Cap and Gown.
The other side of the stage
Cap. Gown. Cum laude. Business law from a school older than most of the companies he’ll work for. My son, Henry, graduated yesterday.
His sister Emerson did this, in another city, in another version of this world just following the pandemic.
Both of them now done with school. The beginning of whatever time period this is.
I keep trying to name the feeling. It’s not pride alone. Pride is too clean a word for it. It’s pride and ache and disbelief at once, because the boy who fell asleep on my chest at three months old accepted a piece of paper that says he is ready.
The commencement speaker was Harrison Ford. Yeah, that Harrison. In his talk he said something that grabbed me and just whipped me around.
“After the success of the first Star Wars, something was still missing. I had passion, but was missing purpose. Passion and purpose are not the same thing. Passion brings you joy. Purpose brings you meaning. Passion gets you out of bed in the morning. Purpose allows you to sleep at night, and I hadn’t found purpose higher than my job.” - Harrison Ford
Harrison went on to find purpose in his impressive conservation work.
I sat with that.
Passion gets the diploma. Purpose carries it.
Graduation has always been a ritual pretending to be a finish line. But the one Henry walked yesterday was not the one I walked across decades ago.
The shape of the stage was the same. The robes were the same. The ceremony moved at the same dignified pace it always had. What is different is the world standing on the other side of it.
He graduated into a moment when machines can write his cover letter in three seconds, summarize his thesis in nine, generate his interview answers before he opens his mouth, and draft the contract he will one day argue about in court.
Every shortcut he could want has been built and packaged and offered for free. The credential he just earned is, in some quiet ways, worth less than it was the day he started earning it.
And in some quiet ways, it is worth more.
I am watching a generation graduate into a job market being rewritten by code in real time.
The roles they trained for are being redefined while they walk the stage. The companies they will join may not exist in five years. The companies they build are sitting somewhere as ideas no one has named yet. They know this. They have already adapted in ways their parents have not.
They are not scared of the machines. They use them the way I used a calculator. The fear, when it shows up, is mostly ours.
What I want for Henry, what I want for Emerson, is not protection from the world. It is permission to trust the part of themselves no algorithm can replicate. The instinct. The patience. The willingness to sit in a hard conversation a few seconds longer than is comfortable. The thing you cannot teach in a syllabus.
That is the inheritance.
Not the diploma. The diploma is the ticket. The inheritance is the way they listen. The way they lead. The way they both treat people.
I keep thinking about the night before my own graduation. I remember almost nothing about the ceremony. The walk. The speech. The names called. The photos. Gone. What I remember is sitting on the floor at two in the morning the night before, asking a question I could not answer.
Now what?
Now what is what every graduate is really asking. It looks like confidence in the photographs. It feels like static in the body.
To Henry, and to every kid walking across a stage this season:
The diploma is real. So is the doubt. Both will travel with you. You don’t have to resolve them. You just have to keep going.
The world you are entering rewards speed. Reward yourself with stillness.
It rewards certainty. Reward yourself with curiosity.
It rewards output. Reward yourself with attention.
The machines will get faster. Your humanity is the part that compounds.
Henry. Emerson. I love you both with all my heart and soul.
I have watched you both become people I would want to know even if I weren’t your father. That is the rarest thing a parent can say and mean.
You walked that stage. The applause was loud. And yes, the hug after was longer than is reasonable.
Just know, that hug will be here for you every day forward, as it’s always been.
Everything else is optional.
Stay human
-Bryan
I’m Bryan, and if you’re a leader or executive, pull up a chair. Fancy stuff: Built companies in Silicon Valley. Gave a TEDTalk. Keynoted 200+ times.
Crashed hard. Found my way back. Lost 85 lbs. Ditched diabetes. Moved to Lisbon. And as it turns out, you can operate differently at any age.
Now I work with leaders and teams who’ve proven themselves but know something needs to shift.
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Well , that just wrecked me 😘😘 Beautiful .
Beautiful sentiments and so powerfully written!
Congratulations!!👏