Reclaiming the missing positive

Last month, retired U.S. soccer champion Abby Wambach visited Bristol Myers Squibb for our People Week keynote event. She told us that her speaking career began shortly after she retired, when she was asked to give a commencement speech at Barnard College. She then gave all of us some homework: go write your own commencement speech, even if you’ll never give it. Why? Because writing a commencement speech will crystallize for you what you believe, what you know, and how you came to believe and know those things. I’ve written a few things on this blog that could loosely qualify as a commencement speech (see here and here). So instead of another, I wanted to riff on an idea I recently heard at my daughter’s high school commencement – with a lesson on leadership and a call to action at the end. Cam Lynch spoke at the Wellesley High School graduation (link to his speech here, local media coverage here). He challenged his fellow graduating seniors to “Be Chalant.” The core message: kids try…