The Bobby Bones Show - Bonus Commencement Episode: Bobby Bones

Episode Date: May 16, 2020

Nashville's favorite radio personality is giving back this commencement season. Despite students across the United States not getting their real commencement Bones and his colleagues from Halsey to Tim Cook band together to bring unique speeches that are sure to inspire tomorrow's leaders. Be sure to check out even more of your favorite celebrities and public figures on Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020.Radio and TV personality Bobby Bones who “has carved out a place for himself in nearly every corner of the entertainment world,” Bones is host of the nationally syndicated radio show, The Bobby Bones Show, which broadcasts to over 150 stations and is the #1 Country morning show with millions of weekly listeners. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Parents. Faculty. Rising graduates, welcome to commencement. You made it. This year is a little different, a difficult time to graduate because the traditional graduation day has been put on hold. So we're bringing it to you, wherever you are, because this is still your day, your moment.

And now put your hands together. It's time to be inspired. This year's commencement speaker, the one and only, Bobby Bones. Hello to the class of 2020. My name is Bobby Bones. I am on your radio every day with my show, the Bobby Bone Show on IHart Radio. I'm on your TV on American Idol. I want a dancing show, which is even more crazy.

I'm also on your bookshelf or your Kindle. Got a couple New York Times best-selling books there, and I didn't make the last part of a promise. But I don't want those things to paint a picture that I'm some cool guy with a degree from a fancy college who could have been whatever he wanted. I'm a kid from a really small town in Arkansas, Mountain Pine, Arkansas, population 772.

who knew that if he ever wanted to be something in this world and achieve his dreams, that he'd have to put in real hard work. He didn't have advantages. By the way, I'm saying he, that's me. It feels a little weird to say that, but you get it. That I would have to fail time and time again, and then I have to get used to being rejected all along the way. And someday, someday, after all these years and years of hard work and determination,

this person, me, would be ridiculed by his peers and be dubbed an overnight success, which is crazy. But as I sit here before you today, I'm in my isolated studio, tucked away in a corner, upstairs in my house. I'm quarantined with a girlfriend who is 10 times more attractive than me, and that's me on a good day. That can be you one day,

but if that's your thing. Whether you're any girls or any guys or dressing up like furry animals, you know, rubbing together, whatever your thing is, I'm not going to judge you, but if you want it, you can do it. Because it's a crazy world we're living in right now, no doubt about it.

The coronavirus pandemic is happening, and it feels like the last time I left my house Urkel was still on TV. It's been that long. By the way, for those of you too young to remember Erkel, he was the lovable nerd in the 90s TV show Family Matters. For those of you too young, remember what a TV is?

It was that big black box that your mom and dad would angle all the furniture in your living room towards. And I know you're probably all gotten really good to make a TikTok dancing videos with your cat, but are also sad. I thought of missing your graduation ceremonies. And that stinks. Like, I hate that for you.

And I wanted to share with you guys a little bit of my story, so you feel less alone because I hate that you can't do, but is a big part in all of our lives, which is going through graduation. But you're going to be stronger because of it, I promise you that. Everyone who has ever walked a stage before you had to overcome obstacles to get where they are and achieve their goals.

And maybe their obstacles didn't come in the form of a global pandemic, but I believe there is some beauty in dealing with wrenches thrown in your gears. You probably heard the phrase, tough times never last, tough people do, right? I mean, that's true now more than ever as we kind of wait for the world to get back to normal or whatever normal may look like.

You guys will be the ones navigate in that road. And you can choose to go into it one or two ways. Feeling like life isn't fair, because you don't have it easy like those before you. Or you can take it in stride and realize that if you can get ahead of this and come out on top, that you'll come out stronger than anyone in history. You're going to learn so much. Now, you get to write your own story.

They may cancel your graduation. They may cancel every event until the end of the year, but they can't cancel your dream. They can't cancel you. Make yourself essential. If you look back in history, you can find people before you who at one time were dubbed as being non-essential. Walt Disney was labeled unessential by the Kansas City Star.

According to his editor, he was fired because he, quote, lacked imagination and had no good ideas. Walt freaking Disney. Steve Jobs, he was labeled unessential by Apple. He was fired by the company he founded after one of his Apple products was deemed a failure in the 80s. Oprah Winfrey, unessential by a TV station in Baltimore. seven and a half months into her reporting job there, she was fired and reportedly told by a producer that she was unfit for television news.

You're talking about three of the biggest successes in American history. All were told, ah, you're not good enough, it's not for you. At one point in every successful person's career, and probably more than that, they were labeled unessential. Every person you look to and admire

for achieving their goals has failed so many times along the way. And that's what I'm here to talk about. They too were threatened of being canceled, but they didn't let it stop them. They made themselves be undeniable. They made their dreams and their worth essential to them and then made it essential to everyone else too. My mantra for years has been fight, grind, repeat.

And if you never heard that before, I would suspect you haven't because I'm not famous like Hillary Clinton or Oprah or anybody else that's doing one of these talks. Fight, grind, repeat, it's easy. The fight is seeing something that you want to do and knowing you want to do it and having the passion to do it. That's just the fight and getting started. That is the fight. The grind is the everyday routine. It's the consistency tunnel that is not comfortable because every day it doesn't feel like you're getting ahead. Some days it feels like you're losing a step.

It's discipline. And the repeat is resilience because you're probably not going to make it the first time or the 42nd time. Or in my case, the 937th time. But being able to bounce back and do it again, that's the repeat. That's the fight, the grind, and the repeat until you get it. It doesn't have to be a job. be a family. It could be helping. It could be work. I wanted to be on the radio and TV my whole life. I knew that since I was a kid. And it wasn't the people in my hometown ever stopped me from

achieving that dream. They just didn't know that dream could ever be accomplished because no one they had ever seen had to achieve a dream like that. It wasn't a reality. Kids like me didn't have that option of someday having a big fancy pants career like I have now. The struggle daily just to get food on the table, most people in my hometown worked at the sawmill. The struggle was just to have food on the table. So it wasn't that they didn't want a dream, was there was no room for a dream because you just had to get food. They had to make sure the bills were paid. Even for me, I was the first person ever graduated from high school in my family. The thought of someday graduating high school and going into college was never really in the cars, the thought of it.

But I knew if I ever wanted to get my dream job, I would have to do just that. So that's why I made doing well in school such a priority. It was my way out of a small town that was divided by railroad track, still to this day. I had to work the system. I had to study hard, I had to get good grades on my SATs and ACTs. I had to land the jobs that were cleaning the radio station, convinced the people at the same radio station that a dorky white guy with bad glasses could actually get on the air.

Like all of these really small steps happen way early. By the way, I'm certainly really small steps today. You know, it's the really non-glamorous things that you're going to do that makes all the difference in the world. I've been on the radio for over 20 years now. I have the biggest country music radio show in America. Biggest one they've ever had. I'll be honest with you.

But I've only ever been able to get to the place where I am now, because of all the really small steps I've taken, all the adversity that I have been through and learned from and the chaos that I've been able to navigate along the way. Basically, it's my tool belt. I've used them as tools to craft my own dream. I have learned, and I'm not kidding you, that the world is bendable.

You can create the world you want to live in, but it does take work. But again, you can create the world you want to live in. You can decide what you want to do. You can set those terms and you can go do it if you want it bad enough. You don't just wake up one day and decide, I'm going to go run a marathon. You kill yourself trying. But what you can do is wake up one day and go, I want to run a marathon and then decide to take a walk. And that walk leads to a jog. And that jog works into a run. And before you know it, the freaking finish line of the marathon's happening.

Now, it doesn't come quick. It doesn't come easy. But if it's what you really want, there is no doubt that you can do it. But you don't get to that finish line without shedding some butt sweat and some tears from all parts of your body, along the way. And butt sweat is not cute. I don't know. My girlfriend's got a nice little butt sweat. Listen, no one likes to talk about their butt sweat. No one puts that on Instagram. And I even mean that in a non-funny way. Nobody puts the hard work on Instagram really. Social media is a trophy case. So stop looking at other social media accounts going, man, they got it all figured out. I'm going to tell you, the more they're flexing, the less they got in reality. The hardest working people I know that have great jobs and great careers and smart thinking and big plans,

they don't post that stuff that much. So stop looking at social media as basically a trophy case of all the things that have and haven't gone your way or their way in life. You crying in a pile of dirty laundry after not landing that job you want on last Tuesday does not look good in a post. So don't post that either.

So it doesn't matter if you have the Alkavia filter or not or the Hemingway filter, whatever all those filters are. But listen, that's what dreams are built on, right? It's the stuff people don't see. Much like all the anxieties you're feeling right now because you're graduating, you're going out to the real world, and you don't know what the crap's about to happen.

You wouldn't know in anyway. I'll be honest with it. You wouldn't know what was going to happen in the world anyway. You'd have been like, what do I do? But on top of that, freaking corona's here. Are you kidding me? Actually, I'm excited for you. Because with any struggle,

comes so much learning. You know, for me, I went through a lot of crap to get where I am today. And I used to look back and go, huh, I feel sorry for that food stamp kid who's a little shorter than everybody else. little poorer than everybody else, less athletic than the other guys who didn't have a mom, who's an addict, whose dad left.

I felt sorry for that kid. That was me, right? But now I look back and I'm so happy that I had that struggle because now I'll go back to the tool belt. I have the freaking tools. I have them. I have all the tools. There's nothing in life right now that's going to hit me that I can't take.

You know why? Because I've already been through it. And going through hard times as sucky as it seems sometimes is actually a really good place for you to be because you're learning. You're acquiring those tools. So are you willing to go and sit through all the hard stuff to get what you want? Most people aren't. I'll be honest with you. Most people are. Most people say they want it. And then when it comes down to really wanting it, most people want to run a marathon. I mean, I like to run a marathon. I haven't put in the work for that. That's crazy talk. Most people want to run a marathon and they're like out one day,

but they don't ever put in the time. I've done a couple triathlons. You know, when it comes to work, most people want to be, have a big fancy pants radio show. Talk to millions of people every day. Be on TV, write books, but it's all the stuff that you don't see that actually make that happen. It's the tiny decisions every single day when no one is watching you. It's not an Instagram post. It's life. And if you're willing to do that, you can be whatever you want. And I'm excited that you have a struggle right now because you're going to be smarter and stronger because of it.

I don't know if you're listening to these other ones. I haven't heard any other speeches that celebrities way richer and cooler the meter giving. And they may say they feel completely bad for you. life stinks. And I'm going to say, you're just lifting weights right now, basically, getting stronger for later. You're just training for later. I know you can do it. You know you can do it.

That's the stuff dreams are built on. All of your accomplishments, all of your success, it's all built on stuff that people won't see. Remember that. There should be a voice in your head right now and talking to you because you got a lot going on. And it may say to you, am I good enough to make it? Will there even be a place for my crazy dreams once this is all set and done? That voice is the test because if you're starting to question and go, I don't know, maybe that's not for you. But if you hear that and you go, yeah, of course there is.

That's what you're supposed to do. You found it. That's it. This is all just a test. A test that started once your life got flipped upside down. I'd like to take a minute. Just sit right there. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air.

That's another 90s TV show. I did mean all that stuff before that. I'm not here to deny the fact that it doesn't suck right now, but it's the world we're living in now. You either run with it or you run away from it. That's it. It's okay to be upset. that you're missing out on getting to walk across the stage and everybody clapping all your family and friends. You should be sad about that. Take a minute and be sad. That's okay. And although it may feel

like all your hard work will be for nothing without that moment, I'm here to tell you you, you're going to be fine. You're going to be glowing. Ten years from now, you'll look back and realize you were the first in history to celebrate your graduation virtually. That makes you special if anything else. And did you really want to sit in some smelly old gym crammed in an uncomfortable chair, faking enthusiasm? For all these random people you don't even know, probably not. It's way too long anyway, I'll be honest with you. Make the most of this moment, you'll regret it if you don't. I know it may feel like you've been cheated out of a senior year. As you saw the class that graduated before you, get all the fun things. For you high schoolers, maybe you've missed out on a senior

trip or prom or the shot at that crush that probably never go out with you anyway. For you college kids, maybe you didn't get to finish out that internship that you'd invest in so much time into. Sometimes we need a storm. There are times in my life when a storm has led me to a better place. given me a reset, shrunk my head. Storms can be great. Maybe not right in the middle of the high winds and pelting rain of the storm, but when it blows over,

you really appreciate the view. So if anything, this has given you a head start to finding out that one, life isn't always fair, but the good thing is you can learn from it and move on to the next phase and be stronger because of it.

The end of high school, you get to going to college with a fresh start. No one will remember the nickname the mean kids gave you in school, you know, T-bon. From that time of your short split wide open while wrestling another dude.

That's me. No one remembered. Yeah, I guess they kind of, you get it. The end of college. Hey, you're in the real world. Now I'm talking to you. It may look a little different right now. So come on in.

Grab a face mask. Sanitize your hands. Take the world by storm. Even if you have to stand six feet away from your new boss. Class of 2020, I'm here to tell you, you are capable of anything that you set your mind to. You are entering the next chapter of your life in a world that may seem a little more scary and a little more uncertain.

This hasn't been the most traditional commencement speech. But we're living in untraditional times. Go out, set a new precedent, be the new standard. Don't let anyone deem you unessential. You don't deem yourself unessential. When you think, I don't know if I can make it, I did. Look at me. Crazy.

I shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be anywhere. We're only where we choose to be and work to get. So with that being said, I'm proud of you. Congratulations. That's what I'm talking about. Let's get going. Congratulations, class of 2020.

Ooh, here goes nothing. You can find a collection of incredible commencement addresses from all your favorite speakers at the commencement podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. If you have ever dealt with a traditional home security company, you know the drill. Expensive monthly fees, contracts that lock you in for years, and waiting around for a technician to set everything up. It's a lot. Well, now they're Simply Safe. They have completely changed the game. Simply Safe has no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, no being.

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That's half off at SimplySafe.com slash bones. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Service opens doors. And at American Military University, it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may quote, qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at AMU. APUS.edus.edu slash military. Open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University.

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