Oprah Winfrey's Speech Essay

From the time a child is born to the day that they die, they will be told countless times to dream big. People tell them to reach for the stars and pursue the things that make them happy. Something they do not tell them is how powerful failure can be; how it can alter a person’s perspective on life and the direction they think they need to go with their future. Ever since I was a little girl my life’s goal in the FFA was to become a State FFA Officer. The concept of being able to positively impact someone’s life and promote an industry that I believe in whole-heartedly got my blood pumping. I was not prepared for failure, I only thought about success.

Amy Poehler gave the 2011 Harvard Commencement address to graduating seniors, their families, and their guests on May 25, 2011. Poehler combined her classic comedic humor with a serious underlying message to create an engaging speech. Poehler began the speech with humor and explained her prior knowledge about Harvard. She went on to discuss her own college experience, her career, and some of the best advice she learned throughout her life. Her main message of the speech was that “no one can do it alone.” She explained that no

The Oprah Winfrey Show is highly influential, especially to women because it allows them a forum to talk about numerous topics that are relevant of example, abuse, molestation and teenage pregnancy on a high rate and others. Winfrey has interviewed political and public figures during the past twenty years. In earlier times during the show, rather than offering a simple publicity platform, a celebrity would often be featured after a period of intense media scrutiny. She often interviews celebrities on issues that directly involved them in some way, such as cancer or charity work.

She adds that failure is because of “two reasons: it challenges the blurring of anticipation and promise, and the people who fail are presumed to lack talent or will” (35). She defines success as “dominance over others” and competitiveness (36). I believe that one has to compete for what they want to achieve. I learned that not everything is going to be handed to you; you constantly have to work for it. My brother has always reminded me to strive and work hard because, in the real world, it is not easy.

When I look at the word failure I didn’t see success. But that slowly changed as I read the book What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain Chapter four. Bain, for me and I’m sure many other, have changed our view point on failure being a bad thing. He instead expressed failure as an “opportunity to learn something.” (121) As infants we grow and develop, we learn to walk by falling down a couple hundred times, and we learn to speak by babbling. By trying to walk, and trying to talk, we may fail at first. As an infant, you cannot give up when you are face to face with failure. You must get up and try again to learn. In the book, What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain he uses people’s experiences and research to explain why failure is an opportunity to learn something new, rather than seeing failure as something bad. He asserts “people who become highly creative and productive learn to acknowledge failures, even to embrace them, and to explore and learn from them.” (100) Failure is important. If we did not get up and try again as infants, we would not be where we are today.

Failure can be a very difficult thing to cope with. It can be something that makes you or breaks you. I have learned that failure is what defines a person; it shows your motivation to bounce back when things get rough. I have learned from my failure instead of dwelling on it and making myself weaker.

Purpose: at the end of my speech the audience should change their perspective towards failure and use it as a guideline to success.

Failure is an obstacle, everyone during their life must face and come to accept. But, what really is failure? I see failure as when you try to achieve at something, but do not succeed in doing so. A person who has faced many letdowns in his life is Denzel Washington; as he talks about failures in his 2011 University of Pennsylvania Commencement Address. During his speech, uses of rhetoric can be heard all throughout his words. Making the message he is trying to say to the graduating students that still have their lives in front of them, just so much more robust. Washington’s use of all three kinds of rhetoric throughout his speech about defeat and how to change your thoughts to overcome them.

Famous fantasy author J. K Rowling, the “mother” of Harry Potters, addresses the commencement speech at Harvard in eighth June, 2008, which is titled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure.” She genuinely talks about her personal experience in order to helpfully instruct graduates. Rowling shares her valuable experiences on her heartbroken failures, as audiences have high achievements in academic study, but unfamiliar with normal failures. The purpose is to share her mature views with the upcoming graduates to prepare for future unavoidable failures which everyone will face. Rowling’s colorful speech flexibly adopts abundant rhetorical devices, such as persuasive pathos, strong ethos,

In “Colleges Prepare People for Life”, Freeman Hrabowski writes about the benefits of going to college and the things that are, and should be, available for potential college students. Hrabowski says that more opportunities come to those with a college degree, rather than those with a high school diploma (690). His argument is effective because of his strong ethos, while it is ineffective because of his weaker logos and pathos. Hrabowski has been the president of the University of Maryland for the past 23 years.

In the story “The Right to Fail”, author William Zinsser, speaks about the necessity of failing in order to succeed. He argues about America is not granting its citizens the right to fail, someone who stays at home is more of a failure than the dropout kid, success can be dangerous, finally the younger generation understand failure better. Zinsser uses Thomas P.F Hoving and Fred Zinnemann who both became successful people to support his argument.

In 2010, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill was the commencement speaker for California State University, Stanislaus. This speech was addressed to the graduating class of 2010, their friends and family who were attending the ceremony, the California State University, Stanislaus faculty and staff, and people who may have not been able to attend the ceremony, but were able to watch it on a DVD recording. This speech was intended to congratulate the graduates and offer them advice as they enter into the “real world” post-graduation. However, the speech also had to address the family and friends of the graduates and the university’s faculty and staff, since they presumably made a difference in the lives of the graduates.

The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

For example, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, one of the most highly acclaimed colleges in the nation. Most people, at the time, would have considered him a failure. Yet, he went on to create Microsoft, one of the top multinational computer corporations in the world. This proves how sometimes being a failure can be the gateway to becoming a success.

In conclusion, I have experienced three noteworthy failures early in my life. Most people thought that based on my failures, I would not be able to succeed in life. However, with the hard work I put into, I managed to overcome my failures and mature into a more responsible person. Based on my ability to