This was one of the best posts I have read and has been a source of inspiration and motivation for me to be who I am today. I hope it will help you as much as it has helped me. You can find the link Guy Kawasaki’s blog in my links section.
January 12, 2006
Hindsights
I’ve been blogging for a whole ten days now, and all my topics have been business stuff: venture capital, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, evangelism, etc. Now I want to throw you a total curve ball.
About fourteen years ago my wife and I separated for a time. As part of my search for what the hell was going on in our lives, I looked for a book about people’s hindsights in life–what they did right, what they did wrong, and what their advice would be.
To my surprise, I could find no such book. So, like a fool, I decided to write the book. After all, how hard could it be to turn on a record their hindsights ala Studs Terkel?
Let me tell you, it was hard. Very hard. Every step of the process was hard: figuring out who to interview, getting the interviews, doing the interviews, and editing the interviews. It was much harder than writing a book where you just sit there and make things up.
I also wrote a speech based on the book, and I have given it six times at commencements, graduations and baccalaureates: Palo Alto High (three times), DeAnza College, High Tech High, and Harker School. Giving these speeches brought me some of the greatest moments of joy in my life. And, unlike the Kurt Vonnegut hoax, these were for real.
Yesterday at Macworld Expo someone came up to me and told me how much the speech meant to his family. Memories of these speeches and the book came flooding back, so today’s blog is the full text of my Hindsights speech.
Nota bene: read and forward this at your own risk because hindsight #10 has cost parents thousands of dollars!
Speaking to you today marks a milestone in my life. I am fifty years old. Thirty-two or years ago, when I was in your seat, I never, ever thought I would be fifty years old.
The implications of being your speaker frightens me. For one thing, when a fifty year old geezer spoke at my baccalaureate ceremony, he was about the last person I’d believe. I have no intention of giving you the boring speech that you are dreading. This speech will be short, sweet, and not boring.
I am going to talk about hindsights today. Hindsights that I’ve accumulated in the thirty-two years from where you are to where I am. Don’t blindly believe me. Don’t take what I say as
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