how
can you use the skills and talent that
you have to make a difference in the
world that will not just put food on the
table for your family but will really
make a lifetime of difference
so this first picture is of my campaign
as she mentioned in the
bye-bye oh I am the first
african-american woman to run for a
statewide office and executive office so
those offices are things like governor
lieutenant governor Secretary of State
and this is one of my favorite picture
and partly because men have you they’re
gonna do the guy with the strongest copy
but one of the things I believe is we
can’t ever do anything great by
ourselves that as we think about our
future eyes we think about whatever work
we decided to take on you need a team
behind you and I love this
representation of my campaign because it
shows you the team and people this is
just a small fraction of the team and
people but I really got into this race
not to be in charge of anyone but
because I have believed sometimes 18
years old that I had a destiny to be a
champion for kids that is my wife and I
love yet how I ended up in the teaching
field that’s not about what I thought
Erica is going to do but as an adult I
do I want to be a champion for change
and so I decided to run for office not
because I’ve ever wanted to be political
but because I believed that the skills
of talents that I develop there
almost 46 years I can best leverage by
running for office educator I want to
talk to you about kind of how I got to
this placement and the lesson that I’ve
learned in the last almost 46 years of
life and how I want you to think about
applying it to whatever you decide to do
with your life so there are three
lessons that I talk about anytime I talk
to get people in by the way since I lost
my election I’ve spoken to over 35,000
students when you’re wired big enough
losing the not stuffy and so I want to
challenge you to think about that as
well there are three lessons that I want
you all to think analogous you use think
about whatever you’re going to do in
your careers those of you who are adults
I even want to challenge you to think
about this number one it doesn’t matter
race started – we finish number two
every choice you make matters and every
greatness is really not about being rich
and famous greatness is about using the
talents that you have Kiana’s just
acquiring stuff for yourself really
investing those talents and those skills
and those gifts that you’ve been given
into your community and so what I want
to do is in a brief segment tell you my
story and how I learned those lessons
along the way so when you look at me
today
see a woman who has been to the White
House I met President Obama and then
received an award from President Obama I
met people like Richard Sherman and Pete
Carroll I played basketball the guy
named dr. J I don’t know if any of you
played basketball in here but one of the
greatest NBA superstars and I’ve met
pregnancy but I’ve had the opportunity
to sing with some pretty amazing people
and so I’ve done a lot of work but my
realities I started like as a foster hit
so this is the first picture that I have
as me but this is actually not my birth
father my birth father was a black
period and my mother was a white woman
and she was not allowed to keep me so I
started life as an orphan that’s why the
first lesson is it doesn’t matter where
you started my research I think a lot of
times we make excuses for why I can’t
Sequeira greatness because of this or
that and parents got divorced and
something happened somebody died on my
family and what I want to tell you is
not that these things don’t matter but
don’t ever allow something that happened
last year or 10 years are going to stop
you from being great this year or next
year and so this guy and his wife
decided to adopt me here’s my mom they
look so much like her but these two who
had seen black people from a distance
but had never actually met a black
person before made a very conscious
choice to adopt children that no one
wanted and that would be and then about
a year and a half later that was my
little brother he’s not my biological
siblings of but he and I were were both
adopted both unwanted kids and you know
when I think about adoption today I’m
going to talk to young people who’ve
been adopted I was chosen by family and
I see that incredible gifts and so we
became the only black children and our
entire county so imagine all of King
County two of us people wanted to touch
our hair all the time and by the way do
not ever touch a black person’s hair
there we go no guess okay
great imagine being the only one who
looks like you all the time is a very
difficult thing of the brain difficult
thing for my parents and so when I was a
really young child my father came home
from work one day he was a seventh grade
math teacher and he announced to our
family
we’re moving to the Netherlands you know
as a five year old I want you to imagine
being fine when I heard Netherlands
I heard Neverland so if y’all going on
talking about Peter Pan right that
sounds like a great place to move to
that’s not where we’re moving we’re
moving to the country at the Netherlands
but when you’re fine you have no idea
you know my mother tried to explain
where this place was across the ocean
when you’re in Minnesota you don’t know
what an ocean is you don’t know what
Europe is and so we just got on a plane
for 15 hours and ended up in this place
that we had never seen before my parents
have never left the United States before
and suddenly here we were in this other
country and it became an incredible
experience for us what my father didn’t
know when he took that job as a teacher
at the American School of The Hague that
is one of the best schools in the world
and today that school for kindergarten
costs $35,000 a year but I went for free
and my brother went for free because my
father was a teacher there and so we
have this incredible gift to be able to
sit next to really powerful people’s
children and it was an event that would
take place next nine years we’ll have to
change the rest of my life and still
inform the item today whatever nine
years old
the princess of the country of Egypt
came to live in high school and she came
to talk about peace because Egypt was
not at peace at all at the time and she
wanted to challenge young people to
begin to think about becoming world
changers and so she came to our school
she shared her story and by the way her
husband was assassinated
later but she had this dream of
challenging young people to think about
pithan and once you’ve done speaking the
fourth-grade teacher picked three little
kids to have lunch with her and I got
chosen to eat lunch of the princess
abusers and Here I am a little
nine-year-old kid mistake down to lunch
and she’s sitting right next to me she
said so Aaron how are you going to
change the world that may seem like an
odd question tonkin nine-year-old and
most of my girls wouldn’t have an answer
to that question but I did because in my
class at that time that nine-year-old is
a little girl from Israel and in the
prospects for today is a little boy from
Palestine and I can started teaching
myself Arabic and Hebrew at 9 years old
because I knew that I wanted to fix the
problem in their country and I knew
instinctively that I was going to fix
their puzzle I needed to speak their
language and so here I was at 9 years
old sitting and princess of Egypt
telling her I’m learning Arabic and even
and I’m going to change the middle-east
and here’s what she said to me she
pointed at me and she said
and our world changing there’s no type
as a nine-year-old little girl when I
press s points that use it you are a
world changer gets when you believe her
and I believe that princess Saturday and
I went back to my fourth grade teacher
and I said to him is impregnated okay
probably the princess of Egypt just told
me I’m a world changer what do I need to
do new and my teacher who I know mail
had no idea what to say
went into her desk drawer and she pulled
out a packet of 50 pages infraction and
she gave it to me
and I was so serious about with the
princess attack but I came home is it
all fifty pages of fractions that made
my kid back the next day and I said okay
what now and she was like you did all
six it really said you told me that’s
how we’re going to change the world and
she gave me another pack if it’s a
pencil brush and here’s a lesson that I
learned in that ten by the way by the
end of fourth grade and I sent over
occasional project as serious about
changing the world so here’s the lesson
that I learned that I want you to take
away with you being average is
absolutely simple anyone can be average
be great require stood with others will
not do and so instead of think of the
playground out here I made a decision
I’m going to become a great competition
and that would open the door to places
like Princeton later down the road and
open the door taking college math
classes at the high school student and
that would open doors for me
and so here is this little nine-year-old
girl who said to me is all about to to
the world an 18 I came to America to go
to college and I ended up at at Bryn
Mawr College which is a assistance
Milton Princeton University I got
accepted at Princeton by bring our
gaming for money the longer that Lincoln
where you’re going to college to me and
for those of you in high school do not
go to a college you have not visited I
did not have money to visit this college
and it was not a place that was quite
ready for me I learned but but but I’ll
be real with you
when I got to my college in 1989 there
was a sign right off campus at the golf
course right next door that said no
coloreds or Jews allow acute nineteen
eighty and by the way the Sun came down
in 2004 and I want you to imagine being
a color girl and every time I left
campus being reminded we don’t really
want your car
here and that was a very difficult thing
for me I came to America planning to go
to a great college and go back home to
the United Nations and change the world
and in my first year of college I
thought about killing myself I didn’t
know how to deal with having people
represent believing me but something
would happen that freshman year that
would again it changed my life it was
the summer after my question of college
when I really felt like maybe I’m a
mistake maybe I’m dumb Polly as smart as
I think I am baby and the black
probability can’t change the world and
one day I went for a walk in my
community and I ended up walking outside
of my college town into a little tiny
town with the black community and all
the people in that community would serve
as Maine some servants and house boys
and drivers for the white people who
lived in the mansions and my college
town and right in the middle of that
community that day a guy named dr. day
is playing basketball with his since
midnight I haven’t worked and they
stopped me come in and they said it was
like well are we doin work and my place
would change not on that back him up
but afterwards on the sidelines but I
stopped the six young black boys not one
of them still in high school not one of
them plans to go back to high school and
when I asked each of these boys what do
you plan to do with your life as an
adult and not one of those boys believe
she was going to live to be 21 it was on
the sidelines that day when I read I
have so much to offer the world
and I know exactly how I’m going to
change the world I know that I would
make black and whites European and
American athlete an academic for a
reason and I made a decision on the side
of that basketball court that day I will
use my life to make sure that everything
in this country gets better education to
be a tune in for kids and since then I
married my husband mrs. lips that said
and this is my husband and if you all
live in this community and watched
television he promising his brother
Jesse Jones Cairo news and that’s my
husband’s older little brother and these
are mom and dad now these are my kids
and I message for my kids and my kids
have each have their own struggles like
my oldest son is has something called
dysgraphia he can translate with
– paper my youngest son has something
called Asperger’s and really struggles
with social interaction my daughter
who’s right up front and was abandoned
by her mother and then her mother died
when she was 9 years old her father just
got remember after 27 years my kids have
had every reason to not be successful
and again I’m going to go back to my
first lesson it doesn’t matter where you
start about as we finish when my son was
in 10th grade
he’s a mom I have all these images in my
head that I want to draw but I am how to
draw can i take an art class so this is
from his very first art project whoops
well we’re going to there’s this very
first art project and it’s called a
brainstorm and if you like to lighting
video things and playing video games
better so he let it’s video things you
don’t just play they advance he designs
they again
and this is the story of how he creates
them he makes them this guy at rings on
to the ground and his characters are
coming up a diagram and here comes one
of his four hundred characters that he
created he is now Harvey by college on a
fifteen thousand dollar scholarship
studying computer science and
mathematics my daughter who I told you
lost her mother at nine years old this
is her on her way she had she had the
opportunity to go to Broadway and
perform in a competition
at 17 years old she is now a junior in
college this little girl who lost her
mother and his father was in prison for
27 years and now I’m talking about
graduate school it is a very start and
matters being finished and your choices
absolutely matter my oldest son who
unfortunately was called stupid
to Windows 8 because he couldn’t break
this is him on his way to audition for
the show the voice with the producers in
Los Angeles and he’s also had the
opportunity to sing an operetta at
Carnegie Hall News 14 your choices
absolutely matter each one of you and
each one of you has greatness inside of
me and so I wanna challenge you today
and think about how can you take that
greatness and allow it to impact your
world one of the ways that I got to
impact my world
basketball I played basketball farm is
41 years and it love sees it as a
vehicle to inspire and encourage young
people I’m going to encourage each of
you to find a picture of someone who
motivates you someone that you aspire to
be like if this guy next to me is a was
the Secretary of Education for armed for
President Obama when I got my award
dependent that you know what this is a
dog that once a day so I see this
picture everything it’s my reminder
here’s my life in a dream a dream this
bigger than me doesn’t be shaken the end
of a value might have
look again right this is not about rich
and famous it’s not you guys you could
have all many of the world’s how are you
investing it they sent some of the
people I’ve had the opportunity to meet
you are investing and their community
Stevie Wonder the back is made fresh
pensive out there this is Tatyana Ali
the guns with the sister these are some
young ladies too
I met when they were freshmen in high
school who are now they’re all
first-generation college students and
all on full rights ownership cicadas
today because they decided to not allow
the past to define who they would be in
the future they all made a decision we
are going to invest it ourselves and
then we’re going to invest back in our
community and the last picture I think
is just a friend than somebody who might
know that I had the opportunity to meet
about three weeks before they want to
sick of all here’s where I have this
picture and I am an athlete and I
athletics but I think just because
you’re a great athlete doesn’t make you
a great question the reason I have this
picture is Richard Sherman the scheduled
to come to my high school and two of our
boys are football players where the
father was killed the night before
Richard Sherman was scheduled to come to
school and when Richard Sherman heard
that these two boys were football
players had lost their father he made a
conscious choice to come an hour early
before his presentation and just love on
these two boys and invest in them he
gives away hundreds of thousands of his
own dollars to feed and clothe students
and became community and that’s who I
want to challenge you to whatever it is
that your gift is whatever your
greatness is you all have it I’m going
to challenge you to think about how can
you reinvest that back in your community
again it’s not about the stuff not about
having the big house how could you dream
a drink that’s bigger than you doesn’t
matter where you start imagine a finish
every choice you make that and again
greatness is not about reimbursing
things it’s about choosing to invest
yourself and your community
thank you
[Applause]
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