[Applause] thank you Ryan and thank you Boston for being so kind to us today I arrived uh at Harvard Business School uh in very bad shape I arrived 4 years after applying uh as a member of the final internship class at Leman Brothers where they fired 3,000 people in my first week I arrived after spending a year in the Hallow Halls of Washington DC where I developed an uncanny knack for making copies and making making coffee uh making liberals and conservatives very upset I arrived after a failed attempt to help a Democrat become governor of Texas and a frustrating attempt to survive startup life in New York City on tuna fish and peanut butter and even worse for some of you here today I arrived at Harvard after gradua in from Yale very bad shape indeed and when I got here I made two promises to myself do not work in another startup and do not work and another nonprofit and when I leave this place tomorrow I will begin my full-time life at the helm of a startup nonprofit tell clip so the question becomes very clear what in the world has happened in the last two years I spent a lot of time grappling with that question but I didn't find the answer in any of the cases that we have read in the last two years I traced it instead to a single moment on a single night almost 7 years ago when my whole life changed it was around 1:30 in the morning when I heard the first knock at the door of my home down in Dallas I remember the next sound it was a bang and the next sound was a crash as that front door burst open I remember how shocked I felt how hard it was to breathe when I saw two thieves with guns pointed at my face I remember how trapped I felt when I realized there wasn't anywhere to run how totally helpless I felt as my head hit the floor and they tied my hands behind my back I remember praying what I knew would be my final prayer and feeling so afraid of what was about to happen to me in this moment and in the darkness to come but a strange thing happened as I accepted the fact that I was about to die I stopped being afraid it was in that moment that peace a deep still calm washed over my body it was just after that moment that I heard police sirens coming down the street and the two men scrambling to run out of the same door that they had just kicked in it was because of that moment I now realize that I broke the promises that I made to myself when I first stepped foot on this campus you see up until that night fear had been driving me for a very long time fear that I wouldn't accomplish enough to make others love me fear that I wouldn't earn enough to repay the debts that I owed to so many who had sacrificed so much fear that I would prove the teacher's right who said when I got into Yale there's no way that boy is going to graduate he'll be home before the end of the first semester they obviously had never heard of my dear friend Mr gr inflation this fear drove me to go harder to go higher it drove me to see my journey from oakcliff Texas to Yale as a chance to leave behind all the challenges I had known and grab hold to a life of ease and comfort and security but when I did not die on that floor I began to ask myself why I had been allowed to live and it struck me that if I had been judged that evening I wasn't going to be asked how fancy my degrees had been or how many people I had known or how much money I had piled into my bank account if that night had been my last my maker would have peered into my heart to ask not what I had been able to get but what I have been willing to give and having nothing in my pockets then or now I decided to give my life to a cause greater than myself but I didn't know how to do that and so one day in my junior year I hurried over to Yale law school where I figured everyone had dedicated themselves to some grand cause or another the speaker that day was a lawyer but he had come to give a very surprising message if you wanted to change the world in the 20th century he said you had to go to law school that's funny but in the 21st century if you want to change the world go to business school and so the next chance I got I applied to this place to Harvard I thought it was the only thing to do because I had read an old New Yorker interview with Peter Gomes the iconic minister of Memorial Church in which he said I quote this University was founded by Puritans fleeing England to create a new world order they hoped that the world would reform itself in the light of New England the light of New England was Boston the heart of Boston was Cambridge and the center of Cambridge was Harvard therefore Harvard is the light of the world and you stand in an unbroken procession stretching all the way back to Moses who would himself have come to Harvard if it was good enough for Moses I thought it was good enough for me so here I came after my own years in the desert tied frustrated ready for an easier path some of you may have felt the same way but something about this place something about the last two years convinced us to turn away from those paths and believe that there was a better higher harder way to go it wasn't that Harvard Business School changed who we were no instead I think it reminded us who we could be it reminded us that we didn't have to wait until we were rich or powerful or until we actually knew Finance to make a difference we could act right here right now it was here where the question was asked when will we live in a world where gender equality is not the exception but the rule and it was our women's Student Association and our ambassadors who raised their voices to say right now it was here where the call for help rang out from cities like Detroit Michigan and Athens Greece and Cairo Egypt and elsewhere around the globe and it was our classmates who raised their hands to say I'm coming right now it was here where tabloids wondered when would LeBron James attend an HBS book launch party when would Sir Alex Ferguson teach in an HBS classroom oh when would Michael Douglas take one of us to the Super Bowl and to these great questions it was our professor Anita elbery and our Dean nitt noro who boldly replied right now and it was here in the dark dark corner of a section dinner party where I found three Brave and Brilliant Souls who decided to join me on an 8,000m journey to launch NBAs Across America we set out on this journey because we believed there was a serious challenge facing Our Generation what my friend Andrew mangino calls the dream depression and the Great Depression of the 1930s you see folks would take their money and their valuables and hide them under their mattress and their floorboards but now in this dream depression in a time of uncertainty the whole world over folks are taken their dreams and their hopes and their aspirations and hiding them in all types of places never to see the light of day well we we hit the road because we knew the dreams would not be found in a case or a cubicle they'd be hiding in the nooks and crannies and in the unbeaten pths so as we traveled we saw the signs for countless big cities and Tiny towns but we also saw the signs for hope we saw the signs for Hope and the fact that a black guy from Texas a white guy guy from Maryland a Jewish girl from New Mexico and an Arab guy from Morocco could pitch a tent and a cow pasture in rural Montana we realized that night that we were all in this together we were tied to those ranchers as much as we were tied to the trumpet player in New Orleans or the venture capitalist in Colorado or the Lebanese man in the middle eastern restaurant in ramulus Michigan who thought that Harvard was in Ohio we were tied to him too we saw the signs for Hope out there and entrepreneurs like Sebastian Jackson who runs a barber shop that recycles the hair from clients to make compost and plant trees in some of Detroit's most blighted neighborhoods he told us of his dream not just to start a business that could save his family but to grow a business that could save his City and even though we did not have an expert opinion even though we did not have any money to invest even though some of us did not even have much hair he welcomed Us in because he believes that four people from this place with this education had to be able to help him bring his dream to life so when after our time with him Sebastian's Revenue tripled and he raised $100,000 from local investors and he tore down an abandoned home and used the wood to renovate his barber shop he called to say thank you but he also left me with one message that I leave with you today he said Casey you've got more work to do so while I may never forget what time it was when I heard that first knock at my door seven years ago right now is the time that I'm obsessed with today because now I see after all the miles and all the memor memories of the last two years now I see the biggest sign for hope you my friends my fellow graduates not because of what we've done but because I know we have more work to do in your hands as well as mine lies the hope for a new generation of Business Leaders in which each of us becomes a pioneer in which each of us decides to travel unknown roads in search of Unsolved challenges in which each of us commits our time and talent not just to the treasures of today but to the frontier of tomorrow where new dreams and new hopes and new possibilities are waiting for us to pull them from the darkness yes we have more work to do and as we leave this place for the last time some as Baker Scholars and some by the seat of our pants we take up the work not just of making a living but of making a life for if all we've learned here are four Ps and five forces and Six Sigma we will prove William Fulon right that we labor under a curse that we live not for love but for lust for defeats in which nobody loses anything of value for victories without hope and worst of all Without Pity or compassion that our griefs grieve on no Universal bones leaving no scars that we live not from the heart but from the glands no my friends we have more work to do hard work frightening work uncertain work unending work work that may test us work that may defeat us work for which we may not get the credit but work on which the whole world depends the time is short and the odds alone but I believe that we are ready nonetheless with the love of those who raised us with the lessons of those who taught us with the strength of those who stand beside us as we face what lies ahead I say let us begin thank you