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See page 26 for more on Commencement
Change is coming.
You are ready.
For a very long time the world was changing very slowly.
Reinvention — that natural drive that is inside of you — was simply unnecessary.
You were supposed to shut up and sit still.
Don’t start any new waves. Don’t rock the boat. Do not disturb.
But that time is long gone.
Change is here, and it is accelerating.
Sitting still is no longer good enough.
Reinvention has become the basic literacy skill of the 21st century. And you don’t need to become
a reinventor — you already are.
All you need to do is to preserve this drive, this burning light inside that invites of all of us to
make things better.
To try something new. To go further. To do more.
Change is coming. You are ready.
Excerpted from the 2018 Commencement address of
Nadya Zhexemebayeva ’01, PhD
Co-founder and Chief Reinvention Officer, WE EXIST Reinvention Agency
John Christopher Hartwick Scholar; psychology and business double major