Henry Winkler

In this episode of Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020, actor Henry Winkler reminds graduating seniors that they have greatness inside of them, and encourages them to find out what their gift is, dig it out and give it to the world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Commencement Speeches for the Class of twenty is a production
of I Heart Radio. Class of Parents, Faculty, rising graduates,
Welcome to commencement. You made it. This year is a

(00:22):
little different, a difficult time to graduate because the traditional
graduation day has been put on hold. So we're bringing
it to you wherever you are, because this is still
your day, your moment. And now put your hands together.
It's time to be inspired. This year's commencement speaker the
one and only Henry Winkler. Hello, my friends, this is

(00:55):
Henry Winkler. Congratulations to you. You've achieved a wonderful thing,
a wonderful mild stone in your life, and what a
time in your life. In every level of what that means,
the one thing that is constant in this topsy turvy
moment is you. The world will come back to some

(01:20):
sort of reality, but the one thing that we know
for sure is that you will be there to fill
the need. The one thing that the world will need
for sure is your expertise, your energy, your imagination, your passion,
your emotion, and your tenacity. I live by two words,

(01:45):
tenacity and gratitude. I am so grateful to be on
the earth. I am so grateful to the way that
my life has unfolded and the tenacity that has got
me to where I am at this second talking to you.

(02:06):
You know, I was told that I would never achieve.
I was told that my grades weren't good enough. I
was told that I was not the kind of thinker
that would move forward in this world. My father brought
a lumber business over here from Germany. He imported and

(02:28):
exported would I wanted to be an actor since I
was old enough to reason, he wanted me to buy
and sell wood. The only would I was interested in
was Hollywood. I was told I would never get here.
But this is the lesson that I have learned. When

(02:49):
you know what you want without ambivalence, when you know
very clearly where it is you would like to go,
you ever let it out of your mind. You never
let go of your vision, You never let go of

(03:09):
your dream. People will try and define you. You are
really the only one who can define you. I want
to say that I don't know you, and I am
proud of you. We've never met, and yet I can't

(03:31):
wait to see who you become in this world, because
the world will need every single bit of what it
is you want to do and you can do. And
that's just true. I'm not just telling you something to
make you feel good. It's the way the world works.

(03:54):
You don't take your mind off your dream. You know.
I'm not a good reader. I'm learning challenged. I read
my first novel when I was thirty one. But I
wanted to find the answer to why my mind didn't
work the way I wanted it to, or how to
make it work better. So I found an Armenian philosopher.

(04:17):
His name was Gerjief, and he wrote with such complication
because he didn't want you to finish his book unless
you understood what he was talking about. So I didn't.
I closed it and put it back on the shelf.
But I found a disciple of Gerjief, and his name
was Ospensky. This is what I learned from Ospensky. Now

(04:38):
I know that for some of us, it is so
easy to be negative. We have an idea, we want
to try something, we want to learn something, we want
to pursue a job, and we always say, oh, you
know what, that's too difficult, Oh my gosh, I'm not ready.
They won't like me. What a negative thought starts to
build in your head. You say out loud, I'm already

(05:00):
I've got no time for you now. People will look
at you very strangely. That is true. But if you
put a period on the end of a negative thought,
if you finish a negative thought, it grows into a
thesis of negativity, and all of a sudden, you are
stopped in your forward motion to where you want to
get to. You have a negative thought, you say, I'm sorry,

(05:22):
I don't I don't have time for you right now,
and you replace it with a positive. My positive thought
is a bunt cache was no icing and kind of
moist with a little chocolate chips. I have a negative thought.
I see that bunt cake, I can almost taste it,
and all of a sudden, I move the negative out.
My head flies back. I continue moving to where I

(05:43):
want to be, and here we are together, celebrating your graduation.
Remember this, You have greatness inside you, Every single one
of you who's listening, you have greatness inside of you.
Some of you know, some of you have an inkling.
Some of you have never tasted it before. You've never

(06:04):
thought of your own power. Your job is to find
out what your gift is, dig it out, and give
it to the world, because when we get back to
functioning again with some kind of normalcy, we're going to
need every single thing that you can do, every talent,

(06:28):
every thought, every bit of your imagination and your passion.
This world needs you. That is true and a constant.

(06:52):
You can find a colection of incredible commencement addresses from
all your favorite speakers at the Commencement Podcast on I
Heart Radio or wherever you listen to podcast. Camber the
Candy