Denzel Washington is an award-winning actor and a Hollywood favourite. His rise to stardom began in the 1980s, and he continues today at the top of his game in movies and on stage.
What we don’t hear so much is the back story of these stars, their struggles, their misses, their failures, and ultimately, the attitude or the attribute that eventually made them successful.
In this speech to a graduation class, Denzel tells us about ‘falling forward’ – how at the beginning of his career and when he continued to miss out at auditions, each time he’d immediately dust himself off and prepare for the next one … again, and again, and again.
It’s wonderful, engaging and inspiring speech that resonates with everything that Retire Better believes and espouses. There’s nothing in Denzel’s speech that’s complicated for us to learn or to implement.
Our only lesson is to stick with our dreams and believe in our abilities.
Denzel’s speech was delivered to an audience of young people, but his message to fall forward is just as pertinent to anyone who is already retired, or who is planning their retirement, as we set our Retire Better Wellbeing Plans and resist the emptiness of traditional retirement.
It’s easy to argue that the image of our unfulfilled dreams and talents as ghosts who haunt us on death beds is more powerful for people aged over 50 than for younger ones who might barely understand the morbid power of regret.
Nelson Mandela could have been thinking about the Retire Better community when he warned us, “There’s no passion to be found for playing small and settling for a life that’s less than the one you are capable of living.”
Do we dare to confront the ghosts by our bedside on our final day?
