" Listen This Everyday And Change Your Life - Denzel Washington Motivational Speech 2021"

Fail big. You only live once. So do what you feel passionate about. Take chances. Don't be afraid to fail. There's an old IQ test was nine dots. And you had to draw five lines with a pencil within these nine dots without lifting the pencil. The only way to do it was to go outside the box. So don't be afraid to go outside the box. Don't be afraid to think outside the box. Don't be afraid to fail big, to dream big. But remember dreams without goals are just dreams and they ultimately fuel disappointment. So have dreams, but have goals, life goals, yearly goals and understand that to achieve these goals, you must apply discipline and consistency in order to achieve your goals. You must apply discipline, which you already done and consistency every day, not just one Tuesday and this a few days. You have to work at it every day. You have to plan every day for the same. We don't plan to fail. We fail to plan. Hard work works. Working really hard is what successful people do. I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing. 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. 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 figured 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. You will fail at some point in your life, except you will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There's no doubt about it. The point is every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed, but do you have the guts to fail? If you don't fail, you're not even trying. If you don't fail, you're not even trying 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. He 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 asked you today, how many ghosts are going to be around your bed? Put God first, put God first in everything you do. Everything that you think you see in me, everything that I've accomplished, everything that you think I have and I have a few things. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. Understand that it's a gift. 40 years ago, March 27th, 1975. It was 40 years ago. Uh, just this past March, I was flunking out of college. I had a 1.7 grade point average. I hope none of you can relate. I was sitting in my mother's beauty shop and I'm looking in the mirror and I see behind me, this woman under the dryer. And every time she looked up, every time I looked up, she was looking at me, just looking me in the eye. I didn't know who she was. And I said, you know, she said, somebody give me a pen, give me a pencil. I have a prophecy. March 27th, 1975. She said, boy, you are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people. Now mind you, I flunked out of college. I'm thinking about joining the army. I didn't know what I was going to do. And she's telling me I'm going to travel the world and speak to millions of people. Well, I have traveled the world and I have spoke to millions of people, but that's not the most important thing. The success that I had, the most important thing is that what she taught me and what she told me that day has stayed with me since I've been protected. I've been directed. I've been corrected. I've kept God in my life and it's kept me humble. I didn't always stick with him, but he always stuck with me. So stick with them in everything you do. If you think you want to do what you think I've done, then do what I've done. Remember just because you're doing a lot more doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done. Remember that just because you're doing a lot more doesn't mean you're getting a lot more. Don't confuse movement with progress. My mother told me, yeah, yeah cause you can run in place all the time and never get anywhere. So continue to strive, continue to have goals, continue to progress. I don't care how much money you make. You can't take it with you. The Egyptians tried it. They got robbed. That's all they got. You can't take it with you and it's not how much you have. It's what you do with what you have. We all have different talents. Some of you will be doctors, some lawyers, some scientists, some educators, some nurses. The most selfish thing you can do in this world is help someone else. Why is it selfish? Because the gratification, the goodness that comes to you, the good feeling, the good feeling that I get from helping others, nothing's better than that. Because taking risk is not just about going for a job. It's also about knowing what you know and what you don't know. It's about being open to people and to ideas. In the course of the film, the character I played begins to take small steps, small risks. He very, very, very slowly begins to overcome his fears. And I feel ultimately his heart becomes flooded with love. And I can't think of a better message as we send you off today to not only take risks, but to be open to life, to accept new views and to be open to new opinions. Because the chances you take, the people you meet, the people you love, the faith that you have, that's what's going to define you. Fall forward. This is what I mean. Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career, the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't know that. Because the 1,001st was the light bulb. True desire in the heart, that itch that you have, whatever it is you want to do, that thing that you want to do to help others and to grow and to make money, that desire, that itch, that's God's proof to you. Sit beforehand already to indicate that it's yours. And anything you want, you can have. Don't just aspire to make a living. Aspire to make a difference. Never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you've got. And when you fall throughout life and maybe even tonight, after a few mini glasses of champagne, remember this, fall forward.