Chapel Talk by J. Robin West '64

I am sure that many of you, particularly the 5th and 6th Formers, are wondering about the future. How to find success, what to do and how to do it.

Frankly, I have little to advise on what to do. That is intensely personal, based on abilities, interests, values, experience and opportunity. I do have some thoughts on how to do it, however.

You are probably wondering why I am here. You are correct in thinking that I am neither famous, nor powerful. My perspective, other than my obvious grey hair, is based on a peculiar career. I have been watching, fairly closely, some of the most successful people in the worlds of business, politics and the arts for a fairly long time. What they taught me may be useful to you too. Your world today is more exciting than mine when I started, but more challenging too. You have limitless opportunities, but limitless competition as well. Do not expect things to be easy.

At Groton I was a classic under, or more accurately, non-achiever. I felt that if I tried, I would probably fail, so why try and nobody here bothered to encourage me. It was not a winning strategy. In spite of myself, I got an excellent education, some important values instilled, and made some of my closest friends in life. They are as close as family, without the guilt.

Two events occurred in the spring of 6th Form Year. One day in mid-April, college admissions arrived. It was a day of dread, with good reason, at least for me. The mail used to be tossed off the stairwell in School House, with your name called out. If you were admitted to a college, a heavy envelope would crash down. If not, a slight white envelope would flutter down. I stood in a blizzard of fluttering white envelopes. Finally, a brown envelope for me did crash down. It changed my life, although I didn’t know it at the time.

The other memorable incident was an exit interview with the headmaster just before graduation. I was the only sixth former so blessed. I was not one of his favorites, to say the least. I will never forget his first words, “West, you are an optimist, with nothing to be optimistic about.” He was relieved to be rid of me.

That Fall I limped off to Chapel Hill feeling utterly rejected. After the sense of privilege, of being part of a charmed world at Groton I was a complete non entity, a nobody, at UNC. I learned an important lesson. They did not know of or care about the world from which I came. Groton was irrelevant. If I was going to make something of myself, it was up to me and no one else.

The South was both kinder and more modest. The North could be arch and judgmental, you had to give people a reason for them to be nice to you. Down South, you had to give them a reason not to be nice to you. In my patronizing manner, I thought they were stupid because they spoke slowly. I realized later that they were thinking before they spoke.

My life was changed by a box of stationery in my junior year at UNC. I became head of the speaker’s program, The Carolina Forum, which was moribund, and no one else wanted it. The first thing I did was to order a box of fancy engraved stationary, saying The Carolina Forum, Office of the Chairman. The box of stationary was the Chairman’s office. Although just an obscure junior in college, I would write to Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, the most famous people in the country at that time. I got the President of the University to get the Governor and both Senators to endorse my invitation. I wasn’t an obscure junior any more. President Johnson did not come, but the Vice President did. Bobby Kennedy did not come, but Teddy did, and so forth. It was my first success. It was important for me because I had taken a risk which could have been a conspicuous failure, but it had worked. I doubt it was important to anyone else but it was invaluable to me. Many people were encouraging, a wonderful quality of Chapel Hill. I started to figure out what I was good at. I was off to the races.

My career since then has worked out pretty well, with many failures and a few wins. I was on the 1968 campaign, was working in the Nixon White House at the age of 22, got fired, went to law school, ran for Congress, lost; worked in the Ford White House and the Pentagon, as a sub-cabinet officer under Reagan, ran an enormous energy program, the world’s largest non-financial auction; founded, built and sold a successful energy business which advised many CEOs of global companies. I am President of an artist’s foundation, chaired a Presidential Board, built a building on the National Mall and so on. I was fantastically lucky in who I got to know and what I got to see. Again, I was not a star on stage, but I had great seats.

In watching and working with these people, I tried to figure out what they had in common, why they had succeeded. One constant was that all of them had learned to overcome failure. They recognized that you had to take risks and not all would work. That was part of the deal. In Silicon Valley, the line is now “fail harder”. It is accepted that is how you grow, learn about yourself, get tougher, get practical experience necessary to earn success. Or in T.S. Eliot’s words, “Only those who will risk going too far, can find out how far you can go.”

I like the line from a Judy Collins song, “you must barter your life to make sure you are living.” Taking calculated risks is a more interesting way to live. Luck is very important as well, but you must be prepared to grasp it when it comes. I think I had an advantage over my far more academically accomplished class mates that I had no choice but to take risks and get back up and get back into the fight if they did not work. I wasn’t an Ivy League kid- I went to state a school and had to make my opportunities and live with the consequences. It worked.

Another constant of the people I watched was that they worked very hard but they loved their work. They were comfortable being uncomfortable. Again it was what you had to do if you wanted to get anywhere. But critically, their work involved their imagination, so they worked all the time because it wasn’t work. If you can figure out what grips your imagination, you have an enormous advantage.

That said, conspicuous success often comes at a cost. You may be sitting in a Gulfstream jet but you may also be missing your child’s birthday. Most successful people feel the cost was worth it, but often their families do not.

A Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor was asked what you should do for a job. Her answer was “work worth doing.” I used to think that big shots sitting in big offices, making weighty decisions was, by definition, work worth doing. No longer. I have been in a lot of those meetings. They aren’t always what they are cracked up to be.

Most work which is truly worthwhile involves responsibility. My heroes are weight bearing people. Few are rich. These people are the real deal. They get things done, they are committed. The person who bore the most weight in the 20th century is honored in this Chapel, Franklin Roosevelt. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. But you don’t have to be a famous politician or business tycoon, in fact Washington is full of people who have the responsibility but refuse to bear the weight. I hope there is a special place in hell for them.

One of my classmates was the minister in a small town in Vermont, holding it together, helping struggling people. Another classmate adopted and raised three orphans from Asia, who would have had desperate lives had they stayed there, along with two children of his own. In both cases, quietly, without fanfare, they personally carried their load and changed people’s lives.

Mr. Crocker, the Headmaster who was not a fan of mine, nor I of him, decided that segregation was immoral. In the 1950s, the early days of civil rights, he decided to admit an African American boy to Groton. Some of the alumnae were apoplectic. Mr. Crocker said that if that young black man was the only student in the school, the school would still open. The trustees supported him, the school opened and the rest is history. He shouldered his responsibility as he saw it. I admire that.

As I look at real success, however defined, there should be a final constant, which is deeply personal, a sense of earned achievement. You built or did something that that matters to you. For many, that is what has made it all worthwhile. The Cunard Line, a steamship (cruise) company had an ad “Getting there is half the fun.” Actually, getting there is all the fun.

As you may guess, Mr. Crocker’s comments about my sense of optimism irritated me for years. One day, it hit me. He was right. I did not have anything to be optimistic about. But he just did not understand optimists either. They invent opportunities and ways to achieve them. I should point out, however, that not all of these brainstorms work.

A stranger in Spain gave me a piece of advice I have never forgotten. “This isn’t a dress rehearsal.” This is it. You get one shot in life. Time is precious, don’t waste it. Swing for the bleachers. If you aim low, you will hit low, at best. You are young and will have different chapters, with successes and failures, over your lifetime. There is a temptation at Groton to opt for a life of prosperous comfort, with few challenges, fights, or honorable adventures. You will miss a lot of fun. In the end you will probably be disappointed. You may sense that you didn’t risk much, and as a result, didn’t achieve much worth remembering either.

In conclusion, if you are at Groton, you have been very fortunate, you have been given more than most. The test is not what you have been given, however, but what you do with what you are given.

I have been asked whether my approach to life was because of, or in spite of, Groton. My answer is -yes.

Good luck!