May 15, 2020 • 11 mins
In this episode of Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert inspires graduating seniors to follow their passions, find things that make them happy, and use their passions to help spread happiness to other people.
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Episode Transcript
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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 Mike sievert Hey Graduates, It's Mike sieverts
(00:54):
CEO of T Mobile. I wanted to join the incredible
list of people who have stopped by to congratulate all
of you on the huge accomplishment of becoming a graduate.
So congratulations. I also wanted to let you know I've
been thinking about you. You know, we all have, because
I'm absolutely certain that this set of circumstances this year
is not at all what you dreamt your graduation would
(01:14):
look like, or what the world would look like when
you received your diploma, and frankly, it kind of sucks.
It's certainly not fair, not just because we're in the
middle of a global pandemic and navigating something that most
of us have only ever read about or or maybe
seen in movies. But because of the economic circumstances that
you're graduating into as a result of the pandemic. But
don't let this environment diminish one ounce of what you've achieved.
(01:37):
It took hard work and dedication and breaking through a
lot of barriers to get here. You've earned it, and
now you're poised to launch into whatever's next, whatever's next
for you. And if you're like most of us, the
question you might be asking, and that probably absolutely everybody
and their brother is asking you over and over and
over again right now, is what's next? What's ahead? Where
(01:59):
do we go from here? Well, like I said, first,
take a deep breath, it's gonna be okay. Let what
you've already accomplished sink in, and then sit back and
think about what fires you up. You know, each of
us has our own individual goals and dreams, and I
think that all of us, myself included, we can't go
too wrong if we think about that old cliche we've
(02:21):
all heard a million times, a cliche that might just
apply now in this environment more than ever before. Follow
your passions, Yeah, follow your passions? Okay, fine, you might
be saying, well, how do I follow my passions when
the world's on lockdown and everything after that is so uncertain? Well,
that'd be a fair question. But I'm here to tell
(02:42):
you that these circumstances, in fact, any circumstances like these
that create challenges or obstacles really are opportunities, opportunities that
can become launch pads for resetting your mind, or charting
a new course, or accomplishing what makes you and others happy,
and other words, for following your passions. I'll come back
(03:03):
to what I mean about all that in a minute,
but first I want to tell you a little story.
It actually involves one of my passions, one that gives
me a much needed mental reset from time to time,
and that's exploring the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest
with my family in our little boat. And it happened
while we were on a boat trip returning from a
place in coastal Canada called Desolation Sound. And yes, Desolation
(03:23):
sounds just as remote as it sounds. It's a wilderness
island region near the mainland, and it's beyond the end
of the road. It's a really beautiful place, but it's
far away it takes hours and hours of cruising over
the course of a couple of days to get there. Anyway,
my family and I are cruising along in our boat
out at sea, miles from shores. We're heading back home
to Seattle, Washington, and I had the boat on autopilot
(03:43):
on a leg that would last for several hours. Now,
like I said, we're out at sea. I mean you
could see land in the distance many miles away, but
that's only because the region's mountainous, with snow capped mountains
and glaciers off in the distance. I'm scanning around a
bit with my binoculars, looking for arrant logs or other
obstacles it might get in the way while the autopilot's
doing its work, and that's when I see it off
(04:05):
in the distance, off our port bow in the water.
But it wasn't a log. It was a man, a
man alone in the water, and he's alive. In this
one strange moment, I see him, and he sees us,
and he immediately rips off his life jacket and starts
waving it in the air to make sure we don't
(04:25):
miss him, which briefly sends him under the waves. So
I take the boat over from the autopilot and I
quickly maneuver the boat towards him, and the entire family
kicks into motion to help him get out of the water.
Now you have to understand, because we're at sea, there
are four foot waves washing over the stern of our
boat as we try to get this guy aboard. And amazingly,
it just so happened that the day before, the last
(04:46):
day of our many vacation, we'd actually been practicing man
overboard drills how to rescue somebody from the water with
this little sling that we've got. So for the first
time and I hope for the last time ever, we
really put those skills to work, and we may ached
to get this guy safely aboard. Everybody got wet, but
he's safe, he's okay, We're all fine. And you want
(05:07):
to know what the first thing he says to us
is I kid you not. He looks up at us
and he says, hey, what's up. And it took me
a minute as I stood there and I'm thinking to myself, really,
what's up? Just minutes ago you were stranded in the
water with not long to live, And all I could
think to ask was, well, hey, how long you've been
in the water, And he says, I don't know what
(05:28):
time is it, and he points to a ruined old
time X watch on his wrist that's been trashed during
his unplanned swim. So together we determined he's been in
the water for almost an hour. An hour. I mean,
this is unbelievable. He's got to have hypothermia. This guy
has been in the water for an hour. And you
have to understand, this is the Pacific Northwest. I mean,
(05:48):
you don't really swim in the ocean here. You might
jump in once in a while and then you get
right back out. But this guy has been in the
water for an hour. So we rushed to wrap him
up in one of those shiny thermal blankets that we
have in our first aid kid and he doesn't even
really seem that interested in it. Definitely no stress, no panic.
Maybe it was shocked, I don't know. And what's really
interesting is after less than five minutes aboard with us,
(06:11):
he turns and he suddenly asks, hey, have you seen
my boat? And so now, instead of focusing on warming up,
finding his boat becomes his next preoccupation. Not hypothermia, not
his health and safety, not the fact that he was
just rescued from the sea with no one in sight
for miles around, not that just five minutes ago he
was in this desperate life or death situation. Now he
(06:33):
just wants to know where his boat is. So we
go up on the deck and begins scanning around with binoculars,
and sure enough, there it is his boat, just a
couple of miles off our bow. So I decided to
power up and get moving again, and eventually we get
him to his boat. Long story short, after twenty minutes
or so with us, he's warmed himself up and regained
(06:54):
his senses, and then amazingly, he actually boards his boat
and he's off and run with nothing more than a
friendly wave. You know, as I lay in bed that
night thinking all this through, I remember just thinking to myself,
what was wrong with this guy? Why didn't he seem
to understand the gravity of this situation and that today
(07:14):
could have easily been his last? And then it hit me.
Only then did I realize, why don't we all think
that way? I mean, with all my preoccupation around his
misplaced sense of immortality, I should have been asking myself
that same question, not just why didn't he understand how
precious today really was, But why don't we all What
(07:37):
would we do differently if making the most of each
day really was our goal. It may sound a little
bit dramatic, but this thing hit me like a ton
of bricks. Each day is precious, which means each day
is a gift. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. We might find
ourselves a drift at sea, and it's just a coin
toss as to whether somebody just Rando comes along saves us,
(08:01):
saving that guy's life. The crazy and random and unexpected
and frankly somewhat scary set of circumstances I found myself
in that day helped to change and focus my perspective,
just as I hope graduating in this crazy, uncertain time
will change or focus yours today. Right now, you're smack
(08:22):
dab in the middle of the most crazy and random
and unexpected and frankly somewhat scary sense of circumstances yourselves.
But it does beg the question of what's next, and
if you let it, it can beg that question in
the most positive of ways. Many of you will pick
different paths that never existed before this pandemic. Many of
you will find completely new passions that show themselves to
(08:44):
you during this very complicated time. And that leads me
back to the cliche I mentioned earlier. Follow your passions,
go ahead, really do it. Live your best life. As
I said, every day is a gift, and that means
that in the pursuit of our own happiness and the
happiness we can to other people, we really can, And
in a way, we must make the most of today
(09:05):
and never take tomorrow's opportunities or tomorrow's worries for granted.
I know that normalcy seems so far away right now,
and everything around you is out of whack, But you
know what, these temporarily uncertain circumstances are just that temporary.
What will follow will be some new and different normal,
But in any event, it'll be a world that's ready
(09:26):
and waiting for you to make your impact. So I
hope you'll go full speed ahead into the things you're
passionate about, or try things that might just become passions.
A good test of all this is whether or not
these things are things that give you happiness and help
you spread happiness to other people. You know, the Doali
Lama himself says, I believe the very purpose of life
(09:48):
is to be happy. I mean, he's the DOLLI Llama
and he's got a good point there. Listen, you're experiencing
the crazy and the random and the uncertain. You'll likely
change your perspective in many ways as a result of
all this. We all will. You'll reboot, reset, recharge, and
now you'll be ready to go full steam ahead towards
amazing nous. And this world needs you to do exactly that.
(10:12):
So when everybody's incessantly asking you what's ahead, first take
a deep breath. What's behind you is a huge accomplishment.
And second, follow the cliche, follow your passions, find the
things that make you happy and help you spread happiness
to other people. Treat each day as something of value.
The rest will fall in place, and maybe, just maybe
(10:34):
you'll be able to do it with the sunny disposition
of that guy who came aboard our boat, wet and
exhausted after an hour in the water and looked up
at us and simply said, hey, what's up. So class
of congratulations and know that I'm with you. We're all
with you. I'm Mike Severer. Thank you. M You can
(11:04):
find a collection of incredible commencement addresses from all your
favorite speakers at the Commencement podcast on I Heart radio
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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 Mike sievert Hey Graduates, It's Mike sieverts
(00:54):
CEO of T Mobile. I wanted to join the incredible
list of people who have stopped by to congratulate all
of you on the huge accomplishment of becoming a graduate.
So congratulations. I also wanted to let you know I've
been thinking about you. You know, we all have, because
I'm absolutely certain that this set of circumstances this year
is not at all what you dreamt your graduation would
(01:14):
look like, or what the world would look like when
you received your diploma, and frankly, it kind of sucks.
It's certainly not fair, not just because we're in the
middle of a global pandemic and navigating something that most
of us have only ever read about or or maybe
seen in movies. But because of the economic circumstances that
you're graduating into as a result of the pandemic. But
don't let this environment diminish one ounce of what you've achieved.
(01:37):
It took hard work and dedication and breaking through a
lot of barriers to get here. You've earned it, and
now you're poised to launch into whatever's next, whatever's next
for you. And if you're like most of us, the
question you might be asking, and that probably absolutely everybody
and their brother is asking you over and over and
over again right now, is what's next? What's ahead? Where
(01:59):
do we go from here? Well, like I said, first,
take a deep breath, it's gonna be okay. Let what
you've already accomplished sink in, and then sit back and
think about what fires you up. You know, each of
us has our own individual goals and dreams, and I
think that all of us, myself included, we can't go
too wrong if we think about that old cliche we've
(02:21):
all heard a million times, a cliche that might just
apply now in this environment more than ever before. Follow
your passions, Yeah, follow your passions? Okay, fine, you might
be saying, well, how do I follow my passions when
the world's on lockdown and everything after that is so uncertain? Well,
that'd be a fair question. But I'm here to tell
(02:42):
you that these circumstances, in fact, any circumstances like these
that create challenges or obstacles really are opportunities, opportunities that
can become launch pads for resetting your mind, or charting
a new course, or accomplishing what makes you and others happy,
and other words, for following your passions. I'll come back
(03:03):
to what I mean about all that in a minute,
but first I want to tell you a little story.
It actually involves one of my passions, one that gives
me a much needed mental reset from time to time,
and that's exploring the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest
with my family in our little boat. And it happened
while we were on a boat trip returning from a
place in coastal Canada called Desolation Sound. And yes, Desolation
(03:23):
sounds just as remote as it sounds. It's a wilderness
island region near the mainland, and it's beyond the end
of the road. It's a really beautiful place, but it's
far away it takes hours and hours of cruising over
the course of a couple of days to get there. Anyway,
my family and I are cruising along in our boat
out at sea, miles from shores. We're heading back home
to Seattle, Washington, and I had the boat on autopilot
(03:43):
on a leg that would last for several hours. Now,
like I said, we're out at sea. I mean you
could see land in the distance many miles away, but
that's only because the region's mountainous, with snow capped mountains
and glaciers off in the distance. I'm scanning around a
bit with my binoculars, looking for arrant logs or other
obstacles it might get in the way while the autopilot's
doing its work, and that's when I see it off
(04:05):
in the distance, off our port bow in the water.
But it wasn't a log. It was a man, a
man alone in the water, and he's alive. In this
one strange moment, I see him, and he sees us,
and he immediately rips off his life jacket and starts
waving it in the air to make sure we don't
(04:25):
miss him, which briefly sends him under the waves. So
I take the boat over from the autopilot and I
quickly maneuver the boat towards him, and the entire family
kicks into motion to help him get out of the water.
Now you have to understand, because we're at sea, there
are four foot waves washing over the stern of our
boat as we try to get this guy aboard. And amazingly,
it just so happened that the day before, the last
(04:46):
day of our many vacation, we'd actually been practicing man
overboard drills how to rescue somebody from the water with
this little sling that we've got. So for the first
time and I hope for the last time ever, we
really put those skills to work, and we may ached
to get this guy safely aboard. Everybody got wet, but
he's safe, he's okay, We're all fine. And you want
(05:07):
to know what the first thing he says to us
is I kid you not. He looks up at us
and he says, hey, what's up. And it took me
a minute as I stood there and I'm thinking to myself, really,
what's up? Just minutes ago you were stranded in the
water with not long to live, And all I could
think to ask was, well, hey, how long you've been
in the water, And he says, I don't know what
(05:28):
time is it, and he points to a ruined old
time X watch on his wrist that's been trashed during
his unplanned swim. So together we determined he's been in
the water for almost an hour. An hour. I mean,
this is unbelievable. He's got to have hypothermia. This guy
has been in the water for an hour. And you
have to understand, this is the Pacific Northwest. I mean,
(05:48):
you don't really swim in the ocean here. You might
jump in once in a while and then you get
right back out. But this guy has been in the
water for an hour. So we rushed to wrap him
up in one of those shiny thermal blankets that we
have in our first aid kid and he doesn't even
really seem that interested in it. Definitely no stress, no panic.
Maybe it was shocked, I don't know. And what's really
interesting is after less than five minutes aboard with us,
(06:11):
he turns and he suddenly asks, hey, have you seen
my boat? And so now, instead of focusing on warming up,
finding his boat becomes his next preoccupation. Not hypothermia, not
his health and safety, not the fact that he was
just rescued from the sea with no one in sight
for miles around, not that just five minutes ago he
was in this desperate life or death situation. Now he
(06:33):
just wants to know where his boat is. So we
go up on the deck and begins scanning around with binoculars,
and sure enough, there it is his boat, just a
couple of miles off our bow. So I decided to
power up and get moving again, and eventually we get
him to his boat. Long story short, after twenty minutes
or so with us, he's warmed himself up and regained
(06:54):
his senses, and then amazingly, he actually boards his boat
and he's off and run with nothing more than a
friendly wave. You know, as I lay in bed that
night thinking all this through, I remember just thinking to myself,
what was wrong with this guy? Why didn't he seem
to understand the gravity of this situation and that today
(07:14):
could have easily been his last? And then it hit me.
Only then did I realize, why don't we all think
that way? I mean, with all my preoccupation around his
misplaced sense of immortality, I should have been asking myself
that same question, not just why didn't he understand how
precious today really was, But why don't we all What
(07:37):
would we do differently if making the most of each
day really was our goal. It may sound a little
bit dramatic, but this thing hit me like a ton
of bricks. Each day is precious, which means each day
is a gift. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. We might find
ourselves a drift at sea, and it's just a coin
toss as to whether somebody just Rando comes along saves us,
(08:01):
saving that guy's life. The crazy and random and unexpected
and frankly somewhat scary set of circumstances I found myself
in that day helped to change and focus my perspective,
just as I hope graduating in this crazy, uncertain time
will change or focus yours today. Right now, you're smack
(08:22):
dab in the middle of the most crazy and random
and unexpected and frankly somewhat scary sense of circumstances yourselves.
But it does beg the question of what's next, and
if you let it, it can beg that question in
the most positive of ways. Many of you will pick
different paths that never existed before this pandemic. Many of
you will find completely new passions that show themselves to
(08:44):
you during this very complicated time. And that leads me
back to the cliche I mentioned earlier. Follow your passions,
go ahead, really do it. Live your best life. As
I said, every day is a gift, and that means
that in the pursuit of our own happiness and the
happiness we can to other people, we really can, And
in a way, we must make the most of today
(09:05):
and never take tomorrow's opportunities or tomorrow's worries for granted.
I know that normalcy seems so far away right now,
and everything around you is out of whack, But you
know what, these temporarily uncertain circumstances are just that temporary.
What will follow will be some new and different normal,
But in any event, it'll be a world that's ready
(09:26):
and waiting for you to make your impact. So I
hope you'll go full speed ahead into the things you're
passionate about, or try things that might just become passions.
A good test of all this is whether or not
these things are things that give you happiness and help
you spread happiness to other people. You know, the Doali
Lama himself says, I believe the very purpose of life
(09:48):
is to be happy. I mean, he's the DOLLI Llama
and he's got a good point there. Listen, you're experiencing
the crazy and the random and the uncertain. You'll likely
change your perspective in many ways as a result of
all this. We all will. You'll reboot, reset, recharge, and
now you'll be ready to go full steam ahead towards
amazing nous. And this world needs you to do exactly that.
(10:12):
So when everybody's incessantly asking you what's ahead, first take
a deep breath. What's behind you is a huge accomplishment.
And second, follow the cliche, follow your passions, find the
things that make you happy and help you spread happiness
to other people. Treat each day as something of value.
The rest will fall in place, and maybe, just maybe
(10:34):
you'll be able to do it with the sunny disposition
of that guy who came aboard our boat, wet and
exhausted after an hour in the water and looked up
at us and simply said, hey, what's up. So class
of congratulations and know that I'm with you. We're all
with you. I'm Mike Severer. Thank you. M You can
(11:04):
find a collection of incredible commencement addresses from all your
favorite speakers at the Commencement podcast on I Heart radio
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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