Admiral McRaven addresses the University of Texas at Austin Class of 2014

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, President Powers, Provost Fenves, deans, faculty, family and friends, and most importantly, the Class of

2014

. Indeed, I am honored to be here tonight. It has been almost 37 years since the day I graduated from UT. I remember many things from that day. I remember I had a throbbing headache from a party the night before. I remember that I had a serious girlfriend, whom I later married (by the way, it's important to remember that) and I remember that I was enlisted in the Navy that day. But of all the things I remember, I have no idea who the commencement speaker was and I certainly don't remember anything they said.

So, recognizing that fact, if I can't make this commencement speech memorable, I'll at least try to make it short. The University's motto is: "What starts here changes the world." I must admit that I like it a little. "What starts here changes the world." Tonight there are almost 8,000 students, there are more than 8,000 students graduating from UT. That great model of analytical rigor, Ask.Com, says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in his lifetime. 10,000 people. It's a lot of people. But if each of you changed the lives of just 10 people, and each of those people changed the lives of 10 other people, and 10 more, then in five generations (125 years) the class of

2014

will have changed the lives of 800 million people. 800 million people.

Think about it: more than double the population of the United States. One more generation and you can change the entire population of the world: eight billion people. If you think it's hard to change the lives of 10 people (change their lives forever), you're wrong. I saw it happen every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. A young army officer makes the decision to go left instead of right on a road in Baghdad, and the 10 soldiers accompanying him are saved from a nearby ambush. In the Kandahar province of Afghanistan, a noncommissioned officer with the Women's Participation Team senses something is not right and leads the infantry platoon away from a 500-pound improvised explosive device, saving the lives of a dozen soldiers.

But if you think about it, not only were these soldiers saved by one person's decisions, but their children were saved as well. And their children's children. Generations were saved by one decision, by one person. But changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it. So what starts here can really change the world, but the question is: What will the world be like after you change it? Well, I'm sure it will look much, much better. But if you humor this old mariner for a moment, I have some suggestions that may help you on your path to a better world.

And while I learned these lessons during my time in the military, I can assure you that it doesn't matter if you ever served a day in uniform. It doesn't matter your gender, your ethnic or religious origin, your orientation or your social status. Our struggles in this world are similar, and the lessons for overcoming those struggles and moving forward (by changing ourselves and changing the world around us) will apply equally to all. I have been a Navy SEAL for 36 years. But it all started when I left UT for basic SEAL training in Coronado, California. SEAL basic training consists of six months of long, torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold waters of San Diego, obstacle courses, endless calisthenics, days without sleep and always cold, wet and miserable.

It's six months of constant harassment by professionally trained warriors seeking to find those weak in mind and body and eliminate them so they never become Navy SEALs. But the training also seeks to find students who can lead in an environment of stress, chaos, failure and constant difficulties. For me, basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges packed into six months. So, here are the 10 lessons I learned from basic SEAL training that will hopefully be of value to you as you move forward in life. Every morning during SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up to my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was my bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers snug, the pillow centered just under the headboard, and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the shelf. It was a simple task, mundane at best. But every morning we were asked to make the bed perfectly. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that they aspired to be true warriors, tough, battle-hardened SEALs. But the wisdom of this simple act has been demonstrated to me many times. If you make your bed every morning you will have completed the first task of the day.

It will give you a small sense of pride and encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And at the end of the day, that completed task will have turned into many completed tasks. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things well, you will never be able to do the big things well. And, if you happen to have a miserable day, you will come home to a made bed, that you made, and a made bed encourages you to think that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start by making your bed. During SEAL training, students... during training, students are divided into boat crews. Each crew consists of seven students: three on each side of a small rubber boat and a coxswain to help guide the boat. Every day, his boat crew lines up on the beach and is instructed to cross the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast. In winter, the waves off San Diego can be 8 to 10 feet high and it is extremely difficult to paddle through the waves unless everyone gets in. Each oar must be synchronized with the coxswain's stroke count.

Everyone must make the same effort or the boat will spin against the wave and be thrown unceremoniously onto the beach. For the ship to reach its destination, everyone must row. You can't change the world alone; you will need help. And to really get from the starting point to the destination you need friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers, and a strong helmsman to guide you. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you row. After a few weeks of difficult training, my SEAL class, which started with 150 men, was reduced to just 42. There were now six crews of seven men each.

I was in the boat with the tall guys, but the best crew we had was the short guys, "the munchkin crew," we called them; none were taller than five foot five. The crew of the munchkin ship consisted of an American Indian, an African American, a Polish American, a Greek American, an Italian American, and two tough kids from the Midwest. They rowed, ran, and swam all the other crews on the ship. The big men on the other boat crews always made good-natured fun of the tiny fins the munchkins put on their tiny feet before each swim. But somehow these little ones, from all corners of the nation and the world, always had the last laugh, swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us.

SEAL training was a big draw. Nothing mattered except your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic origin, not your education or your social status. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their fins. Several times a week, instructors lined up the class and did a uniform inspection. He was exceptionally thorough. Your hat had to be perfectly starched, your uniform impeccably pressed, and your belt buckle shiny and spotless. But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat, or ironing your uniform, or polishing your belt buckle, it just wasn't enough.

The instructors would fine if something was wrong. Failing the uniform inspection, the student had to run fully clothed to the surf zone. Then, wet from head to toe, roll along the beach until every part of your body is covered with sand. The effect became known as "sugar cookie." You stayed in uniform the rest of the day: cold, wet and sandy. There were many students who simply could not accept the fact that all their efforts were in vain. That no matter how hard they tried to get the correct uniform, it was not appreciated. Those students did not manage to finish the training.

Those students did not understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform. The instructors were not going to allow it. Sometimes, no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform, you end up like a sugar cookie. That's life sometimes. If you want to change the world, stop being a sugar cookie and move on. Each day during training, you faced multiple physical events (long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics), something designed to test your mettle. Each event had standards, times that had to be met.

If you did not meet those times, those standards, your name was published on a list and at the end of the day those who were on the list were invited to a "circus." A circus was two extra hours of calisthenics, designed to wear you down, break your spirit, force you to give up. Nobody wanted a circus. A circus meant that for that day you were not up to par. A circus meant more fatigue, and more fatigue meant that the next day would be more difficult and there would likely be more circuses. But at some point during SEAL training, everyone, everyone, was on the circus roster.

But something interesting happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time, those students, who did an additional two hours of calisthenics, became stronger and stronger. The pain of the circus generated inner strength and physical resilience. Life is full of circuses. You will fail. You will probably fail frequently. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. Sometimes it will test you to your core. But if you want to change the world, don't be afraid of circuses. At least twice a week, the students had to run the obstacle course. The obstacle course contained 25 obstacles, including a 10-foot wall, a 30-foot cargo net, and barbed wire, to name a few.

But the most difficult obstacle was the slide through life. It had a three-tiered, 30-foot-high tower at one end and a one-tiered tower at the other. In the middle was a rope 200 feet long. You had to climb the three-tier tower and, once at the top, you grabbed the rope, swung underneath and pulled, hand in hand, until you reached the other end. The obstacle course record stood for years when I started my class in 1977. The record seemed unbeatable. Until one day, a student decided to jump headlong down the slide of life. Instead of swinging his body under the rope and slowly moving down, he bravely climbed to the TOP of the rope and propelled himself forward.

It was a dangerous measure, apparently foolish and full of risks. Failure could mean injury and being removed from the course. Without hesitation, the student slid down the rope dangerously fast. Instead of several minutes, it only took half that time. And at the end of the course he had broken the record. If you want to change the world, sometimes you'll have to slide through obstacles head first. During the ground warfare training phase, students travel by plane to San Clemente Island, which is located off the coast of San Diego. San Clemente waters are a breeding ground for great white sharks.

To pass SEAL training there are a series of long swims that must be completed. One is the night bath. Before swimming, instructors happily inform students about all the shark species that inhabit San Clemente waters. However, they assure you that no student has been eaten by a shark, at least not that they remember. But they also teach you that if a shark starts to circle your position, hold your ground. Don't swim away. Don't act afraid. And if the shark, hungry for a midnight snack, lunges at you, then gather all your strength and punch it in the snout, and it will turn around and swim away.

There are many sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim, you'll have to deal with them. So if you want to change the world, don't back down from the sharks. As Navy SEALs, one of our jobs is to conduct underwater attacks on enemy ships. We practice this technique extensively during training. The ship attack mission involves dropping a pair of SEAL divers outside an enemy port and then swimming more than two miles, underwater, using nothing more than a depth gauge and a compass to reach the target. Throughout the swim, even far below the surface, some light enters.

It's comforting to know that there is open water above you. But as you approach the ship, which is moored to a dock, the light begins to fade. The ship's steel structure blocks the moonlight. Blockthe surrounding streetlights. Blocks all ambient light. To succeed in your mission, you must swim under the ship and find the keel: the center line and deepest part of the ship. This is your goal. But the keel is also the darkest part of the boat, where you can't see your hand in front of your face, where the noise of the boat's machinery is deafening, and where you get disoriented easily and can fail.

Every SEAL knows that under the keel, in the darkest moment of the mission, is the moment when you need to be calm, when you need to be calm, when you need to be composed, when all your tactical skills, your physical power and all your There are to assert inner strength. If you want to change the world, you must be the best you can be in the darkest moments. The ninth week of training is known as "Hell Week." It's six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment, and a special day at Mud Flats. The marshes are the area between San Diego and Tijuana, where water drains and creates the Tijuana mud, a swampy terrain where the mud will envelop you.

It's the Wednesday of Hell Week when you paddle out to the mudflats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the bitter cold, the howling wind, and the instructors' relentless pressure to quit. As the sun began to set that Wednesday afternoon, my training class, having committed some "egregious violation of the rules," was ordered to the mud. The mud consumed each man until nothing was visible except our heads. The instructors told us that we could get out of the mud if only five men surrendered; Just five men, just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud plain it was evident that some students were about to give up. There were still more than eight hours until the sun came up, eight more hours of bone-chilling cold. The chattering of teeth and the trembling moans of the students were so loud that it was difficult to hear anything. And then, a voice began to echo through the night. A voice was raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune but was sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing.

The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we continued singing, but the singing persisted. And somehow the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little gentler, and the dawn not so far away. If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person (Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala) can change the world by giving people hope. So if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud. Lastly, in SEAL training there is a bell.

A bronze bell that hangs in the center of the room for all students to see. All you have to do to quit smoking is ring the doorbell. Ring the doorbell and you won't have to wake up at 5 o'clock anymore. Ring the bell and you won't have to swim in icy waters anymore. Ring the bell and you will no longer have to do the races, the obstacle course, the PT, and you will no longer have to endure the hardships of training. All you have to do is ring the bell to leave. If you want to change the world, never, ever ring the doorbell.

For the class of 2014, you are just minutes away from graduating. Just moments from beginning your journey through life. Just moments away from starting to change the world for the better. It will not be easy. But YOU are the class of 2014, the class that can affect the lives of 800 million people in the next century. Start each day with a completed task. Find someone to help you in life. Respect everyone. Know that life isn't fair and you will fail often, but if you take some risks, step up when times are toughest, stand up to the bullies, lift up the downtrodden, and never, ever give up, yes. does these things. , the next generation and beyond will live in a much better world than the one we have today, and what started here will certainly have changed the world, for the better.

Thank you so much. Hook the horns on them.