Commencement Address by Peter Chapman P '11, '12

My perspective today is that of a proud parent and a member of the Millbrook Board of Trustees. About 50 years ago, I too was sitting through what I was certain was going to be a long, tedious and boring graduation speaker who couldn’t possibly tell us what we didn’t already know.  However, one of the many things I’ve learned over the years is that the older I get, the smarter my parents (and most adults) were.  And Eliza, I hope you realize this far sooner than I did. 

Millbrook’s goal is to educate its graduates to be productive and contributing citizens in a democratic society.  This was the vision of founder Edward Pulling back in 1931 and this mission has never been more important than it is today.
 

As a graduating senior you’re going to receive lots of advice as you embark on the next chapter of your life, much of it tried and true, albeit a little trite:  Follow your dreams……Discover you passion…… Reach for the stars……. Keep your eye on the prize….Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Over your time here at Millbrook your teachers have taught you lessons designed to help you succeed, for we all strive to achieve success. However, my advice is probably not something you would expect to hear. I want you to do something different. I want you to learn how to fail, how to deal with rejection; for only by failing can you accomplish anything worthwhile. That which comes too easily isn’t worth achieving. And when you do fail, accept responsibility for that failure

Robert Kennedy said it best: “Those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly”.
 

Rejection and failure come in many forms.  I’m not talking about the kind of failure that results in half-hearted effort, the “mailing-it-in” variety.  I’m here to talk about the failure that results from setting a goal that seems unattainable and then working tirelessly to achieve the hoped-for results. Those who take the risk, that aren’t afraid to face rejection, no matter the consequences, are the real winners. And those that take the safer path, the easier route, who don’t stretch, who are afraid to fail, never really succeed. What gives you greater satisfaction – a hard fought loss to a superior rival or an easy victory against an overmatched opponent? Sure, the win looks better on your record, but I would argue that the loss is far more meaningful.
 

Why don’t more people succeed? Because they’re afraid to fail.
 

Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. History is full of examples of people who failed. Let me cite a few:

Like Aesop’s tale of the rabbit and the hare, it’s not how you start, but how you finish.
 

As important as setting the bar high and overcoming the fear of failure is having the ability to persevere in the face of such failure and rejection.  Nothing is accomplished by failure if you simply walk away from the challenge.  It’s persistence in the face of rejection and failure that will stand you in good stead. It’s learning, as Steve Jobs did from those failures.
 

One of my first jobs after college was in sales. I worked for a medical journal that was supported entirely by advertising from pharmaceutical industry. My assignment was to solicit advertising from firms in the hospital supply and equipment space.  My territory was everything east of Chicago and I had a potential client list of perhaps 150 companies and their advertising agencies.  Over the course of my first year I managed to call on virtually every one of those prospects. The results of my efforts – Zero, not a single order. To say I was discouraged was an understatement. One evening I was in Cleveland on a business trip. I returned from dinner and went to bed.  Shortly my phone rang. The operator was calling to tell me there was telegram and the front desk. Remember this was well before the time of email, computers, cell phones, so a telegram was the best way to get a message to someone.  I asked the operator to read the telegram to me.The gist of the message was that the magazine had just received a contract from one of my prospects – my first sale.  Well, after a year of rejections, after over 150 sales calls without a single order, I was so excited that I was actually jumping up and down on the bed.  That might have been fine for a five year old, but I was 25! Proof positive that the harder you work for something, the more gratifying it is to achieve a successful outcome.
 

Or consider this man: As a school boy teachers told him he was “too stupid to learn anything”.  Work wasn’t much better as he was fired from his first two jobs. And when he turned to inventing, it took more than 1,000 attempts before inventing the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb, just one of almost 1,100 patents he held.  Thomas Edison claims, “I failed my way to success.” He said “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time”.
 

Or this writer who began his career as a dentist, a profession he quickly came to hate. He turned to writing, only to receive rejection after rejection for his work and eventually being told that he had no business being a writer and that he should give up. It took years, but at age 40, Zane Grey got his first work published. His 80+ books went on to sell more than 50 million copies. 

 

Imagine for just a minute what it would be like to attempt something a thousand times or spending 15 years pursuing your goal before you succeeded?  The list of successful people who suffered rejection after rejection, only to ultimately achieve their goals is long and distinguished – Bill Gates, Henry Ford , Walt Disney, the Wright Brothers, to name but a few.

 

Remember that rejection isn’t failure…Failure is giving up.

 

Perseverance is needed by everyone in all walks of life, in your schoolwork, in sports, music and the arts.  It’s required to make relationships work since all relationships experience ups and down and must weather such storms to be successful.  Perseverance is an attitude, a mindset that can be developed through a positive approach.  Perhaps Thomas Edison said it best: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”.

Let me leave you with one final story.
 

Last year I had the good fortune to meet Bonnie St. John. Bonnie grew up in San Diego, along with her sister and brother and was raised by a single mother who, as Bonnie says, “had more time left over at the end of the month than money.”, Not only did she endure the amputation of her right leg at age five, she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather for years. When she was in middle school, one of her classmates invited her on a ski trip.  Now Bonnie, had never seen snow much less skied before, but with borrowed equipment, off she went. 
After three frustrating days of falling and falling and falling some more, Bonnie was hooked. She left San Diego for the Burke Mountain Academy, a high school for ski racers in Vermont. At 19 she landed a spot on the 1984 US Paralympic team where she was slated to compete in Austria. Friends raised enough money for Bonnie to fly her mother to Innsbruck where she saw her daughter compete for the very first time. In the downhill, Bonnie’s best event, she was in first place after the first run. The course was particularly icy and she watched skier after skier fall toward the bottom of the course. When it was her turn, Bonnie attacked the mountain with complete abandon.  Near the finish line, she caught an edge and fell. She lay for a moment silently bemoaning her bad luck before getting up and finishing the race. She placed second to another skier who had also fallen on the same part of the course. Her silver medal gave her the distinction of being the first African-American to earn a medal in the Winter Paralympics. 
 

What did she learn from this experience?  In her own words “I was beaten by a woman who got up faster than I did.  Everyone falls, but winners get up and gold medal winners get up faster”. 
 

That was back in 1984. What became of Bonnie?  She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1986, earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University earning a master's degree in economics in 1990 and went on to become a director of the National Economic Council during the Clinton Administration. If ever there were a poster child for not being afraid to fail and perseverance, it’s Bonnie St John.
 

So that’s my message to all of you today. Go out there, stretch beyond your limits, and fall down, for surely you will.  But when you do, be the first to get up.

Thanks, congratulations, good luck and Godspeed.