Joal speaks at the 2007 ISU Commencement Ceremony

ISU held their graduation ceremony Saturday May 4th. Joal was asked to be the key note speaker at the event. Some asked for copies of the speech, so we've included it below. Thanks you ISU for another wonderful commencement. Good luck to all the graduates!

Principles of Thrust and Lift

        I was recently on a flight across the country when the captain came over the intercom and stated, "Those who are interested in how this plane flies, I'll be giving a physics lesson and telling some specifics about this plane on channel 9 in just a few min." I wasn't so much interested as bored, but I'm constantly amazed when I climb aboard a 70-ton aircraft and it begins to fly held up only by small molecules of air.

On channel 9 the pilot began to explain, "There are natural laws of physics, or principles that govern aerodynamics and enable fight." The explanation is actually very simple: faster moving air has a lower pressure than slower moving air. Therefore if you create a wing shape which requires the air moving over the top of the wing to travel faster than the air moving across the bottom, you create "Lift". To generate enough "Lift" to get a 70-ton airplane off the ground you must get that air moving really fast. You do this by generating "Thrust" with the jet engines.

            The plane I was traveling on had 2 engines, which created 44,000 lbs. of trust and could propel the plane forward at speeds of 575 miles and hour. These two principles (Thrust and Lift), if properly employed, can lift a 70-ton Boeing 737 to heights of 33,000 ft. This is the altitude where the aircraft was designed to fly most efficiently. At this altitude the air is thin enough that greater speeds can be reached while fuel consumption is kept to a minimum. I will call it this the planes "Ultimate Altitude".

            Thrust and Lift are physical principles that allow for flight. In our lives, we have principles much like Thrust and Lift that result in personal satisfaction and happiness or our "Ultimate Altitude". Many great people in history have understood and taught the equivalent to the principle of Thrust and Lift that lead to happiness. My journey in discovering these principles lead me to this room, 1 year ago, as I sat where you are and received my Masters degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. I suspect many of you have been on similar journeys. I want to share these principles with you today as a reminder of the opportunity in front of us and how easy it can be to find happiness.

 The third principle "Drag" 

            Four years ago I walked in the front doors of the ISU Boise campus looking for Doctor Crews, the person that would be interviewing me for admittance into the masters of counseling program, but I was really looking for more meaning in my life. (As a side note, professors of counseling like nothing more than those searching for meaning. To them I was like a clumsy gymnast entering a chiropractor's office. They were happy to see me.) The reality was I had been working for 16 years at jobs that I felt just didn't matter. Did it really matter if someone purchased life insurance on their car loan? Did it really matter if someone had new kitchen cabinets in their home? Did it really matter if someone purchased the 100-millionth laser printer? I had decided it didn't, and as a result had lost any personal "thrust" I might have had. I was looking for a new jet engine. I got accepted and I eventually started counseling as an intern.

Over the next three years I spent hundreds of hours with clients, and I got a lesson in the human equivalent of the third principle of flight, that of "drag". Drag is the dark side to aerodynamics. Drag is the force that tends to destroy the positive effects of "Trust and Lift". "Drag" is just what it sounds like; it is those forces that would tend to slow the plane and pull it back to the ground. Things like gravity, weight, and friction. If "Drag" overpowers the forces of "Thrust" and "Lift" the plane with crash and burn. I worked with many clients who felt they were about to crash and burn. As I talked with each of them, I discovered most all these people suffered from the same thing. The "Drag" in their lives all seemed to stem from a similar source. Are you interested in what that is?

Nearly everyone I worked with felt at some level as though they weren't loved or loveable. As humans our greatest desire is to connect with others. This one thing seemed to cause all the variety of behaviors and symptoms that walked into my office. It seemed to be the overpowering force of "Drag"? in most everyone's life.

Love and Service

It was through this experience of helping clients realize their worth and connect with others that I began to really understand my own worth and the human equivalent of the principle of "Thrust". It's quite simple really, and not only did I see it change the lives of others, it changed me as well. I finally found what I was looking for, real meaning. I began to feel the tremendous driving force this "Trust" can create. I found that it moved me and changed me at the same time. It made me a better person and its natural bi-product was greater happiness.

What changed my clients lives, what began to motivate me, what began to give me new meaning was simply the opposite of "Drag" = Love. So if love is the driving force in our lives, that which creates "Thrust", what is the equivalent of "Lift"? What brings us to our "Ultimate Altitude". That's simple as well. When we are motivated by love, we serve others. When we lift others through true caring and compassion, we lift ourselves.

About the time I learned the real power of these principles, I realized I didn't need to be a counselor to find real meaning. There where people I could lift at my other jobs. The problem was not my job, but my focus. Its not about what you do, it's about who you affect while doing what you do.  

Rudolph Giuliani said it best

Luckily we aren't asked to run into a burning building to save the lives of others, but as you enter your new professions, remember yours will be the opportunity to show love to those you have never met. In this, you will spark moments of profound goodness, lifting the spirit of those you serve and finding for yourself your ultimate altitude.

Mother Teresa said,

            At one time a professor at John Hopkins University assigned a group of graduate students to: 'Go to the slums.  Take 200 boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen.  Investigate their background and environment.  Then predict the chance for their future success.'

            "After consulting social statistics, talking to the boys, and compiling as much data as they could, the researchers concluded that 90 percent of the boys would spend some time in a penitentiary.

            "Twenty-five years later another goup of graduate students was given the job of testing the prediction.  Returning to the slum area 180 of the original 200 boys were located.  It was found that only four of the group had served time.

            "Why was it that these boys, who lived in a breeding place of crime, developed into manhood with such an excellent record?  The researchers were consistently told by each of the questioned, 'Well, there was a teacher. . .'

            "Pressing the matter further, it was found that 75 percent of the cases reported the same woman.  The graduate students searched out and found this teacher in a rest home for retired educators.

            "After introductions came the interrogations: 'How did you exert this remarkable influence over the slum children?  Could you give us any reason why these boys should have remembered you?'

            "'No,' she meekly replied.  'No, I really couldn't.'  And then thinking back over the years, she musingly responded, more to herself than to her questioners, 'I loved those boys!'  (Charles R. Hobbs, The Power of Teaching with New Techniques, p. 6-7; see also "Education for Life," Reader's Digest, June 1953, p. 131).

We all have the opportunity to touch the lives of those we come in contact with. Does it really matter if someone purchased life insurance on their car loan? Does it really matter if someone had new kitchen cabinets in their home? Does it really matter if someone purchased the 100-millionth laser printer? It certainly does if along the way we can be a little gentler, be a little kinder, show a little love to someone who might otherwise feel alone, unwanted, uncared for or deserted.

I'll close with the words of Hunter Patch Adams:

"You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person I'll guarantee you'll win."

           May you all find success in your new endeavors.