Editor’s Note: With the 2014 graduation season in full swing, Entrepreneur.com
is bringing you full commencement addresses given by some of the world’s most inspiring leaders.
When you think "bearer of wisdom," Charlie Day probably isn't the
first name that comes to mind. The 38-year-old creator and star of the
popular TV series
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a professional goof, best known for
stuff like this.
While acknowledging that he's no Steve Jobs – "I don’t know how my
computer works; I don't even know how my toaster works!" he told the
audience -- Day had some genuine lessons to Merrimack College grads
nonetheless.
He spoke about the time, fresh out of college, in which he had to
decide between taking a "big boy job" at Fidelity Investments (how he
got the offer in the first place is a long story), and moving to New
York to pursue acting.
As you can probably guess, he rolled the dice and moved to New York.
While it wasn’t always easy going – Day recounts a casting director who
told him he'd "never work in comedy" – if he was going to fall on his
face, he'd do it chasing something he loved.
It's a simple, but profound message: Success always requires the risk
of failure. "I don't think you should just do what makes you happy. Do
what makes you great," Day said. "Do what's uncomfortable and scary and
hard but pays off in the long run…Let yourself fail. Fail and pick
yourself up and fail again. Without that struggle, what is your success
anyway?"
Taking risks isn’t enough, though. To achieve greatness, Day told the
graduates, they must also create their own opportunities. In 2005, Day
had to decide whether to accept a leading role (accompanied by a big
paycheck) on a network show he didn’t believe in, or scramble to develop
a show he'd been filming with his friends, for no pay.
He rolled the
dice again. The network show,
Life on a Stick lasted one season. The show he was developing? That became
It's Always Sunny, which is currently shooting its tenth season.
Sometimes, it pays to be scrappy. "It was the riskier road and again I
could not have made a better decision," Day said. "Creating the job as
opposed to having it offered to me accelerated the process. Draw your
own conclusions here but I think the lesson is obvious. Don't wait for
your break. Make your break. Make it happen for yourself."
Read the full commencement address below:
Good morning Merrimack. I'd like to thank
President Hopey, trustees, faculty, students, parents, and my apologies
to all the grandparents in the audience who have absolutely no idea who I
am.
You are graduating from an excellent
school today. Alumni have gone on to be CEO's, doctors, politicians,
professional athletes, however this year you get to receive wisdom,
knowledge and life lessons, from a man who has made a living pretending
to eat cat food.
I do however have some qualifications,
some insight, because I, like you are becoming today, am a Merrimack
College Graduate. I know what it took to get here. I was in this very
room. I sat in those uncomfortable chairs. I dressed like some sort of
medieval pastry chef and I too desperately hoped my hangover would wear
off. If you can just make it to brunch you should be alright.
Take note. A quick observation.
Apparently the higher in life you climb in
life the more ridiculous your hats become. Like the one I'm wearing
today, or the pope's or Pharrell. So if in some way you fear success,
just think of the hats and that alone should motivate you.
This may be hard to believe but it was
roughly twenty years ago that as a freshman I first set foot on this
campus. I remember it well. My parent's eyes filled with tears. My own
nervous excitement. I entered the Ash dormitory. I walked to my room. My
heart was pounding with what the future might hold. I reached for the
door handle, grabbed it tight, only to discover it had been covered with
Vaseline.
It was a real lame prank being pulled by
the boys on the third floor. "So this is how it's gonna be" I thought to
myself. "Okay. They have no idea who just arrived on campus." I had to
take action. I befriended a guy named Ed with a similar penchant for
mischievousness. And late that evening Ed and
I went to the third floor
community bathrooms and cut all their shower curtains at waist high.
Leaving the third floor boys with a diabolical option the next morning.
Pass on a shower or take the most embarrassing shower of your life. My
apologies for the destruction of school property. I'll donate two shower
curtains. You'll have to dig up Ed to get the third.
Merrimack has come a long way since my
time. The campus has grown. The quality of student improved. U.S. News
& World Report ranked Merrimack as one of the top ten regional
colleges in the north.
In my time there was a young man at this school
who scored in the zero percentile on his SAT's meaning nobody in the
nation did worse than this man. This was a man who once mistakenly said
"he wished he lived when it was black and white."
A man who with
complete seriousness told someone, that "he would take their advice in
to cooperation." This man, of course ... was my roommate.
Did you think it was me? Come on. You're
confusing me with my tv character. No. I was a decent student and I'm
actually a doctor now. I have a PHD. I'd like to thank the school with
bestowing me with this honor and highlighting to all the students and
the other PHD's in the room today the complete and utter unfairness of
life.
And although I join the ranks of fellow
prestigious Honorary Doctors like Mike Tyson and Kermit The Frog and
although I fully acknowledge that Dr. Charlie Day sounds like some kind
of club DJ. I assure you all that I intend to go by this title from here
on out. And as a doctor I plan to start writing my own prescriptions
immediately.
Now, I know that having a honorary
doctorate degree will do nothing for me, but I'm here to tell you today
that your degrees, the ones you toiled to get, the ones you actually
took classes to earn, those degrees, will also basically do nothing.
Let me clarify. You can't exchange your
degree for cash. You can't have a degree audition or interview for you.
You cannot eat it. Please don't make love to it. You can maybe smoke it
but I wouldn't advise it.
A college degree collects dust. It does
nothing. It does however mean something. It represents something, to
yourself and your community. It tells your community. "I have expanded
my mind and destroyed my liver but I didn't give up. I pushed through. I
made it, man." And although 44 of you today took more than 4 years to
achieve that goal, nobody has to know that. Think of the plus side, you
gave your parents a couple more years of nobody living in their
basement.
Of course, jokes aside, you all should be
very proud. This is the end of an impressive chapter and in many ways
just the very beginning of what your lives will be. And I know that you
are curious about how things will go from here. Well let me tell you,
Dr. DJ Charlie Day is here to help.
I have been in your shoes. Not literally
of course. I wouldn't go anywhere near your shoes. I'm sure half of them
reek of stale beer and vomit.
No, my point is this. I was here and I
have the rare opportunity today of looking back at myself on this day
and giving myself advise. What would I say? First off, "Charlie, lay off
the dark beer and the bread. You're getting a little puffy, bud.
Also
get over that girl. She's not that into you. You're really wasting your
time, trust me she'll regret it. Oh and you don't need to worry about
Y2k it's like not even going to be a big deal or anything." Okay perhaps
this exercise isn't too helpful but the truth is I don't have a ton I
would say to myself. I'm happy with my choices. Let's face it, my life
is pretty sweet.
I'd like to tell you instead three quick
stories about some of those choices. The choices that led me from there
to here and although most of you are not planning on becoming actors and
writers I'm sure there are some parallels you can draw to help guide
your own experience. If not, feel free to tune out.
If your anything
like I was at your age I lost you somewhere around "Good morning
Merrimack."
When I left this school I was presented
with two options. Move to New York City where I knew next to nobody and
begin my pursuit of acting or take the entry level position that had
been offered to me by Fidelity Investments. I know what you may be
thinking. "Why would major financial services corporation offer this
numbskull job?" The answer is simple, because I tricked them.
Merrimack's business program was offering
interviews with the company. The students would be given a score on
their interview. I had no desire to work at Fidelity Investments but I
had never been on an audition and I thought it would be a similar
experience. I wanted to see if I could pull off the role of aspiring
banker. Or whatever they do at Fidelity.
I had a game plan. Deflect from me. Get
the guy to talk about himself. I wasn't going to lie. I just thought I'd
basically interview him. We had a pleasant conversation. If I recall
correctly we talked forever about the intricacies of water skiing, an
activity I know nothing about.
Look, had the man asked me what eight
times seven was there would have been an unbearable pause in the room.
But he didn't. The interview went so well they offered me a job. Now
this threw me a little. It was a real job. A big boy job. It was also
more money than anyone had ever offered me for anything before. "Should I
take it? Is this my destiny? Am I the next great financial genius?
Should I come up with a plan B. Work in Boston a few years at Fidelity.
Make enough money to have a cozy transition to New York."
Well, I've always had a half-baked
philosophy that having plan B can muddy up your plan A. I didn't take
the job. I moved to the city. I bussed tables and answered phones. I
lived in a basement apartment next to a garbage chute. The apartment was
filled with cockroaches. I couldn't have made a better decision. Well
maybe not the cockroach part. I should have found a different apartment.
You'll find better apartments. Just avoid the trash area.
There is an obvious lesson here about
believing in yourself, and there is the plan A plan B stuff but forget
all that for a second. I think the lesson is this. Had I worked at
Fidelity I'm sure they would have fired me eventually. I'm no financial
genius. I can barely do long division.
But I didn't want to fail at Fidelity. And
I didn't want to fail in Boston. If I was going to run the risk of
failure I wanted it to be in New York. I wanted to fail in the way and
place where I would be proud to fail, doing what I wanted to do and let
me tell you ... I did fail. Time and time again. I was too short for
this or too strange for that. I even had one casting director for a
movie say "he'll never work in comedy."
I was taking my punches but I
was in the fight. That's a metaphor of course, I highly doubt I have any
ability to take an actual punch.
My second story is a story about creating
your own opportunities instead of waiting for them to be given to you.
After a few years in New York, my foot was in the door. I was working. I
was doing bit parts in film and television like mail kid #1 and junky
#2. I couldn't get that big break. After many, many failed attempts of
getting cast in television something popped up. It looked as though I
was going to be offered a part on a big network show called "Life on a
Stick."
Around that same time because I was tired
of waiting for the big break I, along with my friends Rob McElhenney and
Glenn Howerton, started filming a show in my apartment.
We had a sense that maybe we could make a
better show than what was being offered to us at the time. We borrowed
cameras asked friends to hold microphones and shot this show that we
would eventually call "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."
Suddenly there was another decision to be
made. Another crossroad. Do I do "Life on a Stick." Take the big network
opportunity, the big paycheck or bet on myself and my friends, make no
money and try to sell what basically was a home movie as the next great
television series.
Do I try to convince people that I'm a
writer and a show runner even though I didn't own a personal computer at
the time. We were talking about a real long shot. It was the scarier
thing to do but I said "no thanks," to "Life on a Stick" and went with
"Sunny."
"Life on a Stick" went one season and
thirteen episodes. We are currently filming our tenth season of "Sunny"
we've written and produced one hundred fourteen episodes and are signed
on for another two seasons making "Sunny" one of the longest running
comedies of all time.
Again the bet on myself and my friends
paid off. This time in spades. There was power in numbers. "Sunny"
changed my life. Not only did I have a career as an actor and a writer
now, I had complete control over it control it too. If I wanted to dress
in a full body green spandex suit it went in the show.
If we wanted to
drink wine from a coke can as perhaps some of you are doing today it
went in the show and if someone thought mittens were funny on kittens it
went in the show.
It was the riskier road and again I could
not have made a better decision. Taking matters into my own hands
changed everything. Led to everything. "Horrible Bosses," "Pacific Rim,"
"Saturday Night Live." Creating the job as opposed to having it offered
to me accelerated the process. Draw your own conclusions here but I
think the lesson is obvious. Don't wait for your break. Make your break.
Make it happen for yourself.
My last story of what led me from there to
here is the literal act of agreeing to be here. When President Hopey
came to Los Angeles to sit down with me my first thought was, "here it
comes, they're gonna ask me for money." But when he asked me to speak to
you today, I quickly accepted.
Then as is the case with all great
opportunities, reality of what I had to do began to set in. "Dear God" I
said to myself, "I'm actually going to have to give a speech." I am not
a public speaker. I have a voice like a ten year old who smokes. "How
am I going to do this?"
I YouTubed commencement speeches given by
Conan O'Brien, Steven Colbert, Steve Jobs. This ... was a terrible idea.
Their speeches were so intelligent, so well informed and so eloquent
that only more panic began to set in. "What am I thinking'" "How could I
ever compare?" And the truth is, I can't. I don't host a talk show or
do stand up. As an actor normally you have cut away from me ages ago.
I am not nearly as smart as Steve Jobs was. I don't know how my computer
works, I don't even know how my toaster works! And the YouTube comments,
Oh the snarky comments! We live in a world now where things don't go
away. And that perhaps is the most terrifying thing of all.
But I didn't back out. I'm here today
speaking to you. And I know I will be posted on YouTube and judged and
compared by all who care to see. But my lesson is this. I don't give a
shit.
You cannot let a fear of failure or a fear
of comparison or a fear of judgment stop you from doing the things that
will make you great. You cannot succeed without the risk of failure.
You cannot have a voice without the risk of criticism. You cannot love
without the risk of loss. You must take these risks.
Everything I'm truly proud of in this life
has been a terrifying prospect to me. From my first play, to hosting
"Saturday Night Live," getting married, being a father, speaking to you
today. None of it comes easy. People will tell you to do what makes you
happy, but all this has been hard work.
And I'm not always happy.
I don't think you should just do what
makes you happy. Do what makes you great. Do what's uncomfortable and
scary and hard but pays off in the long run. Be willing to fail. Let
yourself fail. Fail in the way and place where you would be proud to
fail. Fail and pick yourself up and fail again.
Without that struggle,
what is your success anyway?
As best we know we have one life. In it,
you must trust your own voice, your own ideas, your honestly and
venerability and though this you will find your way. You don't have to
be fearless just don't let fear stop you.
Live like this as best as you can and I guarantee you will look back at a life well lived.
You are capable of greatness in your
profession and more importantly in your quality of self. Stay young at
heart. Stay hungry. Take those risks.
You are going to change the world around
you in small ways and in big and I greatly look forward to being a part
of the future you will shape. Congratulations graduates. And good luck.
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