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№ 2011.016 — Kenyon College — Commencement address
Jim Steen
Kenyon College swimming coach Jim Steen delivers a baccalaureate address framed as a coaching session about one's capacity to perform. He draws on his experiences coaching, citing ideas from Malcolm Gladwell, Scott Adams, and others, to argue that performance and mastery depend on discipline, risk, imagination, and attitude rather than talent alone. He concludes by urging graduates to reframe threats as challenges as they begin life after college.
Key moments
- 01 Comparing coaches and teachers as provocateurs who challenge people to do better
- 02 Discussing mastery through discipline and risk, referencing Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule and Scott Adams' lessons on combining skills and failing forward
- 03 Coaching point on attitude as the factor determining one's direction
- 04 Distinguishing living under a threat versus living for a challenge
Transcript
The full transcript is hosted by the original publisher. Commencement Archive links to the source rather than republishing copyrighted text.
Read the full transcript at source →Provenance
Imported from NPR commencement archive; cross-referenced with Open Commencement DB
NPR archive last updated in 2015; destination availability has not been exhaustively rechecked | Open Commencement DB transcript; not independently verified against the original recording