萨拉·塔克在德克萨斯州大学奥斯汀分校2016年毕业典礼上的演讲
I'm really short, and the riser hasn't come out yet. There you go.
Thank you, President Fenves. Before I begin my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the challenges that happened in our campus over the last year. No university president across the country that I know, in their first year, has faced so many challenges with such grace and such dignity. It made me proud to be a graduate of The University of Texas knowing that Greg Fenves was the person I could count on to lead us through such difficult times. Please join me in acknowledging President Fenves.
Regent Beck, Ambassador Garza and members of the platform party, it is an honor to join you on this very special evening.
It is so good for me to be home, especially to a place that means so much to me and to my family – The University of Texas.
I'd like to extend, as President Fenves did, my appreciation to all of you who were instrumental in the education of tonight's graduates – the administration, the faculty, the parents, the family members and the friends.
To all of you associated with The University of Texas, the faculty and the administration – you've invested a lot of time and effort in these students, and tonight you get to see the proverbial fruits of your labor.
To the parents, the family members and friends – you're where it all began. You're going to see from my remarks tonight how much I value the role you've played in your children's education.
And finally, but most importantly, my congratulations to the graduates – the class of 2016. You've worked so hard to get to this point. And as…said, your feelings have to be bittersweet – excitement for what comes next and sadness for what you're leaving behind.
Among the memories that you take with you, I hope you remember your place in the history of The University of Texas at Austin's commencements: the 133rd class of graduates who have the potential to change the world.
I know you beam when you hear those now familiar words, "What starts here changes the world!" I listen to those words every time they come on the commercials. But last September, in his inaugural address, President Fenves defined why that's been possible for so many years when he described The University of Texas at Austin as "the university of what's next."
What is next for you?
I would tell you I did not have an opportunity to attend my own commencements, when I earned my journalism degree, when I earned my MBA – both my degrees were off-cycle. All right, I know we're around the clock, but journalism, do you want to take one more shot? When I earned my journalism degree, and when I earned my MBA – both my degrees were off-cycle. But if I had been sitting in your seats, there is one thing that I would know for sure: I could not have predicted how my life would unfold after either degree.
My mistake? Somehow, I thought picking a major meant choosing a career. Little did I know that choosing a major was simply choosing something to explore. It was the exploration and journey where I was here that mattered. Choosing my jobs, choosing my companies were not the defining moments I thought they were when I sat in your seats. Knowing that now, it would have saved a lot of anguish as I was anticipating where I was gonna go from here.
The university of what's next – our alma mater knows how important it is to continue to evolve, to reinvent itself, to stay among the top-tier universities. It's a lesson for all of us. We, too, have to keep evolving. More important, we have to determine when it's time to reinvent ourselves. We, too, have to keep asking ourselves, "what's next?"
Our lives are a series of journeys – the journey that brought us all to this magnificent campus, our journey through here and, now, what starts tonight, the most important journey of all: your journey to discover the potential that lies within each and every one of you – the journey that will define your purpose.
Can you remember the moment you decided to come to UT? Think about it.
My message tonight starts with my father. It was December 1969 and my father got the family ready to watch what many were saying was the college football national championship game between number one, Texas, and number two, Arkansas. I hope you got to see the movie My All American this last year, if you saw that movie, you'll know the game I'm talking about.
Never mind the excitement of the game – what I remember most was what my father said when we said, "Daddy, why this game was so important?" He said, "Because this is the best school in Texas and it's your chance to see them win the national championship."
Years later, when I was in high school, my father drove my classmates and me from Laredo to this campus for a UIL (University Interscholastic League) competition.
It was our first visit to this campus. We were so excited and we ran from the car, but I thought I should say thank you. So I turned around and I looked at him and I said, "Thank you, Daddy, thank you for bringing us up to Austin." I wish I could describe for you the look on his face. He looked at me and he said to me, "It's so beautiful here. Everything is so clean and fresh. If I'm lucky, one of my children will get to come here one day."
From that moment on, I knew I wanted to come to UT. The look on his face convinced me that I wanted to be a part of this inspiring campus!
Take this moment to think about and appreciate everyone and everything that inspired you to come to UT.
So now our journey through UT.
What have you experienced while you were here?
Still today, I find myself reflecting on many things that I heard from guest speakers, professors who helped shape my thinking, more important, the students that I sat classes with.
I remember walking into my first classroom, and I saw the reading list and I was overwhelmed. My relief when the student next to me remarked, "Can you believe this list?" was really short-lived. She quickly followed with, "I've read all these!" I hadn't even heard of the books. I came to appreciate that I was gonna hack up my game and the talent that was going to surround me during my time here helped expand my horizons, it broadened my thinking, it pushed me to try harder. Think about everyone you had access to at UT, we are fortunate to have been surrounded by inspiring people!
Now, think about and appreciate all of the talented people you've met during your time here.
What is next for the graduates of the university of what's next?
I ask you to think about all those people – those who inspired you to choose UT, those who helped you get here, those that helped you grow while you were here. My single most important message for you tonight: your impact on others can be as much as or even more than the impact they had on you!
Let me say that again in a different way. You know, because you're feeling it, the magnitude of the impact others have had on you up till now. You are going to have that much impact – if not more – on others.
How? Tonight, I'm gonna share with you just one person's perspective on my journey to discover my potential. And I'm gonna keep it to three pieces of advice, so you know it will be short. Not ten, three.
First, find your talents.
My family had a convenience store when I was growing up in Laredo – the "Come-n-Shop." My brother and I worked there on weekends during the school year and on alternate days in the summer.
We loved Tuesdays – that's when the new magazines and the comic books would show up. We figured we could sit on the Coke machine and read the comic books if we got our chores done quickly. So we raced through our chores.
My mother caught me on the Coke machine and I would never forget what she said. She said, "Even if you've done all the sweeping, even if you've done all the dusting, even if you've restocked all the shelves, you've got to ask yourselves, 'Initiative'! You've come in every single day with an attitude to change things so that we're more attractive to our customers, to improve things to make it easier for our customers," she said, "It isn't, 'When I complete my tasks, I'm done and I can relax.' It's, 'What can I do to make a difference today?''' She was inspiring us to make changes to find our talents.
And so it went with each of my jobs – whether serving as a reporter, a corporate executive, a not-for-profit leader or a policy official in a presidential administration, at each job, I learned invaluable lessons – how to communicate clearly, how to engage others, how to motivate them, how to attract investment in my ideas, and how to effect change to improve society.
The lesson I'd like for you to take away: Don't overestimate the importance or the influence of you major or majors on the discovery of your potential. My majors didn't define me, my careers or my potential. They provided skills, necessary skills, that I could put to use in any of my jobs. My work helped me discover my talents and, ultimately, what would influence my life's work.
It may not look like a classroom out there, but there is a lesson!
Second, find your voice.
I will never forget the time – more recently – when I was here on campus meeting with students. One young woman asked me, "How did you find the courage to speak up in class?" And as I went to answer her, she stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to acknowledge to her I wasn't brave enough to ask questions or make comments when I was here. After a disastrous first semester, I was very careful to pick classes where the final grade wasn't too heavily dependent on class participation. How and where did I find my voice?
When I left Laredo to come to campus, my father sat me down and he said to me, "You are a person first, then a gender and then an ethnicity. Ask for help when you need it, but don't rely on crutches."
I couldn't imagine why he felt the need to say that to me. But then I saw how easy it was to create labels for myself – student, reporter, grad student. And then in my corporate career – professional, part of a dual-career couple, executive.
I loved my life at AT&T. It's where I learned to be accountable, to generate profits, to make investment decisions. And as I progressed up the ladder, my corporate career brought me many public speaking opportunities. It also afforded me the opportunity to serve on nonprofit boards.
I asked someone I really respected to define the most important asset in a boardroom. All these years later, I can still hear her voice: "The ability to say something and be heard."
Think about it. Have you ever said in a classroom or been in a meeting and you say something and nobody notices? Then a few minutes later, somebody else says almost the same thing and it gets noticed? The ability to not just say something, but to say it from a place of truth and conviction. The ability to be heard.
And I remembered my father's advice – you can lose your sense of self. Up until then, I had been speaking from my head – frequently, and it worked for me. I made it to a senior position. But the person that is me needs to speak with my head and my heart connected. In my nonprofit board settings, my voice got progressively stronger as I learned how to fight for, how to advocate for others. Giving others a voice gave me mine. Stay true to yourself!
And finally, find your passion.
Again, I love meeting with college students and I am lucky that I get to meet with them frequently. And the most frequent question that I get asked by students is, "How did you know," when they learn that I went from reporter to corporate executive to national not-for-profit head to public servant. They wondered how I made the decisions to follow the paths I followed, and how I knew the timing was right. When to evolve; when to reinvent. The truth of the matter is: I didn't. I didn't follow a path, I didn't follow a plan; I just knew I had to keep evolving.
After my corporate retirement, I offered to resign from all my non-profit boards, I thought those seats were "reserved" for representatives from my company. They all asked me to stay, and that gave me an opportunity to learn more about the obstacles getting in the way of communities having economic vitality, of women being able to break through the glass ceiling and children getting their college educations.
All of those issues mattered to me; they still matter to me. But when I delved into the state of education in this country, I realized the rungs in the ladder of opportunity are getting further and further apart for too many young people.
I came to appreciate just how lucky I was. I was born to parents who always said 'when you go to college,' not 'if you go to college'; I was born to parents who made sacrifices so that their three children could get Catholic school educations; and parents who, when a guidance counselor told their high school valedictorian daughter that she wasn't college material, were angered enough to help me find my way here.
And so began my journey, and so began my journey into making college a reality for as many Americans as possible – starting with kids like me, broadening to include everyone who is disadvantaged by the uneven playing field that is public education in this country.
My journeys helped me appreciate that learning didn't stop when I left the classroom; everything is an education as long as you never stop exploring. Embracing opportunity leads you to more exploration. And a combination of the two have helped me keep my journey inspired.
Twenty years after I left UT, my journeys came together. When I found the intersection of my talents, my voice and my passion, I discovered the joy of waking up every day driven to make a difference in young people's lives. And every day, I get to honor my parents for their work and sacrifice to create better lives for their children.
Now, some of you may be more advanced in your thinking than I was after either of my degrees. You may already feel a burning desire to make a difference in a way that only you can.
But – if any of you are like me – and you're just focused on keeping yourself moving forward, remember that your college graduation gives you the opportunity to bring back that childhood question, "Who and what do I want to be?"
What's next? That's the question you should never stop asking yourself!
So, what's next for the class of 2016?
My best advice for you: Tonight, you're only taking one step, a big step, but it's just the first step in a series of steps that will, over time, help you forge the journey to your purpose.
Sometimes, understanding what you don't want is a good first step towards finding the path you do want. If that is your situation, join a company, take a job that's interesting to you. While there, follow a trajectory. You will grow, you will evolve.
But at some point, rather than following that trajectory, purposefully decide to take a journey to find your talents, to find your voice, to find your passion. Finding the sweet spot, the sweet spot where they intersect will give you the ability to forge your purpose.
Many of us chuckle when we hear the infamous Yogi Berra quote, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." I followed a terrific trajectory during my corporate career. And leaving my corporate life was hard. It was daunting when I didn't know what was next for the girl from the university of what's next. But I did just what Yogi suggested, I came to the fork and I took it.
Active learning about the obstacles I was curious about created opportunities for me. Doing good work got me noticed – first by the White House and more recently, by the Governor of my home state. All of it because I made the decision to take the fork in the road.
If all of your journeys are inspired, I know the 133rd commencement is going to produce the best world-changing graduates this university has ever seen.
Remember these three things: Find your talents, find your voice, find your passion. They are going to keep your journey inspired.
I started tonight with a story about my father and I'm gonna close it that way. He was my best example of an inspired journey. He found his talent – being a great father. He found his voice – he was the best coach my brother, sister and I could have had. And he found his passion – ensuring a better life for his children.
My favorite memory of my father happened about 20 years ago. I got home and my husband told me I needed to call home immediately. Fearing the worst, I called. My father answered and I could tell he was crying, but he couldn't find his voice. The bottom fell out of my stomach.
My brother took the phone from him and he said, "Daddy wanted to be the one to tell you that I walked across the stage today." When I didn't understand, he told me he'd spent the afternoon at his college graduation. At age 35, my brother had earned his degree.
When my father finally found his voice, he said to me, "All of my children are now college graduates. I can rest."
He got the job done.
Each of us has made our own way here. It was easier for some than it was for others. But we've made it. We've earned our place here. What will we do with this gift? What can we do?
If I could have a conversation with my father tonight, I'd say, "Daddy, all those years ago, you were right. What I've learned is that first and foremost, I am a person. I am Sara Martinez Tucker. I happen to be a woman of Hispanic heritage. But you missed something. But you missed something. There's something else that defines me. I am also a graduate of The University of Texas."
And tonight, and tonight, so is each and every one of you. Congratulations! Hook 'em!
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