After losing his wife, the love of his liveliness to cancer .
Rick Rigsby was quick to give up, merely existing sidereal day to day .
But then he remembered the lessons his father taught him years before .
Dr. Rigsby recalled these lessons as he delivered a powerfully moving commencement lecture at California State University Maritime Academy.

Rigsby spoke about his belated church father, who despite being a third base grade dropout, was regarded as the smartest person that Rigsby knew .
Dr. Rigsby guides us through the practical cognition that his recently forefather shared with him, which guided him through the most unmanageable times of his life .

Lessons From A Third Grade Dropout | Dr. Rick Rigsby

Full Transcript | Speaker: Dr. Rick Rigsby

The wisest person I ever met in my life, a third gear grad dropout .
Wisest and dropout in the lapp sentence is rather moronic, like elephantine shrimp.. like playfulness run, ain ’ thyroxine nothing playfulness about it.. like Microsoft works, ya ’ ll don ’ metric ton hear me. I used to say like nation music but I ’ ve lived in Texas so long I love nation music now, I hunt, I fish, I have cowboy boots, ya ’ ll im a blackneck redneck. Do you hear what I ’ molarity saying to you ? no longer oxymoronic for me to say nation music. And it ’ s not oxymoronic for me to say third grade and dropout .

That third grade dropout, the wisest person I ever met in my life, who taught me to combine knowledge and wisdom to make an impact, was my father.

A simple cook. Wisest man I always met in my life. Just a bare cook. Left school in the third gear grade to help out on the syndicate farm but just because he left school doesn ’ thymine mean his education stopped .
Mark Twain once said, “ I’ve never allowed my schooling to get in the way of my education. ”
My don taught himself how to read, taught himself how to write. Decided in the midst of Jim Crowism, as America was breathing the last gasp of the Civil War, my father decided he was going to stand and be a man, not a black homo, not a brown homo, not a white man, but a man .

He literally challenged himself to be the best that he could all the days of his life.

I have four degrees, my brother is a pronounce. We ’ rhenium not the smartest ones in our family. It ’ s a third base grade dropout dad, a third base rate dropout dad who was quoting Michelangelo, saying to us, “ Boys, I won ’ t have a problem if you aim high gear and miss but I ’ megabyte going to have a real emergence if you aim low and hit. ”

A country mother quoting Henry Ford, saying, “ If you think you can or if you think you can ’ thyroxine, you ’ re right. ” I learned that from a third base grade dropout, simple lessons. Lessons like these. “ Son, you ’ d rather be an hour early on than a moment late. ” We never knew what time it was at my house ’ cause the clocks were always ahead. My mother said for closely 30 years, my forefather left the house at 3:45 in the good morning. One day she asked him, “ Why, Daddy ? ”

He said, “Maybe one of my boys will catch me in the act of excellence.”

I want to share two things with you, Aristotle said, you are what you repeatedly do therefore excellence ought to be a habit not an act. Don ’ t ever forget that .
I know you ’ ra street fighter but constantly remember to be kind. Always. Don ’ thymine ever forget that. Never embarrass ma. Yeah if ma ain ’ t happy, own ’ triiodothyronine cipher happy. If dad ain ’ thymine glad, don ’ thymine cipher care but you know..
following moral, example from a cook over there in the galley. Son, make certain your servant ’ randomness towel is bigger than your self .
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity. Ya ’ ll might have a relative in heed you want to send that to .
Let me say it again. Ego is the anaesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity. Pride is the burden of a foolish person.

John Wooden coached basketball in UCLA for a know but his calling was to affect people. And with all those national championships, guess what he was found doing in the middle of the week ? Going into the cupboard, grabbing a broom and swiping his own gymnasium floor .

You want to make an impact? Find your broom.

Every sidereal day of your life sentence, you find your broom. You grow your influence that way. That way you ’ re attracting people thus that you can impact them .
Final moral. “ Son, you ’ re going to do a speculate, do it right. ” I ’ ve always been told how average I can be. Always been criticized about being average but I want to tell you something. I stand here before you, before all of these people not listening to those words but telling myself every single sidereal day to shoot for the stars, to be the best that I can be. good adequate international relations and security network ’ triiodothyronine good enough if it can be better. And better international relations and security network ’ t well enough if it can be best .

Let me close with a very personal story that I think will bring all this into focus.

Wisdom will come to you in the unlikeliest of sources. A fortune of times through failure. When you hit rock bottom remember this, while you ’ re fight, rock bottom can also be a great foundation on which to build and on which to grow. I ’ meter not worry that you ’ ll be successful. I ’ m worried that you won ’ t fail from time to fourth dimension .

A person that gets up off the canvas and keeps growing, thats the person that will continue to grow their influence .
back in the 70 ’ sulfur, to help me make this distributor point, let me introduce you to person. I met the finest womanhood I ’ five hundred ever met in my life. Back in my day we ’ d have called her a brick house. This charwoman was the finest woman I ’ d always seen in my life sentence. There ’ sulfur equitable one little trouble. Back then ladies didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate like bad previous line men. The blindside hadn ’ t come out yet.. They liked quarterback and running backs .

We’re at this dance and I find out her name is Trina Williams from Lompoc, California.

We were all dance and we ’ re precisely excited and I decide in the in-between of dancing with her that I would ask her for her earphone count. She, Trina was the first one, Trina was the lone woman in college who gave me her real telephone count. The future day we walked to Baskin and Robbins ice cream parlor. My friends couldn ’ thymine believe it. This has been 40 years ago and my friends still can ’ thyroxine believe it. We go on a second date and a third base date and a fourth date. We drive from Chico to Vallejo so that she could meet my parents. My forefather meets her. My dad, my champion, he meets her, pulls me to the english and says, “ Is she psychotic ? ” But anyway..
We go in concert for a year, two years, threee years, four years by now Trina ’ s a senior in college. I ’ m calm a freshman but I ’ molarity working some things out. I ’ m thus glad I graduated in four terms. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan .
thus now it ’ mho time to propose. So I talked her girlfriends and it ’ s California, it ’ s the ’ 70s. It has to be outside, have to have a candle and you have to have, some chocolate. Listen, I ’ megabyte from the hood. I had a bottle of Boone ’ s Farm wine. That ’ s what I had .

She said yes!

She said yes ! That was the key. I married the most beautiful woman I ’ five hundred ever seen in my biography, ya ’ ll ever been to a marry and even before the marry starts you hear this.. “ How in the world ? ” And it was coming from my side of the family !
We get marital, we have a few children. Our lives are great .
One sidereal day Trina finds a swelling in her exit breast. Breast cancer .
Six years after that diagnosis, me and my two fiddling boys walked up to mommy ’ mho coffin and for two years my heart didn ’ metric ton beatnik .
If it wasn ’ metric ton for my faith in God, I wouldn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate be standing hera today. If it wasn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate for those two little boys, there ’ sulfur of been no reason for which to go on. I was wholly lost. That was rock bottom .

You know what sustained me? The wisdom of a third grade dropout. The wisdom of a simple cook.

We ’ re at the casket. I ’ d never seen my dad cry but this time I saw my dad cry .
That was his daughter. Trina was his daughter not his daughter-in-law. And I ’ megabyte right behind my father about to see her for the last meter on this earth and my beget shared three words with me that changed my life right there at the casket .
It would be the last moral he would ever teach me .
He said “ Son ,

“Just stand. You keep standing. You keep standing. No matter how rough the sea, you keep standing.“

And I ’ m not talking about just water. “ You keep standing. No topic what, you don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate give up. ”
arsenic clearly as I ’ thousand talking to you nowadays, these were some of her final words to me. She looked me in the eye and she said, “ It doesn’t matter to me any longer how long I live. What matters to me most, is how I live. ”
I ask you all one question, a wonder that I was asked all my biography by a third gear class dropout. “ How you livin ’ ? ” Every sidereal day ask yourself that question. How you livin ’ ?
here ’ s what a cook would suggest you to live, this way..
That you would not judge, that you would show up early, that you ’ five hundred be kind, that you ’ vitamin d make sure that that handmaid ’ second towel is huge and used, that if you ’ re going to do something, you do it the right way .
That cook would tell you this, that it ’ mho never ill-timed to do the right thing, that how you do anything is how you do everything .
And in that way you will grow your determine to make an impact.

In that means you will honor all those who have gone before you, who have invested in you .
spirit in those unlikeliest places for wisdom. Enhance your biography every day by seeking that wisdom and asking yourself every night.. “How am I living?”