The wisest person I ever met in my life a
third-grade dropouts
Why is this and drop out in the same sentence as rather oxymoronic?
like jumbo shrimp
Mm-hmm
And it's not oxymoronic for me to say third grade and drop out
That third grade dropout the wisest person I ever met in my life who taught me
to combine
knowledge and wisdom to make an impact was my father a
simple cook
Why is this man ever men of my life just a simple cook?
Left school in the third grade to help out on the family farm
But just because he left school doesn't mean a jezic
education stopped Mark Twain once said I've never allowed my schooling to get in the way of my education my
father taught himself how to read taught himself how to write
Decided in the midst of Jim Crow ISM as America was breathing the last gasp of the Civil War
My father decided he was going to stand and be a man
Not a black man
Not a brown man, not a white man, but a man
He literally
challenged himself to be the best that he could all the days of his life a
Third grade dropout daddy who was quoting Michelangelo saying to us boys I won't have a problem if you aim high and miss
but I'm gonna have a real issue if you aim low and hit a
Country mother quoting Henry Ford saying if you think you can or if you think you can't you're right
I learned that from a third grade drop simple lessons lessons like these son
You'd rather be an hour early than a minute late
We never knew what time it was at my house cuz the clocks were always ahead
My mother said for nearly 30 years my father left the house at 3:45 in the morning one day
She asked him. Why daddy? He said, maybe one of my boys will catch me in the act of excellence
I want to share two things with you
Aristotle said you are what you repeatedly do there for excellent talk being a habit not an act
Don't ever forget that I know you're tough
But always remember to be I always don't ever forget that never
embarrass mama
mm-hmm
Yeah, if mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy if daddy ain't happy don't nobody care, but you know I'm tell you
Next lesson
Lesson from a cook over there in the galley
Son make sure your servants towel is bigger than your ego
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity?
Y'all might have a relative in mind you want to send that to let me say it again
Ego is the anesthesia the dead is the pain of stupidity pride is the burden of a foolish person John Wooden coach?
basketball in UCLA for a living
But his calling was the impact people and with all those national
Championships guess what he was found doing in the middle of the week going into the cupboard
Grabbing a broom and sweeping his own gym floor
You want to make an impact find your broom?
every day of your life
You find your broom you grow your influence that way that way you're attracting people so that you can impact them
final lesson
son
You're gonna do a job
Do it right?
I've always been told how
Average I can be always been criticized about being average
But I want to tell you something I stand here before you before all of these people not listening to those words
But telling myself
Every single day to shoot for the stars
to be the best that I can be good enough isn't good enough if it can be better and
Better isn't good enough. If it can be best
Let me close
With a very personal story that I think will bring all this into focus
Wisdom will come to you in the unlikeliest of sources a lot of times through failure when you hit rock-bottom remember this
While you're struggling
rock-bottom can also be a great foundation on which to build and
On which to grow I'm not worried that you'll be successful. I'm worried that you won't fail from time to time
Person that gets up off the canvas and keeps growing that's the person that will continue to grow their influence
Back in the 70s to help me make this point. Let me introduce you to someone
I'm at the finest woman I'd ever met in my life
Mm-hmm back in my day we had a call there a brick house
This woman was the finest woman I'd ever seen in my life. There's just one little problem back then ladies didn't like big old linemen
The blindside hadn't come out yet
They liked quarterbacks and running backs breathless dance, and I find out her name is Trina Williams from Lompoc
California
and and we were all dancing and we're just
Just excited and I decided in the middle of dancing with her that I would ask her for a phone number
She Katrina was the first one Trina was the only woman in college who gave me her a real telephone number
The next day we walked to baskin-robbins
Ice cream parlor my friends couldn't believe it this has been 40 years ago, and my friend still can't believe it
we go on a second date and
A third date and a fourth day
mm-hmm
We drive from Chico to Vallejo so that she could meet my parents my father meets her my daddy
My hero, he meets her pulls me to the side and says is she psycho, but anyway
We go together for a year two years three years four years by now Trina's a senior in college
I'm still a freshman, but I'm working some things out
I'm so glad I graduated in four times Nixon Ford Carter Reagan
So now it's time to propose so I talked to her girlfriends, and it's California
It's in the 70s
So it has to be outside have to have a candle and you have to have you know some chocolate listen
I'm from the hood had a bottle of Boone's Farm wine that's what I had
She said yes that
Was the key I married the most beautiful woman I've ever seen him
I y'all ever been to a wedding and even before the wedding starts you hear this how in the world?
And it was coming from my side of the family
We get married we have a few children our lives are great
One day Trina finds a lump in her left breasts
breast cancer
Six years after that diagnosis me and my two little boys walked up to mommy's casket
and
For two years my heart didn't beat
It wasn't for my faith in God. I wouldn't be standing here today. If it wasn't for those two little boys
There'd have been no reason for which
to go on I was completely lost
That was rock bottom
You know what sustained me?
the wisdom of a third grade dropout
the wisdom of a simple cook
Rat the casket I'd never seen my dad cry
But this time I saw my dad cry that was his daughter Trina was his daughter
Not his daughter-in-law, and I'm right behind my father about to see her for the last time on this earth
And my father shared three words with me to change my life right there at the casket
It would be the last lesson he would ever teach me
He said son
Just stand
You keep standing
You keep spitting no matter how rough the sea you keep standing, and I'm not talking about just water
You keep standing
No matter what you don't give up and as clearly as I'm talking to you today
These were some of her last words to me
She looked me in the eye and she said
It doesn't matter to me any longer how long I live
what matters to me most is how I live a
shawl one question a
Question that I was asked all my life by a third grade dropout
How you live in?
How you live in everyday ask yourself that question how you live in here's here's what a cook would suggest?
You to live this way that you would not judge
That you would show up early that you'd be kind
That you'd make sure that that servants town
Is huge and used that if you're gonna do something you do it the right way
That that that cook would tell you this
That it's never wrong to do the right thing that how you do anything is how you do everything
And in that way you will grow your influence to make an impact in that way you will honor all those who have gone before
You who have invested in you it is with great honor
Did I say all your life?
Look in those unlikeliest places for wisdom
Enhance your life every day by seeking that wisdom and asking yourself every night
We got enriched Lisa shot