he's really clear he said John I want you to tell a story I want to tell a story that will resonate with our audience which is gonna be mostly college students I wanted to seem to be something meaningful and something they will remember for the rest of their life okay so here is the story of the most important thing I've ever learned in my life which I happened to learn while I was in college I was born down in Miami Florida and to a wealthy family and I got to go to prep school with one of the top prep schools in the country Gulliver preparatory down there did well graduated and got accepted to a lot of different colleges and I chose the University of Miami because it was close to my boat and my girlfriend not exactly the way you choose to college so you can see I wasn't particularly serious about college when I started so this is basically the way it when I showed up the first semester I got the syllabus I went and bought the books if it was sunny I went fishing if it was raining I went drinking I had a great tan I knew all the happy hours in town but I had never stepped foot in class I literally showed up for my midterm exams first year and said hi is this English 1101 the blue book chapters 1 through 15 cool I read him last night and one point six GPA problem though I had a one point six all my friends had a point nine a 1.2 1.0 I had the highest GPA of all my friends I was the academic stunts of my peer group at one point six yeah if I got a deal you know F D on a test they all got ash they thought I was a god you know man do you really study two hours let's go get another beer so NC one of the things I learned then is that's what's called positive reinforcement for negative behavior I'm doing stuff that's terrible for me my friends go to us to you know and you know but it would happen that is the worse it got the more my friends loved it because misery loves what company and when someone's failing what do they want everyone else to fail too so they see wasn't my fault you know was a it was the professor that it was the caster is this you know like they can't give a test in the morning we just came in from drinking at 6:00 that's unfair you know who would do that so unfortunately after my second semester at the University of Miami I was expelled but it gets better University of Miami has something called the order of the iron arrow it's the highest award they can give to an alumni my father is word of the iron arrow oh no no it gets better it gets better the year that I got kicked out my father was on the board of directors of the Law School oh no no it gets better it gets better there's a wing of the business or the law school named after my dad do you know how bad you got a stripper get kicked out of a college where there's a building named after your family whoo man so I packed up my stuff I grabbed my resume I meant my transcripts I came up here to University of Florida I'll never forget it I walked into the registrar's office which used to be over entire at Hall and I handed the transcripts to the lady and she went like this we don't take people like you but I really want to go to the University of Florida she said well you may want to but we don't want you and I remember walking down the stairs sitting on 13th Street in front of target hall and crying and thinking I'm just on the verge of throwing my entire life away I had dreams of owning companies and traveling around the world and you know being successful and I've just had someone laugh at me and tell me we don't want people like you I decided right then and there that I would become I would turn my life around then I got myself in that trouble and I was gonna get myself out of it so I committed myself to becoming an expert as much as I heard about success I became fanatical about reading studying learning everything I could about how to build a happy joyful balanced successful life I went over to Santa Fe Community College which today is recognized as one of the most prestigious community colleges in the country in 1983 when I was there not quite basically if you had a pulse they had to let you in and I got in on probation and you know in one of my professors another person who changed my life Roger Strickland my economics professor heard me one day talking classes I really had to get good grades and I was really serious I really wanted to buckle down and do better and he said if you really want to do better I can teach you how and I said you can he said there's only three things it takes to be successful in college I said well then tell me said number one read the books he said at least in college all of the answers are in the books if you just read and study their books they assigned 90% of the stuff you need to get an A is right there let's just read the books that was an easy one number two he said asked for help ask the teachers ask the TAS ask the other students find anybody who can and ask them to help you with class ask them to help you get better grades ask them to help you be successful which by the way might be the second most important thing I've ever learned you know a lot of people are afraid to ask for help I mean I was at the University of Miami I figured out that's what made me fail I didn't talk to my professors I didn't talk to the other students I didn't talk to the TAS I asked no one for help and what it got me was failure when I got here and Roger talked to me I realized that if you surround yourself with a big group of people and ask for help everything becomes easier it's one of the most important things you can take away it's it's not you know a lot of people think it's weaker it's you're showing vulnerability or you know I'm not strong enough I have you fraid to ask for help the smartest people I've ever met in my life for the ones that are absolutely the finest at asking for help so number two was ask for help then the third one is he said start study groups you know get a group of people there and work together and don't be a good support group for you so here's what I would do at the beginning of every semester I'd stand in front of my classes ago hi I'm John I'm gonna have a study group for this class I really want to do well would be Tuesday and Thursday nights my house we can come study for three or four hours and we gotta get a beer together you know anybody who wants come on over come on over here in the study group Oh as long as you have a 3.6 GPA or higher start out with about 20 of us then 15 and 12 intended that down to six of us six events that studied together that had the same major we went to class together we took the same classes College became incredibly easy I had five friends helping me you know one only read a couple chapters want to go visit professor want to go talk to the tutor we get together and teach each other I won't drag you through the whole story but here's what happened I ended up graduating from the University of Florida number three in the entire United States of my major I was hired by the Rockefellers while I was still in college and then three years after graduating I became CEO of an international Rockefeller Foundation at the age of 26 overseeing projects in 20 countries around the world written a couple books as you heard from bin top 100 thought leader so things did turn out a little bit better so I'd like to to close this off by telling you now the single most important thing I've learned in my life this comes from a guy who read 100 120 business books here and I had every year since 1989 been through a couple of passports you heard of the list of companies I work for the single most important thing I've ever learned you become what you focus on and like the people you spend time with whatever you fill your brain with whatever you're thinking about whatever you're reading studying learning whatever you watch whatever you put in your brain and whoever you choose is your closest associates will directly determine what your life will look like a decade from now and by the way that works in college and it works for the rest of your life who what you think about what you focus on and who you spend time with is one of the most important things you can because here's the tragedy most people don't think about it they mindlessly fill their mind with mindless mindlessness and they just hang out with whoever happens to be around so my lesson for you all of you today is be proactive about that think carefully about what am i filling my brain with what am I really spending my time on and who have I chosen to spend my time with the other thing that I learned which I told you a minute ago is learn to ask for help and then here's the last thing at the end of the day and I mean the long day of your life when everyone's at your funeral and they're standing around not one person is going to talk about how many boats you owned or how cool your plane was or how many houses you had or any of that stuff and you talk about one thing and one thing only how much you loved them and how much they loved you so the key then is to live a life of love thank you very much