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Good evening.
I first want to say thank you for the honor to be here tonight. It means more than I can tell.
Sixteen years ago on this same Saturday evening in December, I was sitting in the audience as you students are tonight. I was a senior in the Class of 1988, a class that was big in both size and talent. We all gathered at the Ridgeway Country Club for what we thought was going to be another fun, but ordinary alumni banquet. However, Martin Cutler took the podium and began his speech
"Dare to be Different". He explained how we should take risks to differentiate ourselves and reinforced the notion with real-life examples. I remember that at the conclusion of the speech, for the first time in my time at the PPP, my thoughts changed from participant to observer. Sure, I had realized during my freshman, sophomore and junior years that I was part of something special in this program. That was one of the things that kept me working so hard. But I had never spent any time linking what I was doing here at the PPP and GHS-TV to what I would do as an alumni of this great program. And here was one of the great success stories telling us to use the foundation that this program had provided and create an unchartered path in life, to
"dare to be different." To this day, I have not forgotten this charge and it is one that I hope each of you will remember as well.
This evening I will not have that kind of impact on you. However, I do hope to challenge you here to ensure you maximize your potential both as a student of the program and after graduation, as an alumni.
When Mr. Bluestein called me several months ago and asked me to speak at this banquet, I told him that there was no greater honor that I could have received. After I hung up, I thought about what I said and asked myself,
"Why". Why would I, 16 years after graduation, think that being a distinguished alumni of my high school drama and television program be the greatest honor I had received to date. My professional life is not connected to the arts or television in any way. I have not kept in contact with any of my high school friends with the exception of an email here or there. I have not been to many alumni banquets due to travel and family obligations. So why, other than a genuine respect for Mr. Bluestein, would I consider this such an honor. After I pondered on this question for a few days, it hit me. It is because the program, the whole program (the Playhouse, TV studio, and the music and art program) exemplifies what I want to call Sustained Greatness. I will define this in a minute but this notion of Sustained Greatness, I will argue, more than anything else, provides the link between you students and us alumni. It is this, I will argue, that is the largest recruiting tool of students wishing to get involved in the program. It is this, I will argue, that keeps people coming back year after year filling the seats in the PPP. It is this, I will argue, that makes us alumni so proud of not only what we did to keep the tradition going, but also what each group of students after us are doing. It is this, I will argue, that makes this program so different from anything else in life.
What do I mean by Sustained Greatness? I define it as
"crossing that fine line between good and great and sustaining that level of performance." In simple terms, it means that every year, no matter what the talent level, no matter what the number of students and no matter what the activity, if it is done by this program, you know it is going to be great.
Achieving greatness
is a tough thing. As Jim
Collins stated in his
best-selling book, Good
to Great, "Good is the
enemy of great. And that
is one of the key
reasons why we have so
little that becomes
great. We don't have
great schools,
principally because we
have good schools. We
don't have great
government, principally
because we have good
government. Few people
attain great lives, in
large part because it is
just so easy to settle
for a good life."
So the fact that a high school fine arts program can achieve greatness in something at some time is of significance. What I argue is the distinguishing factor of this program is that it can sustain greatness year-after-year-after-year.
The difficulty of achieving a level of Sustained Greatness is illustrated by the fact that you can find few things in life that fit the definition. It is what mountain climbers call
"rare air", that place at the top of the mountain where only a few things have visited and where even fewer live. However, it is the permanent home of this program. And it is what I am here to talk about tonight.
There are many reasons why most things don't achieve Sustained Greatness. I won't attempt to try to identify them all but I will mention three. First, I think 5 time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong summed it up best in his recent book, Every Second Counts, by saying,
"Generally one of the hardest things in the world to do is something twice. When you've done it once, there is less reason to do it again."
In other words, people
lose their motivation.
Second, once people do
something once and
realize how hard the
work is, they often
choose to not work as
hard the second time.
This was brought home
personally last year. I
had completed my first
official marathon (26.2
miles of running) and
although it was not a
great finishing time, I
was proud of myself. I
called one of my friends
to tell him, expecting
congratulations and he
immediately said,
"Great. But anyone can
do a marathon once. What
separates you is if you
can do a second one,
knowing the pain that
you will go through to
complete it again."
This is true for a marathon, but is equally true for a production or anything else that requires hard work, pain and sacrifice. Once you know how hard it is, will you work that hard to do it again? Often times, people say
"no". Finally, I will also mention, what I call
"the inability to know how to sustain greatness." People often achieve greatness in something due to a great talent, timing or a host of other reasons. However, after they achieved greatness at something, they often cannot replicate it. That is where this program is unique. It has mastered the replication of great performances.
What I wish for the each of you students in your lives is to achieve Sustained Greatness. You are living in what I referred to earlier as
"rare air" and when you come out of the clouds after graduation, it is up to the each of you to be able to replicate your successes here to achieve Sustained Greatness in your lives.
I argue that one way of doing this is to have an internal scorecard or checklist if you will, that you can use to constantly monitor yourself. In other words, ask yourself what is it about the program that has allowed it to achieve this level and how can I ensure that I am doing things on a personal level in the same way?
I am oversimplifying the success formula for the Sustained Greatness of this program and some may not even agree with what I propose, but for ease of explanation and recall, I will argue that Sustained Greatness is achieved by following five P's that this program adheres to. These are Preparation, Purpose/Passion, Persistence, Perspective and Performance.
First, Preparation. In your world today, you might take preparation for granted. Assuming things are still like they were when I was here, when you were cast in a play, you were handed a practice schedule that told you essentially how much preparation for a performance you would do. There is nothing unique about preparation in itself. Most people prepare at some level for most things. What allows for crossing that line between good to great is what we used to do in plays here when things weren't going well. Mr. Bluestein would start doubling up. Instead of just nightly practices, we would add afternoon practices, break an hour for dinner and come back to our
"scheduled practices" and would continue this until it was right. It did not matter the pain that was caused to our schedules or the added work required for all involved. It was an ingrained belief that preparation (the right preparation) was something that was going to be done. I want to give you a sports example to drive this point home. Lance Armstrong is only the second person in history to win the Tour de France 5 times in 5 consecutive years. In the cycling world (given shortened career life spans), he has achieved Sustained Greatness.
After winning his first Tour de France in 1999, after a remarkable recovery from cancer, he began training for the 2000 Tour. In May, 2 months before the July race, Lance set out by himself to train in the mountain stages for the tour. As it reads in his book Every Second Counts,
"The weather was blustery and I rode the exact route we would take. I was alone except for Johan (my coach) in a follow car. I arrived at the foot of Hautacam, and I began to job atop the petals, working my way up the steep hillside. I studied the road as I went, trying to decide where I might attack, and where I'd need to save myself. It was pouring down a mixture of snow and sleet, and my breath streamed out in a white vapor.
After about an hour into the hardest part of the climb (but 6 hours into the training for the day), Johan pulled up and stuck his head out of the car window.
"Okay, good. Get in the car and have some hot tea," he said. I hesitated. I was unhappy about the way I'd ridden.
"I didn't get it," I said.
"What do you mean you didn't get it?" Johan replied.
"I didn't get
it. I don't understand
the climb."
A mountain could be a complicated thing. I didn't feel like I knew Hautacam. I'd climbed it, but I was still uncertain about how to pace myself up it.
"I don't think I know it,"
I said. "It's not my
friend."
"What's the problem?"
Johan said. "You got it,
let's go."
"We're going to
have to go back and do
it again."
And then I rode
it again, straight up
for another hour. This
time, at the end of the
day, in the driving
rain, when I was done, I
felt I'd mastered the
climb. At the top, Johan
met me with a raincoat.
"I don't believe what I
just saw, Now let's go
home."
I now wan to show you what happened on the actual race day on this particular climb in the 2000 Tour de France.
CLIP #1 Lance Armstrong Race Clip
Lance started the race that day in 16th place more than 6 minutes behind and finished the day in first place with a seven minute lead. No rider came close to beating him the rest of the tour and he went on to win the 2nd of his 5 Tour de France victories.
I mention this because I think it is a great illustration of what preparation can do. As actors, I know there is a certain level of preparation but you need an internal scorecard to know if you need to do more. As Lance said, he wanted the mountain to
"be his friend." What will it take you as an actor to make the script your
"friend" or a particular scene your
"friend"? He said to his coach, he didn't
"know the mountain." If you are doing a TV story on a subject, what level of extra preparation do you need to do to really
"know" your subject. That is the Preparation test and you have to constantly ask yourself if you are willing to go the extra mile as Lance did in preparing for a performance.
The second P is Purpose/Passion. I list them both because they are interrelated. I think it is hard to have one without the other and both are needed for Sustained Greatness. As students, you are provided purpose and passion from Mr. Bluestein. There is no doubt about Mr. Bluestein's purpose for the program and its students. It is to provide us with the richest educational experience anywhere in the world. This unwavering purpose fuels the passion that is everywhere here tonight (in you, the students, in the faculty, and in us, the alumni). It is that passion that makes us all work so hard in fulfilling the purpose. However, as clear as this Purpose/Passion equation is here at the PPP, it often becomes less clear after graduation.
Tom Hanks is an actor that I would argue has achieved Sustained Greatness and articulates the importance of this element as a key to his success.
CLIP #2 Tom Hanks Interview
My take-away from this was that Tom has such a clear purpose – he loves what he does and cannot think of doing anything else – that it fuels his passion to the degree that, as the director of Cast Away says,
"if people stand in his way to greatness, he will simply move them out of the way." On the road to achieving Sustained Greatness, your purpose must be clear at all times.
The third P is Persistence. This can take many different forms. At the Playhouse, persistence was often exhibited by people who did not have strong talent, but worked so much harder than everyone else that they achieved greatness through sheer will. They didn't listen to people who said,
"You can't sing or You can't dance." They were oblivious to the word
"can't." On a higher level, it is what Mr. Bluestein has done with the whole program. People have constantly said, high school students can't do this or can't do that and he persistently set the expectation that we could and as a result, we did.
On an outside world example, since I have referenced an athlete and an artist, I will use a business world reference, the world I live in. Sam Walton achieved Sustained Greatness by not listening to others in the retail world and persistently went about building the largest corporation in America (bigger than any other company in terms of revenues and employees).
CLIP #3 Sam Walton Clip
Notice from the clip the negatives. First, he was told he was on the verge of being fired and was
"not cut out for retail work."
Second, he was told he
had to buy all his
merchandise from the
company store, which he
knew he couldn't do and
compete. Had Sam not
persisted through these
two negatives and not
made his midnight and
Sunday runs for
merchandise, he probably
would not have created
Wal-Mart. Students, you
will hit many obstacles,
some in high school, but
mostly afterwards. Make
sure on your personal
scorecard you are
prepared to persist
through them. Keep a
mental image in your
mind of this man, on the
back roads of Arkansas
at 2:00am in the morning
putting merchandise in
his trunk and silently
repeating to himself,
"They said I am not cut
out for retail work."
The fourth P is Perspective. Perspective is very subjective and once again, as a student in the program, your perspective on things may be very clear. When I was a student here, I had a clear perspective on things. I had heard the adage,
"the people who work the hardest, get to do the most" during my freshman year and I believed it and it was true. Therefore, my perspective did not waver, whether I was cast in a play or not.
However, as you leave the program, your perspective can get blurred. Given the difficult nature of some of the careers you will be pursuing, it is important to gain the right perspective and keep it.
To illustrate a strategy on this, I want to tell you a brief story that comes from the book I mentioned earlier, Good to Great, by Jim Collins. Collins writes in the book about his meeting with Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest ranking United States military officer in the
"Hanoi Hilton" prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War.
"Tortured over
twenty times during his
eight-year imprisonment
from 1965 to 1973,
Stockdale lived out the
war (8 years) without
any prisoner's rights,
no set release date and
no certainty as to
whether he would even
survive to see his
family again."
Collins writes that
it is even now reading
his account of the story
is depressing and we
know the end of the
story, that everything
works out fine. He asked
an important question to
Admiral Stockdale during
a visit, "How on earth
did you deal with it
when you were there and
did not know the end of
the story."
"I never lost faith in the end of the story," Stockdale said.
"I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.
Then after some
silence, Collins asked,
"Who didn't make it
out."
"Oh, that's easy,"
he said. "The
optimists."
"The optimists? I don't understand," Collins responded now completely confused given what Stockdale had said about himself just a few minutes ago.
"The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said,
"We're going to be out by Christmas." And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say,
"We're going to be out by Easter."
And Easter would come
and Easter would go. And
then Thanksgiving and
then it would be
Christmas again. And
they died of a broken
heart."
After a long pause,
Stockdale turned and
said, "This is a very
important lesson. You
must never confuse faith
that you will prevail in
the end – which you can
never afford to lose –
with the discipline to
confront the most brutal
facts of your current
reality, whatever they
might be."
I think it is important to remember what Collins calls the Stockdale Paradox when pursuing your objectives. There are times when actors treat the next audition as the prisoners treated Christmas and after repeated disappointments, instead of physically
"dying of a broken heart" they figuratively,
"die of a broken heart," move on to something else and never achieve their goals. It is important to sometimes say to yourself,
"I am not going to get out by Christmas, but I am going to win in the end." It is important as you pursue your goals both during your time here at the PPP and afterward, to be optimistic that you will win in the end (after all, you have been trained at the best training ground in America) but that it may not happen on the timing you think. In other words, while there may be some
"disappointing Christmases" out there, do not lose faith that you will succeed in the end while being disciplined to know that great things often take time to happen.
This leads to the final P, Performance. It is a given that Sustained Greatness in anything hinges on great performances, be them in any endeavor. With the proper Preparation, a strong Purpose that releases your Passion, strong Persistence to remove obstacles and an optimistic but disciplined Perspective, great Performances can be achieved. As a student in this program, you know how to deliver great Performances, you do it day after day, year after year.
To illustrate a great performance and these factors coming together, is one final clip. It is of Harrison Ford and it begins by him talking about his career before acting, being a carpenter.
CLIP #4 Harrison Ford Clip
In that interview, Ford contended that carpentry helped him learn an essential lesson about acting, that good performance is built from the ground up, one layer at a time. I think that is the best way to sum up this program and the Sustained Greatness it has achieved. One class built on one class that built on Mr. Bluestein that built on another experience that after awhile was such a strong foundation Sustained Greatness was both an expectation and a byproduct of the system.
I want to thank you students tonight for laying another foundation that classes behind you can build upon. I also wish you the best of luck in achieving Sustained Greatness in your lives.
Thank you again for inviting me here and good night.
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