Good afternoon, graduates, I see you’re over here. I want to hear it from you. Good afternoon.
And also good afternoon to all of the faculty, families and friends who are here today. For those of you who’ve traveled here outside of the Seattle area, greater Seattle area, I extend to you a hearty welcome from the Emerald City.
Graduates, we know you did not get here by accident.
There was not just one late night. There was not just one sacrifice, not just one detour. There were many. Every step of your journey was non-linear, but yet and still, perfectly ordered. Taking you to somewhere worth going. Which is why you’re here today. Even the steps you did not, that did not make sense at the time and still maybe don’t make sense in this moment.
I encourage you to trust your clarity, your path, and the universe.
Today may feel like an ultimate destination, but it’s not. It’s a launching point for you. It’s a new beginning for you. Please hear me clearly. Your life going forward will continue to be non-linear. It will twist, it will pivot, and it will feel hard at times. And yes, you will encounter many defeats, but graduates never be defeated. Know that ultimately life will pleasantly surprise you if you let it.
Life will exceed your ancestor’s wildest dreams and anything you could have planned for yourself. If you embrace your non-linear path and see possibilities and embrace the opportunities life has in store just for you. So for the next couple of minutes, I’m going to share a bit about my own non-linear story to make my point. I grew up in a rural factory town in Virginia in the USA.
I became the first African American valedictorian at my high school. Thank you.
Now hear this I had completed every math and science class available at my high school prior to my senior year. I was a student body president, National Honor Society president, co-captain of the basketball team, and yadda
yadda yadda. You get my point. Okay, one afternoon, it was my turn to sit down with our guidance counselor to receive guidance on my future academic and career options.
And after reviewing my transcript and accomplishments and taking a long stare at me, I was told that maybe I should go to a junior college and maybe study liberal arts. Maybe that’s something that I could handle, she said. In that moment, honestly, I was baffled and I was disappointed because my classmates were already being encouraged to attend major universities, to become doctors and lawyers and scientists and teachers.
But somehow my performance and my accomplishments, my background, didn’t point to these options.
So I walked out of my guidance counselors office and into my former science teacher’s classroom with my ego pretty bloodied and my confidence totally deflated. Seeing my distraught face, my science teacher, Miss Helen Potts, I have to say her name. She asked me, what’s going on with you?
Yeah, she sounded the horn just like that.
And when I told her what my guidance counselor had shared, she stood up, she pounded the table, her voice rose several octaves, and she turned to me and she said emphatically, no, no, you will not go to a junior college. No, you will not study liberal arts. Not because going to a junior college isn’t a wonderful path. Not because they’re studying a liberal arts isn’t a wonderful path.
But she knew that I was capable of something much more for me. She said, you are going to a university. You are going to study engineering. That’s right. That’s what you’re going to do. And in that moment, she spoke destiny to me. She spoke confidence to me. She grounded me and spoke purpose into my life. And here’s the lesson that I hope you will take from this story.
Not everyone will see your gifts and your destiny clearly, but others on your journey will. And when they do, they will speak life into your destination and provide you the clarity that you need to lean into your destiny and be on your way. Be clear about who does and who does not see your gifts. Trust your own clarity.
So years later, I was working as an engineer. I had earned a master’s of science and electrical engineering, and something inside said there is more that I’m supposed to do.
Then came what many would call the opportunity of a lifetime and offer for a fully funded PhD and a leadership role at the University of Virginia. Wow. Sounds wonderful. And it was. But after deep reflection and tuning into my gut to find clarity, I decided to walk away from that opportunity. Why? Because I got really clear on something critical.
Just because something is a good opportunity doesn’t mean it’s your opportunity. Didn’t mean it was my opportunity. And a month later, after walking away from this opportunity, a memo crossed my engineering desk. My company was selecting two engineers to become patent attorneys. By the time the memo was shared with my department, they had already narrowed from 200 engineers down to the final five.
And something inside of me said with infinite clarity. This is the opportunity for me. So I call the general counsel of the company on a Friday morning, and he listened, but then said, sorry. The down select process is already closed. I continue to advocate respectfully, sir, this opportunity is for me. Then he invited me to submit my resume and cover letter to be considered for the program next year.
And then he, he shooed me. He hurried me off the phone. I knew what I had to do. I dusted off my resume. I wrote a cover letter that would foretell my advocacy skills well into the future, and I sent that over to the general counsel. Later that Friday, I received an invitation from the general counsel to come to his office on Monday morning.
By the end of that Monday meeting, I was informed that they had extended the final five to the final six and that I was the sixth candidate.
It all sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, then came the conditions. I had 30 days to take the law school entrance exam and get into a local law school. Be careful what you ask for, my friends. You just might get it. I walked out of his office. I was feeling really excited, but at the same time overwhelmed and standing on the sidewalk as I exited the building was my mentor, Gwendolyn P Taylor, who I swear has eyes in the back of her head.
And she said, I heard you’re a finalist for the new patent trainee program, and you have a lot to do in 30 days. And she began to outline all the significant investments that I had to make and resources in time, and that I needed to begin to make these investments right away. Now I’m really overwhelmed because I could not see a path where I could afford to get it all done in the next 30 days.
And she turned to me and her parting comment was, and if you don’t have the resources, I’m here for you. If you don’t have the financial resources, I have a checkbook. And in that moment, I learned that you will never be called to a plan or a purpose without provision already prepared just for your path. With the help of Gwen Taylor and so many other amazing people planted in my path, I was selected for that patent training program, and I trained by day, full time as a patent attorney and went to law school at night for four years.
Not an easy path, nor a linear path, but my perfectly ordered path to achieve my purpose.
Engineering led to law. Law led to leadership. And now I’m the president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Seattle.
This is a path, honestly, I could have never imagined. As an African American kid growing up in the rural, segregated South. But when I look back, I realize that every single step of my non-linear path was perfectly ordered in preparation for this moment. The universe knows many of you are balancing careers, families, education all at once. You’re already you already understand something incredibly powerful, and that is resilience.
You have not followed a traditional path, and that is your strength, because the world doesn’t need more people who follow scripts. The world needs more people like you who dare to write new scripts to new destinations.
This past week, you may have seen a very special announcement about the YMCA of Greater Seattle and City University of Seattle entering a powerful partnership. And under this collaboration, the City University will provide a scholarship to a YMCA staff and also a scholarship to a Y scholar, as well as discounted tuition for all Y staff. And we
are so grateful.
But I can say that for all of the City University students, staff and faculty, there’s something in this for you, too. Courtesy of the YMCA, you will receive a complimentary Try the Y membership for you and your family. You will also have access to need-based financial assistance so that you can take care of your health and well-being, which is so important, especially now.
This is what happens when purpose aligns with collaboration. And I just want to say thank you to my friend and the incredible President Walsh.
So as I close today, graduates, I say to you, trust your gut. Trust your voice, trust your path. Trust your clarity, even when you can’t yet see the full picture and you’re baffled by the picture you are seeing. Trust your clarity. Trust that the universe is ordering your steps with destiny and purpose and taking you somewhere worth going.
Go faithfully with clarity. Answer your calling. Live your purpose. Do it your way, in your time and on your path. Congratulations.
