I am not going to be very active in writing blog posts, but I believe that since I am using a couple of quotes in this website from a graduation talk D. Washington did a few years ago, it is only right if my first blog post is about this video. Since 2017 I am showing this video on the first lecture of my first year Probability module I teach and students have a very positive response to it. (Note that these students are in their first week of their University life when they see this video).
Here is a link of a video Goalcast made which contains only part of the talk which they were put in suc a way to make it even more inspiring (as this is what Goalcast does). This is the version I show to my students since it is a shorter one:
To be fair though I need to put the whole speech and I think this is the whole speech (with Chinese subtitles but I couldn’t find a better one)… The reason I add this version is because, Denzel Washington did mention God as the first thing one has to do and Goalcast left this (and any other reference to God) completely out. I do believe if you are trying to be inspirational it is only fair that the audience sees the full spectrum of your inspiration and motivation.