Sheryl Sandberg gave a moving commencement speech about death and resilience
She spoke at UC Berkeley’s graduation on Saturday.
https://www.facebook.com/sheryl/videos/10156847483930177/
With graduation season comes a plethora of commencement speakers bestowing wisdom upon young people. This year, President Obama spoke about building walls, literally and figuratively. Elizabeth Warren addressed the haters. John Kerry preached about sports.
And most recently, in a commencement address that’s arguably been the most poignant of all so far this year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg opened up about death.
“I have not spoken about this publicly before, and it’s hard. But I promise not to blow my nose on this beautiful Berkeley robe,” Sandberg said in her remarks at the University of California, Berkeley on Saturday. (To start at this point in the video above, begin at the 4:30 timestamp.)
Her husband, SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg, died suddenly in May 2015 when the couple was away in Mexico. On Saturday, it had been one year and 13 days, Sandberg said.
Sandberg said in her address that she had learned the “three P’s”—personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence—from psychologist Martin Seligman’s research while processing her grief,– and she told the graduates that the P’s are applicable to so many other areas of life.
She said: “As I stand here today, a year after the worst day of my life, two things are true: I have a huge reservoir of sadness that is with me always — right here, where I can touch it. I never knew I could cry so often — or so much. But I am also aware that I am walking without pain. For the first time, I am grateful for each breath in and out — grateful for the gift of life itself.”
Before concluding, Sandberg added that it is “the greatest irony” of her life that losing her husband helped find her gratitude.
“I hope you remember that anchored deep within you is the ability to learn and grow,” she said. “You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process, you will figure out who you really are — and you just might become the very best version of yourself.”
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