Glad that I watched this video before starting my MBA - The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination - J K Rowling

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Video - J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

 

I can't help but share this video on my blog whose readers are mostly the MBA aspirants and those who have the power to shape the future of their own and the world around them. This video will really inspire  the viewer to think positive, accept and learn from failures, look beyond their personal well-being and live life the right way.

What A talk.. Witty, Wise, Prolific all at once. Though am not a big fan of Harry Potter, I did become a fan of J K Rowling for her words and her thoughts. I am gonna quote few lines from this speech. Each one them is my personal favorite and taught me a lesson or two about life

 

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.

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I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.

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Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies. 

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 Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

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"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality"
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

For the full text version and video visit http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

So did this inspire you ??