Fisher closed with this Emerson quote, which carried personal significance — he had named his daughter after the philosopher. The quote tied together his speech's themes: the value of unconventional paths, the importance of family, and the idea that your degrees and work are 'the means to leave a trail.' He told graduates he'd first conceived of giving this speech exactly seven years earlier, sitting in the same church on December 14, 2012 — the day of the Sandy Hook shooting. He had wondered what someone standing at the podium would say on a day like that, and then wondered what he himself would say. His answer was that in 'an increasingly unrecognizable world,' his life trajectory — career and family happiness without sacrificing one for the other — should be 'recognizable to you.'