Courage

You cannot let a fear of failure or a fear of comparison or a fear of judgment stop you from doing the things that will make you great. You cannot succeed without the risk of failure. You cannot have a voice without the risk of criticism. You cannot love without the risk of loss. You must take these risks.

I have always had a half-baked philosophy that having a plan B can muddy up your plan A.

Don't do what makes you happy. Do what makes you great. Do what's uncomfortable and scary and hard but pays off in the long run. Be willing to fail. Let yourself fail. Fail in the way and the place where you would be proud to fail.

So let your heart break. It will change what you do with your optimism.

It's okay to not really know what you're doing, and just trust your gut. Make the best judgment you can. There's not going to be a syllabus assigned to you.

You're all here because you're good at not failing. This is the culmination of doing a great job at not failing. However, there are no GPAs after this. Failure is an option.

You're stronger than you seem, you're braver than you believe, and you're smarter than you think.

You must always make the path for yourself. There is no secret society out there that will tap you on the shoulder one night and show you the way.

If you must find your own path, and we have left you no easy path, then decide now to choose the hard path that leads to the life and the world that you want.

Do not take no for an answer. Not when you're applying for jobs. Not when you actually get a job. The food court at the mall is littered with people who didn't fight for it. Fight for it.

You have to be confident in your potential, and aware of your inexperience. And that's really tough.

One of the greatest threats we face is, simply put, bullshit. We are drowning in it. We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media's imitation of human connection.