Tag Archives: Life Lessons

Pay Attention – Grad Speech

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I didn’t read it all word for word, and I ad libbed an ending to coincide with a couple references by student speeches and a video shared before I got up to speak… but here is my last grad speech, titled ‘Pay Attention’ as it was written.

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Yesterday was Father’s Day… and yes, I’m keenly aware that starting my speech with that suggests I wrote this speech as last minute as many of our grads completed their assignments over the last 4 years… but I digress. 

Yesterday was Father’s Day and I was out for lunch with my family. Two tables next to us showed me a stark contrast in how families connect or disconnect. Both of these tables had someone my age at them. One of them, a woman, was alone with her elderly father, the other, a man, was with both of his senior parents. 

The woman was leaning forward and listening intently to her dad. Juxtaposed to this, the man had his phone in his left hand for the entire meal, and barely ever looked away from it. 

He scrolled, and typed, scrolled and typed, and even when his parents spoke to him, he didn’t look up when he responded. His parents had to wait for him to finish his meal to order dessert, but he didn’t speed up his eating, he focussed far more on his phone. Two tables, two totally different dynamics. 

We live in an era of distractions. When our attention is elsewhere, it’s not where it should be. 

And with that I’ll address our grads directly: Pay attention to what matters.

You’ve had a rich high school experience with teachers who didn’t just teach you the curriculum, they taught you how to think, how to formulate your ideas, and how to come to your own conclusions about the things that matter in this world.

Don’t pay attention to people who talk about their own truths. Don’t pay attention to AI slop designed to steal your time and attention. Don’t pay attention to extreme political views that are more interested in exciting anger than encouraging understanding. And don’t pay attention to those who profit from division, outrage, or fear.

Instead, pay attention to evidence. Pay attention to people who ask good questions. Pay attention to those who listen before they speak. Pay attention to the people in your life who challenge you to become wiser, kinder, and more courageous.

You’ve had a head start. You’ve been going to school in a community that fosters your individuality; a community that is accepting of different opinions, different perspectives, and let’s face it, different levels of quirkiness. All the while, allowing you to express your true self within a kind and accepting community. Take this with you wherever you go. Be the one who others appreciate, who others admire, and who understands when to speak up and to speak out. 

The reality is that no other school makes you present and voice your views and opinions with authentic discourse more than iHub. And so, you are uniquely skilled to filter the BS that comes your way, to see through insincerity, and to be the one who speaks up and speaks out when no one else will. 

However, it all starts with your attention. 

A few of our former grads came back to talk to you a couple months ago. One of them who is on a sports team training for 20 hours a week and working part time on top of a full-time university course load said that Inquiry Hub prepared her to use her time well, and she’s shocked at how students feel overwhelmed with just their course loads. Another student said her professor complimented her on how good her essay was and she replied, “Really, I think my high school Humanities teacher would have given this a high ‘B’.”

I bring this up because you are headed into new learning opportunities where you can choose to be like other students, or you can design your learning journey like you did here at iHub. And the experience you have can be one driven by your attention, or by distractions. 

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess. Where you choose to invest it will, in many ways, determine the person you become when you get to my or your parent’s age… You’ve already gotten off to a good start. 

Now I’d like to address the family and friends of our graduates.  The Inquiry Hub staff: our teachers, secretaries, and custodians, have watched these young folks blossom over the past four years. They came to us with unique talents and gifts, and while some of them needed a lot of help to figure out how to thrive at school, some needed no help at all. But no matter their starting point, they have all grown tremendously in ways that are hard to measure. 

You have a lot to be proud of in this group. They have not only thrived at school, they have also thrived in their activities in the community and thrived at work. They have made us so proud of them, and you should be proud too. Think back to what they were like four years ago. 

Pay attention to the things they value and share with you. Watch the way they interact and engage with the world around them. They are wonderful human beings, and while parents can take pride and pat themselves on the back, remember that these young grads are also young adults who deserve to be appreciated for the fine people that they have become. 

Stop and pay attention, and we can see what a community can build when people choose to invest their time, their energy, and their care in one another.

Graduates, in a world where everyone and every deviceis competing for your attention, remember that your attention is your life. Every hour you give away is an hour you never get back. Spend it on people. Spend it on ideas worth wrestling with. Spend it building things that matter.

And to your families: Thank you for giving these graduates your attention long before they ever earned a diploma. They are sitting here today because of countless rides, conversations, encouragements, reminders, sacrifices, and moments that probably seemed ordinary at the time. They weren’t ordinary. They mattered.

So today, celebrate this milestone. Put the phones away and look around this room. Pay attention to these graduates, to your families, and to this moment.

Because years from now, you won’t remember what was on your screen. You’ll remember who was sitting with you, who leant you an ear when you needed someone to listen to you, and who disagreed with you in class, but did so in a way that was respectful. And even if you never do another fishbowl discussion, you’ll remember that Inquiry Hub was the school you chose, you attended, and you gave your full attention to. 

Congratulations, Class of 2026.

Closure rather than ending

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Maybe it’s just semantics but I think the word choices we make are important. Our words frame our understanding of the world.

I’ve been having a lot of ‘lasts’ recently as I head into retirement. My last interview for a hire, my last field trip, my last principal’s breakfast meeting, etc. For a while I was seeing these as endings, kind of a shutting of a door never to be opened again, with a sense of finality. But I’ve had a shift recently.

Now I think of these endings more like closure. It’s not about an ending as much as a sense of completion. Like putting the last piece of a puzzle in. When a performance ends, the show is over, it’s time to go home. When a puzzle is completed there isn’t an instant finality to it. Closure in this sense invites time to admire what was accomplished.

It’s a small shift in language, but a large shift in perspective. It’s not an ending, it’s closure.

The grief metaphor

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This morning at the gym my buddy shared a metaphor about grief that I hadn’t heard before. He said that grief is like a heavy rock that you carry around with you in your pocket. Over time it doesn’t get any lighter but you grow stronger carrying it, and so it doesn’t feel as heavy over time… but you don’t let go of the rock.

This reminded me of hearing Scott Galloway on the Diary of a CEO podcast. Steven Bartlett said to Scott, “You said that you are a middle-aged man who hasn’t gotten over the loss of his mother. Is there a way to?”

Scott replied, “I don’t want to. I think the receipts for love is grief. I hope my boys feel the same way about me. It hasn’t gotten in the way of my life. Makes me be more bold with my emotions.”

Rocks. Receipts for love. Heavy stuff… but important to hold, as long as they don’t get in the way of living. And perhaps we can be stronger in many ways because we choose to hold them.

Own it

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We all make mistakes. Sometimes we say or do things that we might believe is true or that we think is right, and instead we were wrong. No one is immune. Everyone errs at some point.

But not everyone understands an apology:

“I’m sorry that you didn’t understand me.”

“I made a mistake but…”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I was just joking.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry, are you happy now? “

None of these are an apology. None of these accept real responsibility. If you really want to apologize, own it, don’t justify or belittle it. Own it. Or be a jerk and don’t apologize, because apologies that are excuses or explanations make you a bigger jerk.

Own it. Own your mistakes. And while you are at it, you’ll probably earn some respect.

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Related: ‘3 parts to an apology’

Appreciate the tiny wins

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Tiny wins are often hard to see. They don’t seem significant, but they accumulate.

James Clear explains in Atomic Habits that 1% better daily will compound into becoming 37 times better in a year.

You don’t go heavier on a lift in the gym, but you eke out a couple extra reps.

You walk into a coffee shop and get right to the counter before a rush of people that have to line up behind you.

You hit almost every green light on your way home from work.

You actually enjoy a meal that sounds too healthy to be tasty.

You write a single sentence and suddenly your muse has arrived.

We don’t always see them, we rarely celebrate them, but the tiny little things that we can choose to pay attention to and appreciate can be the highlight of the day… or the precursor to more wins, big and small, in the future.

Live a Lifetime in a Day

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I love this metaphor for how to live a meaningful life, “Live a lifetime in a day,” shared by Harvard physician Dr Aditi Nerurkar on The Diary of a CEO podcast. I took the liberty of emphasizing each of the 5 stages for easy reference:

“[w]hat creates a meaningful life… is to live a lifetime in a day.

And so that sounds like this big thing, but all it is, is that when you start your day, think about five things,

five things that you can do in your day to create an arc of a long and meaningful life in one day.

So what does that mean?

Spend a little bit of time in childhood.

So in wonder and play, even if it’s for a few minutes, do something that brings you joy for joy’s sake.

Spend a little bit of time in work.

We all know what that is, and for most of us, it’s a lot of time, but for, you know, it doesn’t have to be paid work, but just something that helps you feel a sense of productivity agency that I can do difficult things and I can overcome.

Spend a few minutes in solitude,

very important for all of the reasons that we’ve talked about today.

Spend some time in community,

so engaging with others, and then

spend some time in retirement or in reflection,

really taking stock of your day. So at the end of the day, when you’re going to bed and you’re putting your head on your pillow, you can say, okay, yes, I lived a meaningful life. I did all of those things.”

~ Dr Aditi Nerurkar on ‘The Diary of a CEO’ with Steven Bartlett: Brain Rot Emergency: These Internal Documents Prove They’re Controlling You!, Feb 15, 2026.

What a beautiful frame to start your day with. Usually I’ve got more reflection to contribute after I share something like this, but I really don’t this morning.

We’d all be a bit more happy, more appreciative of the life we live, if this was our daily goal.

Path to Nowhere

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We all do it.

We choose a path that doesn’t take us where we want to go… a path to nowhere.

Endless scrolling on social media. Binge-watching shows instead of pursuing hobbies. Saying yes to everything and stretching ourselves too thin. Procrastinating on big goals by tackling tiny, irrelevant tasks. Staying in our comfort zones, avoiding new skills that scare us. Skipping exercise or eating junk for quick fixes. Remaining friends with negative people who drain our energy. Buying stuff to feel better, but still feeling empty after our purchases, or buying on impulse because it’s easy, and the items aren’t too expensive.

But the costs are real. The path isn’t forward. These are all paths to nowhere.

Accept and place

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I heard this phrase and it really struck a chord with me:

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

There are 2 really big ideas here.

First, we are often quick to want people to change, and the disparity between who people are and who we want people to become is often too large of a gap. Step one is accepting people for who they are.

The next step is a bit more challenging. We often spend way too much time on people that are not worth our time. We don’t ‘put people where they belong’. We take amazing people for granted and we focus too much attention on people who aren’t worth our time.

The task sounds simple: accept people for who they are, then place them in your life accordingly.

There are people who would do anything in the world for you. And people who you in turn would do anything for. When that’s the same person, well then you need to prioritize your connection to that person. They deserve a special place in your heart and in your life. They deserve your attention and time. Not the person that cut you off in traffic, not the annoying co-worker, not the friend in need that is never there when you are in need.

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

Wise words to live by.

Most valued

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I spent the afternoon with my mom, her sister, my wife and my kids. My aunt had us in stitches. It was wonderful having a good belly laugh. My favourite line from my auntie. “I like living by myself. I’m fine to talk to myself, I don’t need anybody else. It’s only a problem if I hear voices talking back, other than that, I’m good.”

Before this, I spent most of the day with an old friend. I can’t travel back home to my mom and not find time to see my buddy.

It’s just wonderful to realize that what I value most are my family and friends. Give me this, and my health, and I really don’t need much else from this world.

I feel blessed.

Appreciating time

As I approach the age of 58, it’s not only clear that I’ve lived more than half my life, I’m approaching the point at which, if I’m lucky, I’ve got about 1/3 of a life left. That’s not a sad statement, it’s just the reality of the genetics I’ve been dealt.

It’s a wonderful reminder of how precious life is. It’s as wonderful reminder to pause, to appreciate tiny moments, to find a reason to smile, to laugh, and to share special moments with others.

When we find moments in our day to appreciate, the day has been worth spending. When we go through the motions of the day in order to get the day done, we’ve simply wasted the day. Are 100 wasted days worth as much as 25 meaningful ones?

And so counting the days is not as important as valuing them. We need to appreciate the time we have such that if today was going to be our last day, we can say that it was well spent. Stack a few hundred or a few thousand well spent ‘last days’ together and you’ve stacked up a life worth living, no matter how much time you’ve got left.