A little over a year ago, I had the absolute privilege in giving the Occasional Address at the University of Canberra graduation. I have since been asked about this speech a number of times and I am posting it here for those interested. Little did I know a year ago what was coming around the corner with COVID and how important relationships and giving thanks will be. Enjoy.
x Hala
Thank you, Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, faculty, family, friends and of course graduates for the warm welcome.
What makes a lasting memory? Do we have much in common with rats? And will I learn the secrets of success?
I sure hope these are the questions you are pondering right now, because those are the questions I am going to help answer today.
If you have other questions on your mind, you might want to space out for the next 8 minutes or so. It’s ok, I won’t be offended.
For everyone else, here we go.
According to Rick Nauert, in a 2011 article titled “Rat Study Shows How Memories Are Imprinted” published in psychcentral.com, researchers say experiences imprint on our brains and have a much stronger impact on us than anything else.
Educators have long known that experiential learning, a technique that engages and challenges, is a proven method to instil lasting memories.
University of Oregon researchers confirm that seeing and exploring are necessary for imprinting long-term permanent memories when confronted with a new experience.
These same researchers studied the components of memory by recording how neurons fire in the hippocampus of rats as they are introduced to new activities. As in humans, brain activation in rats is seen in locations called “place cells.”*
These cells are what form the mental map of an environment for you and me.
“Researchers believe directly experiencing or seeing an event creates a stable environment in our brains for recording experience, but exploration of the event allows it to be burnt into our memory.” *
Today, we are going to use YOUR place cells and a bit of experiential learning to create a good experience and an imprint that I hope will be there for you in moments when it is needed.
Don’t worry, there is no hypnosis involved and no, you won’t start squawking like a bird or strutting like a chicken. There is no subliminal messaging or mind-altering phrases or affirmations that you will have to do.
Faculty, family and friends, I would like to invite you to participate as well please.
Are you ready?
I would like you turn to one person either to your left or right, it doesn’t matter and congratulate them for getting here. That is all. Turn and congratulate the person sitting next you.
[pause]
I would like to ask you to hold onto that feeling. That joy, that shot of endorphins that just hit your brain for being recognised and congratulated on reaching a milestone in your life. A goal that you have worked hard for and strived to achieve.
Now it’s my turn. Congratulations to everyone in this arena today.
Each one of you is the only one that knows all that you had to go through to get here today. The sacrifices, the trade-offs, the bargains and the swaps that you had to undertake to get to this moment in time.
If you are graduating, it’s the moment of reaching a goal and an outcome that you set for yourself.
If you are faculty, it’s the point where you have contributed to, and you hope, enabled, the next generation of leaders to lead with values and principles, with love and with heart.
To family and friends, it’s the chats, texts and Skype calls. The many coffees and dare I say editorial assistance, the late-night pizzas and most importantly, the support, financial or otherwise, that you had to make to ensure today’s graduating class reached their goal.
I ask you to remember this feeling of congratulations and I ask you to take it with you moving forward. No matter what is next for you, work, more study, family or all three, remember the feeling of acknowledging a fellow human being for achieving a goal.
Why is this important you might ask? The “so what” of today.
And I say to you, remember this feeling because in life, no one else can know what is has taken someone to get to a moment in time.
In the world of work, we don’t know what it might have taken a colleague to get to work. Perhaps they needed to lean on family to help them with last-minute child minding or had to ask a neighbour to borrow their car to get to work.
The point being is that we cannot always SEE what others have had to go through in order to achieve something. It’s not always visible what others’ journeys have been.
So, remember to congratulate and help others celebrate when they reach their milestones. When they finish a project or reach a goal. Help them celebrate and you in turn will imprint on their minds. And the cycle continues.
Now turn to the person near you that you haven’t already spoken to, and I would like you to thank them. Faculty, family and friends, please do the same.
[pause]
At this stage, you might be thinking: What am I thanking them for?
You are thanking them for the past, the present and the future. You are thanking them for being part of your cohort, for the experiences you shared and the support, that collectively you would have given each other.
As part of the faculty, family or friends, you are thanking the person for being here to help celebrate. For taking the time and making the effort, for showing the love and you are thanking them for the future service they will give to others.
I ask you to remember that feeling of being thanked. For saying thank you rewards not only the receiver, but the giver. This is isn’t about manners, although that always helps, it’s about being conscious about the thank yous that you dish out.
Are you generous or are you stingy with them? Do you wait until someone has done something AMAZING before you say thank you?
In the world of work, many managers don’t say thank you to their staff because they think that staff shouldn’t be thanked for doing their jobs. Or students don’t say thank you to their teachers, because well, that’s their job to show up every day and teach. It’s almost like there will be a charge for each thank you they give out. I call rubbish on that.
Be generous with your thanks yous. Even in unlikely situations. Remember the thank you when someone gives you feedback. Feedback that is uncomfortable and perhaps even a bit unfair. Remember to say thank you when you make a sale, buy a car from the dealer or when your child, niece or nephew gives you a mud cake. It’s by saying thank you that we acknowledge the service and in fact the existence of another human being.
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent years working in palliative care, where she cared for the dying in the last 12 weeks of their lives. Bronnie was in a position to hear their dying epiphanies and she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
The top 5 regrets are:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
It’s the last two regrets that I am seeking to highlight to you today. The friendships you have made through this journey, cherish those, continue to cultivate them and foster them.
Not only because you have a shared history, but for all the new history you will build together. Don’t get so caught up in your own life that you let your friendships and familial relationships slip over the years. Give it the time and effort they deserve.
As Bronnie says and I quote “Everyone misses their friends when they are dying”.
The “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard” regret was not about working hard, but about what focusing only on work does TO you.
The dying missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.
They missed the birthdays; they missed the important milestones in the lives of those important to them. What a sad, sad regret.
My hope today is to use this wonderful occasion, the culmination of your hard work, resilience, persistence and dedication, to imprint the importance of celebrating our wins and successes and thanking those along the journey who have helped you – directly or indirectly to reach this goal. What you take from your experiences is the connections and relationships.
Whether at university, work or whatever endeavour you find yourself pursuing, there are two key secrets that if you can harness, you can unlock success. The first is the relationships you have with others and the second is the relationship you have with yourself.
So when this is all over, when the photos are done, the dinners are completed and the paper is framed, all you will have are the memory imprints of the people you have met along the way who helped you, taught you, the good and not so good lessons, the people who challenged you and those who loved you and cared for you. Thank them.
Either today or later. Face to face, in a letter or over the phone, tell them what their existence has meant to you. Thank them.
The relationship with yourself is perhaps a bit more complicated.
The experiences you have had to date, shape you. Experiences, mindsets, biases all form your habits. And your habits make you. What we believe about ourselves is what we project onto the outside world. If you believe in celebrations and in giving thanks, then you will project that onto the world and the world will be better for it. You will be better for it.
I would ask you to please indulge me again. In a minute, I will ask you to do one more thing. Faculty, family and friends, I would ask you to please join in.
I would like you to please congratulate and thank yourself. I ask you to do this because you are the only one who knows what it has taken to get to this moment in time. To this place and to this occasion.
You will have many more occasions in your life and if you take one thing away today from my speech it would be this: take the time to celebrate and take the time to give thanks. Take the time to imprint the place cells.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to do it out loud or hold hands with anyone. Just inside voice.
Please congratulate and thank yourself. Please do this now. Congratulations and thank you.
*https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/08/23/see-do-act-imprints-brain-memories/28846.html
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