Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Back to school...


Barack Obama addressed the kids of America yesterday who were all starting or heading back to school. He remarked on success and failures and taking responsibility for your own life and your own education. I think the below pretty much sums it up...

"I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

A full transcript of the speech can be found here

2 comments:

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  2. Oops I realised the transcript was released in advance - he made his address today and here is the live streaming site
    http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/

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