Let’s Respond

A. Read the text and answer the questions that follow.

This is the manuscript of Rick Rigsby’s commencement speech at California State
University. Rigsby is an author, teacher, public speaker, and a character coach.

The wisest person I ever met in my life, a third-grade dropout. Wisest and dropout in the
same sentence is rather oxymoronic, like jumbo shrimp. Like Fun Run, ain’t nothing fun
about it, like Microsoft Works. You all don’t hear me. I used to say like country music, but
I’ve lived in Texas for so long, I love country music now. I hunt. I fish. I have cowboy boots
and cowboy … You all, I’m a black neck redneck. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?
No longer oxymoronic for me to say country music, and it’s not oxymoronic for me to say
third grade and that third grade dropout, the wisest person I ever met in my life, who
taught me to combine knowledge and wisdom to make an impact, was my father, a simple
cook, wisest man I ever met in my life, just a simple cook, left school in the third grade to
help out on the family farm, but just because he left school doesn’t mean his education
stopped. Mark Twain once said, “I’ve never allowed my schooling to get in the way of my
education.” My father taught himself how to read, taught himself how to write, decided
amid Jim Crowism, as America was breathing the last gasp of the Civil War, my father
decided he was going to stand and be a man, not a black man, not a brown man, not a
white man, but a man. He literally challenged himself to be the best that he could in all
the days of his life.
I have four degrees. My brother is a judge. We’re not the smartest ones in our family. It’s
a third-grade dropout daddy, a third-grade dropout daddy who was quoting Michelangelo,
saying to us boys, “I won’t have a problem if you aim high and miss, but I’m gonna have
a real issue if you aim low and hit.” A country mother quoting Henry Ford, saying, “If you
think you can or if you think you can’t, you’re right.” I learned that from a third-grade
dropout. Simple lessons, lessons like these. “Son, you’d rather be an hour early than a
minute late.” We never knew what time it was at my house because the clocks were
always ahead. My mother said, for nearly 30 years, my father left the house at 3:45 in the
morning, one day, she asked him, “Why, Daddy?” He said, “Maybe one of my boys will
catch me in the act of excellence.”
I want to share a few things with you. Aristotle said, “You are what you repeatedly do.”
Therefore, excellence ought to be a habit, not an act. Don’t ever forget that. I know you’re
tough. I know you’re seaworthy, but always remember to be kind, always. Don’t ever
forget that. Never embarrass Mama. If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. If Daddy
ain’t happy, don’t nobody care, but I’m going to tell you.
Next lesson, lesson from a cook over there in the galley. “Son, make sure your servant’s
towel is bigger than your ego.” I want to remind you cadets of something as you graduate.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity. You all might have a relative in
mind you want to send that to. Let me say it again. Ego is the anesthesia that deadens
the pain of stupidity. Pride is the burden of a foolish person.
John Wooden coached basketball at UCLA for a living, but his calling was to impact
people, and with all those national championships, guess what he was found doing in the
middle of the week? Going into the cupboard, grabbing a broom and sweeping his own
gym floor. You want to make an impact? Find your broom. Every day of your life, you find
your broom. You grow your influence that way. That way, you’re attracting people so that
you can impact them.
Final lesson. “Son, if you’re going to do a job, do it right.” I’ve always been told how
average I can be, always been criticized about being average, but I want to tell you
something. I stand here before you before all these people, not listening to those words,
but telling myself every single day to shoot for the stars, to be the best that I can be. Good
enough isn’t good enough if it can be better, and better isn’t good enough if it can be best.
Let me close with a very personal story that I think will bring all this into focus. Wisdom
will come to you in the unlikeliest of sources, a lot of times through failure. When you hit
rock bottom, remember this. While you’re struggling, rock bottom can also be a great
foundation on which to build and on which to grow. I’m not worried that you’ll be
successful. I’m worried that you won’t fail from time to time. The person that gets up off
the canvas and keeps growing, that’s the person that will continue to grow their influence.
Back in the ’70s, to help me make this point, let me introduce you to someone. I met the
finest woman I’d ever met in my life. Back in my day, we’d have called her a brick house.
This woman was the finest woman I’d ever seen in my life. There was just one little
problem. Back then, ladies didn’t like big old linemen. The Blind Side hadn’t come out yet.
They liked quarterbacks and running back. We’re at this dance, and I find out her name
is Trina Williams from Lompoc, California. We’re all dancing and we’re just excited. I
decide in the middle of dancing with her that I would ask her for her phone number. Trina
was the first … Trina was the only woman in college who gave me her real telephone
number.
The next day, we walked to Baskin and Robbins Ice Cream Parlor. My friends couldn’t
believe it. This has been 40 years ago, and my friends still can’t believe it. We go on a
second date and a third date and a fourth date. We drive from Chico to Vallejo so that
she can meet my parents. My father meets her. My daddy. My hero. He meets her, pulls
me to the side and says, “Is she psycho?” Anyway, we go together for a year, two years,
three years, four years. By now, Trina’s a senior in college. I’m still a freshman, but I’m
working some things out. I’m so glad I graduated in four terms, Nixon, Ford, Carter,
Reagan.
Now, it’s time to propose, so I talk to her girlfriends, and it’s California. It’s in the ’70s, so
it must be outside, have to have a candle and you have to some chocolate. Listen, I’m
from the hood. I had a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine. That’s what I had. She said, “Yes.”
That was the key. I married the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my … You all ever
been to a wedding and even before the wedding starts, you hear this? “How in the world?”
It was coming from my side of the family. We get married. We have a few children. Our
lives are great.
One day, Trina finds a lump in her left breast. Breast cancer. Six years after that
diagnosis, me and my two little boys walked up to Mommy’s casket and, for two years,
my heart didn’t beat. If it wasn’t for my faith in God, I wouldn’t be standing here today. If
it wasn’t for those two little boys, there would have been no reason for which to go on. I
was completely lost. That was rock bottom. You know what sustained me? The wisdom
of a third-grade dropout, the wisdom of a simple cook.
We’re at the casket. I’d never seen my dad cry, but this time I saw my dad cry. That was
his daughter. Trina was his daughter, not his daughter-in-law, and I’m right behind my
father about to see her for the last time on this earth, and my father shared three words
with me that changed my life right there at the casket. It would be the last lesson he would
ever teach me. He said, “Son, just stand. You keep standing. You keep stand … No
matter how rough the sea, you keep standing, and I’m not talking about just water. You
keep standing. No matter what. You don’t give up.” I learned that lesson from a third-
grade dropout, and as clearly as I’m talking to you today, these were some of her last
words to me. She looked me in the eye, and she said, “It doesn’t matter to me any longer
how long
I live. What matters to me most is how I live.”
I ask you all one question, a question that I was asked all my life by a third-grade dropout.
How are you living? How are you living? Every day, ask yourself that question. How are
you living? Here’s what a cook would suggest you live, this way, that you would not judge,
that you would show up early, that you’d be kind, that you make sure that that servant’s
towel is huge and used, that if you’re going to do something, you do it the right way. That
cook would tell you this, that it’s never wrong to do the right thing, that how you do
anything is how you do everything, and in that way, you will grow your influence to make
an impact. In that way, you will honor all those who have gone before you who have
invested in you. Look in those unlikeliest places for wisdom. Enhance your life every day
by seeking that wisdom and asking yourself every night, “How am I living?” May God
richly bless you all. Thank you for having me here.
Based on the principles of communication, Rick Rigby’s commencement speech.