Everyone should read this. So brilliant…it speaks for itself….
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An address by Charles S. Sanford, Jr.
Delivered at the Commencement Exercises of the University of Georgia
Sanford Stadium, Athens, Georgia
Thank you, President Knapp, members of the faculty, administration, the class of 1989, its family and friends.
President Knapp has drawn attention to the fact that much of my life and career have been involved with taking risks. It’s the sort of introduction which usually arches a few eyebrows. A person who takes risks for a living calls up the image of a riverboat gambler, someone who lives on the edge — in the chips today, down on his luck tomorrow.
From an early age, we are all conditioned by our families, our schools, and virtually every other shaping force in our society to avoid risk. To take risks is inadvisable; to play it safe is the counsel we are accustomed both to receiving and to passing on. In the conventional wisdom, risk is asymmetrical: it has only one side, the bad side. In my experience — and all I presume to offer you today is observations drawn on my own experience, which is hardly the wisdom of the ages — in my experience, this conventional view of risk is shortsighted and often simply mistaken.
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