Christine's Commencement Address First Place Award 2023: Jon Gray, President, Blackstone Group

Those of you who have followed my blog for years back when it was on Freesia Lane, know that I am a commencement address junkie. Yep. I can listen to ten to twenty speeches every year, and then choose one to share with you as my pick for the best. To inspire you. To make you cry, or laugh, or both.

Some of my golden oldies include Jeff Bezos at Princeton, who might make you cry as he recounts how he made his grandmother cry, and how his grandfather handled it. (I fear fame and fortune has made him forget that message, but you can remember it.) Oprah Winfrey at Harvard , which I watch annually to remind me about failure and success. Denzel Washington, who will push you to think outside the box. Don’t get me started. Suffice to say that I find commencement speeches worth every minute I spend watching them.

This year, I bring you one you might not come across on your own, and the first one I’ve done that is a high school address. My fabulous daughter, about whom I am not allowed to post, sent it to me. It’s the speech by Jon Gray, President of Blackstone, whose daughter graduated from The Trinity School in New York City this week. Someone must have forwarded it to her and she passed it on. Trinity is her alma mater, and what an education in more than ABC’s it gave her.

Self doubt plagues us all as we travel through these troubling times. Jon puts it in perspective, and he gives each of those students in the audience a mirror of their own unsure selves and a window into that which they can aspire to be. He has had and will continue to have a great life. So many of us feel hopeless impotence in this horror film unfolding around us around things like climate change and the potential loss of democracy as we know it. No, no, he is having none of that. He gave me renewed hope. Inspiration to live my life with curiosity, wonder and a thumbs up positivity even when your family or friends might roll their eyes, or darkness points out the potential demise of much of what you hold dear. Through his own life experiences and his witty, poignant way of sharing them, he takes us through the world with the lens in which he sees things, and it’s a lens I’m using, starting right now.

Do yourself a favor. Watch it and get inspired to approach every day with renewed wonder at the enormity of possibility, beauty and self depreciating humor.