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I thought I was done writing about college commencement addresses for this year until I took in one this week by podcaster Jay Shetty. It’s so hard to say something truly original given the thousands of such speeches given each year. Yet Shetty pulled that off with a flair and eloquence that impressed and inspired me.
The speech was especially noteworthy given the audience. Princeton University is where it’s especially hard to dazzle the graduates who are smarter than 99 percent of college graduates anywhere. A tough task Shetty took on and man did he get at some ideas that hit me with force.
Years ago Shetty wrote a book titled Think Like A Monk about what he learned spending several years as a monk bald and meditating up to four hours a day. Who among us can relate to the life of a monk? Almost no one. Except this cool guy.
“As I stand here in front of you today at Princeton, one of the most prestigious institutions in the world – I still catch myself wondering…What are you going to think of this speech? What it means is if I think you think I’m smart, then I feel smart, but if I think you think I’m weak, well, I feel weak. This is the trap. And the world lures us in. But if there’s one message I want you to walk away with today – it’s this: You have to disappear.”
Go away, his primary message was. Don’t seek the limelight and more online followers. Don’t go out there and conquer the world in the traditional sense. Disappear, graduates. Stop announcing every move and start building something that speaks for itself.
“Disappearing means doing the work,” he told the graduates. “It means doing the work in the dark. It means building in private what you don’t need to prove in public. It means doing the work when no one’s watching. You stop worrying about what people think and start valuing what you believe. Because a life that looks good or sounds good is nothing compared to a life that feels good.”
For the past several years I have been disappearing into this cerebral and quiet world of daily writing. Not in pursuit of fame or money. Just doing what I feel compelled to do that fulfills me.
Decades ago I wrote a book titled Hit Upon God and started out on a speaking tour. One day I had an engagement at a nun’s convent. One sister showed up. I spoke to her in a room with some 30 empty chairs. The experience was so disheartening I never spoke publicly about my book again. It felt pointless. It felt as if no one wanted to hear what I had to say. No one was interested. This isn’t me having self pity; it’s telling you the truth.
I share this because in his speech Shetty opened up about his early days on his mission to help people live better lives through his writing, speaking, and podcasting.
“At my first event, no one showed up,” he said. “I practiced to an empty room. My second event, no one showed up again. I practiced to an empty room again. And that’s what’s fascinating. If you look at world-class entrepreneurs that you admire, the artists that you look up to, business people that you aspire to be like, and creatives – guess what? They all disappeared.”
Like Shetty, I disappeared into that empty classroom but couldn’t stand the feelings of not attracting attention, not believing I was worthy of being listened to. Shetty somehow got through that. There’s a part of me that wishes I had done the same, kept going to empty rooms to talk about my book, doing a big disappear just because I felt it was what I was called to do.
For so many years since my college graduation I have yearned for the approval of others of my writing ability, the value of my words, insights and skill with words however modest.
This is a new time, though, when all that approval stuff has no influence on my thinking about what I’m doing nor why I’m doing it. Everyone in the world could shout at me at once that they don’t care about me disappearing and I would not even raise my head from this laptop screen. Typing would continue.
This is about shedding all the worries and anxieties that make me feel bad about myself, losing interest in what anyone thinks of what I do. Shetty’s speech expressed it this way:
“I hope you will be just as ambitious about what you want to lose. Lose the need for approval. Lose the obsession with comparison. Lose the fear of not being enough. What we gain makes us successful, but what we lose makes us fulfilled.”
I feel lost now but in a liberating way, separated from whatever anyone else thinks about what I do. I am not in anyone’s face demanding anything. A step back into the background is where I now hang. Shetty writes how good this feels.
“In the monastery, we were taught: It’s not about how much you give. It’s about how much you hold back.”
There are no questions I have for anyone to weigh in on about what I’m doing and I have none for myself. There is this disappearance. There are no demands. Lost I am but in a pleasant way that feels warm and comfortable.
Shetty said: “No asking. No polling the group chat. No crowdsourcing your direction. It’s your life – don’t let anyone else hold the remote. Disappear for a while. And when you come back, come back as you. Because when you start measuring your day by effort, not recognition, you begin to feel accomplished – without needing to be noticed.”
The end of the speech was especially mind-twisting because it expressed concepts in a way that makes sense and with words I had never heard articulated before.
“If you do what you want, they’ll misunderstand you. If you do what they want, they’ll misunderstand you. If you do nothing, they’ll misunderstand you. And if you do something, they’ll misunderstand you.”
Man this guy Shetty hit me in the heart with his speech. His ideas so original, his phrasing poetic, his message uplifting in the deepest way I could hope for. It was a speech like no other that I will never forget.
Soak in these wondrous words:
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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