Head of School
A Hope, a Promise, and Then...The Right Stuff
The following address was given by Head of School Trudy Hall at the Opening Convocation ceremony on September 9, 2009.
You may also download a pdf of this speech.
his past June, my husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. Twenty-five years. To give you some perspective, we were married before the vast majority of the folks in this chapel were born! Achieving that milestone has me thinking about true commitment.
We had the picture perfect wedding at my family’s church just south of here, with a reception in the backyard of my childhood home. I wore my mother’s wedding dress. She was my maid of honor. Blue sky, warm—emphasis on the warm—June day. It was the wedding of my dreams, and every minute of it was heavenly. Interestingly—perhaps incredibly to you—although the day was filled with hope, and we certainly made a promise to each other, I never use that day to define the beginning of my commitment to my husband and our life together. The true meaning of the commitment made on that lovely June day was only clear several months later.
My husband left for work in Saudi Arabia immediately after a short honeymoon, and I eagerly began the necessary planning to join him. I loved to travel. I loved my husband. This was going to be a grand adventure of wonderful, magnificent togetherness. Once I landed in the desert, however, it was abundantly clear that life was going to be anything but magnificent. I will spare you the gory details, but it looked something like this: I had to change my name and surrender my passport to the officials at my husband’s office. I was not allowed to collect a paycheck, drive, ride a bike, wear clothes I might typically wear in 90 degree heat, run, swim in a public pool, be in a car without my husband or a proper chaperone, or even—and worst of all—make a long distance phone call to anyone in the United States unless my husband placed the call for me. (Remember this was well before cell phones.) We had a TV, but the shows were in Arabic, and there were not too many of those. My world closed in around me; I felt terribly isolated. Everything that had defined my life in the United States was unavailable to me. I was going to have to create a life from scratch…with my husband. That was the moment my true commitment to my marriage began. In the middle of a desert, all by myself, I needed to make good on the promise I made to my husband in the presence of over 150 witnesses.
It is easy to give lip service to commitment. Last spring, it sounded something like this: “Yes, I would like to go to Emma Willard next fall.” “Yes, I would like to go to preseason for twice daily, grueling physical workouts.” “Yes, I would like to take three APs next fall.” “Yes, I would be happy to room with you in the smallest double in the entire school.” We all know folks who talk “big,” who volunteer but never follow-through, who make promises that are not kept, who rationalize their way out of responsibility for their actions. Indeed, it is vastly easier to start something than it is to finish it. As Abigail Adams, wife of President John Adams once noted: “We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.” There is a Chinese proverb that captures this nicely: talk doesn’t cook rice. That is not the sort of commitment I am talking about here.
I am talking about what Vince Lombardi, a renowned football coach for the Green Bay Packers, called “heart power,” a commitment to a goal that is so strong, so true, that success is the only acceptable outcome. True commitment is about sustained effort over a long period of time to achieve a worthy, but difficult goal. It is doing what is right, not what is easy, day after day. It is an unscientific concoction of discipline, will power, creativity, patience and resilience. Commitment is what comes after the hope and the promise. It is “the right stuff” that transforms the promise into reality and makes the difference between those who dream and those who do; those who talk and those who act; those who achieve and those who sit on the sidelines of life.
What does it look like in action? Making time when there is none. Sacrificing personal pleasures to meet agreed upon deadlines. Being where you said you would be instead of where you want to be. Doing what you said you would do instead of what you want to do. Making no excuses when you have fallen short, even as you pick up the pieces and go after the goal once again. It is the consistent triumph of integrity over desire. (I am not doing such a good job of making this sound like a truly desirable trait, am I?)
Let’s pick the “right stuff” of commitment apart a little bit.
First ingredient: Set meaningful goals—a worthy target—for yourself. Let me be clear: we are talking about brassy, risky, nervy, adventurous, daring, courageous goals here. Sometimes called BHAGS: Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. In setting such goals what you can imagine is far more important than what you know. According to Nobel Prize winning physicist and scientific genius Albert Einstein: “All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out.” I am sure you have all heard the phrase: “Set aside the is to discover the if.” There is a lovely Burmese saying that makes this point well: who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity. Who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it. At Emma, we always aim for excellence. While we may fall short, there is no substitute for that goal to ensure our best efforts.
The real secret to a successful commitment is to be able to see clearly the outcome in your mind, to visualize what it will look like when you have achieved the goal. See yourself winning the award, writing the book, being interviewed by the press, looking in the mirror after the weight loss—whatever it takes to get you jazzed. In the absence of clearly defined, growth producing goals, there will be a shortage of motivation, will power, discipline and any of the other “right stuff” so essential in true commitment. Or as Yogi Berra, the famous baseball catcher, quoted extensively because he fractured the English language so delightfully, accurately noted: “If you don’t know where you are going, you will end up someplace else.” I urge you to talk about big, hairy, audacious goals with your advisor early this fall. Setting such goals could mean the difference between a good year and a great year.
Second ingredient for true commitment: you must have the courage of your convictions. There is no such thing as a half-hearted commitment. “I am going to start that exercise plan the moment the weather gets just a bit cooler.” “I am going to ask for extra help the next time I see Ms. Snyder by herself in the lunch line.” “I am going to figure out this college application ‘thing’ over Long Weekend.” If you wait until the perfect moment to set your resolve and make a commitment to self-improvement, chances are not in your favor. The author Pearl Buck advocated, “Don?t wait for moods; you will accomplish nothing if you take that approach. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth.”
Have you ever been on a large airplane and heard the pilot greet you suggesting: “we are going to TRY to take off now.” Honestly, would you want a pilot who is going to try to take off? I want a pilot who is committed to getting that heavy plane, with all those heavy people and their heavy baggage, and the bathrooms and the food up into the air and safely back down again. I want her to have the courage of her convictions. I want her to firmly announce her plans: “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be pulling away from the gate now, and we’ll have you back on the ground in Houston within two hours.” Hear the difference? When it comes to commitment—you are either in or you are out. There is no such thing as life in the middle. Take a lesson from the 26th president of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, who advised: “Just do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Just do what you can, with what you have, where you are. And do that daily.
True commitment has a third ingredient: you have to take initiative. I think many would say this is the most challenging aspect. Anyone can set bold goals, but it is this enthusiastic implementation that is the essence of commitment. You need a plan, one with tiny baby steps to get you started; small successes to build your momentum in the initial phases. You need gumption--some spunk and guts. Elinor Smith, a pioneering aviator in the early 20th century sagely noted: “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” Tennis star Martina Navratilova said it even more succinctly: “Just go out there and do what you’ve got to do.” Chris Martin, the lead singer of Cold Play, a sensational band giving Bono a run for his money, was asked to explain the band’s unexpected success. He said: “We aren’t the best; we just give it our best.” And they do that with enthusiasm each time they hit the stage. They just go out there and do it.
The fourth ingredient? Keep going. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2,000 experiments before he got it to work. When asked how it felt to fail so many times, he said: “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000 step process. When Pablo Casals, the internationally renowned cellist turned 95, he was asked why he still practiced the cello six hours a day. His response? “Because I think I am making progress.” For those who have seen the hit movie Julie and Julia about Julia Child’s goal to create a French cookbook for Americans, think about this: it took her eight years. Her publisher rejected the 850 page manuscript after Julia had labored over it for five years. After another full year of editing, another rejection, a new publisher, and more rewriting—eight full years after beginning the project—the first copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking rolled off the presses. Bethany Hamilton, the American surfing prodigy, lost her arm in a vicious shark attack in 2003. She battled back, learning how to surf with one arm, to earn first place in the National Scholastic Surfing Association National Championships. In 2008, she began competing full-time in the Association of Surfing Professionals World Qualifying Series (WQS). What does she have to say about the “right stuff”? “Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.”
The lesson in these stories is the same one: frustration is an inevitable part of every worthy enterprise. You will have your share of setbacks. Just apply what you have learned to make each new effort a better, more informed one. Once you have made a commitment, your only obligation is to keep trying to do the best you can each day. Barack Obama, America’s new president, talks about the “right stuff” this way: “Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”
That is the recipe for the “right stuff” of commitment. Set a big, hairy, audacious goal with great conviction. Enthusiastically launch a plan to do what you can with what you have…now. And keep doing it. Take heart, for there is a bit of magic that occurs when you mix these ingredients in the right way. William H. Murray, an influential 20th century Scottish mountaineer and writer, whose life experience taught him much about commitment, explains that truism: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.” And that is the secret ingredient in the “right stuff” of commitment.
I could have stuffed these remarks with stories of those who came from behind to finish first, those who were ridiculed and went on to become international successes, those who had nothing and now tell others how to achieve everything. But you already know those stories as you see the headlines, go to the movies, and read voraciously. What is more important this year is that you start to write one of your own stories. What will be better because you have set your mind and your heart to it this year? What will happen because you have the courage of your convictions? What will be different because you make a plan and act on it? What will change because you imagined it and believed that your actions over time could make it so? Maybe you will apply the ingredients of true commitment to transform your so-so academic performance to intellectual excellence. Maybe you will find a way to encourage students to join you in a cause that makes this school an even more amazing place. Perhaps your commitment will take you beyond Mount Ida, as you pursue a practicum or community service project that is especially meaningful.
While I do not know each of you well just yet, I know one thing for certain: every young woman sitting in this room already has the “right stuff.” You would not be here if you did not. You are goal setters. You are plan makers. You are activists. And heaven knows, you are achievers. I know it. I believe it. But more important: you know it. You believe it. Now just go out there and do what you have got to do.
Oh, and that husband I made a commitment to twenty-five years ago? Lucky for me, he knows the meaning of true commitment, too.
And now it is my privilege to declare that the 196th school year is officially launched.
