Lloyd Blankfein，CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs
LaGuardia Community College，June 6th，2013
The struggles are great，so are the rewards.奋斗越是艰辛，回报也会更加丰厚。
Lloyd Blankfein
背景故事
高盛CEO劳尔德·贝兰克梵在拉瓜迪亚大学上发表了毕业典礼演讲，讲述了自己如何从贫民窟的穷小孩成为现在金融帝国的掌门人。出生在纽约的平民窟，劳尔德·贝兰克梵通过学习改变了自己的命运，在律师工作足以养活他的时候，他毅然决然地为了做自己想做的事而选择辞职。演讲中，他给出了四点具体的建议：1.自信很重要；2.找一份你喜欢的工作；3.做全面完整的人；4.参与社区活动；5.人生不可设限。
他在发言中谈及了自己在布鲁克林街区长大，并最终成为高盛集团首席执行官的经历。
他同时向毕业生们提出了一些建议，包括要自信，要找到自己喜欢的工作，做一个“全面、完整的人”，要回报社会，保持开放的心态，要与有野心的人为伍，要积极投身到有利成长的机会中。
名人简介
1954年，贝兰克梵出生在纽约布鲁克林区，父亲是一名普通的邮件分拣员，在布鲁克林的廉租房区长大，那是纽约市最糟糕的廉租房区之一。曾经贫困杂乱的成长环境和贝兰克梵今天在华尔街顶级金融巨头高盛的工作环境相比，实在是相去甚远，让人不敢想象，让人感到不可思议，就是这样让人不敢想象的距离被贝兰克梵成功地跨越了。
是金子总会放光的，贝兰克梵也是这样。凌乱、破旧、困苦的生活并没有遮蔽贝兰克梵的才智，在和自己处于同样条件的孩子群中，年幼的贝兰克梵总是有一种独特的气质。16岁时贝兰克梵成功申请哈佛大学并获得奖学金入校学习。对于平常人而言成功申请哈佛大学是一件多么荣耀的事情，因为哈佛是世界一流的学府，那里汇聚最智慧的火花。可是贝兰克梵并不因为这些选择哈佛，而仅仅是因为他曾经听说有一个大学的名字叫哈佛。简陋闭塞的生活条件也许没有给他较多了解外界的可能，他不了解哈佛，不知道哈佛的地位，因为要上大学就申请了一个自己知道的学校，仅此而已。
演讲赏析
Don‘t Close Your Mind to Possibilities
Lloyd Blankfein，CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs
LaGuardia Community College，June 6th，2013
Thank you，President Mellow，distinguished family，distinguished faculty friends，and all above the Graduating Class of 2013.
It is a great honor for me to share in your accomplishment and pride today.But I must admit that I approached this address with some trepidation.I suppose that more commencement speeches have been delivered more seriously，listened to more attentively，and forgotten more promptly than any other form of human communication.
So I will try to be brief and practical.My advice is grounded in my own experience.And my own experience，in many respects，is not that different from many of yours.
I grew up with the idea that college was more an aspiration than an expectation.I saw my parents struggle most of their lives and the daily battle to keep afloat，sometimes even drained what hopes and dreams they had for me.They didn’t go to college and neither did my only older sibling.
My father sorted mail for the post office.He worked nights because it paid 10%more than a day shift.My mother was a receptionist at a burglar alarm company—one of the few growth industries in our neighborhood.I grew up in the Linden Houses，which，as some of you know，is a housing project in East New York.
It was and is a tough neighborhood，though it produced some accomplished people who，despite or because of their background，did well.I attended Thomas Jefferson high school，which has since shut down as a high school and operates different training programs for various skills.Up until high school，I shared a small apartment with my extended family，which included my grandmother，my sister and my nephew.
But looking back，I grew up in a world of unlimited opportunity.Each night I would read，and reading opened up the world to me.I love reading history and especially biography.In biographies，you are almost always reading about people who started out unimportant but ended up having a significant life.
What I liked most about biographies then and now is that the person you are reading about is in his or her early life on page 50，doesn‘t know about the success he or she will achieve by page 300.They couldn’t see the greatness that lay ahead.
If you think about it，that‘s a great justification for the optimism that you should have for the life ahead of you.All of you are only on about page 50of your biography，with hundreds of pages to go.
Growing up，my biggest goal was just to get out of East New York.I took the college entrance exam and committed myself to getting into college.I did.The day I left for college was one of the first trips I made out of New York City.
College was an intimidating place for me.The other students seemed naturally confident；many had traveled and seemed to understand the world.To this day，I can’t forget how insecure I felt，but it made me work harder.
Once I realized I belonged，I became more ambitious.Ambition is your inner voice that tells you can and should strive to go beyond your circumstances or station in life.You have overcome obstacles，pressures and self-doubt and you have done it because you have ambition.
You want to succeed for your families and yourselves.And there is no more powerful force through which to do that than through education and know-how.
I‘m proud that LaGuardia and Goldman Sachs have teamed up to support small businesses.Through this partnership，I’ve seen how many LaGuardia students are juggling school，job and family.And，I‘ve seen how these students and all of you push yourselves and persevere.
By virtue of being here today，you have proven to yourself that you belong.And now that you belong，feed off your ambition.That means being focused，disciplined，demanding，self critical and open minded.Your challenges won’t fall away.In fact，they may get steeper.
That，my friends，is life.But just as the struggles are great，so are the rewards.There‘s another way to look at it：ask yourself if you really have a choice.You already knew the answer to that question the first day you walked into LaGuardia.We owe it to our families and to ourselves to keep striving.
This is certainly not the easiest of economic times，but there’s always an economic cycle.In the course of the next 50years of your life，you‘ll see a lot of cycles，and like this one，you’ll get through it.Don‘t get caught up in unrealistic optimism or detached pessimism.
Still，a lot can change rapidly and with a lot of force.Your security rests in knowing how to do a variety of things-and being able to do them better than others.
And that knowledge and ability can be obtained only through a willingness to strike out for something better.That could mean changing careers or pushing for a new idea or strategy in your current one.In either case，push yourself to try something new and to grow with each move.
