okay hello right in just over a month I
will be living and working in Germany as
an intern and the specifics of the job
don’t really matter because what I’ll be
doing in Germany is essentially what I’m
doing here
courting the unfamiliar when one knows
where to buy the cheapest lunch and
where to buy the best coffee life can
get quite dull and you begin to want to
get lost and you begin to want something
new and that’s certainly what happened
to me but the process of achieving this
dream of mine of living in Germany as an
intern has in no way been easy but
dreams are not meant to be easy it is by
their very nature as products of the
imagination to be elusive and out of
reach so what I’m here to tell you today
then is how to turn those beautiful
abstractions into tangible realities I
want all of you to think of what it is
you most want to achieve in your life
everything you want to do everywhere you
want to go and everything you want to be
now imagine these dreams and ambitions
as symbolized by a lighthouse on your
horizon
something brilliant and luminescent
constantly in view to work towards as a
guiding light to remind you of what it
is you most badly want and for you to be
able to stand taller and reach further
and grab this dream of yours you’re
going to have to do it through the art
of persistence so someone who inspires
me to dream big is to compose a Philip
Glass in order to finance his first
opera Einstein on the beach
he worked variously as a cab driver a
Furniture Removal man and a plumber in
New York the Opera then went on a global
tour of 35 performances and every single
one of them sold out to a full house and
then he was invited into the
Metropolitan Opera which is a largest
opera house in America with an audience
capacity of 4,000 audience members and
it sold out twice and yet after all of
this Philip Glass landed in a debt for
$100,000 and this is 1976 money that’s
huge so here’s the composer able to take
his own opera all around the world 35
times and performed to a full house in
every occasion
two of which in the most prestigious
Opera House of the Northern Hemisphere
and yet end up with a Titanic
financial deficit Philip Glass since
spent the next two years working as a
cab driver while raising two kids riding
more and more music until at the age of
41 he was able to live off the money
earned from his music when he was given
a commission to write his next opera and
in the intervening 40 years Philip Glass
has composed 12 symphonies has published
a library of albums for piano Orchestra
and song has been nominated for three
Academy Awards and was awarded the
National Medal of Arts from President
Obama so Philip Glass has achieved all
of this through his undefeatable
persistence and he is a constant
reminder that dreams do not always need
to be measured by the numbers and commas
in a bank account dreams do not always
need to be profitable this internship in
Germany won’t earn me any profit because
it’s unpaid but the first question a lot
of people ask me is why my heart is so
set on Germany what’s a particular
appeal and while I have German heritage
but the other reason is because of this
man
tattooed next to Philip Glass’s name I
have the initials of Christopher
Isherwood who’s a novelist they met when
I was 19 during my gap year it was in a
shopping mall in Melbourne that I picked
up a copy of his autobiography
Christopher his kind and as I read it I
quickly realized Mr issue it and I had a
lot in common we were both quite
melodramatic we both had an appalling
tendency to overthink things and we both
liked boys but it was importantly the
most important aspect of our
similarities was that we were both avid
people Watchers fascinated with the
lives of others and so it was these
rather colorful escapades of the boy
bars of Berlin that really captured my
imagination and so Berlin became for me
something of a pilgrimage city I visited
Berlin last September and it was
everything I wanted it to be everything
there is so grand and stylish and
organized and neat and everything runs
on time it’s also quintessentially
German and I loved it so I decided then
to embark on that lighthouse on my
horizon that I wanted to live in Germany
and so for me to do this I would need to
get a job so I have to start applying
for internships and I sent out perhaps
26 applications to companies in seven
different cities in Germany and I got a
lot of nose but every rejection only
became a motivation to keep trying and
to keep applying every no I received
only became an accelerant to keep trying
and to follow that lighthouse to follow
the path towards the dream of my horizon
and after 19 knows I was finally given
this one
from the company in Cologne and the two
intents of Skype interviews that
followed were overshadowed by my genuine
enthusiasm for this opportunity to live
and work in Germany every answer I gave
them always came back to my enthusiasm
to follow this dream of mine so when you
are thinking of what it is you want to
dream this dream big opportunity of
yours I would urge you to break your
journey down into three steps see it
dream it grab it know what it is you
want and have it clearly in view as a
guiding light to motivate you and to
have that path in view keep dreaming
about it and they keep having that view
on your horizon and then through the art
of persistence when you are able to
stand taller and reach further it is
then that you will be able to grab that
dream of yours and it is then that
you’ll be rewarded with the product of
your persistence thank you sir
[Applause] [Music]
will be living and working in Germany as
an intern and the specifics of the job
don’t really matter because what I’ll be
doing in Germany is essentially what I’m
doing here
courting the unfamiliar when one knows
where to buy the cheapest lunch and
where to buy the best coffee life can
get quite dull and you begin to want to
get lost and you begin to want something
new and that’s certainly what happened
to me but the process of achieving this
dream of mine of living in Germany as an
intern has in no way been easy but
dreams are not meant to be easy it is by
their very nature as products of the
imagination to be elusive and out of
reach so what I’m here to tell you today
then is how to turn those beautiful
abstractions into tangible realities I
want all of you to think of what it is
you most want to achieve in your life
everything you want to do everywhere you
want to go and everything you want to be
now imagine these dreams and ambitions
as symbolized by a lighthouse on your
horizon
something brilliant and luminescent
constantly in view to work towards as a
guiding light to remind you of what it
is you most badly want and for you to be
able to stand taller and reach further
and grab this dream of yours you’re
going to have to do it through the art
of persistence so someone who inspires
me to dream big is to compose a Philip
Glass in order to finance his first
opera Einstein on the beach
he worked variously as a cab driver a
Furniture Removal man and a plumber in
New York the Opera then went on a global
tour of 35 performances and every single
one of them sold out to a full house and
then he was invited into the
Metropolitan Opera which is a largest
opera house in America with an audience
capacity of 4,000 audience members and
it sold out twice and yet after all of
this Philip Glass landed in a debt for
$100,000 and this is 1976 money that’s
huge so here’s the composer able to take
his own opera all around the world 35
times and performed to a full house in
every occasion
two of which in the most prestigious
Opera House of the Northern Hemisphere
and yet end up with a Titanic
financial deficit Philip Glass since
spent the next two years working as a
cab driver while raising two kids riding
more and more music until at the age of
41 he was able to live off the money
earned from his music when he was given
a commission to write his next opera and
in the intervening 40 years Philip Glass
has composed 12 symphonies has published
a library of albums for piano Orchestra
and song has been nominated for three
Academy Awards and was awarded the
National Medal of Arts from President
Obama so Philip Glass has achieved all
of this through his undefeatable
persistence and he is a constant
reminder that dreams do not always need
to be measured by the numbers and commas
in a bank account dreams do not always
need to be profitable this internship in
Germany won’t earn me any profit because
it’s unpaid but the first question a lot
of people ask me is why my heart is so
set on Germany what’s a particular
appeal and while I have German heritage
but the other reason is because of this
man
tattooed next to Philip Glass’s name I
have the initials of Christopher
Isherwood who’s a novelist they met when
I was 19 during my gap year it was in a
shopping mall in Melbourne that I picked
up a copy of his autobiography
Christopher his kind and as I read it I
quickly realized Mr issue it and I had a
lot in common we were both quite
melodramatic we both had an appalling
tendency to overthink things and we both
liked boys but it was importantly the
most important aspect of our
similarities was that we were both avid
people Watchers fascinated with the
lives of others and so it was these
rather colorful escapades of the boy
bars of Berlin that really captured my
imagination and so Berlin became for me
something of a pilgrimage city I visited
Berlin last September and it was
everything I wanted it to be everything
there is so grand and stylish and
organized and neat and everything runs
on time it’s also quintessentially
German and I loved it so I decided then
to embark on that lighthouse on my
horizon that I wanted to live in Germany
and so for me to do this I would need to
get a job so I have to start applying
for internships and I sent out perhaps
26 applications to companies in seven
different cities in Germany and I got a
lot of nose but every rejection only
became a motivation to keep trying and
to keep applying every no I received
only became an accelerant to keep trying
and to follow that lighthouse to follow
the path towards the dream of my horizon
and after 19 knows I was finally given
this one
from the company in Cologne and the two
intents of Skype interviews that
followed were overshadowed by my genuine
enthusiasm for this opportunity to live
and work in Germany every answer I gave
them always came back to my enthusiasm
to follow this dream of mine so when you
are thinking of what it is you want to
dream this dream big opportunity of
yours I would urge you to break your
journey down into three steps see it
dream it grab it know what it is you
want and have it clearly in view as a
guiding light to motivate you and to
have that path in view keep dreaming
about it and they keep having that view
on your horizon and then through the art
of persistence when you are able to
stand taller and reach further it is
then that you will be able to grab that
dream of yours and it is then that
you’ll be rewarded with the product of
your persistence thank you sir
[Applause] [Music]
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