Motivation

Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life that’s it! No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of reed college after 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why I drop out ? It started before I was born.  My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the m...