Pre-Ramble:  So, I am totally tardy in weighing in on President Obama’s message to the nation’s schoolchildren yesterday.  The thing is, I am actually so stunned by the reaction of those who object to the president’s speech to students, even more so of those who object to the president addressing students at all, that I can barely pull my thoughts together. 

In his speech, President Obama draws upon personal experiences and makes the case for the role of education in a successful life.

He highlights education as the great equalizer and speaks to the challenges faced by young people in a media culture that often presents an unrealistic view of the world and can serve as a distraction from the knowledge, skills, habits and attitudes which would advance the likelihood of a successful future in it. 

The truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And, you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.”

What parent doesn’t want their child to hear that message?  What parent doesn’t want their child to work hard and stay in school?  What parent would rather take their child OUT OF SCHOOL, than have them listen to the president of the United States give an18 minute pep talk around the importance of education and personal responsibility?  (Are they as vigilant about what their kids are listening to the other 1,422 minutes in a day?) What parent doesn’t want their child to hear new ideas; ideas that might be counter to the ones that they hear at home?  What parent/American citizen doesn’t want their child to be more engaged in what is going on in their community, country and world?

Parents who don’t want their children to listen to the president talk about the value of education are, at the very least, missing a teachable moment — an opportunity to talk to their kids about the things that matter to them, to share their own perspectives on issues and invite their children to think for themselves about the things that are happening around them.

The Take-Away:  The more I think about it, the more I want my child to listen to that speech twice.

Pre-Ramble: In commencement addresses all across the country, graduates received variations on great words of wisdom. Speakers ranging from heads of state to actors to business executives delivered messages of perseverance and triumph mixed with a humbling measure of cautionary hope.

This past Sunday’s New York Times (6/14/09, p. A18) offered snippets from some of these messages …

• President Obama told graduates at the University of Notre Dame that they were a generation who must “find a path back to prosperity…”
• At the University of Wisconsin, buzz-kill Major League Baseball commissioner, Bud Selig lamented that this was “the most difficult economic environment since the Great Depression…”
• Her Supreme Talk Show Goddess-ness, Oprah Winfrey regaled Duke University graduates with a run down on her accomplishments, accolades, multiple homes, and private jets, reminding them that unless they have been able to “help somebody else move forward, they haven’t completed the circle of success.”

I was particularly inspired by co-founder of Google, Larry Page’s remarks to students at the University of Michigan (a fine, fine institution; see shameless plug above right):

… I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up. I was thinking, What if we could download the whole Web and just keep the links? And I grabbed a pen and started writing. Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself that it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the Web. He nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer, but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated. Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later, we happened upon a better way of ranking Web pages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it.

The Take-Away: Dah! What he said!  And this advice isn’t just for the newly minted graduate, it’s for we older vintages as well. Take up residence with that “optimism of youth” … Start dreaming and, “WHEN A REALLY GREAT DREAM SHOWS UP, GRAB IT!”

Post Note: Interestingly, if you google the word “dreams” the first entry is:

An Online Guide to Dream Interpretation, Mar. 6, 2009 … Dream moods is a free online dictionary source to help you interpret the meanings to your dreams. Check out our 4000+ word dream dictionary, … www.dreammoods.com/ – Cached – Similar … Dream Moods A-Z Dictionary, Common Dreams, Teeth Dreams, Naked Dreams, Chase Dreams, Dream info, Dream Bank, Flying Dreams … More results from dreammoods.com >> …

We have to assume that Larry was able to interpret his dream as, “You will be wildly, beyond-your-wildest-dreams, a bazillion times over, incredibly, stupid, crazy successful with this idea you just dreamed here!”

Pre-Ramble: Turns out that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow might have more relevance than we thought. According to best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell in his new book “Outliers,”  success is as much a function of circumstance, effort, and luck as it is about innate ability.  Gladwell, science buff and staff writer for The New Yorker, examines a  collection of modern-day success stories including that of Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates; nuclear physicist,” Robert Oppenheimer; and legendary musical group, the Beatles. In each of these cases, he concludes that far beyond any singular factor, exceptional levels of achievement were made possible by a synchronous combination of factors including  intelligence, determination, effort (practicing a skill for at least 10,000 hours…!), advantageous upbringing, optimal educational opportunities, adequate socio-economic resources, being in the right place at the right time, and just plain luck. Personal circumstances are a necessary condition, he notes, but “a lot of things need to break just right” in order to launch an individual into the realm of extraordinary success. ”People don’t rise from nothing… they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages, extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” (Note: Gladwell has written two other very well received books,”Tipping Point” (2000) and “Blink” (2005), which indicates that extraordinary success is also a function of snappy, engaging book titles.)

The principle of synchronicity was demonstrated to me up close and personal one sunny day last summer while I was brushing my teeth and watching the sprinklers in our front yard (… ok, summer days are supposed to be slow…).  Three of the pivoting spigots were launching fitful arcs of water above the grass, when suddenly, like a well-orchestrated dance, the sprays intersected with each other and the sunlight to create a tiny, brilliant segment of a rainbow. It was a magical little moment, made even more so when I realized that, had I been standing in another place, or if it had been another time of day where the sun was in a different position in the sky, this bright array of colors would not have been visible to me.

The Point: Like hidden rainbows, Wall Street Journal book reviewer, David Shaywitz (11/15/08, p. W10) suggests that the real message in Gladwell’s “Outliers” is its focus on the profound reality of lost potential and the costs of such a loss to individuals and to society. How much potential out there is being overlooked or ignored? How much raw talent remains uncultivated and is ultimately lost? Do we cling to outmoded ideas of what success looks like and what is truly required to achieve it? Shaywitz notes that Gladwell’s perspective ”passionately emphasizes the need to recognize and cultivate great minds that might be limited by their circumstances or environment.”  

The Take-Away: Potentially great minds are as close as your own backyard. In fact, there is an infinite number of ”potential rainbows” all around you all the time, just waiting for the right set of circumstances to reveal themselves. Short of watching sprinklers all day, you can encourage the spectrum of unrealized potential in yourself and others and increase your opportunities to access the success you seek.  By intentionally increasing your range of experiences and keeping your eyes open, you can increase your potential solution set and the value that is waiting there. If you aren’t seeing your opportunities, chances are you’re just standing in the wrong spot (see Descarte’s diagram of a rainbow above). Move over a little and look again.