Video transcript · 26 min · 2,941 words
Sheryl Sandberg's UC Berkeley 2016 commencement address: transcript
Sheryl Sandberg gives the keynote at UC Berkeley's 2016 commencement. She speaks about losing her husband Dave a year earlier and what she learned about resilience. She shares the three Ps of Martin Seligman, the role of gratitude, and urges graduates to build resilience in themselves, organizations and communities.
Key points
- Sandberg opens with humor about Berkeley's history and honors her grandmother Rosalynn, who graduated from Berkeley in 1973.
- She says she will speak about what she learned in death, after her husband Dave died suddenly while they were in Mexico.
- After a friend told her option A was not available, so they should make the most of option B, she describes how everyone lives some form of option B.
- She explains Martin Seligman's three Ps: personalization, pervasiveness and permanence, and how each affected her own grief and early career.
- Finding gratitude, such as writing down three moments of joy each night, helps build resilience, and she asks graduates to live as if they had 11 days left.
- She closes by urging graduates to build resilience in themselves, in organizations and in communities.
Chapters
Full transcript
0:04Thank you, Marie. And thank you, esteemed members of the faculty, proud parents, devoted friends, squirming siblings. Congratulations to all of you, but especially congratulations to the magnificent Berkeley class of 2016. It's my privilege to be here at Berkeley, which has produced so many Nobel Prize winners, Turing Award winners, astronauts, members of Congress, Olympic gold medalists, and that's just the women.
0:44Amen. Berkeley has always been ahead of the times. As Chancellor Dirk said, in the 1960s, you led the free speech movement. Back then, people used to say with all the hair, how do we even tell the men from the women? today we know the answer man buns early on Berkeley opened its doors to the entire population when this campus opened in 1873 you had 167 men And 222 women. It took my alma mater another 90 years to give a single degree to a single woman. One of the women who came here in search of opportunity was Rosalynn Nuss. Ros grew
1:45up scrubbing floors in the Berkeley boarding house where she lived. In high school, her parents pulled her out of school to help support the family. And it was a local teacher who talked her parents into putting her back into school. In 1973, she sat where you sit today and she became a Berkeley graduate. Roz was my grandmother. She is one of the major sources of inspiration in my life. I was born on her birthday and I am so grateful to Berkeley for recognizing her potential. And I want to say a special Congratulations to the many who today become the first in your families to graduate from college. What a remarkable achievement.
2:43Amen. Today is a day of celebration. A day to celebrate all the hard work that got you to this moment. Today is a day of thanks. A day to thank all the people who helped you get here. The people who taught you and nurtured you, cheered you on, and dried you tears. Or at least didn't write on you with a sharpie when you fell asleep at a party. Today is a day of reflection. Because today marks the end of one era of your life and the beginning of something new. A commencement address is meant to be a dance between youth and wisdom. You provide the youth. Someone comes up here to be the voice of wisdom. That's supposed to be me. I tell you all the things I've learned in life. You throw your cap in the air. You let
3:46your family take a million photos and hopefully post them on Instagram. And then we all go home happy. Today's going to be a bit different. We'll still do the caps and you still have to do the photos, but I'm not going to tell you today what I learned in life. Today I'm going to try to tell you what I learned in death. I've not spoken about this publicly before, and it's hard, but I promise not to blow my nose on his beautiful Berkeley robes.
4:24One year, and 13 days ago, I lost my husband, Dave. His death was sudden and unexpected. We were in Mexico celebrating a friend's 50th birthday party. I took a nap. He went to work out. What followed was the unthinkable. I walked into a gym to find him lying on the floor. I flew home to tell my children that their father was gone.
4:56I watched his casket being lowered into the ground. For many months afterwards, and at many times since, I was swallowed in the deep fog of brief, what I think of as the void, an emptiness that fills your heart and your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even to breathe. Dave's death changed me in very profound ways. I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss, but I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, find the surface, and breathe again.
5:40Thank you. I learned that in the face of the void, or in the face of any challenge, you can choose joy and meaning. I'm sharing this with you today in the hopes that on this day in your lives, with all the momentum and the joy, you can learn in life the lessons I only learned in death.
6:26Lessons about hope, about strength, and about the light within us that will not be extinguished. Everyone who's made it through Cal has already experienced some disappointment. You wanted an A, but you got a B. Let's be honest, you got an A-, but you're still mad.
7:00You applied for an internship at Facebook, but you only got one at Google. Thank you. She was clearly the love of your life, but then she swiped left. Game of Thrones, the show, has diverged way too much from the books, and you're mad because you read 4352 pages you will almost certain face more and deeper adversity there's loss of opportunity the job that doesn't work out the illness or crime which changes everything in an instant there's loss of dignity the sharp sting of prejudice when it happens there's loss of love the broken relationships that can't be repaired and sometimes there's loss of
8:01life itself Many of you have already experienced the kind of tragedy and hardship that leaves an indelible mark. Last year, Radhika, winner of the University Medal, spoke so beautifully about the sudden loss of her mother. The question is not if some of these things will happen to you, they will. What I want to talk about today is what you do next. about the things you can do to overcome adversity no matter when it hits you or how it hits the easy days ahead of you will be easy it is the hard days the days that challenge you to your very core that will determine who you are you will be defined not just by what you achieve but by how you survive a few
9:07weeks after Dave died, I was talking to my friend Phil about a father-son activity Dave would not be here to do. We came in with a plan to fill in for Dave, but I cried to Phil. I said, I want Dave. Phil put his arm around me and said option A is not available, so let's just kick the shit out of option B. Thank you. We all at some point live some form of option B. The question is, what do we do next?
9:52As a representative of Silicon Valley, I'm pleased to tell you that there's data we can learn from. After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that there are three Ps. personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence that are critical to how we bounce back from hardship. The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events of our lives. The first P is personalization, the belief that we are at fault. This is different from taking responsibility, which you should always do. This is the lesson that not everything that happens to us happens because of us. When Dave died I had a very common reaction which was to blame myself. He died in seconds from a cardiac arrhythmia.
10:46I poured over his medical records, asking what I could have or should have done. It wasn't until I learned about the three Ps that I accepted that I could not have prevented his death. His doctors had not diagnosed his coronary artery disease. I was an economics major. How could I? Studies show that getting past personalization can make us stronger. Students, teachers who have students who fail, who believe they can do better, revisit their methods and have future classes that excel.
11:23College swimmers who underperform in a race but believe they can do better, do. Not taking failures personally allows us to recover and even to thrive. The second P is pervasiveness, the belief that an event will affect all areas of your life. You know that song, Everything is Awesome? This is the flip. Everything is awful. There's nowhere to hide from the all-consuming sadness.
11:58The child psychologist I spoke to encouraged me to get my children back to their routine as quickly as possible. So 10 days after Dave died, my kids went back to school and I went back to work. I remember sitting in my first Facebook meeting in a total haze, thinking, what is everyone talking about and how could this possibly matter? And then, I got drawn into the conversation, and for a second, the briefest of all seconds, I forgot about death.
12:32That second helped me see that there were other things in my life that were not awful. My children and I were healthy. My friends and family, some of whom are with me today, were carrying us quite literally. The loss of a partner often has severe negative financial consequences, especially for women. So many single mothers and fathers struggle to make ends meet and don't get the time off they need to care for their families.
13:04I had financial security, the ability to take the time off I needed. And not just a job I loved, but one where I was encouraged to spend all day on Facebook. Gradually, my children started sleeping through the night, crying less and playing more. The third P is permanence, the belief that the sorrow will last forever.
13:35This was the hardest by me for far, because for so long it felt like the overwhelming grief would never leave. We often project our current feelings out indefinitely. We're anxious, and then we're anxious that we're anxious. We're sad, and then we're sad that we're sad. Instead, we should accept our feelings, but know that they won't last forever. My rabbi of all people actually told me, and this is a quote, that I should lean into the suck.
14:12Not what I meant when I said lean in. None of you need me to explain the fourth P, which is, of course, pizza from cheese board. But I wish I had known about the three Ps. Where I was your age, because there are so many times they would have helped me. Day one of my first job out of college, my new boss figured out that I did not know how to enter data into Lotus 1-2-3.
14:45That's a spreadsheet. Ask your parents later. His mouth dropped open, and he said in front of everyone, I can't believe you got this job without knowing that. And then he left the room. i was sure i was getting fired my very first week of work i thought i was terrible at everything but really i was just terrible at spreadsheets understanding pervasiveness would have saved me a lot of anxiety that first week i wish i had known about permanence when i broke up with boyfriends it would have been a comfort to know that that feeling wasn't going to last forever And if I was honest with myself, neither were any of those relationships.
15:32And I wish I had understood personalization when boyfriends broke up with me. Sometimes it's not you, it really is them. That guy really didn't shower. And all three peas ganged up on me when in my 20s I got divorced. At the time, I thought that no matter what else I did, I was a massive failure.
16:04The three Ps are common emotional reactions to so many things that happen to us in our careers, in our personal lives, in our relationships. You're probably feeling one of them right now about something in your life. But if you can recognize you're falling into these traps, you can correct. because just as our bodies have a physiological immune system our brains have a psychological immune system and there are things you can do to help kick it into gear one day my friend Adam Grant a psychologist suggested that I think about how much worse things could be this was completely counterintuitive to me I would have thought that getting through something like death was about finding every positive thought I could. Worse, I said to him, are you crazy? How could things be worse? He looked at me and said, Dave could have had that same
17:06cardiac arrhythmia driving your children. The minute he said it, I felt overwhelming gratitude that my children were alive and that gratitude overtook some of the grief. Finding gratitude and appreciation is key to resilience. People who take the time to list the things they're grateful for are healthier and happier.
17:39My New Year's resolution this year is to, before I go to bed, write down three moments of joy. And this really simple practice has changed my life, because no matter what happens each day, I go to bed thinking of something cheerful. Try it. Try it tonight when you have so many things to be joyful for. Although maybe before you go to KIPPS and don't remember what they are. Last month, 11 days before the anniversary of Dave's death, I broke down crying to a friend of mine.
18:33We were sitting, of all places, on a bathroom floor. I said 11 days. A year ago, he had 11 days left, and we had no idea. And then, through tears, we asked each other how we would live if we knew we had 11 days left. As you graduate, can you ask yourselves to live as if you had 11 days left? I don't mean blow everything off and party all the time, Although, I've already said tonight's an exception.
19:12I mean live with the understanding of how precious every day would be, because that's how precious every day actually is. A few years ago, my mom had to have her hip replaced. Before that, she walked without pain, but as her hip disintegrated, every step she took was painful.
19:47Today, years after the operation, she's walking without pain, but she's grateful for those steps, something that never would have even occurred to her before. I stand here today, a year after the very worst day of my life. The worst day. The worst day I can imagine. And two things are true. I have a huge reservoir of sadness. It is with me always. It is right here where I can touch it. I never knew I could cry so often or so much.
20:32But for the first time, I'm grateful for each breath, in and out. I'm grateful for the gift of life itself. I used to celebrate my birthday every five years and my friends' birthdays sometimes. Now I celebrate always. I used to go to bed every night, worrying about all the things I did wrong that day, and trust me, the list was long.
21:07Now I go to bed trying to focus on that day's moments of joy. It is the greatest irony of my life. That losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude. Gratitude for the kindness of my friends, the love of my family, and the laughter of my children. My hope for you is that you can find that gratitude, not just on the easy days like today, but on the hard days when you will need it.
21:57There are so many moments of joy ahead of you. The trip you always wanted to take. A first kiss with someone you really like. Finding a job you believe in. Beating Stanford. Go Bears! All of these things will happen to you. Enjoy each and every one. I hope that you live your life each precious day of it with joy and meaning i hope that you walk without pain and you are grateful for each step And when the challenges come, I hope you remember that deep within you is the ability to learn and grow.
22:48You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It's a muscle. You can build it up and then draw on it when you need it. And in that process, you figure out who you really are, and you just might become the very best version of yourself. Thank you. Class of 2016, as you leave Berkeley, build resilience. Build resilience in yourselves.
23:31When tragedy or dissonance strike, know that you have deep within you the ability to get through anything. And I mean anything. I promise you do. As the saying goes, we are more vulnerable than we ever thought, but we are stronger than we ever imagined. Build resilient organizations. If anyone can do it, you can, because Berkeley is filled with people who want to make the world a better place.
24:09Never stop working to do so, whether it's a boardroom that's not representative or a campus that's unsafe. Speak up, especially at institutions like this that you hold so dear. my favorite poster at work reads nothing at facebook is someone else's problem when you see things that are broken and you will see things that are broken go fix them build resilient communities we find our humanity our will to live and our ability to love in our relationships with each other Be there for your family and friends, and I mean in person, not just in a message with a heart emoji.
25:12Lift each other up. Help each other kick the shit out of Option B and celebrate every moment of joy. Go Bears! Cheers.
Source and licence
Recording: File:Sheryl Sandberg Gives UC Berkeley Commencement Keynote Speech.webm by UC Berkeley (2016-05-16), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.
The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.