graduation day y'all can do a little bit better than that class of 2021 Make Some Noise here we go up to the president and Provost the administrative staff the graduates and families it is my absolute privilege to be here with you um but canot be painfully honest for just a moment um I've had the honor of speaking many different places from Fortune 100 companies to the United Nations General Assembly but I think I underestimated how intimidating it can be um to give a commencement address and I'm not going to lie to you it's a slightly scary responsibility because at the very best I can say something that will fan your flame as you prepared to launch into the world armed with a new degree but at the very worst this could be an absolute disaster and the many years spent in the classroom and long nights you spent doing research and writing papers some of you while working jobs some of you while raising children and some of you while trying not to lose your spouse you might suddenly question if all of it was worth it if this goes completely wrong so I was very careful to choose my words wisely today in hopes that my message message is not the reason that you request a refund so on this day as we celebrate the conclusion of this academic chapter and the commencement of your next Expedition my inspirational message to you today is that I hope you fail now I anticipated some of the looks that you might be giving me right now but it's true um because by now you've already heard the cliches you've heard the never give up on your dreams you've heard the you can be whatever it is that you want to be you've heard that follow your heart and God will bless you you've heard all of these platitudes but I'm not a motivational speaker I'm a teacher which means that I need to inform you and equip you and Empower you with something that will transcend this singular moment and I need you to understand today that failure is the reason that I stand before you it was just about 10 years ago that I woke up in a hospital bed after attempting to take my own life I woke up staring at the ceiling with tubes attached to my arms a stream of Tears falling down the Contours of my face and the faint beeping of a monitor reminded me that I had been given a second chance that I did not want perhaps some of you have never been so encumbered by the spare perhaps some of you have never fallen so low into the depths of failure and made your bed at the bottom where it feels like the coldest crit or the hottest of Hells some people lose themselves there but then there are others whose passion is birthed in a moment of pain I recently took one of the biggest risk of my life when I decided to write a book some anticipated that I would write about my successes they thought I right about getting recruited by an Ivy League by the age of 26 they thought I'd provide tips on how to get rich and make the forbs list by the age of 30 yes I have done these things except to be clear I am not rich however I do have a very special surprise for you today um so what I want everyone to do here is I want you to take a moment and I want you to reach beneath your seats there some go ahead reach beneath your seats you see that there's nothing there because I am not oer Winfrey nor am I Robert Smith I'm so sorry that's not me while I would love to provide everybody here with a check and while I would love to announce that I am paying off everyone's student debt I am not but what I can offer you today is what I hoped to offer the world when I decided to write a memoir about my failures a mentor even told me not to do it not to Air and expose my foibles to the world but it's the price that I'm willing to pay today and every day if it means that in this day where we are divided as people across racial and sociopolitical lines that we can see that while we are all born into circumstances that we did not choose we are united in the common anguish called Humanity where failure is not only necessary and inevitable but it is also one of our greatest gifts no it's not the gift with the fanciest bow but it's the gift with the most promise when I look back over my turbulent journey I often ask the question why me I look at where I am now and the pain that I Endure to get here and I asked myself did it really take all of that wondering if perhaps there was a shortcut or less pain induced path to discovering my calling did it take me growing up in a home where I endured the most unimaginable abuses at the hands of a man who was a Baptist preacher by day and a cocaine addict by night did it take me getting jumped into a gang when I was 12 years old did it take me becoming a drug dealer by the time I was 14 and when basketball pulled me out of the streets with Promises of success an injury derailed my college career before it hardly began stripping the one positive identity that I had in exchange for the label of a Dropout and I spent the next two years of my life slaving on an assembly line for 12 hours a day and six days a week until depression wrapped itself around me like a cloak and convinced me that the only way to escape failure was death did it really take all of that and just when I received the miracle it seemed misleading two years after dropping out desperation led me back to school and in the perfect story there would be nothing but success looming Beyond the Horizon right but it was not failure was there around the corner waiting for me with a crudel clutched in hand ready to Club me in the face because now I had to survive college with a middle school educ ation level I just want you to imagine that I scored in the bottom percentile of the SAT I could hardly read I could hardly write and I called myself choosing a shortcut when I met with my academic advisor to choose my major I fingered through the list of subjects searching for the easiest one I skipped over Majors like informatics and biomed sciences and civil engineering and others that seemed to me to be more confusing than Chinese characters and I landed on the one word that I recognize and I knew that I had officially outsmarted the rigors of college by choosing the simplest major at all of all that major was English my logic was that I speak English so how difficult can it be next thing you know I'm in these classrooms listen these professors using this sophisticated rhetoric and high fluted jargon wanted me to read books like bolf and the Odyssey and The Iliad and Dante's in as soon as I opened that book and I read Midway upon the Journey of our life I found myself within a dark Forest but straight the straightway path had been lost I slammed the book shut and I said these people got me messed up worse than being jumped into a game was being drubbed by Dead Poets where I felt like I was sucker punched by Shakespeare clothes lined by choser and drop kicked by Dickerson worse than a black eye from a street fight was the bruises left to my self-esteem from trying to be something that I simply wasn't and in class I was too afraid to speak so I sat still in my own silence and it made me invisible this is why I tell my students that silence is not an option and I say the same thing to all of you today in every space that you enter I need you to understand that it is your voice that declares your presence because where a man or a woman has no voice they do not exist you can even be present and still not exist because inferiority is an induced Consciousness whose physical manifestation begins with silence I settled for invisibility and inferiority because I could not understand the lofty language of my professors I couldn't keep up with the conversations because I couldn't read the literature and the times when my name was called to join the class discussions my peers laughed as I attempted to formulate words and miserably fumbled I was sick of being mocked I went back to my dor room every single day feeling like the dumb black kid who fulfilled every stereotype and I soaked in that pain wondering why me looking at all the smart kids and how privileged they were and wondering why I couldn't have better but I want you to understand and I want to tell you about a moment that changed my life forever and this is a lesson that I want to leave you with today one of my essays was flagged for plagiarism because I stole it off of J store I know who does that right who steals a peer review that Sav from a research portal slaps their name on it and turns it in expected not to get caught this guy right here that's who it was a total blunder to say the least but it was a defining moment of failure that changed the trajectory of my entire life my professor called me into her office saying that we needed to talk I sat across from her as she pulled my essay out of her bag the paper was bloodied in red ink as she slid it across the desk and politely asked did you write write this hoping that I would tell the truth completely unaware and Unapologetic my response to her was of course I wrote it but it was not it was what she did next that startled me she did not scold me she did not interrogate me she did not reveal that she knew the truth as my lie lingered in the air between us she placed her hands back on the paper and she slid the paper aside then she looked at me and said I want to know more about you she asked about my background she asked about my family she asked about my struggles she asked about my aspirations and she even became vulnerable with me she told me about her upbringing she told me about her family she told me about her battle with cancer and suddenly a wall that was previously impervious and impenetrable had started to come down but why is that the wall that was my disdain for teachers the wall that was my contempt for school the wall that represented a heart that was so Stone Cold and unable to be reached no matter how many people tried how was it that she was able to do for me what nobody else could it's because after we exchanged stories and shared laughs and shared and shed tears she reached her hand across the table and she placed her hand on mine then she looked at me and said Brandon I need you to know that you were safe here and the compassion in her eyes confirmed that she was telling the truth so when she asked me once more Brandon did you write this it was as if the dam of mistrust had been broken and vulnerability Spilled Out I looked at her and said no I didn't write it and I decided to tell the truth the truth was that I wasn't nobody's scholar the truth was that I was nothing but an impostor intruding upon a world in which I did not belong the truth was that I was just a reformed gangster and an ex drug dealer and a recovering suicide Survivor who had no business trying to read books and write papers and pretend that I could be somebody academic so I said who am I kidding and I decided in that moment that I was done with it all but before I could bat out of the room she Rose from her seat and she rushed over to rescue me with her arms outstretched and she held me in her arms as my head was nestled on her shoulder as water was be pulling in my eyes and I said I understand if you have to fail me but what she said in that next moment shocked me as she saw me starting to sink into the abys of self-pity her words pulled me back up she said I am not going to fail you she said we are going to redo it I was confused because I didn't understand what she meant by we it would have been an act of Grace if she said I could redo it but instead she said we are going to redo it and what does this mean it means she did not look at my insufficiencies and insecurities and inadequacies and leave me to fend for myself no when this woman found me in the the dark pits of Despair she was willing to reach down and climb down and crawl down and meet me where I was in the grimy trenches of failure and she was willing to struggle with me until she could pull me out how did she do that by spending the next several months outside of class outside of office hours sitting with me at the local bookstore teaching me how to read and how to write and here's what I need you to understand the reason why I share this with you today is because what this woman did for me was more than show me the power of an educator she showed me our Collective responsibility as teachers and doctors and lawyers and engineers and artists and whatever it is that you spent the last several years studying to earn this degree that you'll receive the day no matter what field you go into I need you to understand that your responsibility is to be a servant leader and I'm not talking about your major it's much bigger right now I'm talking about your mission if you ask any successful person from Jeff Bezos to KY of Perry to opah Winfrey they will boast on the seasons of failure because it gave them every tool that they needed to leverage their success but that's not why I hope you fail not so you can become a billionaire like Oprah not so you can become famous like Tyler Perry not so you can become the wealthiest person in the world like Jeff Bezos the reason why I hope you fail is because failure Promises of the gift that money can't buy and that is the gift of empathy empathy is what allows us to step into somebody somebody else's shoes empathy is what allows us to see the world through somebody else's lens empathy is what breaks down every barrier of racism and sexism and pierces through the wall of every Injustice empathy is what allows an old white woman to look at my black skin in my baggie jeans and my Timberland boots and my Urban slain and everything else about me that the world said was a problem she looked beyond all of it and she saw my potential to change the world and that is what I see right here before my very eyes this day hundreds of people who have the same potential to leave an indelible mark on the world but not if you don't understand the true impetus of change when I asked about transformation I tell people with conviction that English did not change me academics did not change me education did not change me love is what changed me because empathy changes people more than information ever will if you want to be true agents of change you must first understand that change comes through the front door of the heart and the back door of the Mind in the words of my dear Mentor Dr Cornell West you can't save people that you don't serve and you can't lead people that you don't love and so class of 2021 as we celebrate your commencement and sends you into the world I came here today to tell you that I hope you fail I hope hope you fail in all the right places because when you do the greatest teacher will be there to catch you in their arms and you'll never forget that moment because it would teach you about your responsibility to the world I want to leave you with this last thought at every turn of my life that was disguised as failure I asked the question why me when I suffered abject abuse as a child and my stepfather left me bruised and mangled on the floor I asked the question why me when I went to college to play basketball and immediately suffered a knee injury I asked the question why me when I dropped out of school attempted suicide and barely survived I asked the question why me through all of that suffering I asked why me and I'll be honest with you I had a problem with God for a while because that mess nearly broke me and it nearly killed me and I wondered maybe there was some other better way did it really take all of that then I finally got my answer when I made it to Harvard a place that nothing in my life seemed to qualify me for that is when I learned that God does not call those who are qualified but he qualifies Those whom he calls and as I sat there as I sat there in Harvard Yard with my feet planted in that Ivy leag grass I looked around at a place that lacked diversity and I saw a problem and I had no idea that all of that time my entire Journey that roundabout Meandering Journey had done nothing but prepare me to be the solution in this moment why me it was never about me and everything that you've been through no matter how big big or how small it was never about you my failures weren't about me your failures weren't about you they were always about the people that we will someday be used to reach out and touch because God has a strange way of breaking us in the places that he wants to use us to help heal the world whether it's a setback like family traumas or success like earning your degree today what you've survived and what you've achieved means absolutely nothing if you don't use it to make somebody else's life better so I'm sorry if today you expected a message about how to climb the ladder and get rich because the message I've come with today is about how you climb the ladder and reach back so as you stand at this moment on the precipice of the unknown where failure is sure and inevitable you might wonder if you should play it safe or you might wonder if you should take the leap I know you you're scared but I'm here to encourage you to do it afraid because it reminds me of the poem by Eric Hansen that says there is freedom waiting on you on the breezes of the sky and you ask but what if I fall Oh My Darling but what if you fly class of 2021 I hope you fail it's not a matter of if but a matter of when it's not a matter of why but a matter of how and when you fail my Earnest hope and my deepest desire is that you will fail forward that you will spread your wings that you will find your voice that you will see your potential that you will manifest your power and because of the journey that you endured that you will find it incumbent upon yourself to blaze trails in the spaces where we belong to break down every barrier of opportunity to shatter every glass ceiling and to be in intrusive in the spaces that are not inclusive class of 2021 congratulations go out and conquer the world thank you very much