I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks nothing Nelson Mandela said there is no passion to be found playing small and settling for a life that's less than the one you're capable of living now I'm sure in your experiences in school and applying to college and picking your major and deciding what you want to do with life I'm sure people have told you to make sure you have something to fall back on make sure you got something to fall back on honey but I never understood that concept having something to fall back on if I'm going to fall I don't want to fall back on anything except my faith I want to fall forward I figure at least this way I'll see what I'm going to hit every failed experiment is one step closer to success you've got to take risks and I'm sure you've probably heard that before but I want to talk to you about why that's so important I got three reasons and and you can pick up your iPhones first you will fail at some point in your life except it you will lose you will embarrass yourself you will suck at something there's no doubt about it and I know that's probably not a traditional message for a graduation ceremony but hey I'm telling you embrace it because it's inevitable and I should know in the acting business you fail all the time early on in my career I auditioned for a part in a Broadway musical perfect role for me I thought except for the fact that I can't sing I didn't get the job but here's the thing I didn't quit I didn't fall back I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition and the next audition and the next audition I prayed I prayed and I prayed but I continued to fail and fail and fail but it didn't matter because you know what there's an old saying you hang around the barbershop long enough sooner or later you're gonna get a haircut so you will catch a break and I did catch a break last year I did a play called fences on Broadway someone talked about it won the Tony Award and I didn't have to sing by the way but here's the kicker it was at the court theater it was at the same theater that I failed that first audition 30 years prior the point is and I'll pick up the pace the point is every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed but do you have the guts to fail here's my second point about failure if you don't fail you're not even trying I'll say it again if you don't fail you're not even trying my wife told me this great expression to get something you never had you have to do something you never did Les Brown's a motivational speaker he made an analogy about this says imagine you're on your deathbed and standing around your deathbed are the ghosts representing your unfulfilled potential the ghost of the ideas you never acted on the ghost of the talents you didn't use and they're standing around your bed angry disappointed and upset they say we came to you because you could have brought us to life they say and now we have to go to the grave together so I ask you today how many ghosts are going to be around your bed when your time comes all right now here's my last point about failure sometimes it's the best way to figure out where you're going your life will never be a straight path I began at Fordham University as a pre-med student I took a course called the cardiac morphosis I still can't say it cardiac cardiac morphogenesis I couldn't read it I couldn't say it I sure couldn't pass it so then I decided to go into pre-law then journalism and with no academic focus my grades took off in their own direction yeah down I was a 1.8 GPA one semester and the university very politely suggested that it might be better to take some time off I was 20 years old I was at my lowest point and then one day and I remember the exact day March 27 1975 I was helping my mother in a beauty shop my mother owned a beauty shop up in Vernon and there's there was this older woman who was considered one of the elders in the town and I didn't know her personally but I was looking in the mirror and every time I looked at the mirror I could see her behind me and she was staring at me she just kept looking at me every time I looked at it she kept giving me these strange looks so she finally took the dryer off her head and says to something she said something I'll never forget first of all she said somebody give me a piece of paper give me a piece of paper she said young boy I have a prophecy a spiritual prophecy she said you are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people now mind you I'm 20 years old I'm flunked out of school in fact like a wiseass I'm thinking to myself maybe she's got something in that crystal ball about me getting back into school next fall so when I got back to Fordham that fall I got in I changed my major once again for the last time and in the years that followed just as that woman prophesied I have traveled the world and I have spoken to millions of people through my movies

我發現人生沒有什麼是值得的，除非你敢於冒險 納爾遜-曼德拉說過，玩弄小聰明和安於現狀的生活是沒有激情可言的。但我從來都不明白這個概念，如果我要摔倒，我不想靠任何東西后退，除了我的信仰，我想向前摔倒，我想至少這樣我才能看到我要撞到什麼 每一次失敗的實驗都是離成功更近一步，你必須承擔風險，我相信你以前可能聽說過這句話但我想跟你說說為什麼這很重要，我有三個理由，你可以先拿起你的iPhone，你會在你人生的某個階段失敗，但你會失敗，你會讓自己難堪，你會做得很爛，這是毫無疑問的，我知道這可能不是一個傳統的畢業典禮的