Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week, at the round table of Dim Lighting, we are going to be watching and listening to our respective commencement speeches that we just gave at North Carolina State University, our alma mater. Whoop, whoop. We each gave the commencement speech for our respective engineering department, me the civil, which actually they’re calling it Civil Construction and Environmental Engineering, CCEE now. And you, the Industrial Engineering Department. Which is now called Industrial Systems Engineering. Oh, they’ve added things. They’re changing stuff. They’re expanding. Thanks to us, I’m sure. We purposely, we’ve been very excited about this. It’s been a, you know, I don’t know, almost a week since we got back, but we’ve been very purposefully. We knew nothing about this going in about the other guy’s address because we were waiting until this moment, and I can’t tell you how many times during our time in Raleigh. They were like, it became this thing amongst everybody who was there and they knew, oh, well, Rhett can’t see Link speech, and Link can’t see Rhett’s speech even though they’ll talk about it on a podcast. We’re not at the same time. We could have attended each other’s, we decided not to, to preserve this moment. And also because I just thought it would be better if you weren’t there. I don’t know how you felt about me being there for you, but I didn’t wanna be a distraction to the crowd, and I didn’t wanna be a distraction to you, but I felt like you might, I don’t know. I just didn’t, I didn’t want you to be there. I’ll get into reasons why. Okay. Interesting. But I am very excited about this because this entire thing is such an interesting experiment that I realized on the flight back, I leaned over and I was like, this is, it’s kind of a wild preposition, or proposition, I think is the right word. We were both given the same very unique assignment to give a speech in front of a very specific group of people that were very similar. In terms of like an experiment with like a control group. You know, a group of graduating engineers that went through school at the same time, the only difference is one civil and the other’s industrial engineering. But we are given the exact same assignment. What do we do with that completely independently? You know, ’cause we didn’t, we didn’t really trade notes and talk about what our approaches were. Well, we didn’t just not trade notes, we didn’t speak at all about these. The only inkling that I have is I saw you taking, like, making notes on the plane and I like saw one word. I saw one word. Which I’m not gonna tell you what that word was, because when I saw that one word, I was like, hold on. I think we may have approached this in a similar way. That was the only thing I saw one word, and I was like, wow, that word is in mine. And then the only– There’s no way we approach it in a similar way. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. But there’s no way. No. Approaching it. I know you didn’t approach it in a similar way, but I’m saying that, I’m saying thematically, I wondered, are we talking about things, a similar themes? And then the other thing was when I arrived later to the McKinnon Center, which is where they do, I mean, boy, it is like a graduation factory in there. I mean, it was just this giant convention center, which I don’t, I guess we had been in like one time before for graduation. I can’t remember where that graduation was, but– The only thing I ever saw in the McKinnon Center, was it like a, does God exist debate? Oh yeah. Was that a William Lane Craig thing? Yeah, I believe so. But then I walked by while you were, and you were up there. I walked down the hall and I looked in, I just saw you standing over the podium with your hands on the podium, kind of like with a twinkle in your eye. And I couldn’t hear anything you said, but I was like, there he is, he’s doing it. I guess I’ll find out later. And here we are, a week after set event and I’m finally gonna get to see what you did. I don’t think I would ever watch mine back if it wasn’t for this. So I’m glad we’re doing this because, you know, there’s just never a time to sit down and watch a speech and like, know that I’ll be like, I don’t know why might not feel good about it. I might be super critical of it. When it’s done live, it’s made for that room and the people who were watching when it was live streamed, but now to watch it back, it’s a different vibe. And it’s not one that I wanted to sign up for except in this context. I think there’s a, maybe there’s a lot to learn after we watch both of these things. So who’s are we gonna watch first? How are we gonna do this? Well, I know mine’s shorter than yours. I also know how long yours was because– Jenna told you that mine was over 20 minutes? Yeah. And she told me that yours was like 16 minutes. And they were supposed to be 10 minutes. But it was interesting when I, that was a question. I doubled up, I did not, didn’t understand the assignment. I asked you. I was like, “So how about how long?” ‘Cause they told told us about 10 minutes is what they said. And so I asked you how long yours was and you said, I knew if I plan for 10 minutes, I’m gonna go 15, whatever. Like, that’s just what happens. But when you said 10 minutes, I was like, okay, so he’s gonna go 25. That’s what I thought in my heart of hearts. But you went 22, 20? 22. It’s like a sitcom. And maybe you can compare it to a sitcom in other ways once you watch it. Let’s do mine second. I just feel like I got… I just feel like it’s longer and it’s… So if people get… If mine’s too long and then they can’t, if they just can’t stay through mine, then I don’t want ’em to miss yours Well, and let’s establish something. Let’s establish something. If they can’t hang on We’ll give you our perspective on this. This is not a competition, okay? Even though you people cannot help but make everything a competition and a comparison. It’s human nature, we get it. But that is not what we are doing today. We’re not seeing who did a better job. It wasn’t about that. It’s about an exploration of how– I mean, we may think it but. We explore things in our own way and we do things differently. We approach things, these things, like you said, similar assignment in particular ways. And most of the time in life, even if we’re doing something individually, if it involves a large enough audience, there is some consultation in the way that you would consult your best friend, but also in the way that you would consult your business partner and your sort of public figure partner. So this is kind of an unusual thing that we have no idea. And there’s no advising that went into it anyway. And I didn’t, the only… And really this was a function of time, as with all things in our lives, this snuck up on us. And so I was, one week before the commencement, I had not written anything, which is a little unusual for me, but actually pretty typical of our lives right now. But that weekend before is when I kind of created my outline, and then over the next couple of days, I would kind of reconfigure my outline and I made a decision. Unlike when we did our commencement speech back for our high school, 12, 10 year, however long ago that was. Which we did as a duo. And one of the reasons we did this, it was because it was a duo, but also it was a little bit more typical of all the commencement speeches that we watched in preparation was people basically go according to a script. And so I made the decision to not go according to a script, go according to an outline and kind of know what I was gonna say, but specific phrasing. There was no notes besides outline, an outline that I would return to, to make sure that I’m hitting the points I wanted. So that was my approach going in was, I’m not gonna do a scripted thing. The weekend before, the commencement address was on a Friday. So the weekend before I was on like a weekend away with Christie. We were having a romantic getaway. And by the time Sunday rolled around, I actually wasn’t coming back until Tuesday. So I had Monday, Monday was when we were coming back. Sunday is when it hit me like all the nerves associated with this thing. And I became very distracted to the point where I apologized. We were there with like a couple other friends and I was like, listen guys, I didn’t want to bring up my work, but like, I just wanna let you know that today I’ve been hit like with a ton of bricks of preoccupation with the fact that I’m giving this commencement address, and I don’t know what I’m gonna say yet. The only thing that I did know, the only work that I had done was like mental work. I had done visualization work, you know like– Picturing the crowd naked. It’s like picturing the free throws going through the basket kind of a thing. It’s important. Picture like knowing how I wanted to come across and kind of boiling that down to, well, I wanna be me. I wanna have some fun with it. I wanna be helpful to the graduates. I wanna connect and I want to be, I wanna seem comfortable up there and I want, I don’t want any notes. Don’t want any notes. Don’t want anybody to give you notes? I don’t want to have anything. I don’t wanna have anything written down. This is what I thought. I want to go up there and just know what I wanna say, and I just wanna say it. And I never wanna look down at notes. I wanna make eye contact with the graduates. I wanna connect with them. And I want it to be kind of down to earth like a fireside chat. If it feels like a podcast a little bit, I think I would be fine with airing on that side of it. And then as I started playing what I was gonna say, I actually have my notebook. I was like, I was writing it in notes. And then the night before you were out to dinner with your dad for his birthday ’cause it just happened, you know, it was perfect, you ran town. I have to be in town. And then me and Jenna went out, got something to eat. And then after it, I was like, I was kind of telling Jenna what I just told you that I was thinking like, I haven’t written anything down. Now I just have my phone and I feel like I’m gonna have to look at my notes. So now I’m gonna be looking at a phone. And it’s gonna seem like I’m up there giving a speech, but also like checking my texts. That’s not a good look. So I need note cards. Note cards? Like game show host. That’s what I thought. So I’m like, let’s go to a drugstore and buy some note cards, and I’m gonna go back to my room and write note cards. This is like the night of in my hotel room. And so we go to the tar, there’s a target on Hillsborough Street now. There’s a target. Hillsborough Street boy, what a comeback. I go in there, I’m looking at the note cards and then I look over and I was like, you know what? Note cards, you’re like, you’re juggling things. You get ’em out of order. What am I gonna do? And I’m like, this is what I’m gonna do. A spiral bound college rule notebook because tomorrow morning, you know what I’m gonna do, I’m a rule college with my commencement address. So very quickly you went from, I’m gonna have no notes to I’m going to have a notebook. Oh. And I’m gonna fill it full. Which is an interesting evolution. I mean, look at this. Don’t read the words, but just one page, two page, three page. We’re well above 10 minutes at this point. There’s no fifth page. But like, I’m like, I’m not gonna get this out of order ’cause it’s spiral bound and I’m gonna go and look I’ve, and then I’ve like circled or squared somethings, I’ve double underlined some things, so I’m gonna make eye contact with the graduates as much as possible. But if I need to look down, I can just look at my squares. ‘Cause you know what I was like, I’m not gonna compare myself to Rhett. I mean, I feel like you’re better at this type of thing than me. I mean, it just like being able to execute, getting up there and giving a speech. It fits your vibe and you have more experience doing things that are, if not that closer to it, like MC in events and like having, having a logical exposition of points that you wanna take people through. This is not the world that my brain lives in. And I was like, you know what? One of my values is just doing my thing. So it’s not productive for me to try to do what I thought would be your thing. So that was part of my mindset. And I gotta say, I was freaking out that weekend before, you know, and then once I started figuring out what I exactly wanted to say, I started to feel better. I started to get excited about the content of what I wanted to say. And then I knew I, well, I’m not gonna, there’s other things I knew that I don’t wanna give away my approach, but I had some things that I was going to do that I thought would help me in my approach and I can point some of that stuff out. So then I started to feel better. I would say that like by the night before when I was writing in this notebook, I was actually feeling pretty decent. You know, I wasn’t freaking out anymore. It was for me, I’m not afraid of public speaking, I’m afraid of trying to public speak and making a complete fool out of myself because, it implodes because I just don’t have it together. Or I, you know, something weird happens, you know how things happen to me. It’s like anything could happen. That’s true. Like knowing I need to prepare, but not being prepared yet, oh, I hate that feeling. Like that’s why I’ve never been a procrastinator because it would drive me nuts. So beforehand I felt pretty good. And then that morning I was feeling, I was feeling on a scale of 1-10, 10 being like this, I’ve just got this in the bag. Maybe I felt like a good solid seven. And you know, for a few days there I was living on like a two, it wasn’t good. How did you feel? I mean, what’s the emotional arc of your preparation if you put it on like the scale of 1-10? I mean, there’s a nagging, until you know what you’re gonna say, there’s a nagging thing underneath your conscious experience that manifests itself as anxiety that you keep finding over the weeks leading up to it. And I just tell myself, I’m like, this is not a big deal. Like this is not a big deal because whatever I bring to this group is going to be more than what they’re expecting at their civil engineering graduation. Let’s just be honest about it. Because this isn’t like the whole school where they like bring, that’s where they bring in some like celebrity from the alumni or whatever for the civil engineering. For the departmental– Or at general. The departmental graduation, that’s where they did this year. The departmental graduation, sometimes I don’t even know if it has a guest speaker sometimes, so I was kind of minimizing it in my mind, thinking that like, As a technique. I’m gonna be doing something that’s unexpected just by being there to try to give a talk that is, yes I mean my focus was to be connecting, but obviously it’s like I’m coming in there, my reputation being that I am an entertainer. And so, well this better be funny, it better be entertaining, right? So that’s kind of was in my mind. He better not implode was what I added in that. But the way that we work, which I guess is pretty typical of like, you know, creators, but it’s not typical of like if you were a standup comedian or an actor, a traditional person, traditional talent, you would get someone to write your, you would probably get somebody to write it for you or to write it with you. That’s what they all do. And every time they show up to do something. We didn’t consult with anybody. I went through the outline with Jesse one time just so that somebody could hear what I was gonna say. But we operate kind of in a little bit of a bubble. And so I think that as the day was approaching, there was a little bit, there was anxiety of like, this makes sense in my mind, but like, I haven’t run any of these jokes by anybody. And like, I was gonna go pretty joke, not, I mean, not joke, joke, but like, there’s a number of things that I’m going to say that I am intending to be funny and I’m also, because I’m going according– But don’t call ’em jokes But because I’m going according to an outline, I also know I’m gonna be presented with opportunities for new jokes to come to life in the moment. Because I’m not going according to a script. And when you throw out two jokes a minute in 16 minutes or whatever, are they all gonna land? And what happens if they don’t land? I also thinking like, I haven’t done this in a very long time. Maybe over the course of our life I’ve got experience kind of getting up in front of people, but like, not recently by myself, me and you get up and do things together. But like, this is, it felt… I was surprised with how as it got closer, I was like, I don’t know if I’m ready for prime time. You know, that started– You rusty, you got a little rusty. The anxiety was increasing, and also the like, the rationalization process of minimizing if it was a big deal or not to try to cope. That was what was happening. Minimizing, blaming in denial. But as it was getting closer and closer, I was like, I feel good about this. I don’t feel great. ‘Cause I don’t think I have– Your posture doesn’t say that you feel great. I don’t think I have a right to feel great about this because this is the first time I’ve done this ever, really. And last thing I’ll say, ’cause we wanna get to ’em, is I was like, how many times have the two of us found ourselves in situations where we are bringing something that no one is asking for? We do it all the time All the time. Like, we have a lifetime That’s great. of bringing things Usually to have lowered expect, to surprise people. No, it’s not always great. It’s not. Yeah, that’s what I said. Because– Usually, but not always. If you’re a standup comedian– Are you hedging now? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. ‘Cause the last thing I’ll say before we watch mine is what you said to me. You said one thing to me, but where my mind was, well, if you’re a standup comedian and you show up at a comedy club, you are walking into an environment where the people are there to laugh. Now that doesn’t mean you won’t bomb, and that doesn’t mean… I’ve never done standup comedy. I don’t want to, I’m sure it’s very, very difficult. But the number of times that we’ve shown up in a space where no one was expecting for anyone to try to make them laugh at all, and then there’s an adjustment period where they’re like, oh, this guy’s trying to be funny. Well, maybe I should start trying to think that. Like a college, church service. Or a rehearsal dinner. Or yeah, things of that nature maybe. But weird, a funeral, weird professional situation. I’ve worked a funeral in my day. So I was thinking that. A lot more than you actually. And then on the day of, you went first, which I was a bit envious of the fact that you got to go at like 11:00 AM and I got to go at 1:30. So I had to sit there, I had to eat lunch. I had to see you come back in. The one thing that you told me was, is essentially, I’m not wanna give the exact words because that was what you said about yours, and we’re gonna watch yours second. But you basically encouraged me to temper my expectations about the responsiveness of the crowd, which was consistent with what I was thinking, which is these are engineers and their family going to an engineering graduation. They’re all there thinking about this transition in their lives and the life of the person they’re there to support. Ant it’s kind of serious. It’s kind of serious. They’re wearing robes, Robes, everyone’s robed. And hated. And it’s a serious atmosphere. And then bringing something that will have serious points but is not serious in tone throughout, I was like, I don’t know how this is gonna go. And when you said that, it was like, okay, all right. I will be prepared for a number of these things to not land and they won’t be responsive, but I’m gonna stay the course regardless. Gotta stay the course. Yep. You’re welcome. All right, let’s give a plug for our “My Hair” song before we get into this. Every year we release a vinyl on the Mythical Society. This year it’s a remake of the “My Hair Goes” song. The world is right again. ‘Cause I’m singing “My Hair Goes” up, we switched parts, you know, and if you want this, what are they need to join? You can sign it by quarterly or annual third Degree Mythical Society membership by June 30th. And this is your last window. This is your last window of time to be able to get this. You wanna maintain that collection or start that collection. It’s a good looking album. Mythicalsociety.com. Mythicalsociety.com. Ear Biscuits is brought to you by Better Help. Most weeks, you know, my time is filled with this job that we have here. This good old job. And my time at home as a husband, as a father, and you can realize that most of the week has passed and I haven’t taken any time for me. And I can’t be the best me for everyone else in my life when that is the case. I feel that it’s easy to get caught up in doing things for others, especially as bosses, husbands, and fathers like we are which can lead to things like burnout and stress. And therapy can give you the tools to have more balance in your life so you can support yourself and support others at the same time. I believe in my therapy as me time. Even when I don’t know that I have things to talk about, I end up having stuff to talk about, things to process, to understand myself better and to put myself to enter back into the game. You know, it’s like take a little me in the dugout, then get back in the game. 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It only takes two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ear. That’s chime.com/ear. Chime is a financial technology company. Not a bank banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Court Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members FDIC. Early access to direct deposit funds depends on payer spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limit supply see chime.com/spotme. All right, so they recorded. I’m almost as nervous. Each of our– As I was before I actually did it. I felt a little bit nervous. Okay, here it is. So we got yours up here and we’re gonna try not to talk over it. So we will be pausing it. Well, I’ve already started playing it. We will be pausing it so that we can talk so that you can hear it, and then hear us talk about it separately. Okay. So we’ll start with– And this is Jackie. Jackie, the head of the department who is introducing me. We have one more speaker for today and I think the bar is set really high by these two. Oh, you already had two speakers. The valedictorian. To introduce Rhett McLaughlin, our graduations speaker. Rhett grew up in Harnett County and graduated from this department magna cum laude with a degree in civil engineering in 2000. Nice. Started down the path of an engineer working for Black and Veatch, and then later on felt called to join his best friend from childhood who also is a graduate of this college to enter a brand new industry that was just developing at the time which was internet entertainment. Okay. Is she stealing your thunder a little bit now? And so he and his friend Link Neil became partners. I didn’t expect this. And they started a YouTube video series called Good Mythical Morning, that my youngest son was a big fan of, I have to say. Was. My credibility with my kids. She said it was. I’m used to that. Told them who I was getting to meet today. But that show has had 8 billion views. Billion, imagine that. Is that true? Eight billion views. Doesn’t sound true. And it has 18.1 Million current subscribers. Is that true? I think so. That is not the only thing he’s done with his engineering degree. He and Link also run a media. I like how I’m being mentioned multiple times, this is good. And podcast shows for other people as well. To set your expectations. Said this morning they’ve got about 150 employees working for their company. So maybe you can correct me if I’m wrong Rhett. But they also, if that weren’t enough, the best selling authors. She’s laying it on thick. Books that have made the New York Times best Sellers list. The first one, Rhett and Link’s, book of mythicality “A Field Guide to Curiosity and Creativity”. You didn’t get an intro like this? Talks about everything they learned– Julie gave me the intro I wanted, I’ll say that. The expectations are going up and up and up. The more that you know, Jackie’s talking. The “Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” is a fiction book that reached number 13. I like how we’re gonna get to watch this. So welcome home Rhett and we are so grateful to you for sharing your thoughts and wisdom with the class of 2023. Here we go. Clap, clap, clap. Golf clap. Golf claps. How many people are in the audience do you think? Over 500. There he is. You wearing jeans? No. Man, he’s tall. I’m not really built for podiums. I’m surprised that made it past fact checker, we made all that up. So you’ve taken the mic off the stand. Unplanned joke. So you had a tall joke which was planned from your seat. I was watching people at the podium. I was like, I’m gonna be real big for that. I gotta have something. You gotta have a tall joke and then you’re gonna have a bio joke. And you’re grabbing the mic. So power move right at the top. So you asked if I was wearing jeans, this is the only thing I’m gonna say. This is the only thing I’m gonna say about the way I look because you’re Mr. Average size. Let’s talk about the speech, man. You look great. No, no. I’m self-conscious about what I wore because I’ve outgrown all of the suits that I have here. So literally the day before we went, I had to go to Pasadena and just walk around until I found some place that had something big enough for me. And I found the Banana Republic and the only jacket they had in the entire store that would fit was a white linen jacket and those pants. You could go straight to Key West. And so I was like, and Jessie saw it, she was like, I think I would probably go with something a little more structured, but that was all I had. I was feeling a little bit, I was like, I’m wearing a linen jacket. I don’t feel like this is appropriate for a graduation. But that was just where my mind was. And the only other thing I’ll say about my look is that I have two choices about how I’m gonna wear my hair to some kind of event like this. It’s either down or up. And I was like, if it’s down, I’m gonna be touching my hair to get it outta the way. Which I hate watching people touch their hair to get outta the way and I do it all the time, and I hate the fact that I have to do it. So now my only recourse is of man bun, which is immediately something I don’t wanna have in front of this group. So I kind of, I was going up with a low level of confidence. Let me just say that. This is the first time I’ve addressed a crowd of mixed company with this haircut, and it took some adjusting. Mixed company? Yeah. Play. I don’t really feel qualified to be here. I haven’t done a lot of engineering over the past 20 years. I have eaten a lot of weird stuff with my best friend on the internet, apparently that’s good enough. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for mentioning me. You may have noticed something lately as you are in the midst of this transition from whatever you’re doing now to whatever you’re about to do. A lot of people are doing some pretty impressive things from what I just heard. But you’ve probably noticed that the older people in your life are giving you lots of unsolicited advice. We cannot help it. It is built into our DNA. We see somebody going through something that is a lot like something that we went through in the past and we cannot resist to force feed you our nuggets of wisdom. We got lots of nuggets of wisdom and we love it when you’re trapped in a room and we have a microphone and a podium. It doesn’t get any better than this for us. Now the laughter is muffled. let’s just say– They’re not micd, the crowd is not micd The crowd is not micd. They were laughing. You can hear ’em. I didn’t hear ’em laugh earlier, but I did hear ’em laugh right there. But you see also look at, so this is Anna here, the valedictorian. She’ll laugh for the smart jokes. And then there’s another very smart… All these, the ones on the stage. And this will come in with a joke later. Don’t spoil it. The smartest kids are at least the ones who applied themselves the most and got the best grades are on the stage, whereas all the rest of the ones are in the crowd, so I’m looking at both, the students who just finished undergrad plus the ones that finished their master’s degree, plus the ones that finished their PhD. ‘Cause they combined everybody and then all their families on the other side. So I’m looking over here to the left because that’s where all the students are. Yeah, for me too. And I am included myself in older people, I’m 45 guys. I’ve got this weird haircut. Like, what’s wrong with, what’s the wheel on the back of his hair? What’s he doing with that? Oh no, you’re making fun of their accents. It’s a hair bun. Rhett. I have a secret though from all us older people and that is, we don’t have any idea what we’re doing. We are making it up as we go. The only thing that we’ve gotten better at is appearing like we’ve got it together. I like this. Do not trust us. Oh, don’t trust old people. You see that’s a secret that we are not willing to share with each other or you on a regular basis, and it gives you permission to not listen to anything I’m gonna say. But I would like you to act like you are listening because that would help me with my performance and confidence. I would like you to close your eyes. Oh, you just have to look at you. It’s gonna be a little awkward. I hate it when people who are speaking to groups ask the group to close their eyes, but I’m doing it. Close your eyes, and I’m going to ask you a series of questions. I’m not gonna come out there. It makes me feel awkward when people do this. It makes me feel vulnerable ’cause I feel like maybe the speaker’s gonna come out and pop me in the face. I’m not gonna come out and punch anybody in the face. Why would you even think that? Why would you even ask that? I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna ask you to do a little thought experiment with you. You asked ’em to close their eyes, that’s bold. I want you to imagine yourself in the future, 10 years in the future. The year is 2033. I’m no longer an engineer, but I can still do math. I’m gonna ask you a series of questions about what your life is going to be like and I want you to do your best to actually make a specific decision, a prediction as to how things are gonna be. And I want you to be bold. I want you to, you know, pick the thing that you want to happen. The ideal answer. Keep it realistic now. I mean, let’s be grounded. You’re not gonna be one of the first or the first ever civil engineer to win a Nobel Prize. No one’s ever done it, you’re probably not gonna do it. So keep it grounded. Keep it realistic. 10 years from now, you wake up– You are strolling the stage. I like it. Are you in your parents’ house? No shame, no shame in that if you are. Are you in your own place? Oh, look at you. The cameraman’s got his eyes closed. There’s someone next to you in bed. Yes, there are still beds in 2033. Who is this in bed with you? And there’s a guy with a hard hat on the stage. So all the construction graduates wear hard hat. So he was the only one that made it to that part. But there’s like 50 of ’em in there. So instead of graduation cap. So I just reminded a little bit ’cause you you missed another little joke. We gotta get all your jokes. But since you did pause, man, big move here. What was the rationale? And okay, I know the rationale. You’re getting ’em to close their eyes. This is a good bit, but it also is pertinent. It’s getting them in the mind frame of themselves. Well, this is my whole point, as you will see, my whole point was about– Well, don’t give me the point, I wanna get the point. No, I’m saying this sets the stage from my whole talk. Oh yeah. I’m assuming. I mean, I’m assuming they open their eyes at some point. Next to you in bed. Yes. There are still beds in 2033. Who is this in bed with you? Is it a dog? Is it a cat? Are you one of those people? It’s not a snake, is it? You don’t, don’t, listen don’t be one of the people that has a snake or a reptile in the bed, okay? It’s weird. It’s probably unsafe. Is it a person? Is it a person? All right. You got a person? Is this person someone that you know right now? Is this person someone you would like to know? They don’t look quite as good in the morning, do they? Time to go to work okay, what’s your job? Where you going? Are you going to a job that is somehow related to what you just studied? You going to an office? Do you have your own office? Is this job in a field that you did not study for, you working inside, you’re working outside, are you having fun? Okay. You can open your eyes. Unless you’re asleep. I didn’t come and punch you in the face. I saw the way you looked at me. Oh, now you’re going behind a podium again. Okay. Notes. If you had asked me to do this particular exercise in the year 2000 when I was sitting where you’re sitting right now, I would’ve gotten a lot wrong. I would’ve gotten one thing right. I was engaged with my wife at the time and we’re still married. Hold your applause. She looks great in the morning. I think she might be watching the live stream. She looks great in the morning. But I would’ve gotten everything else wrong, including my job because as was mentioned earlier, I got a job in an industry that did not yet exist. If you would’ve told me in the year 2000 that in the year 2010, I would be a YouTuber, I would’ve been like, okay, I guess I’m gonna be making personalized tubes for people. I mean, we got catheters, oxygen things. Yeah. People like ’em different, different colors. It’s pretty wild. That’s not what it is by the way. You’ll see, And the reason that I was able to get a job in an industry that didn’t yet exist is because things changed so much just during the time that I was in college. But when I got to NC State, I did not have a computer, a cell phone or an email address. I got my first ever email address when I showed up here. That’s true. And when I graduated, I had multiple email addresses, a cell phone, a personal computer. Stop bragging. And those changes that were happening to all of us at the time ended up creating this opportunity that I couldn’t anticipate. And think about how much more things have changed for y’all since you started school. I mean, we talked, I mean we’ve talked about COVID a lot. And you had to be in school during it, but it didn’t just make it, you didn’t make this specific time just different for you. It’s made the world different. We live differently, we work differently, we think differently because of that. Some other things have happened. Like we’re kind of sort of involved in a war right now. Where there’s a legitimate possibility that someone might detonate a nuclear bomb. Like that kind of happened. Oh, and by the way, apparently there’s aliens now. Why are you trying to scare ’em? That happened while you were in school. I’m not We got aliens. People started talking about it like they’re having senate hearings about it. And maybe the most important thing, the most significant thing that you’re probably already tired of people talking about is the revolution in AI that has been happening over the time that you’ve been in school. But you’re tired of hearing people talk about it, but you’re the first graduating class that is being deployed into the next step in your life, in the midst of a world where there’s been an absolute revolution in this. And now it’s readily available to the public and it’s already changing the way people are working, the way people are learning in very significant ways. I often wonder if I could still do engineering. I knew you were gonna talk about it, you had to. You know tube thing doesn’t work out. And I had a little chat with my friend GPT out of curiosity. And I entered a series. I was like, you know, first of all, I was just, no offense guys, I was in the easy one. I was in water resources. This is the easy one, right? Okay. That’s a joke for just them. Oh, and they loved it. Right. I mean, you know, rain pipes, tubes, really? There you go. And I was like, what if I had to design a parking lot right now to park 300 cars, and I needed an adequate drainage system and an adequate retention pond, could I do that? Well, yes. Apparently in 12 minutes, one-on-one time with Chat GPT I was able to do that. And not just that I was able to have it generate Python code for me that could create a visualization of this parking lot with the locations of the drains. Really? 12 minutes. That was a little concerning. Now I will say that it repeatedly said, you know, you really should be working with a professional engineer. Really? Huh? So the robot overlords believe that your job is necessary, at least for now. But what is the significance– This myth of the parking lot? Do I think this means that your education is useless? Parents no, but do I think there is a significance to the fact that this advanced language model that is getting better by the second already knows everything that I’ve forgotten about engineering? I think there is some significance to that, but I’m not gonna say, well, you’re not gonna have jobs. No. There’s gonna need to be a human element in all this. But as it relates to that thought exercise, it has made your future incredibly unpredictable. And what does that mean for you? Well, unfortunately you’re humans and we don’t like unpredictability. In fact, we take a lot of comfort in orienting our present in order to increase the probability of some future desired outcome. In some ways that’s what school is, right? You’re doing things now. You’re making good decisions. Some of you better than others, to orient the present towards a future desired outcome. And what happens when humans arrive to the future, when they arrive at that outcome, usually it’s one of two things, right? First thing that happens quite often is you arrive at some point in the future and you do not get the thing that you wanted and you are disappointed. You’re kind of a downer rep. And then sometimes you arrive at that point in the future and you get the thing that you wanted and you are disappointed. It’s funny how that works. And it’s so common. It’s so common for people to arrive at points in the future and be disappointed regardless of whether things go right or wrong. That we’ve come up with all kinds of cliches and advice that you’ve heard before. That’s the good news. Well, the bad news is, you’re gonna be disappointed in your future. Thank you. Goodnight. The good news is, we’ve all been here before and there’s actually a lot of wisdom that has been dispensed that you already have, you already know. You’ve heard these things before, right? Give it to us. Focus on the journey, not the destination. I like that. That sounds good. Live in the present, not the future or the past. I love that. Don’t spend so much time and energy thinking about what you want be grateful for what you have now. Have an attitude of gratitude. Get it on a bumper sticker, t-shirt, maybe tank top. Yes. I like that. That’s all great. It’s all great. We all agree, but we have a really difficult time believing it and feeling it. You know, when I was sitting where you’re sitting and if you had told me this, I would be like, yes, I agree with all this. Everything you’re saying is right. It’s about the journey, not the destination. You gotta have an attitude of gratitude. But I would go on over the next 20 years to continue to attach myself to future desired outcomes, and to arrive at those things and lemme tell you, this whole tube thing has gone pretty well. People are really into the tubes. I got a lot to be grateful for. But I have still arrived at these points in my life and experienced mixed in with contentment, this disappointment. So what I say to myself knowing that you probably like me. Yeah, get a little headroom, Would agree with these ideas, but might have a difficult time really making it a part of the way you navigate life. Well, I had another chat with my friend GPT. I entered everything that I have said thus far into the prompt and asked it to give me a compelling, dramatic ending for a group of graduates. Oh, so you cheated. This is what they said. As you stand on the precipice of a new chapter in your life, dear graduate, remember to seek the nourishment of happiness within the fertile soil of personal growth and the present moment. Though the allure of future achievements may becken, entwining your contentment too tightly with their attainment can leave you adrift. It’s natural to dream. But let your heart remain rooted in the here and now, for it is within this balance that you will truly flourish as you embark on life’s grand odyssey. Y’all gonna clap for a computer? Listen, I was not that impressed with what Chad GPT had to say. I didn’t find it all that compelling. And you know why? And maybe you agree, Y’all go clap for a computer? Is that I knew that that perspective did not come from human experience, it came from human mimicry. It didn’t come from someone that can experience disappointment, it came from something that has learned how to talk like someone who can experience disappointment. And so instead of leaving you with that, I’ll leave you with this. You are going to experience disappointment. In very various stages in your life. You’re gonna get to something, like I said, whether it goes right, whether it goes wrong, you’re gonna get there and you’re gonna be disappointed. And when you feel that disappointment, realize that it’s a gift. The disappointment is a gift that you can take and use it to chip away at your attachment, your very human attachment to specific desired outcomes. And never stop chipping away at that attachment. You’ll probably never completely sever it, but you gotta keep trying. And also, if your computer becomes sentient, starts doing weird things, take your disappointment and sever the power cord. Okay, thank you. Yes. That was better than Chat GPT. If it wasn’t, that would’ve been a bit– You thought I was just gonna end with a Chat GPT ending? No, but I think they did ’cause they were like, oh, should we clap? Y’all gonna clap for a computer? Put that on a tank top. That was good. I think that, you know, I can see so much of you in it and like, I feel like you gave ’em yourself, which I think was great. And like the fact that you’re sharing that hey, you got what you wanted yet you still encountered disappointment, I think that’s a sobering reality for these graduates. So what did they say afterward? So afterward we went to a reception with parents and students and I mean, lots of people came up and were, had lots of kind things to say about it. For me, it really was this like what would I have… One girl came up and she said she, I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially she said something like, you actually said something that made me think. It meant something to me and I’m gonna take that with me. And that was the only thing I was actually trying to do. Was be like, you’re in this point in your life and you, the person gives a commencement speech, and it’s in the middle of a blur of events over the course of a couple of weeks and you don’t remember any of it, right? I don’t remember mine at all. And so I’m like, I’m gonna try to be funny enough so that they’ll perk up and listen. And then is there one thing that is true that I can communicate that haven’t been impactful to me? And so that was the strategy. And the fact that she said, she essentially confirmed like, I got what you were trying to say. And then a lot of the parents came up and were be like, what you said was so true. I’m so disappointed. So true. Not in you, but in life And did people quote the, like when you talked about the water, like cutting on the water. People loved that. A heyday with that once. People laughed afterwards. And then Jenna– I have a version of that. Jenna you said that you had a good view of the faculty at that moment. Oh. Yes. The faculty there was a lot of laughing and then looking to someone and pointing that I’m assuming was like a jab at like possibly the, whoever followed that water degree The faculty got a big kick out of it. I mean, the reason I said that is because I literally switched to it because the other concentration in the structural engineering was too difficult for me. The last thing I say, and we gotta get to yours is… I forgot what I was gonna say. I had one other thing. Oh, oh, oh. I at times felt, and I didn’t anticipate this, but again, I don’t do this often at all, but there was a couple of moments and then I feel it again while watching. This is just like, I seem like a preacher. I thought the same thing for me. And I watch a lot of preachers. Well, well you know, when you were making a point about the preacher part for me, and I think I was, ’cause I felt it for myself and I think mine was really obvious. Yours was not obvious. But I pick up on it, you know, it’s like we’ve seen so many preachers that like you fall into this speaking technique. Many of the things that we’ve learned subconsciously that we just absorbed over the years is from watching like pastors speak, and they’re always trying to motivate you and they’re always making an illustration. They’re always telling a personal story. And so much of our training came through that. And so it’s hard to avoid, but just like holding a microphone and walking around and like being a little bit dressed up and like, this looks like a church livestream feed. You know what I mean? And so I definitely felt that. Now I’m doing this talk at NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. These kids have probably been to church quite a bit, so maybe it’s more effective. But I didn’t particularly like that, but I also don’t know how to not do it. I think my favorite part was the whole closed eyes bit. Why does that make you laugh? Why did you like it? Because I felt like it was a bit of a risk, You’re like, you’re putting people, you know, it’s like getting people to close their eyes. I like the fact that you implicated that maybe you were thinking you could punch somebody in the face. It’s like, oh, I’ve got ’em in a weak spot. I love that. But then it was like, it was participatory and you kind of guided them through an exercise of visualization. I think that that will stick with a lot of people. And then the fact that then you tied it to, I mean, you’ll see in mine, but like, there’s some uncanny moments there in the application of that. But I think that that was, I think that was really powerful. And then I think you sharing that like, hey, even when it’s not good news, we gotta, you know, this is a sobering reality that can still be good news of like hacking away at your attachments to something that you’re visualizing that just may not turn out or even if it does, it’s not gonna be everything you thought it would be. So, I mean, without going full Buddhist. It was very Buddhist. I felt like that was very, I think that was very helpful and very memorable. Our commencement 10 years ago was pretty Christian. I think there was a bible verse. I went more Buddhist but without saying that’s what I was doing. Okay. See, I’m glad we did yours first, ’cause now mine’s longer. And here we go. You know, it’s like, should we make it a part two? You can make it your own part two. Oh no. Keep it all together. You can pause it and this is a good place to like, take a breather if you’re not ready for a second commencement address. But I mean, well, maybe we just don’t watch mine. Yes, we’re gonna watch yours. You have so much composure. Are you saying that you didn’t? I don’t know, I don’t know how much composer I have. You’re being too nervous. Let’s just play it. Let’s just play it. So you get to see the graduates in my shot. So you can see the full bio of our commencement speaker on the back. I will not read to you the full bio of Mr. Link Neil. Yeah. You can read it yourself. Is it okay if I call you Link? That’s my name. Well, I’m gonna do it anyway, so. I didn’t say no. Link is a graduate of industrial engineering from NC State. Link did work as an engineer at IBM before he went on to a career in entertainment. And he and fellow engineer, Rhett McLaughlin, begin a company and are well known for their social media presence across YouTube and many other elements, including books that they have written, podcasts that they have, et cetera, et cetera. If I were to ask our graduates today whether they have seen one of the episodes or videos from Rhett and Link, I’m pretty sure that they would all say yes. And those of you who haven’t, I encourage you to check it out later. It’s almost about as many people in the audience, maybe 500. It may seem interesting to you that we’ve invited someone in the entertainment industry from YouTube to speak to engineers today. But I will tell you that I know Link is still an industrial engineer down to his soul, and his career is an example of how flexible the industrial engineering degree is. Now if you know, if you’ve watched much of the work by Rhett and Link, you will sometimes see that they are self-deprecating. So he says, don’t expect too much. And so I’ll leave you with that and please join me in welcoming– That’s nice. She gave you the self-deprecating. I told her to say that. I said lower the bar. Don’t expect you much. I said lower the bar. That’s what you want somebody to say. Now there’s a picture of you up there on the screen. Yeah, there is. I didn’t get that. Notebook. Congratulations guys. Man, look at you. Honestly, you don’t look nearly as scared as I thought you should. You know, you should be happy, but you should be scared. Not because of your future, but because I’m giving your commencement address. Anything could happen. Anything. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Exactly. Strong start. Did you see that? Yeah. So similarities here. You’re not unexpectedly, your mic grab was a little bit more aggressive than mine. Yeah. I wasn’t surprised. But also, I mean, same thought, same thought. You were like, I’m not gonna get up there and stay behind the podium. Yeah, but you immediately you did the walk before the talk. You came to the edge of stage before you even said a word. I mean, I like it. I like it. It feels powerful. I like your, I mean, I like your pent stripe suit. Can’t really tell that it’s pens striped on this. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. It was a good start. Yeah. I snatched that thing. That was just pure energy, that it was just coming outta everywhere. But I do wanna give you a gift. I wanna give you a gift of the tale of Elkhound Snugglebaby. Oh my gosh. Once upon a time in the pandemic, there was a middle-aged man with glasses, green goofy hair, and a successful internet show who wanted to be a DJ. Did I get a chuckle from the camera person? He wanted to be a DJ. It is snort laugh. He liked playing music for his friends. And then one day he took a big step, he decided to buy a DJ deck. I’m talking about one of those boxes with a big circles on it and all of the buttons. Did he know what those buttons did? Of course not. But he didn’t know the one thing that you all know about a DJ, and that’s this, you’re not really a DJ until you played a gig in public. Say what you want if you haven’t played a gig you ain’t no DJ. Okay, let’s pause at this point. First of all, there was no cameraman. I looked over at the camera and it wasn’t anybody there. So who’s snorting? I don’t know, somebody near the camera. Oh, somebody near the camera. Okay. So this is unexpected. I would not have been able to predict that this would start with the tale of Elkhound snuggle baby. So it’s hard to see their faces because I’m only seeing the backs of their heads at this point. So at this point in your story, what are you getting from them? Very little. And that’s why when I walked back to the podium, I was like, he wanted to be a DJ and then I looked down at my notes and I was on page four, and so I’m like turning my spiral notebook back and I’m saying– Four? Yeah. And I’m like, he wanted to be, flip the page, still not the right page. Get back to page one. A DJ. And then I got it how I wanted it. And then I’m like thinking, oh, this crowd is stiff. Now I’m actually hearing some laughter. The onboard mic is actually helping my cause a little bit. I’m hearing responsiveness. I was kind of trying to get in your head at this point. Oh, why I’m telling this story? No, when you’re telling this story, is it kind of like, where’s your head at? I’m like, okay, I gotta stick to the game. I’m telling this story. I decided if I can get in story mode, that will help me. ‘Cause I experienced it, and I feel like I can tell a story. So like, I’m gonna lean on that and I’m gonna have like the key moments of the story written down. Like when I tell a story here, it’s like I might write down a key point or two. So it made me feel a little more comfortable. But then that was, met with like kind of like some shock. It was just like, like people they didn’t know what to do with it. They didn’t expect it. The thing that I did on purpose was deciding to tell this story that would just surprise, this is not what anybody expected. I thought it set up what I wanted to say. So, I mean, you’d be the judge of that. Long pause. So he decided to take another big step. He decided to make an announcement and he said, I’m gonna play my first ever DJ gig at Mythical. Now, for those of you who don’t know, which I’m sure is the minority, Mythical is a convention full of supportive fans of, let’s just say this aspiring DJ’s Day job. So making that your first gig, it kind of mitigates the risk a little bit, right? These are supportive fans of this guy, but still, I mean, it’s over a thousand people. I mean that’s quite a premier gig. Maybe you should have thought about starting a little smaller, but it was too late. He had made that announcement. At this point. This is no longer just some fun little hobby this was getting real guys, real scary. Really scary. Okay. I’m not gonna keep pausing it. No, you can pause it. I’m putting myself in the shoes of a student who doesn’t know who you are and it’s like I’m processing so many things and all of a sudden there’s this man up there. They did seem like they were processing a lot. And he’s saying things like really scary. Right, right. I made up my mind. I was like, I’m gonna be me. Yeah. And you’re gonna have to reckon with it. Mission accomplished. But he knew the most important thing about being a DJ was picking out a DJ name. Every good DJ has a good DJ name. He wanted to pick out something that was unforgettable yet kind of hard to remember. He wanted to pick out one, a DJ named that when you said it out loud, you couldn’t keep a straight face. And he came up with Elkhound Snugglebaby. I for one think it was a good choice, but let’s test it out. We’re gonna wake up a little bit. You feeling a little too serious? I would like to count to three. And then in unison, I would like all of us say Elkhound Snuggle. See crowd interaction. I’m gonna count to three. Please cooperate. I’m gonna count to three we’re gonna say Elkhound Snugglebaby. One, two, three. Elkhound Snugglebaby. He was right. You’re smiling. So we had that figured out. And then he knew well, he needed a look. And every good DJ has a signature look. Sometimes they have a costume. Some DJs are doing the helmet thing. So ES, ’cause I sometimes call him, decided that he was going to drape fake cheeks bull fabric over his bare shoulders and chest to look kinda like a Viking tunic. And then he had an enormous headpiece made that emanated from his head region. And it was too huge, let me do this, too huge, Elk antlers spreading about two feet above his head and about five feet across. He looked pretty vicious, but also a little bit slimy. So he had the name, he had the signature look. And then the night of his set finally arrived. See, I’m seeing why it took me 22 minutes. The story is pretty detailed. I am talking three times as slow. I’m talking on one third speed. That always happens when you speak though. When I get up there, I’m speaking way too slow. Yeah. It’s usually like if you plan for 10, it’s gonna be… I gotta speak faster next time I give this exact speech. ‘Cause you’ll do this again. That’s my main critique of myself, is I’m speaking two slow. I’m losing my energy. I’m losing my vibe. But now I’m at the gig. I’m not done with this story. Oh, I know, I’m familiar with the story. He kick things off “24K Magic” Bruno Mars. Pink your fingers to the moon. You’re really getting this person next to the camera. He sprinkled in some 21 Savage. Don’t say another thing. Some Megan B. Stallion, yadi, yadi. Now you’re connecting with the kids. Yeah. Connecting with the. The crowd was loving it y’all. He seamlessly transitioned from Totos Africa into Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like it’s Hot”. Some stirring. It was going great until it wasn’t. He pushed the wrong button, something he, maybe he forgot how the buttons worked. Maybe he, nobody knows what happened. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what happened. But it was pretty clear that he was unable to play his next song. In fact, he was unable to play any song, which as it turns out, is pretty important for a DJ. At this point he took another big step. He grabbed the microphone and he made an announcement. He said, I would play another song, but I can’t figure out how, so I’m just gonna leave now. And he did. We walked off stage, which wasn’t easy with the we never heard from him again. Actually, Elkhound Snugglebaby did live to DJ another day. Even though I think what happened was most accurately described as an enclosure. He did live another day. How do I know that? Because I stand before you today, I’m Elkhound Snugglebaby. I bet you didn’t see that coming. Not yet. Maybe you did see it ’cause you got a college degree. Oh, that’s good. See, it was me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a little bit for a second there I may have thought you were talking about like a historical figure. What do you think you were getting from the parents? I was not, I made up my mind. I was like, I’m not gonna look at the parents or the grandparents or the siblings. I’m only gonna look at the graduates. That’s my best chance of getting through this. That’s who I wanna connect with. And yeah, I think when I got the applause, I think the parental applause was, history is over. I’m supposed to applaud now, but the joke was? I’m just getting started. No, no. That wasn’t a joke. That wasn’t a joke. No, the story was over. But the joke was that, it was that I knew that I had telegraphed that it was me. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed that joke. Once you got into the– And that was my time, by the way. I think that when– Hold on, I have an application to this story. My obvious at this point is when you get into the, like, the specific musical references and the little like call outs and stuff like that, you can see their hats start moving a whole lot more. Because now– There’s murmurs. I think that there is a sort of a realization of like, this guy is telling this story in this fashion. And I think that there’s sort of a realization of like, this is gonna be interesting. I told ’em anything could happen. And so I think that at this point you’re getting people to be like, all right, okay, where is this going? I do feel like I was winning ’em over a little bit, but now I gotta lay some pipe. Is that the right? No. I gotta actually say something substantial. Yeah. Right. Which is the part where I was like, oh, I gotta, I need notes. Yeah. Go back to the notes. Here we go. What am I saying? Why am I gifting you with this tale of Elkhound Snugglebaby? Well, isn’t it pretty clear now that you have your industrial engineering degrees, drop everything and pursue a career in professional DJing. Oh, that’s your thank you goodnight. Yeah. We both had that. Thank you. Goodnight. You thought I was gonna say become a YouTuber. Don’t do that. But when I share my experience as Elkhound Snugglebaby, including the implosion, I will say that honestly, I don’t regret a second of it. You know, every single part of. I don’t regret a second it. I learned to relish, man. And there’s just something deeply satisfying about identifying a passion and then going after it. Even if the path to get there is really unclear, even if the results are anything but guaranteed, that can be deeply rewarding. Now I wanna go into dad move with you guys. So today I’m hearing yourselves. I wanna give you some advice that maybe you can use that will help you out as you enter the rest of your life. And so I have a general guiding principle that when I look back over the course of my career, and I’m not just talking about DJ career, I see a pattern of whenever there were crucial junctures in my life when I was making big decisions or small decisions that I didn’t realize would have ripple effects throughout my entire life, there’s one common principle that was there, and I’m gonna share it with you. Maybe you not take or leave it, maybe it could be of help to you. I’ll say that this guiding principle is the reason that Elkhound Snugglebaby does exist. Maybe more importantly, I would say this principle is the reason that good Mythical Morning our daily talk show exists. I would say that without enacting this principle Rhett and Link as a comedic duo, I don’t think would exist. And I definitely wouldn’t be up here talking to you guys about my DJ version if this principal wasn’t at place. All right. You ready for it? You don’t have to write anything down. I’m gonna tweet it out later. You know, so people can pick it up. Did you do that? No. I don’t like to tweet. Air on the side of action instead of certainty. Air on the side of action instead of certainty. So if you think about certainty as this idea of being 100% confident about something before you go into it, 100% confident, this sets up this idea that can become a trap. That when you find yourself making a waiting decision or figuring out what direction that you wanna go in life today, this year or next, whatever the case may be, you can be lured into this belief that I’m not going to move forward until I know this is the right choice. The sign is blanking and saying this way, do this. You got this. Just go for it. It’s automatic, not a slimmer of a doubt. I’m saying air on the side of action because the concept of being 100% confident can be paralyzed. The bigger the decision that you’re making, the harder it is to feel like you’re making the right one. And the unknown can be really scary, scarier than a man wearing a headpiece of five feet wide. You know what I’m saying? Viscous. Throw back to a joke nobody liked. If you keep waiting for 100% certainty, you might be all into a position where you’re not listening to your heart and following your heart. You might be rolled into a position where you’re not taking any action at all. So by no means I’m saying you should just make frivolous decisions and just go, go. You should use every resource at your disposal to make the wisest decision possible, but when it comes down to making these decisions and find a piece about it or confirmation about it, whatever words you wanna use, at a certain point, I wanna encourage you, when it comes down to it, the air on the side of action, taking those big steps instead of certain, take a direction and go, you know, I don’t like to call ’em dead ends. I like to call ’em cul-de-sac. I made that up. Hey, that was good. It was getting kind of dry. Well, I was getting kind of preachy, so I hit him with a cul-de-sac. So you took the theme of uncertainty as well, but you took a different, it’s a different aspect of uncertainty. Right. That’s the word that I saw on your notes, on your phone. Yeah. Was uncertainty. I was like, oh, I’m talking about uncertainty. What is he talking about? I know. And now listen to this ’cause even though my speech could have been done a lot earlier, or even right here, I’m still not done y’all. You’re still going. I’m going into the third act. And this is where it gets a little uncanny in terms of some parallels. 22 Years ago, I was sitting pretty long. I remember that feeling. You’re at such a special point in your life. There’s few times where an inflection point is so palpable. You know, do you feel like your life is, you’re on the restiveness of the rest of your life? There’s few times that you’re gonna feel this way again. And you know, like I said, you should be scared a little bit. I’m loving momentum but. I could feel that my life was out there, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see it. Knowing what it is now, there’s no way I could have seen it. That doesn’t mean the plans weren’t falling into place. As Julie mentioned when I was sitting where you are, I had some plans. I’d accepted a job at IBM working in their industrial engineering department just down the road in RTP. Within a few months I would be net deep in conveyor belts and process optimization of computer part refurbishment spreadsheets. It was pretty sexy. Pretty sexy? Yeah. I say that word with efficiency. I like this. What rod? What you say? What rod. Gimme another one. Optimization. Optimization. So sexy. Gimme another one. Come on. Speak up. it’s so fantastic. I was in a job. I was in it. This is good. This is a good moment. You’re really tapping, you’re tapping into this stuff. This is my water resources moment. They identify themselves in this way and they will for the rest of their lives. I came up with this, like, this is the last thing I came up with. I was like, Christie had told me like, you gotta connect with your engineering. And so I was like, oh, I’m gonna do it with this, I’m gonna make all the industrial engineering where it’s sexy. Yeah, that’s a good call. So the main thing that I got was people coming up to me, professors especially talking about, I love the stochastic one. Stochastic, fantastic. Can I use that? What is it Stochastic? Yeah. I don’t even know what that is. I don’t even know if I’m saying it right. Stochastic. We don’t do anything stochastic. It’s got an eye in it, but I don’t think it’s, yeah, it’s stochastic, fantastic. At one point I didn’t know what was my apologies for no longer knowing, but yeah, I mean, and if my speech wasn’t the next day, I would’ve continued to add things and I would’ve had like a 45 minute speech. Yep. Right. I don’t regret a minute of it. It’s my experience as an industrial engineer is always a part of the way I am, and it’s a big part of how my brain works. And so yeah. I’m still an industrial engineer. I was also already married when I was sitting where you are. Christie, my wife and I have been married here. She graduated from Meredith College. By show of hands, is anybody here willing to admit to be in a relationship with somebody from Meredith? Nobody? Come on, now I’m gonna be in trouble. What happens here? It’s like fishing a barrel over there. Come on, use the opportunity. Meredith is an all-girl school. Did you say fish in a barrel? Yes, but I didn’t say shooting fish in a barrel. Are there women in the fish? Is that the analogy? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I mean it’s nothing but women over there. Yeah. Well fish in a barrel. We’ll just keep going. I love my Christie. We’ve been married here, you know, I had this job. That’s pretty much all I knew when I was sitting in your seat. But if you fast forward two years from this spot, and a lot of changed already than I couldn’t have anticipated. We already had our first daughter, Lily. I had already completely changed my career path. I had left industrial engineering and I was working for a nonprofit as a speaker, a teacher, a trainer, a video maker, a comedian, I use the term really loosely. So yeah, I couldn’t have imagined that. And that was only two years down the road. You took the nonprofit, right? We talked about this before, but like the simplified story we skip over the campus crusade stuff because it’s hard to explain to people, to justify it. What’s the simplest way to explain it that doesn’t like start to distract from what the point I’m actually trying to make. It wasn’t trying to gloss over something for what it was, it was trying to gloss over it for just the sake of pacing, which I did not have a great sense of anyway. Everybody was with me at this point though. Once I start talking sexy, everybody’s perking back up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You reeled ’em back in. Yeah, I reeled em back in. ‘Cause I had to. Four years down the road from when I was seated where you are, that’s how long it would be before the invention that defined my career completely and changed the trajectory of my entire life was even invented. I remember in 2005 ish, early 2006, I was asking the question, well, why do we need a YouTube when we’ve got our videos on a website? Well, the answer was somebody took one of our videos off of our website and put it on this thing called YouTube and it got more reviews in a day than it got on our website in the past year. I’m like, we need to look into this YouTube a little bit. I could have used your tube joke here. But we didn’t straight notes. No, I should have– And if we both had the same joke, that would’ve been– That would’ve been awesome. Next time. Totally different crowd. Next time. I mean, there was a business model there, there was no career associated with it. But we took a step. We couldn’t see the writing on the wall, but we said that I think somebody’s building a wall maybe one day we can write on it. I made that happen. You gotta build the wall joke. But he’s riding on them. But I was waiting for someone to build his so I can write on, you know, I’m a graffiti artist. You were. With you, man. You knew Trump was coming along. You gonna write on that wall. It’s tough to write on ’cause it’s just like slats. That was totally off the cuff. Didn’t even exist when I was sitting where you are. Wrap it up, son. So if you feel like you have no clue what your future looks like, oh, you’re right. I mean, don’t freak out though, none of us do, we’re all making this up. Look at everybody else. We’re all making this up right as we go. So maybe your career doesn’t exist yet either. Maybe you need to invent your career. Maybe you need to buy your time so that you can say yes to the right opportunities whenever that comes about. You know, it took me a long time to discover who I am, but I’m no longer going through puberty. I don’t know why I said that. I’m glad I got it serious now. Was that planned? No. It took me a long time to discover who I am, but I am no longer going through puberty. Wow. I don’t know. Well, it’s true. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s true. Yeah. I did wanna clear, I said I’m glad I could clear that out. And you did have a late puberty. I did? Yeah. In the meantime, I would say don’t sit on your hands too long or they may never wake up. I wanna encourage you to follow your heart. I wanna encourage you to, like I said, air on the side of action instead of certainty. And I want to lead you as any globally known, accomplished DJ would with a song. This is from Tom Eddie. You gonna play the song? No. ♪ Yay yay yay yay ♪ ♪ It’s time to move on ♪ ♪ It’s time to get going ♪ ♪ What lies ahead I have no way of know ♪ ♪ But under my feet baby the grass is grown ♪ ♪ Yes it’s time to move on ♪ ♪ It’s time to get going ♪ ♪ Yes it’s time to move on ♪ ♪ It’s time to get going ♪ ♪ It’s time to move on ♪ ♪ It’s time to get going ♪ ♪ It’s time to move on ♪ ♪ It’s time to draw the lighters off ♪ Oh, I wanted to see what she said. She dropped it like it’s hot I think. You know what? They’re not gonna forget that Link. Yeah. You know, under my feet baby the grass is growing. It’s time to move on. You know, it’s like air on the side of action instead of certainty. I think, you know– Drop it like it’s hot. I think you set out to be yourself, check. And I do feel good about that. I feel like I went big and I went for it and I was like, I’m not gonna… They rattled me at the beginning and that’s not, you know, not their fault. But when I watch it back, I’m like, ah, yeah, I need to talk a lot faster but I’m glad I… I think it’s the first time that I kind of brought myself to it, to something like this. You know, a speech I’ll say. And I think if you were to… I mean for me the most important thing is like, I mean obviously we’re trying to do it to be entertaining and to like, you know, because we’re entertainers which you definitely did. But ultimately the most important thing is do they walk away with something that actually means that they understand and motivates them in some way, that’s what you’re after when you give a talk, so I think that– My point was basically like, go for it. Your point was just do it, it was like– Just do it. Go for it. It was like Nike’s slogan. Which is important. And also I think that probably just because of the way people’s personalities map to certain professions, I would think that there’s a lot of perfectionists in the crowd because industrial engineers are nationally drawn to, perfectionist or naturally drawn to process and optimization. Definitely. And people who are drawn to that also have a tendency to have a difficult time moving forward if they don’t feel completely confident and secure. So I think that you kind of broke ’em down with the pop pure references, got ’em on your side, and then gave them something that was very applicable to them, including very personalized insider jokes. Sexy stuff. Sexy stuff. And I didn’t wanna tell a, I wanted to tell a story that was unexpected, but that was also not a story of success, but a story of failure, you know, it’s like, I think that’s more my sweet spot anyway. But I thought it was like, you know, I don’t regret a second of it. I think it was great. I think based on those two performances, I’m expecting a call. We’re gonna have to go on the circuit. To come back and do the whole hold school, P&C arena. It’s Coliseum baby. And we’re gonna, but we’ll have to do it together. So we’ll have to figure that out. I think you can mention songs and then I’ll start singing them. I will basically be the DJ hype man for your composed speech, and that would be a good one to punch. I think that’s what we’ll do. Well, we got at least a year to plan it. We don’t know when we’ll be asked. We were honored to get the invitation. And I’m so, I mean, it was like, even if you’re tempted to say no, I was very tempted to say no because– It’s time. You gotta figure this out. And it’s gonna make me anxious and yeah, it takes time too. But it’s just like, I was pretty worked up about it. But I was very glad I did it. And you know, I just wanted to give a shout out to Julie, Wanda, Karen, thank y’all for having me, for being such great hosts and being supportive, and believing in me. Yeah. And thank you to Jackie and Amy and the civil department, to Jerome, the associate dean over there at the engineering school who– Jerome, thank you. Was a key part of this. And we won’t talk about it, but we got another tour, an even better tour now that it was both of us. Of the engineering engineering schools. And it’s just, I mean, it’s cool to see what’s going on there. It kind of makes me want to like, you know, it makes me wanna do a little engineering, I’m not going to, I’m just gonna use Chat GPT, but when I see the cool stuff, it makes me kind of wanna figure it out and do it again. But yeah, it was a good weekend. It was a good weekend just like being back there. It was very formative for me. I felt like it was a milestone. I felt like there was a certain level of like, oh, I put my, you know, I was nervous about it and I was like, ah, I don’t wanna do this. And so for me it gave me a, I just felt like it was quite a milestone for both of us to be able to do that. Do the high school, do the college commencement address. We have no business doing these things. But at the same time, it’s a great privilege. And it’s just a cool milestone. And I think I’ve had like momentum on the backside of it. A little more confidence of being a goofball. You’re gonna speak somewhere now? Yeah. I’m think I’m gonna start speaking about my DJing. But not DJing. Not DJing, but talking about just talking about DJing. Just talking about it. Maybe that’s your application. What’s your next Elk Yeah, I gotta get back on, I gotta back on the horse. I gotta get back on the horse. Get those antlers back on. But my wreck is, you know, air on the side of action over certainty. Oh, that’s your wreck. Yeah. My wreck is my point. Well, let us know what you think. Let us know were you moved? Are you gonna take this advice and dominate the next stage of your life with it? Are you gonna start a new career in an industry that does not yet exist? Let us know #EarBiscuits. Or call us 1-888 EARPOD1. Speak at you next week. Okay. Hey gang, I’m listening exactly one month late to the episode about Link’s ski trip. And I just wanna say thank you for making great content and being amazing friends who can talk about each other’s pitfalls and good qualities all the same. And it really makes me think about and be thankful for the friendships that I have and feel like I can do that with. And also think about areas where I need to improve on. So thank you guys. Love you so much. Keep making the copy and make it. To watch more Ear Biscuits click on the playlist on the right, to watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits click on the playlist to the left, and don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.