Conan O’Brien’s Golden Advice About Dreams

A post for Trust 30 … a 30-day writing challenge I’m participating in.
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Today’s Prompt:

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Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down one thing you’ve always wanted to do and how you will achieve that goal. Don’t be afraid to be very specific in how you’ll achieve it: once you start achieving, your goals will get bigger and your capability to meet them will grow. (Author: Colin Wright)

My Response:

As I wrote before, goals and dreams are good, but must be held loosely with our eyes open to other paths. Being specific is good … if we are also flexible. The one goal or the one way that we think the goal should happen … might not happen after all.

Conan O’Brien says that in a way that only he can in this commencement address at Dartmouth. It’s classic Conan style with lots of humor.

Whatever you do, watch until the end — there’s true gold spoken there.

Any thoughts on his speech?

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  • Anonymous

    That was outstanding. Any other descriptors would cheapen it. Thanks for sharing, Janet!

  • http://kclanderson.com KCLAnderson (Karen)

    Thank you! It’s exactly what I needed to hear today. Makes me think that we should all have a commencement address every year!!  :-)

    • http://www.JanetOberholtzer.com Janet Oberholtzer

      I needed to hear it also … I rarely listen to or read anything twice, but I listened to this 3 times today!
      Not only is he a great speaker (trying to learn from him) but I love what he has to say about the past year or so. He lives well in the tension of negative and positive … acknowledging his disappointments without apology while knowing he’s learned great lessons and found a path that was uniquely his.  

      • Anonymous

        I just found a quote by Conan that I had copied into a document for reference earlier this year:

        Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record,
        it’s my least favorite quality, it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets
        exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard
        and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things
        will happen.
        -Conan O’Brien