One of Broadway's leading directors, Kenny Leon delivers a compelling series of lessons his hero once shared with him.
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00:00 Everything I am and most things I know were said to me by my grandmother or my mother.
00:06 Only now I wish I had listened more.
00:10 My grandmother was born into the world of 1905.
00:14 She didn't have the privilege of going to high school,
00:17 but she taught herself to read,
00:20 and because of that she was able to read the Bible each night before she fell asleep.
00:27 Times were tough then,
00:29 but she made it in spite of the challenges.
00:33 Amid all the challenges, she found the beauty that life had to offer.
00:39 She would say, "From my generation to yours,
00:42 here are some things I wish I could give you.
00:45 I wish I could give you passion.
00:48 If you haven't discovered what you love,
00:51 I wish you would spend every waking minute searching for it.
00:56 I wish at some point you get paid for doing something you love.
01:02 I encourage you to find as many moments of laughter as you can.
01:08 And oh yes, I wish you a double heaping dose of strength and courage,
01:15 because most folks are haters.
01:17 Your belief in yourself must be so strong that it doubles everyone else's collective disbelief.
01:25 I also wish you the incredible power to move on.
01:29 You are going to make mistakes.
01:32 Make them, fix them if you can, and move on.
01:37 When you have found, loved, and formed unions, and raised children,
01:41 and taught students, and built businesses,
01:44 and created new economic systems, and developed theories,
01:48 and invented new technologies, and produced, created,
01:52 and told new stories in fascinating new ways,
01:55 when your life is done,
01:57 and you join the spirits of all those that have come before you,
02:01 you will have lived truly richly.
02:05 And only then can you rightfully and honorably lie down to pleasant dreams.
02:13 I am the product of my grandmother's generational prayers.
02:18 I grew up with her and my mother, and we had very little in the way of material possessions.
02:25 We didn't have indoor plumbing.
02:27 We had an outdoor toilet.
02:29 We didn't have electricity.
02:32 We didn't buy soap.
02:35 We made it.
02:36 We didn't have bank accounts.
02:38 But we were rich and full of life in rural Tallahassee, Florida.
02:44 The struggle to make money is small compared to the struggle to make meaning and purpose
02:51 out of life.
02:53 I wouldn't trade the memories of the time with my grandmother for any amount of money.
02:59 She would say, "At the end of your life, baby, if all you've done is stack up a pile of money,
03:06 how many figures are you worth?
03:09 Six figures?
03:10 Seven?
03:11 Eight?
03:12 Nine?
03:13 If that's how you spend your life, striving to stack more and more zeros, that's all you
03:19 have.
03:20 You'll be rich in your zeros only."
03:24 In my 58 years, I've learned that it's best to spend time with those who have lived.
03:30 So be careful with time.
03:33 This is your time.
03:36 You were born to enter the world now, at this particular time, with this particular set
03:44 of challenges and rewards.
03:47 The future doesn't have anybody's name on it.
03:50 It may as well be yours.
03:52 I see you leading.
03:54 I see a world that is a world of peace.
03:57 I see a world where you are understood.
04:01 I see a world where humans don't abuse each other physically, mentally, or emotionally.
04:06 I see a world where politics and integrity are synonymous.
04:12 I see a world where material wealth is not the ultimate wealth.
04:16 I see a world where our military folks are looked up to.
04:21 I see a world where we realize that a human life is a human life and no one should suffocate.
04:28 I see a world led where there are no more talk of ism, racism, sexism, hate-ism.
04:36 I see a world where people don't step over other people lying in the streets.
04:40 I see a world where every child is loved and every grandparent is honored.
04:45 I see a world with laughter in one hand and love in the other.
04:51 My grandmother, what did she say?
04:54 You die by how you live.
04:58 You will be amazed how rich and full a moment can be.
05:02 Experience all you can, as deeply as you can.
05:10 So live.
05:11 So live.
05:12 So live.
05:13 So live.
05:14 So live!
05:15 So live!
05:16 So live!
05:17 So live!
05:18 So live!
05:19 So live!
05:20 So live!
05:21 (applause)
05:21 (applause)
05:31 (applause)
05:41 (applause)
05:51 (applause)