During his commencement speech at the University of Alabama, President Trump urged graduates not to waste their youth.
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00:00ever, ever, ever before it's going to be.
00:11As you embark on this great adventure,
00:13let me share some of the biggest lessons I've learned
00:16from a lifetime spent building dreams and beating the odds.
00:19I beat a lot of odds.
00:21A lot of odds.
00:22A lot of people said, I don't know.
00:25But it worked out okay.
00:26Where are we?
00:27Oh, gee, I'm president.
00:28How did that happen?
00:30Now, you're going to be in the same position.
00:33But some of the things, would you like to hear some of the ideas?
00:36Or should I just skip over that part, huh?
00:38That's going to be more interesting than all the other stuff,
00:41which was slightly political, right?
00:44I'm going to give it to you, though, just as I see it
00:46and as I've learned it, the hard way and the easy way.
00:49First, if you're here today and think that you're too young
00:54to do something great, let me tell you that you are wrong.
00:57You're not too young.
00:58You can have great success at a very young age.
01:01You're all very young.
01:03In America, with drive and ambition, young people can do anything.
01:07I was 28 when I took my first big gamble to develop a hotel in Midtown Manhattan,
01:12the Grand Hyatt, and it worked out incredibly well.
01:16But I was very young at the time.
01:18I was like a very young person in sort of an old-person business.
01:22Steve Jobs was 21 when he founded Apple.
01:25Walt Disney was 21 when he founded Disney.
01:28James Madison, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson.
01:33They were no older than 25 when they began the journeys
01:37that etched their names into the history books for all time.
01:41So to everyone here today, don't waste your youth.
01:44Go out and fight right from the beginning,
01:46from the day you leave this incredible university.
01:49Go out and fight.
01:51Fight tough.
01:52Fight fair.
01:52But go out and fight.
01:54You're going to be very successful,
01:56because now is the time to work harder than you have ever worked before.
01:59Push yourself further than you have ever pushed yourself before.
02:04Find your limits and then smash through everything.
02:07Go and smash through.
02:09You've watched that football team smash through.
02:12You're going to do the same thing.
02:13You're at the age when you have the time and vitality
02:20to do really incredible things.
02:22If you give, just give it your all.
02:25You'll look back, and a decade from now,
02:29you'll be astounded by what you've achieved.
02:31You'll remember this day.
02:32You'll remember when a guy named Trump
02:34was giving the commencement address,
02:37and he said I could do it, and guess what?
02:39I did.
02:39I think you're going to remember that very fondly.
02:41I hope so.
02:42Second of all, and very importantly,
02:51you have to love what you do.
02:53Okay?
02:53You have to.
02:55I rarely see somebody that's successful
02:57that doesn't love what he or she does.
03:00That's the way you really like work isn't work.
03:04It's fun.
03:05I find it fun.
03:07I work all the time, and I find it fun.
03:08If I didn't find it fun, I wouldn't be successful,
03:10whether it was real estate or in showbiz.
03:14I had a lot of different careers,
03:15but I loved real estate so much,
03:17and I was very successful at real estate
03:20because I loved it.
03:21I learned a lot from my father
03:23because I watched him work.
03:24He worked seven.
03:25He was a workaholic.
03:26He worked.
03:26He loved to work.
03:27He's a good man.
03:28He was a tough guy.
03:29Tough as hell, actually.
03:31Now that I think back,
03:32I don't know if you could even get away with that nowadays.
03:35He was tough,
03:35but he was a good man, I'll tell you,
03:38and he worked seven days a week.
03:39He worked Saturdays, Sundays.
03:41It didn't matter,
03:42and I learned by watching him,
03:44he loved his life.
03:45He loved what he was doing.
03:46He had a great long-term marriage,
03:49a long, long, many, many, many years.
03:51He beat me on that one.
03:54Now, mine are very successful,
03:56but they haven't lasted quite as long.
03:58It was close to 70 years.
04:00That was a long time.
04:02I said,
04:02Pop, you beat me on that one.
04:04But you know what I learned from him?
04:06That he just,
04:07he loved life,
04:08and all he did was work.
04:09I see people that don't work hard,
04:11and they're miserable.
04:12So go out and find,
04:13but he loved what he was doing,
04:15and you have to find something that you love,
04:17and you have to follow your own instincts.
04:20Listen to your parents.
04:21They're very wise,
04:22but you have to follow your instincts
04:24and your heart, your soul,
04:27and you want to be the very, very best you can be.
04:29Treat every day like a home game against Auburn.
04:33Fight like hell,
04:34and enjoy doing it,
04:36and your coach can tell you all about that.
04:39Third thing is to think big.
04:41You know, you're going to do something,
04:42you might as well think big,
04:43because it's just as tough.
04:45You can think small.
04:46I know a lot of people,
04:47they thought small.
04:49They're very smart.
04:50I know others that weren't nearly as smart,
04:52but they had a better picture of the big picture,
04:55because it's just as hard to solve a small problem
04:58as a big problem,
04:59and it's just as much energy and everything else
05:02except the result is going to be a smaller one.
05:04So love what you do,
05:06but think big if it's possible.
05:08Now, if it's not possible, that's okay, too.
05:10You do something,
05:11you have to do something that you love.
05:13You will have all the same headaches and challenges,
05:16all the same delays and setbacks,
05:18so you might as well do something that's just amazing.
05:21America doesn't aim small.
05:23Alabama doesn't aim small,
05:25and neither do you.
05:26So think big when possible.
05:28Think big.
05:29Fourth is work hard.
05:32Work hard.
05:35Never, ever stop.
05:37An example is a great athlete, actually,
05:40Gary Player, golfer, great, great golfer.
05:44He wasn't as big as other men.
05:46He was actually on the small side.
05:48Don't tell him that.
05:49A friend of mine.
05:51Don't tell him that
05:52because he doesn't understand that.
05:54But he worked very, very hard.
05:56He made up for it.
05:57He never stopped.
05:58He won 168 golf tournaments.
06:00Think of that, 100.
06:02I said, Gary, you're winning like every weekend.
06:04Do you ever choke or anything?
06:06I don't know what choke means.
06:08And he made a statement years ago that I read,
06:11and I thought it was sort of an incredible statement.
06:14He said, it's funny.
06:15The harder I work, the luckier I get.
06:18Think of that.
06:19The harder I work, the luckier I get.
06:21So you really have to work hard,
06:23and you're going to be successful
06:25because you have the talent.
06:27To get into this school is not easy.
06:29To get through it is even more difficult.
06:31You have a lot of talent.
06:32Fifth is don't lose your momentum.
06:36You just want to keep it going.
06:40And you have to know if you are losing it,
06:42you have to know when you're losing it.
06:43So maybe you stop, and maybe it's time to stop.
06:46Listen to the feedback.
06:48Think through your plan very carefully,
06:50and keep moving fast.
06:53The word momentum is very important.
06:55I mean, I'll just tell you a little story
06:56about a great real estate developer named William Levitt.
07:00He built Levittown.
07:01Some of you might live in a Levittown.
07:02He was the biggest developer in the whole country
07:04in the 1940s and so.
07:07And he built these jobs.
07:08He started with one house,
07:10then two houses,
07:11then 20 houses,
07:12then thousands and thousands of houses.
07:14And a company, Gulf and Western,
07:17came along,
07:18and they said,
07:20we're going to make you an offer to buy your company.
07:23And they offered him a lot of money,
07:25a lot of money,
07:26more money than he ever thought he could make.
07:28And he retired,
07:30lost his momentum.
07:31He retired,
07:33and he led a beautiful life.
07:34He had a wife,
07:36I must tell you.
07:36It was his second wife.
07:38It was a trophy wife.
07:39What can I say?
07:40I don't like telling you everything,
07:42but we're all friends, right?
07:44Can we talk?
07:45We're all friends.
07:46He had a trophy wife.
07:48And he lived a different life.
07:49He moved to the south of France,
07:51but he lived,
07:53it was a life of tremendous luxury.
07:55He had so many millions of dollars,
07:57he was given a fortune for the company.
07:59And 10 years went by,
08:00and then 15 years went by,
08:02and he got a call from this big conglomerate,
08:05Gulf and Western,
08:06and they said,
08:06we're not doing well with the purchase,
08:09because he used to pick up every nail,
08:12every piece of sawdust,
08:13every piece of wood,
08:15every chip,
08:15everything,
08:16and he'd sell it,
08:17he'd make a couple of bucks,
08:18everything was perfect.
08:20They can't do that.
08:21You know,
08:21these big companies,
08:22they don't do that.
08:23You see it a lot when an entrepreneur sells to a big company,
08:26and then he ends up buying the company back for peanuts later on.
08:29It happens a lot.
08:30But he was the best at what he did.
08:33But 15 years went by,
08:34and he was so excited,
08:36and they sold him back,
08:37his company.
08:38And he started,
08:40and he was going to tear apart the world,
08:42because he got bored with a life of luxury.
08:45And he started building,
08:47and building,
08:49and building,
08:49and the markets turned on him.
08:53And he went bad,
08:53he lost everything,
08:54and he went bankrupt,
08:56absolutely bankrupt.
08:58And it was a sad story to read.
09:00It was such an amazing story,
09:01because he was so rich.
09:02But he paid them,
09:03and he bought it for the right price,
09:04bought it low,
09:05but he went wild.
09:07But he lost his momentum.
09:08He wasn't good at it anymore.
09:10And he was at a party on Fifth Avenue,
09:13I'll never forget.
09:15And it was a party of a very,
09:17very powerful man,
09:18who was having the party in a magnificent apartment,
09:21overlooking the park.
09:23And I walked in,
09:24and there were 50 or so people.
09:26I recognized most of them,
09:27all the biggest business people in the world,
09:29actually.
09:30Very glamorous.
09:31I was doing well.
09:31I was young,
09:32and I was doing well.
09:33And I was invited to parties like that.
09:35And I looked in the corner,
09:37and there was Mr. William Levitt,
09:39sitting all by himself on a chair,
09:42looking very glum.
09:44Nobody was talking to him,
09:45because you'll find that when you're not successful,
09:47you lose a lot of friends.
09:48It's not a good situation.
09:50But there was nobody talking to him,
09:52but I wanted to talk to him,
09:53because I was in the real estate business,
09:55and he was,
09:56and most of these people were in different businesses.
09:59And I went over and talked to him,
10:00and I said,
10:01How are you, Mr. Levitt?
10:03He goes,
10:03Donald?
10:05He knew who I was.
10:07Not well.
10:08I'm not well.
10:09I said,
10:10So,
10:11can you come back?
10:13He said,
10:13No, son.
10:15I lost my momentum.
10:17I shouldn't have done it.
10:18I lost my momentum.
10:20And I never forgot that expression.
10:22He lost his momentum.
10:23If he would have kept going,
10:25instead of selling and relaxing
10:27and going into a different life,
10:29he probably would have been
10:31three times bigger than he was.
10:33But he lost his momentum.
10:35And you have to know when it's your time.
10:37I mean,
10:37there'll be a time when you do lose.
10:39You see it with fighters.
10:40You see it with a lot of people.
10:41They have a great record,
10:43and they retire.
10:44Then four years later,
10:46they say,
10:46I'm going back.
10:47I can beat that guy.
10:48And they get knocked to hell.
10:50And it's not good.
10:51It's not good.
10:52So,
10:53he lost his momentum.
10:55You have to know when
10:56your momentum time is up.
10:57I call it momentum time.
11:00But,
11:00follow your momentum.
11:03It's a very important word.
11:04You don't hear it from too many,
11:05but I've seen it.
11:06I've seen it a lot.
11:07Number six,
11:08if you want to change the world,
11:10you have to have the courage
11:11to be an outsider.
11:12In other words,
11:13you have to take certain risks
11:15and do things a little bit differently.
11:16Otherwise,
11:17if that weren't the case,
11:18everybody would be successful.
11:20It doesn't work that way.
11:22Progress never comes
11:23from those satisfied
11:24with the failures
11:25of a broken system.
11:26It comes from those
11:28who want to fix the broken system.
11:29And you'll make the bigger money.
11:31You'll make them more success
11:33by acting that way.
11:36The other way may be more secure,
11:39but if you want to go to the top,
11:40you're just never going to do it
11:41unless you break the system.
11:43Change is never easy.
11:45And the closer you get to success,
11:47the more ferociously
11:48those with a vested interest
11:50in the past will resist you.
11:52They want to resist.
11:54So I just say,
11:56trust me on that
11:56because I know you really do.
11:58You have to break the system
11:59a little bit
12:00and follow your own instincts.
12:03But if your vision is right,
12:05nothing will hold you down.
12:07Nothing.
12:07You have to have the right vision.