San Francisco Waldorf High School's Commencement Speech

This Saturday, I gave the commencement address at the San Francisco Waldorf High School. Frankly, I'm not much of a public speaker and arrived fairly nervous and sleep-deprived. When delivering the speech, I jumbled the occasional word, had fluctuating audio levels, and had to pause more than once when I got choked up. Yet the topic of my talk was inner transformations that occurred along my personal journey, and that seemed to strike a deep chord beyond all the surface hiccups. I expect that speakers get compliments, but the volume and caliber of comments was unexpected. The school administrator said he was very moved and asked for a transcript, so I gave him the copy I read from :-) A number of parents were effusive in their gratitude, telling me that the message was exactly what their graduating senior-- and they themselves-- needed to hear. At least three different people claimed to be 'graduation speech buffs' and separately told me that this speech was the best they had ever heard or read-- to which I thought that they had clearly never heard one of Nipun's speeches :-) Perhaps the deepest compliment came from a 'class sponsor' who was moving on from her role after 20 years of service. She told me that she considered the ceremony her commencement as well and later wrote, "As I sit on this cusp of life change, your words were just what I needed to hear, to help me enter this unknown area with new possibility and hope and not fall into another cultural trap of fear and scarcity." She asked for references to other sources that could help guide her ongoing journey, and of course I pointed her toward the ecosystem :-) Transcript of my talk is here.