0:00 Love you too.
0:02 So yeah, I usually don't do well with compliments.
0:05 So Egon, thank you so much.
0:07 I I had a coach for 20 years
0:09 that told me how shitty I was every day.
0:12 Never in my wildest dreams that I think I'd be giving a commencement speech,
0:16 but uh Professor O'Leary, thank you so much.
0:19 I appreciate the kind words.
0:21 Egon, for your vision
0:23 and generosity in the creation of the Durban Sports Business Program.
0:26 It is a privilege to be here with you all today in the nation's
0:31 capital at Georgetown's McDonough.
0:39 >> >> Relationships and memories are built on shared experience.
0:43 So I'm grateful to be able to share this experience with you
0:46 and with the faculty
0:47 and the staff who educated you
0:49 and with the family
0:50 and friends in the audience who proudly supported you getting to this moment,
0:54 even the ones who are Jets fans.
0:57 You know who you are.
1:01 Sitting here looking out at this amazing crowd of business majors getting ready to
1:05 start your careers,
1:05 I realized something.
1:07 Sports was a very strange way to make a living.
1:11 People screamed at me all the time.
1:14 They gambled on my performance and they celebrated all my failures.
1:20 One way that sports is a lot like business
1:22 though is that when you do it long enough your life gets defined by
1:26 numbers. 23,
1:27 that was the number of pro seasons I played.
1:30 Seven, those were the Super Bowl wins.
1:35 Three, those were the Super Bowl losses.
1:37 Damn it, Eli Manning.
1:40 I heard that back there.
1:43 But here's a number for you guys.
1:49 99.7 What's that number make you think of?
1:52 It's an A+.
1:54 I didn't get many of those.
1:56 It's a low-grade fever, maybe, but it's also virtual certainty.
2:04 If something has a 99.7% chance of happening,
2:07 the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
2:10 Well, let me take you back to February 5th, 2017, Super Bowl 51,
2:16 Patriots versus Falcons.
2:23 >> >> Excuse my language at some points here.
2:24 I was an athlete,
2:25 so you might feel like you're in a locker room a little bit.
2:33 There's 6 minutes left in the third quarter, and we're losing 28 to 3,
2:36 and it's fourth down at midfield.
2:38 And at that moment, the Falcons had a 99.7% chance of winning.
2:44 Not exactly how I thought things would go when I woke up that morning.
2:48 But you know what?
2:49 It happens sometimes.
2:50 You guys are going to see that.
2:52 You're going to think that you're better than your competition.
2:55 You're going to work really hard,
2:56 and it's still not going to go the way you want.
2:59 You're going to find yourself on the short end of that 99.7%,
3:03 wondering just how the hell you got there.
3:06 My Patriots team got there by fumbling the second play of the second quarter.
3:10 And then right before halftime, somebody threw a devastating pick-six.
3:13 Look, it's not important who threw it.
3:16 The point is it was thrown, so I'll move on.
3:20 The Falcons team was really young.
3:22 They had a new coach.
3:23 We were the veteran team.
3:24 We had the Hall of Fame coach.
3:25 We'd been there before.
3:26 We'd already won four Super Bowls at that point.
3:28 But the experience or reputation only takes you so far.
3:32 And it's true beyond sports.
3:34 History is littered with businesses, mature ones, that took their competition for granted,
3:40 and then got disrupted by ambitious young entrepreneurs.
3:44 Do you guys remember Blockbuster, Kodak, Nokia, BlackBerry?
3:49 I didn't think so.
3:51 Maybe some of your parents did.
3:53 The point is nothing is guaranteed.
3:57 We were the favorites going into the game
3:58 and now with 8 minutes
3:59 and 31s left 8 minutes
4:01 and 31 seconds left in the third quarter down 25 points,
4:04 we were the underdogs
4:05 and I found myself on the bench staring blankly at the ground in front
4:09 of me in very deep thought.
4:11 With fate seemingly already decided, I was asking to myself,
4:15 "What can I do to get us back in this game?"
4:18 I had to trust my ability and harness whatever optimism I still had,
4:23 even if it was just 0.3%.
4:27 I had to draw on all my experience
4:28 and all the lessons I'd learned from overcoming years years of fear
4:33 and doubt.
4:34 And the question I have for you graduates today is how much doubt
4:38 and how much fear have you faced in your own life?
4:43 College can be a little bit of a cocoon sometimes.
4:46 So, maybe you haven't found the limits of your ability
4:48 or the boundaries of your comfort zone yet.
4:51 And you don't know what's possible on the other side of them.
4:55 Trust me when I tell you overcoming fear
4:58 and doubt in the face of those challenges is where you're going to gain
5:02 the confidence to make your best choices
5:05 when things aren't going the way you want.
5:16 >> >> When the odds are stacked against you,
5:17 when you're facing your own 28 to 3 moment, and believe me, it's coming.
5:23 You'll have a choice to make.
5:25 To quit or to fight your ass off.
5:29 The choice seems pretty obvious and it's easier said than done.
5:32 I mean, why expend all that energy fighting when it's virtually certain you'll lose?
5:38 Why not quit and live to fight another day?
5:42 Well, sometimes there isn't another day.
5:45 Super Bowl 51, there was no other day.
5:48 That was it.
5:49 With a lot of the most important moments in your lives,
5:53 when you have a chance to do something truly special,
5:56 it's going to be the same way.
5:58 You may only get one chance to impress your boss or land a promotion.
6:03 Or to close a deal or not.
6:05 So, what then?
6:07 You better have prepared yourself in advance to deal with the adversity you're going
6:12 to face in order to give yourself the best chance to succeed.
6:18 Down by 25 in the biggest game of my life,
6:21 do you think I just stumbled randomly into my decision to keep fighting?
6:26 The previous 25 years of my life had prepared me for that moment.
6:31 Just as you guys have been meeting the daily challenges of being a student,
6:35 I've been meeting the daily challenges of being an athlete every day,
6:39 just for a chance to do something special.
6:44 The whole reason I went to Michigan was the idea of taking my abilities
6:48 to an elite program
6:49 and seeing if I could compete with the best.
6:52 A lot of you made a similar choice coming to Georgetown,
6:54 and you're going to make it again going out on your own
6:57 or in jobs with great institutions like Deloitte
6:59 or Goldman or Google
7:01 or many others.
7:02 In these places, guess what?
7:04 They're going to challenge you to be your best.
7:06 And you better be prepared.
7:09 I fought really hard at Michigan.
7:11 I fought even harder to stay there,
7:13 and I competed against a lot of guys who were just
7:15 as good as me,
7:16 if not better.
7:18 I didn't get a chance to start until my fourth season.
7:22 It was tough.
7:23 It had me questioning whether I was at the right school.
7:26 Maybe Michigan was too tough.
7:30 Where you choose to work might also seem too hard for you.
7:34 You'll be up against a lot of people from equally great schools who are
7:37 just as smart and talented
7:39 as you,
7:40 and they want it as much as you do.
7:42 You'll be asked to do things you've never done before, to work long hours,
7:46 harder than you ever have with people you might not like,
7:49 like guys from Duke.
8:02 >> >> But what makes it too hard is exactly the thing
8:06 that makes it the perfect place for you.
8:09 Because it will offer you the greatest opportunity of all.
8:13 The opportunity to face your own fears
8:16 and doubts and develop the skills
8:18 and abilities necessary to overcome any obstacle you'll face on the path to being
8:24 successful in life.
8:27 And this is the key.
8:29 You don't quit and you don't make excuses.
8:32 Every hard choice is a brick in the path toward the life you want.
8:37 But every excuse is a brick in the wall
8:40 that will stand in your way.
8:42 When the opportunity to do something special presents itself,
8:46 the people most prepared to meet the challenges will be the ones who made
8:49 the most hard choices,
8:51 who faced adversity and overcome it.
8:55 They certainly wouldn't have won all their fights, but they never quit.
8:59 I stayed at Michigan
9:01 and then I got chosen in the sixth round of the 2000 draft.
9:04 My numbers were pretty unimpressive.
9:05 If there was a 99.7% chance at anything,
9:10 it said I'd be behind the counter at Ben's Chili Bowl before I was
9:13 behind center in an NFL game.
9:16 And who knows?
9:16 That could have been fun, too.
9:19 But no one could have imagined
9:20 that I would end my my career with seven world championships.
9:23 Maybe because none of those people knew that I would never, ever quit.
9:37 >> >> Which brings me back to Super Bowl 51 on
9:39 that sideline down 28 to 3 with a choice.
9:42 Our team had worked too hard.
9:44 We'd come too far.
9:45 I said to myself, and excuse me for saying this,
9:48 I'm taking you inside my helmet at a very vulnerable time in my life
9:51 and one of the biggest moments of my life.
9:53 And that inner self-talk that people talk about that should be positive,
9:56 you know what I said?
9:57 I said to myself,
9:58 "Don't be a little Go out there and fight your ass off.
10:02 Whether you win or lose, fight to the end."
10:13 >> >> At that moment, we had no idea what the outcome of the
10:16 game would be,
10:17 but the one thing I've learned through sports is the only time you're sure
10:20 to lose is when you quit.
10:22 In life, in work, you guys are going to get knocked down a lot.
10:27 How are you going to navigate those moments?
10:29 Are you going to push through the self-doubt?
10:31 Are you going to face the fear?
10:33 Will you work relentlessly to the very end,
10:35 even when the outcome is virtually certain?
10:39 I hope you do
10:40 because this is the prep work for the bigger opportunities to come.
10:44 The whole point of doing hard things is to build resilience
10:48 and the skills to overcome adversity.
10:51 It's to teach you how to find your own pathways to success.
10:55 This is where you get the self-confidence to overcome your next biggest challenge.
11:01 And you do it the same way you overcome a 25-point deficit,
11:05 one decision at a time, one play at a time.
11:09 Understanding this served me well on every step of my journey,
11:12 including that step into the huddle on
11:14 that fourth down with the outcome of the Super Bowl 99.7% guaranteed
11:20 that we lose.
11:22 We called the play.
11:23 It was a little square out to Danny Amendola.
11:25 Danny went undrafted out of Texas Tech.
11:28 He was cut by three NFL teams.
11:31 He wasn't the tallest.
11:32 He wasn't the fastest, but he had a huge heart.
11:35 And he played his ass off in the biggest moments.
11:38 And I hope you guys find colleagues like Danny.
11:41 Having business school friends are great, don't get me wrong,
11:44 but sometimes you need a kid from a glorified community college who can bail
11:48 your ass out of any jam.
11:57 >> >> If you want to achieve great things, surround yourself with people like him.
12:01 Danny snatched that ball out of the air on fourth down.
12:04 He took it up the sideline for a first down, and seven plays later,
12:07 we were in the end zone. 28 to 9.
12:13 99.7% chance of losing just went down to 98.9%.
12:21 Wow.
12:21 Now it was the defense's turn.
12:22 They forced Atlanta to punt.
12:24 Now it's the fourth quarter.
12:25 We go 72 yards just for a field goal.
12:28 Now we're losing 28 to 12.
12:30 Three plays later, our defense is on the field, and boom,
12:34 we strip sack Matt Ryan.
12:36 Our defense comes up with a huge turnover.
12:39 Alan Branch, one of my Michigan former teammates, jumps on the ball.
12:42 With 6 minutes left, I hit Danny again.
12:44 This time for a touchdown.
12:46 The odds of Atlanta winning, 92.1%. 30 minutes later, earlier, excuse me,
12:53 30 minutes earlier, I was thinking, don't be a Now I'm thinking, lock in.
13:00 Laser focus.
13:01 We got this.
13:11 >> >> Kicking the ball back to Atlanta with 5:56 to play,
13:15 we had the answers to the problems
13:16 that the Falcons presented
13:17 as long as we didn't run out of time.
13:19 We just had to run the right plays, move fast, and execute,
13:23 and make very good choices.
13:26 My career was filled with challenges and choices with small opportunities to show people,
13:32 including myself, what I was capable of.
13:35 My hope is that you've already had a few of these moments as well,
13:39 and I hope you've already begun to try things
13:42 that are very hard with long odds.
13:44 I hope your failures have forced you to find new pathways to success.
13:49 I hope they force you out of your comfort zone
13:52 and show you the boundaries in your life
13:54 that are there to be broken through.
13:57 And my challenge to you is to always keep fighting.
14:01 Because the truth is the way you overcome a 99.7% chance of losing in
14:07 the biggest moments of your life is to harness the confidence you built
14:11 and the lessons you've learned from a lifetime of failing at things
14:15 that you've cared about.
14:17 Everything you've been through up to this point in your life has been trial
14:20 and error.
14:21 It's been preparation for your next big challenge.
14:25 Your 28-3 moment.
14:27 Down by eight, we got the ball back with 3:30 left to play.
14:30 The game was still very much in Atlanta's favor,
14:33 and I understood victory was very unlikely even in the moment.
14:37 I'm an optimist, but I can also do math.
14:39 I didn't go to Georgetown.
14:41 But I knew the numbers were not on our side.
14:44 96.5% chance of losing, still.
14:49 But then, we put together the drive of our lives.
14:52 Everyone contributed.
14:53 Chris Hogan, undrafted, played lacrosse in college,
14:59 ran a perfect route and converted a huge third down.
15:01 Malcolm Mitchell from Georgia, another fourth rounder, tripped over his own feet, fell down,
15:06 got up, managed to catch a ball
15:08 and run forward for a first down on the next play.
15:11 On the next play, Julian Edelman, a seventh rounder,
15:15 a converted quarterback who did everything asked of him for 3 years before he
15:20 ever saw the field
15:21 as a wide receiver,
15:23 made the single most amazing catch I'd ever seen.
15:27 All three of those guys had a chip on their shoulder, absolutely.
15:36 >> >> They had something to prove.
15:39 And boy, did they prove it.
15:41 When we scored with less than a minute to go
15:43 and converted the two-point try to tie the game,
15:45 the win probability finally flipped, 53% us.
15:51 In overtime, we marched down the field and at the Atlanta 2-yard line,
15:53 I flipped the ball out to James White,
15:55 a fourth-round pick who didn't play his first year.
15:59 James was as tough and as resilient as they come.
16:02 Wherever you're headed in your next in your life,
16:04 find someone like James to be friends with.
16:07 You're going to need gladiators like him along the way.
16:11 He barreled through half of the half of a deflated Falcons defense to put
16:15 the ball in the end zone
16:16 and secure our fifth Super Bowl title.
16:27 >> >> What 90 minutes earlier was set to go down
16:31 as the worst defeat of my life,
16:34 the most embarrassing game I ever played in,
16:37 turned into the most memorable victory of my NFL career.
16:47 >> >> Now, the odds are your 28-3 moment won't end with a trophy
16:50 or a parade.
16:51 It may not even end in victory.
16:53 It almost didn't for us.
16:56 But that's not really the point.
16:59 These are all just momentary tests where failure isn't final.
17:04 Only quitting is.
17:06 The choice to fight is an opportunity to succeed, yes,
17:09 but it's also your chance to grow.
17:12 To show everyone that while you may be beatable, you are unbreakable.
17:26 >> >> Sometimes in life, you have to put the numbers aside and ignore the odds.
17:30 You have to make the tough choice.
17:33 You have to try your best and to fight your hardest to win.
17:38 Because the only thing worse than losing the biggest game of your life is
17:42 losing respect for yourself along the way.
17:46 I wish you nothing
17:47 but the best of luck
17:48 and the most courageous of choices on your journey.
17:51 And I challenge you
17:52 as graduates of this amazing institution to seek out more things
17:57 that are just too hard.
18:00 Things that will force you to grow beyond what you thought was possible for
18:04 yourself physically,
18:05 mentally, or emotionally.
18:07 I want you to challenge yourself with ideas
18:10 that are uncomfortable and people who push you to be your very best.
18:15 Even if one of those people is a cranky old coach who cuts the
18:19 sleeves off his sweatshirt
18:20 and screams at you all day,
18:21 "Do your job."
18:22 Okay, that's too specific in my experience.
18:25 You guys get the point.
18:28 The tests are over in school.
18:32 Thank god.
18:34 But the tests in life, they never end.
18:37 You will be tested every day.
18:40 And those tests are the prep for the life that you want to live.
18:46 My story can become your story.
18:50 But yours will be unique, written by you.
18:54 Remember this.
18:56 Testing your greatness always comes in the form of a contest,
19:00 where preparation meets opportunity.
19:03 And the winner is the one who just won't quit.
19:08 Thank you so much.
19:09 Congratulations.
19:14 >> >> Join our global community of English learners >> >> absolutely free.
19:18 Download video transcripts, listen offline, start our beginner course,
19:24 >> >> and join live classes with certified teachers.
19:27 Access over 1,000 resources to improve your English faster.
19:31 Everything's in one place, community.englishspeeches.ca.
19:36 Let's speak English.
19:37 Together.
19:37 >>
