On Graduation & Lifelong Creativity

I was recently asked to be the keynote speaker for grade 12 graduates at my old high school, tied to my life path and learnings along the way. The following is an excerpt from the speech.

When I was graduating, GNS had a yearbook tradition where each graduate had a profile that listed a career ambition contrasted with a “probable destiny.” I wrote that my career ambition was to become a journalist, but that my probable destiny was the net chord judge at Wimbledon, the famous tennis tournament. Spoiler alert: neither came true.

What did come true has been a life path that could have sent my parents and all my high school teachers into a panic, but somehow has ended up with me standing here ready to give you some advice. But there’s a big problem, because I’m a very dangerous person to get life advice from.

Why you ask? Well picture this scene...

I'm 23-years old and I've just graduated from Stanford University, where I got a degree in philosophy after high school. Yes it’s true I studied philosophy, which some may not know is actually the Latin word for “unemployable.” But even that couldn’t stop me from climbing the first rung of the career ladder, and I landed my first job in San Francisco with a global management consulting firm, doing business consulting. It was the culmination of a path that started right here at GNS. The best schools. The best opportunities. And some pretty big expectations.

So it’s now 1997 and I’m working in a beautiful skyscraper in one of the great cities of the world. I’m the only 23-year old philosophy graduate I know who is giving business advice to Fortune 500 companies, running fancy steak dinners on my corporate expense card, and being picked up by a limo service for weekly airport runs to visit clients around the country. Everyone is very proud of my budding business career.

So what do I do next?

I do what no sane 23-year old would have done in my position – I quit the job and started a rock band.

Yes, you hard that right. I abandoned my life of limos and expense cards, and jumped off the corporate ladder into the abyss of an industry I knew virtually nothing about. And in the famous words of AC/DC, “it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll.” So would this be the stupidest decision a GNS grad had ever made?

Little did anyone know at that moment, one day I would be standing on stage playing guitar at Coachella – one of the most famous festivals in the world – with my future band Jets Overhead, which at the time would also be nominated for our first JUNO award. But it would take a long time to get there, and my path did not turn out to be for the faint of heart. Nor for anyone who can't handle getting into a dingy tour van and eating at Tim Hortons 3 times per day on the Trans-Canada highway.

So in truth I’m not really such a dangerous speaker after all, because I’m definitely not here to tell you to drop what you’re doing and start a band. In fact let’s be very clear on that – please do not tell your parents that the loser speaker today told you to quit everything and start a band. We don’t want poor Mr. Holtum (editor's note: Head of School) to start getting angry phone calls!

What I really want to tell you is that taking this big risk of following my love for music did eventually lead to a successful career, but it wasn’t through music alone – it was through combining both creativity and business together into a symbiotic path.

I had developed a secret love for songwriting and music while at Stanford, but I had been scared to tell this truth to the world. I felt that taking the suit and tie business job in San Francisco would justify the education I had received. Life originally looked great from my perch in the skyscraper, but after 2 years of spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, I was often finding myself walking home from the office late at night wondering what it all meant. I slowly started to admit to myself that I needed to take the risk I was scared to take. I needed to give music a shot. And don’t worry, I also had a solid fallback plan: giving up my corporate expense card, moving home with my parents to save rent, and disappointing everyone slowly.

But I also knew that I was still interested in business, so my fear of failure started mixing with my desire for some degree of safety net, and my strategy slowly became clear in my young mind – I would finally take the risk of starting a band, but I would also build a secondary foundation by teaching myself how to run the business of my band. I would become what our industry calls a talent manager, and I would manage my own band. That might eventually allow me to do the same for other bands as a professional business. I also knew that my philosophy degree would now finally come in handy if I started a professional business in the arts. Every time someone asked if I was making money in music, I could just reply, "But what is money, really?"

Years after that decision, I can say that the focus I put on proactively self-learning the business of a creative industry yielded a very unique career path. I have stood on stage at Coachella not only as an artist with Jets Overhead, but also as a manager helping clients such as Tegan and Sara and The Funk Hunters, who have played the festival multiple times too. In these two symbiotic roles, I’ve been involved in over 15 JUNO nominations and 3 wins, 8 gold records, a Grammy nomination, and even an Academy Awards nomination and performance at the Oscars tied to Tegan and Sara’s song “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie.

But what I’ve really learned through all of this is not about success or awards, it’s the simple truth that creativity is at the heart of the human experience, and people who continue to value their own creativity often have better outcomes in life. So one of my life’s passions has been to encourage people to pursue some form of creativity throughout life, including into adulthood, and that is the message I want you to walk away with today.

Whether you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, a scientist or a tech founder – whatever path you pursue, it will be enhanced by fostering an ongoing relationship with your own creativity and by continuing to place value on creative hobbies.

We’re all familiar with the concept of lifelong physical exercise. We’re encouraged to move our bodies, raise our heart rate, and stay healthy as we move into adulthood. No one ever questions this. No one says, “Why are you bothering to hit the gym if you're not going to be a professional athlete?" We accept that exercise is essential for us throughout life.

I believe we should apply that same lens to what I call lifelong creative exercise. Because when it comes to creativity we’ve been conditioned to believe that if we’re not going to be professionals, we should probably stop after high school. That’s deeply wrong. An ongoing relationship with creative endeavors – totally amateur or not – will provide one of the most powerful tools for growth, self-understanding, and mental acuity as you head into the next stage of life.

And let me say again, you don't need to be a professional artist to be creative. Whether you're headed towards being an engineer or a social worker, some version of creativity will be essential to success in your path. It will keep your mind flexible, it will help you solve difficult problems, and it will help you see an often-confusing world from different perspectives. And perhaps most importantly, creativity will also help you come up with good fake answers when your pesky relatives ask, "So what are you doing with your life?"

As you step into this next chapter – if you’re going to university, taking a gap year, starting a job, or still figuring it out – my message is don’t leave your creative spirit behind. Make a creative hobby part of your adult life. Not because it’ll make you rich or famous or lead to winning a JUNO award, but because it’ll give you aptitudes that allow you to unfold into a deeper and more complete version of yourself. That’s lifelong creative exercise.

Now for the official part: I want to say welcome to the GNS alumni community. You're part of a graduating class and network that can genuinely help and support you for years to come. Many of my high school friendships are still the most important in my life nearly 35 years later.

To bring things full circle, I am actually going to Wimbledon this year with an old GNS friend, where I will be closely studying the net chord judges and dreaming of what could have been! Your friends know your roots and they will remain your foundation as you go out into the world. Your education and career will continue to unfold in unknown ways, but your oldest relationships will bring consistency and meaning to everything you do.

In conclusion I think it’s safe to say that today “everything is awesome” as you prepare to embark on the next stage of your exciting journey. It’s been a huge honour to be here to welcome you to the GNS alumni community.