Twin brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi, Iranian immigrants, tell the Class of 2008 that insecurity is universal and necessary. They failed early in their careers but learned that embracing failure and taking risks led them to what they actually wanted to do. Let yourself be bad at things, they say. That's how you find what matters.
Chapters
There are a lot of things that made Hadi and me different from most of the kids at Hackley, but there's one thing we had in common with almost anybody who has ever gone to high school.
But before we get to that one thing, it's worth sharing a bit about the things that made us different from the typical Hackley student. We didn't have a house. We lived with our grandparents and the 4 of us— Ali, Hadi, Mom, Dad— Shared a bedroom. We had taught ourselves English from books, so we had funny accents. We arrived in 7th grade straight from Iran, having grown up during the Ayatollah's Shiite regime and a bloody war with Iraq. Our childhood in Iran was marked by military patrols by day and Iraqi bomber planes by night. So to cope, we had completely immersed ourselves in books and computers and more books. So by the time we came to America in 7th grade, to say that we were nerdy would have been an incredible understatement. If you looked up nerd in the dictionary, you'd probably see a picture of the two of us arriving at Hackley in 7th grade, identical twins wearing thick eyeglasses and wearing 3-piece suits. Naturally, we were immediately ostracized by our peers, with a few exceptions. Anybody who remembers middle school knows it's a struggle to fit in. It was particularly tough for us, and we desperately wanted to feel accepted. And now I'm going to describe the most embarrassing moment of my life. I should add that this was also the most embarrassing moment of my life. It was in Mr. Kaplan's 7th grade English class. He was handing back our essays, and and he singled me out to read mine out loud in front of the whole class. I was nervous but excited. This was my first public speaking experience in my new school. Little did I know what Mr. Kaplan— why Mr. Kaplan had picked me. I had no clue what public embarrassment lay ahead. See, the assignment had been to write about my favorite pet. In my essay, I wrote about a cat that Ali and I had adopted back in Tehran when we were 8. The problem was with the cat's name. If you remember, we had taught ourselves English from books, so we decided to name our Iranian cat with an English name. I don't know if I can say this word. The cat's name was Pussycat, minus the cat part. Of course, we had no idea what that meant. And here I am, 11 years old, in Mr. Kaplan's 7th grade class, reading aloud a long essay I'd written all about— My cat. At the time, I had absolutely no idea why all the students started laughing at me. I thought it was a pretty good essay, so I kept reading, all 3 pages about That. It wasn't until a week later that I found out what that word meant.
It's times like these that you wish you didn't have an identical twin brother.
So if you thought middle school is rough, imagine having to dig yourself out of that. Ali and my slim chances of becoming socially accepted were swiftly eliminated. Let's just say You know that guy who never got invited to any parties and can't get a date to the prom? I was that guy.
Me too.
So by the time I sat in your seats at my Hackley graduation, I still carried an enormous amount of self-doubt. It wasn't until— only until years later that I realized, whether in high school or in college, that pretty much all the kids around me also shared some degree of self-doubt or insecurity. And that all of us were trying to get over something, whatever it was. I was the valedictorian of my class, and here's what's most ironic: the theme of my valedictory speech was confidence. So when we were trying to decide what to talk about today, besides cats, we thought it would be appropriate to talk about the one thing we had in common with everybody who has gone through high school.
And that brings us to today's word.
Insecurity.
Insecurity is the one trait that unites us all. What's the one part of the high school experience that's universally shared across the country? Insecurity. Insecurity is also likely to be one of The big motivators of the rest of your lives. You'll spend the next several years trying to prove things, to yourself as much as to anybody else. And that struggle to prove yourself can be a healthy driver. Show me the young man or woman in this graduating class who isn't insecure about anything, and you're probably showing me the person who's least likely to succeed. It reminds me of a quote I learned in French class at Hackley. By that really famous French guy, you know that guy. He wrote, "Les gens satisfaits sont des salauds." I think it meant something like satisfied people are. I can't remember exactly, but the point was you should never be too content with yourself. It's healthy and normal to be insecure. It's something that propels us, propels all of us forward.
However.
There's also enormous danger in insecurity. Insecurity can lead us to be afraid of one of the most important things, one of the most important things we need to experience in life, and that's failure. At your age, we all have things we hate about ourselves. The question is, will we let those feelings paralyze us or harness and channel them into the energy we need to figure out who we want to be? Class of 2008, the idea of figuring out who you want to be What you want to be when you grow up might just be the single most important thing you accomplish in the next few years of your life, if you're lucky. When I was your age, the only thing I clearly remember wanting was simply to fit in. When you're in high school, you go through the motions of studying, taking extracurriculars, whatever it takes to get into college. Then, once you're in college, it's only too easy to fall into the same cycle to prepare yourself for grad school or a job or whatever. Along the way, you'd be surprised how few people stop to figure out what they really want out of life. What they really love and who they really want to be when they grow up. And before they know it, they've grown up and still don't really know what they're passionate about. The lucky few among you who find your true passion, who pursue what you love, those are the ones most likely to be successful and happy. Because passion is what you need to work hard, and hard work is necessary to be successful. And to be happy on top of all of that, you need to love what you do all along the way. But it's not enough merely to know what you love. There are many who secretly know what they could be passionate about, but are afraid to actually go about it. This fear of failure is what prevents most of us from achieving true greatness. And the solution is simple. To let yourself— to let yourself fail once in a while. Look at most truly great people, and often their biggest accomplishments come on the heels of big failures. When you've failed, when you've got nothing When you have nothing to lose, that's when you take the risks you need to take. That's when you have the best shot at truly pursuing what you love, because you've got nothing else to hang on to. My first job out of college was a dead end. My next job was worse. I joined a company headed for bankruptcy. By age 23, here I am with my career going nowhere while my illustrious twin brother is running one of the most high-profile projects in the technology world, the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft. Turns out this was actually the best thing that could have happened to me. Because I had nothing to lose, I took the plunge in 1996 and co-founded a company, and that company went on to become a multi-million dollar success. Failure can be a really, really good thing. If you've never failed, that means you probably haven't taken enough risks And that brings us back to insecurity, because insecurity is what makes us afraid of failure. So our advice to you, Class of 2008, make sure that over the next few years you let yourself fail. Of course you're insecure, we all are. But don't let insecurity stop you from taking risks, even in front of a large audience. Life is short. You don't have a lot of time to figure out what you love. And if you figure out what you love, it's worth risking everything you've got to pursue it.
With that, Class of 2008, go forth and spread beauty and life.
