J.K. Rowling Commencement Address at Harvard University June 2008

Joanne "Jo" Rowling, popularly known in her pen name "J.K. Rowling", is a British novelist who has written the famous Harry Potter. fantasy series, which sold more than 400 million copies and won multiple awards. But Rowling is also an inspiration to many because of her rags to riches story, in this commencement address she shared the benefits of failure and what it has taught her that led to her success in life, the true value of imagination and friends.

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"The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination"

Commencement Address of J.K. Rowling (author of the best selling Harry Potter Book Series) during the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, June 2008

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish)

Steve Jobs is definitely one of the great contributors in revolutionizing the computer and creative industry in our generation thru Apple (Mac) Computers and later the Pixar Animation Studios. In his commencement address for Stanford University graduates, Jobs shared how our setbacks/failures can also be our stepping stones to success. He also pointed out the importance of knowing that our time is limited and therefore, we have to live to its fullest everyday.

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I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. 

Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life.