Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind everyone, George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation and education. I'm sitting in my hotel room in Boston and working on some business deals and I wanted to just pass a thought on to you today. Last week I posted a quote and the quote was from Denza, Washington and it said, if you don't fail, then you're not even trying. And it got me really thinking, I really love that quote and I want to talk to you today a little bit more about how changing your perspective on failure can really help you to create major change in your life.
I mean, you see, it's not enough to just be willing to fail and know that failure is the gateway to success, but you have to be willing to try and fail and try again and fail again and try again. You have to be willing to take risks and dream big and be willing to be made fun of and take the criticism. There's so many things that go along with this journey of success that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And I think the biggest thing that I want to emphasize to you today is that when you're willing to dream big and take risks, then you at least have the ability to be able to create success.
Because if you don't try, then you're guaranteed 100% guaranteed to fail. So today I want to actually play you. I came across the commencement speech that Denzel Washington did when he did this quote. It was a graduation commencement speech.
I'm going to play a little snippet of it because I really like his stories and I like his humorism that he uses and I hope this lightens your day and inspires you a little bit more to dream big and go for success, be willing to fail. I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks, nothing. Nelson Mandela said, there is no passion to be found playing small and settling for a life that's less than the one you're capable of living. Now I'm sure in your experiences in school and applying to college and picking your major and deciding what you want to do with life, I'm sure people have told you to make sure you have something to fall back on.
Make sure you got something to fall back on, honey. But I never understood that concept, having something to fall back on. If I'm going to fall, I don't want to fall back on anything except my faith. I want to fall forward.
I figure at least this way I'll see what I'm going to hit. Fall forward. This is what I mean. Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career the most in the history of baseball.
But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments.
Did you know that? I didn't know that. Because the 1,001st was the light bulb. Fall forward.
Every failed experiment is one step closer to success. You've got to take risks. And I'm sure you've probably heard that before, but I want to talk to you about why that's so important. I got three reasons and you can pick up your iPhones.
First, you will fail at some point in your life, accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something.
There's no doubt about it. And I know that's probably not a traditional message for a graduation ceremony, but hey, I'm telling you. Embrace it because it's inevitable. And I should know.
In the acting business, you fail all the time. Early on in my career, I auditioned for a part in the Broadway musical. Perfect role for me, I thought, except for the fact that I can't sing. So I'm in the wings.
I'm about to go on stage. But the guy in front of me, he's singing like paparazzi, he's just going on and on and on. And I'm just shrinking. I'm getting smaller and smaller.
They say, oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And you'll be hearing from us. So I come out with my little sheet music and it was just my imagination by the temptations.
That's what I came up with. So I handed to the accompanist and she looks at it and looks at me and looks at it to the director and it's like, all right. So I start, you know, I'm going to sing. I'm like, this is my imagination once again, kind of hanging away with me.
And they're not singing anything. So I'm thinking, I'm getting better. I start getting into it. And I'm like, hey, please, that's my imagination.
I'm running. I'm running. This, oh, yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Washington. Thank you.
So I assumed I didn't get the job. But the next part of the audition, he called me back. The next part of the audition is the acting part of the audition. So I'm like, hey, okay, maybe I can't sing, but I know I can act.
So they pair me with this guy. And again, I didn't know about musical theater and musical theater is big. So they can reach everyone all the way in the back of the stadium. And I'm more from a realistic, naturalistic kind of acting where you, you know, you actually talk to the person next to you.
So I don't know what my line was. My line was, well, hand me the cup. And his line was, well, I will hand you the cup, my dear, the cup will be there to be handed to you. I said, okay, well, should I give you the cup back?
Oh, yes, you're giving back to me because you know that is my cup and it should be given back to me. I didn't get the job. But here's the thing. I didn't quit.
I didn't fall back. I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition and the next audition and the next audition. I prayed. I prayed.
But I continued to fail and fail and fail. But it didn't matter because you know what, there's an old saying, you hang around the barbershop long enough sooner or later, you're going to get a haircut. So you will catch a break. And I did catch a break.
Last year, I did a play called Fences on Broadway, someone talked about it, won the Tony Award. And I didn't have to sing, by the way. But here's the kicker, he was at the court theater. He was at the same theater that I failed that first audition 30 years prior.
The point is, and I'll pick up the pace, the point is, every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed. Or do you have the guts to fail? Here's my second point about failure. If you don't fail, you're not even trying.
I'll say it again. If you don't fail, you're not even trying. My wife told me this great expression. To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.
Les Brown's a motivational speaker, he made an analogy about this, says imagine you're on your deathbed and standing around your deathbed are the ghosts representing your unfulfilled potential. The ghosts of the ideas you never acted on, the ghosts of the talents you didn't use, and they're standing around your bed angry, disappointed, and upset. They say we came to you because you could have brought us to life, they say. And now we have to go to the grave together.
So I ask you today, how many ghosts are going to be around your bed when your time comes? You've invested a lot in your education and people that invested in you. And let me tell you, the world needs your talents and does it ever. I just got back from Africa like two days ago, so if I'm rambling on, I just got back from South Africa.
It's a beautiful country, but there are places there with terrible poverty that need help. In Africa, it's just the tip of the iceberg, the Middle East needs your help, Japan needs your help, Alabama needs your help, Tennessee needs your help, Louisiana needs your help, Philadelphia needs your help, the world needs a lot and we need it from you. We really do. We need it from you young people.
I mean, I'm not speaking for the rest of us up here, but I know I'm getting a little rare. We need it from you, the young people. Because remember this. So you got to get out there, you got to give it everything you got, whether it's your time, your talent, your prayers or your treasures, because remember this, you will never see a U-Haul behind a Hearse.
I'll say it again. You will never see a U-Haul behind a Hearse. You can't take it with you. The Egyptians tried it and all they got was robbed.
So the question is, what are you going to do with what you have? I'm not talking about how much you have. Some of you are business majors, some of you are theologians, nurses, sociologists. Some of you have money.
Some of you have patience. Some of you have kindness. Some of you have love. Some of you have the gift of long suffering.
Whatever it is, whatever your gift is, what are you going to do with what you have?