University of Richmond Commencement: Navigating Life's Ups and Downs

Thanks, Kevin. I’m honored to be part of this event. Let me first thank the Class of 2025 for inviting me to speak today. You had absolutely no say in it I’m sure, but I’m grateful nonetheless.

Before I start, I’m required to caution that what I share today are my opinions — or better said, my life lessons — and not those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee or in the Federal Reserve System.

Next, while this isn’t technically required, I can’t go any further without saying, “Happy Mother’s Day” to my mom, my wife Robyn, and all of the other moms in the audience. This is a happy Mother’s Day, indeed.

The Federal Reserve, as you probably know, employs brilliant economists. And they’ve pointed me to a critical point I want to share with you today: By graduating from college, you have done one of the things most correlated with future success. On average, college graduates earn more money, live longer lives, have better health, have greater wealth, have jobs more resilient to downturns and, surveys suggest, get more matches on dating apps.

So, this is a big day! Well done, Class of 2025. You should be proud.

Congratulations, also, to the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, professors, instructors, mentors and friends who are here. You were all part of this journey and share in this moment of celebration.

One personal note: I’d encourage each and every graduate to take a second and ask your family how they experience today. At my daughter’s graduation, I stood in line at 6 a.m. to get a good seat. At the ceremony, we squinted from a distance but barely saw her. She had a great time, like I did at my own graduation, but it made me realize I had no idea what experience my dad, who has now passed, had at my graduation. I wish I knew. Today is all about you, of course, but remember it is also about them.

While this may not shock you as much as it shocks me, I graduated college 42 years ago, in 1983. We were a mere six months past the end of what was, at the time, the deepest recession since the Great Depression. I still have a very clear memory of the wall of our dorm covered with all of the rejection letters that our rooming group had received. I recognize that no one sends letters anymore.

This may sound familiar to some of you experiencing radio silence in your inbox. You’re graduating into a challenging labor market, which I imagine is particularly frustrating because no one is talking about it. That’s because we aren’t seeing a lot of layoffs and thus, if you have a job, the labor market is good. But if you’re looking for work, it feels like a different economy. Hiring is, and has been, quite low on a historical basis.

But I come with good news. My roommates and I have come a long way from our wall of rejection letters. I’ve had the chance to watch them, along with countless friends, successfully manage the ups and downs of life after college. I thought today, I would focus on the “ups” and add a few more themes to Kevin’s great advice. I hope these six “ups” might be of some small value to those of you who aren’t on your phones.

First up is: Show Up. And I mean physically. While it went out of style in recent years, the workplace is making a comeback. And it makes sense; in-person work has a lot to offer. You pick up on company culture and better understand who succeeds and why. You collaborate with and learn from colleagues. You discover who you want to work with, who you want to avoid and where the next great professional opportunity might be.

Unlike what you see in "Severance,” what you gain at the office can enrich your personal life as well. You make friends. You find mentors and role models. You might even meet your soul mate. Imagine if everyone in “The Office” had worked from home; think of all of the plot lines we would have missed. How would Jim have met Pam?

Remote work has its place. I’m not saying you must be in the office every day to succeed, but I do think showing up, watching others and being visible yourself, especially in the formative years of your career, is crucial. Plus, if a job can be done without you there, your boss might start wondering why it can’t be done by, say, a bot.

Second is Keep Up. I’m mostly teasing about the bot, but I do know many of you are worried about what technology, or developments in the public sector, will mean for your career. And I get it, the world is changing fast.

To age myself once more: When I graduated, there was no easily available personal computer or internet. No smartphone. No streaming. No Google. No PlayStation. You get the picture, and yes, I know, 40 years ago sounds pretty boring.

The worker I was prepared to be in 1983 became obsolete soon thereafter. I had to learn, adapt and keep up, and so will you. Your world looks set to move even faster than mine did. You’ll need to continuously invest in yourself to stay current. Read. Ask questions. Get involved in something outside the workplace that gives you new perspectives.

Today is a big milestone, no doubt, but your educational journey is not yet complete.

Third is Look Up. Find someone who has had a life you admire and figure out what they did to get there. Find your Yoda or Dumbledore. If it’s your boss you admire, watch them, learn from them. Understand what he or she does, how they make decisions and what makes them good at their job. It’ll prepare you to step in once it’s your turn.

How do you ensure your turn comes? Ask for feedback, be receptive to it and actually use it to make yourself better. When you succeed, ask why. When you fail, ask why. And, importantly, step up when you are given the chance.

Fourth is Free Up. And here, I’m talking about time. If there’s one cliché lesson that rings true as you age, it’s that there’s simply not enough of it.

Know your passions and protect them. For me, that means reading and sports, and family and lifelong friends. For you, it might be working out; obviously that’s not a priority for me. On the margin, doing what energizes me sometimes requires a little less sleep, or an extra flight, or some courage to draw boundaries or move work to less costly parts of the week. It means deprioritizing low-value tasks. Yes, I’m talking about you, TikTok. I study personal productivity and am constantly seeking to learn how I can get more done in less time. It isn’t easy to balance the personal and the professional, but you can do hard things. You’ve got a degree to prove it.

Fifth is Save Up. Pay down debt and be cautious on taking out any more. Spend less than you make. Save money and invest smartly. All of these aren’t about how to become rich, though it won’t hurt. They’re about how to create personal freedom: to have what you need, to support yourself and your family in times of crisis and to keep a healthy attitude toward work. Money in reserve gives you resilience in downturns and the ability to walk away when needed. I always found that freedom gave me confidence and allowed me to make better decisions.

And finally, Keep Your Head Up. Life is long and, as I said at the beginning, has both ups and downs. As the “Great” Dory once said, “Just keep swimming!” Do more things that energize you and fewer that don’t. Be with more people who give you positive energy and avoid those who bring you down. Nurture the great friendships you have made in college; they can be yours for a lifetime. Tackle barriers and problems with commitment and diligence. But don’t try to solve problems you don’t yet have. The ones you have will keep you busy enough.

There is a whole literature about the personal behaviors of lucky people that I would summarize as “they make their own luck.” They have the resilience to turn lemons into lemonade, problems into opportunities. As another great once said, they know to “Shake it Off!”

I was tempted to close with one more “up”: wake up to those who may be drifting off to sleep. I remember my commencement. At least, I remember that I didn’t get much sleep the night before; we were packing, telling stories and just having fun together while we could. I hope that’s what you did, too.

And if that means you didn’t quite focus on my message, that’s OK. Here’s the TL;DR (I’m told that means “too long; didn’t read”): Show Up, Keep Up, Look Up, Free Up, Save Up and Keep Your Head Up. Hopefully you’ll remember that more than I remember what my commencement speaker said.

To close, I’ll just say this: Bottoms up. Cheers to you and your families. I’m excited to see where you go from here.