 Congratulations. You should be incredibly proud. You just accomplished something truly remarkable. I mean, if you step back and think about it, it's an amazing achievement. And I'm not talking about graduating from high school, I'm talking about the fact you found parking in downtown Washington, D.C. Believe it or not, I actually walked across this exact same stage, right here in Constitution Hall, 24 years ago today when I graduated high school. And I vividly remember listening to my commencement speaker and having a collage of emotions, and they were ranging from excitement to uncertainty. Part of me was thrilled, part of me was overwhelmed and nervous. I was thankful to finally be done with high school, but I was a little scared about the next chapter of my life. You may be sitting there right now with similar emotions, a similar cocktail of both optimism and fear. And I'm here to tell you that it's okay. I'm willing to bet that the person sitting right next to you is feeling the exact same way. And what you need to do is you need to take those emotions, no matter what they are, and you use them to fuel the next phase of your journey. I encourage you to embrace these feelings. Don't shy away from them. I'm honored to have this opportunity to share with you some of the most impactful life lessons that I've learned in those 24 years. And these lessons I'm hoping will help you write the next chapter of your life. But don't ever forget, you are the author of your story. You get to write the script. You hold the pen. Well, with you guys maybe not a pen, but you hold the touch screen. So here are three lessons to help you write the best story possible. Lesson number one, find your calling. They say the two most important days of your life are the day that you're born and the day that you realize why. Well, how do you find your calling? You find what you love to do. You figure out what you're really, really good at, and then you discover where those two points intersect. Your calling is the sweet spot between your passion and your talent. But just because you find your calling, don't think that life will be easy. Finding your calling is only the first step. You still need to do the heavy lifting, and you still need to put in the work. Now, when I was a little kid, I was told that I could be anything I wanted to be. That's not true. You can't be anything that you want to be, but you can be anything that you deserve to be. See, wanting it is simply not enough. Everybody wants it. You have to earn it. You have to deserve it. And how do you do that? You work hard, you work smart, and you do both of those things consistently. If you consistently give your best effort and consistently have a winning mindset, you will earn happiness, fulfillment, success, and significance. But please, please, please don't think that any of those things are going to be handed to you, because they won't. They must be earned. Lesson number two, learning never stops. As proud as you should feel right now for graduating high school, you need to know that your learning is far from over. You've only begun to scratch the surface of what you will learn over the course of your life. You need to strive for growth, development, and improvement every single day. You need to make learning a daily ritual. Why? Because you will never be finished. You will always be a work in progress. And like these streets of Washington, DC, you will always be under construction. How many of you have heard that knowledge is power? Well, it isn't. You've been told a lie. Knowledge is not power. In fact, knowledge unapplied is absolutely worthless. It's the application of knowledge that is powerful. It's not enough to know you must do. You need to put your knowledge into practice to actually change your life, because after all, if nothing changes, nothing changes. They say there are three types of people in this world. There are those that make things happen. There are those who watch things happen. And there are those who don't have any idea what's happening. Obviously, I encourage you and empower you to be in that first group. And the only way that you can remain in that first group is if you're consistently learning, but more importantly, taking what you learn and putting it into action. Lesson number three, invest your time. You may not realize it now because I certainly didn't 24 years ago, but time is without question your most precious resource. In fact, when I put on this gown about an hour ago, I had a quick flashback and it made me realize just how fast the last 24 years have flown by. See, your life is like an hourglass. In the moment you were born, that hourglass got flipped over and the sand started falling. And there are three indisputable truths about time. And there are three indisputable truths about that hourglass. Number one, you don't know how much sand is at the top. Time is not promised. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Every single person here right now knows someone personally who sand ran out unexpectedly. And if you're incredibly fortunate and you don't know anyone personally, all you need to do is flip on the evening news this evening and within 60 seconds you'll hear of someone who sand ran out too soon. Number two, you can't stop the sand from going to the bottom. You can't stop time. You can't pause time. It's ever-fleeting. You can take a nap and you can go on vacation, but the clock is always ticking and the calendar is always flipping. And number three, once that sand hits the bottom, it's gone. And it's gone forever. You can't get time back. You can learn from the past, but you can't relive it. Yesterday's newspaper has already been printed. So if time is our most precious resource, then that means our attention in the present moment is our number one currency. Our attention in the present moment shows who and what we truly value and what we care about. So you need to invest that wisely. And how do you do that? Be where your feet are. Wherever your feet are, you make sure your head and your heart are there as well. Give everyone and everything that you truly care about your full, undivided attention. And you need to make it a habit to pour your attention into the only two things in this world that you have 100% control over 100% of the time. That is your effort and your attitude. Investing in your effort, your attitude and the most important relationships in your life is the soundest investment that you can make. Now before I leave, I want to summarize everything that you need to know in three words. That's right. I can summarize everything you need to be happy, fulfilled, successful and significant in only three words. Make good decisions. Yes, make good decisions. That's it. There's no need to make life any more complicated than that. If you make good decisions, you'll live a good life. If you make great decisions, you will enjoy a great life. You must realize that the decisions you make today, they determine who you'll be tomorrow. But don't forget that happiness, fulfillment, success and significance, they don't happen by chance. They happen by choice. So choose them by making great decisions. I want to thank you all very much for investing some of your sand with me, and I wish you all the best.