Letters for Girls Podcast

mini.chat: commencement speeches and unconventional advice


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*Episode Malfunction Alert!: We had an accidental re-release of our first ever episode, our introduction, yesterday on September 22. Feel free to delete it or ignore it. Thanks for your understanding.*


On todays mini.chat, we're discussing some unconventional life tips pulled from a graduation speech. Jess loves a commencement speech once in a while, for a generous dose of idealistic motivation. Today she shared a few points from Tim Minchin’s 2013 speech at the University of Western Australia (linked below if you would like to listen or read the speech in full).

Points discussed: 

  • • “You don’t have to have a dream” 

We discuss the idea of being micro-ambitious and our own approaches to living in pursuit of big dreams or the little things in between. 

• “Be hard on your opinions” (opinions are like arse-holes)

We chat about the importance of acknowledging nuance. Tara mentions how it's important to her to be introspective and to acknowledge biases and privilege when considering world-issues and different ways of living. Jess brings up the the value in also being open to perspectives that are different from your own.


• “Define yourself by what you love” (be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff) 

Instead of jumping to all the reasons you don’t like something, Jess is trying to work on asking questions about what other people love. (AKA: Don’t yuck someone’s yum!) Tara brings up the longing humans feel for finding a community of like-minded people. 


We hope you enjoyed todays chat - talk, soon!  




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Letters for Girls PodcastBy With Tara and Jess