Over a dozen years ago, I was asked by a friend to be a speaker at a 5th grade farewell ceremony when their original speaker canceled at the last minute. Being a High School football coach who did character training sessions, she felt I could come up with something on short notice. It obviously went well as I was invited back 10 years straight to deliver the exact same speech. Fortunately for me, each year there was a new audience of 11-year-olds. I only stopped giving the talk as a result of moving 4 hours away.

My speech was about the nursery rhyme Row, Row, Row Your Boat and how it is life’s instructional manual. Apply its insightful messages and we can be successful in life. ‘Your boat’ being a metaphor for ‘your life.’ It is certainly a simple message for the young students, but it has enough ‘meat’ to it that the teachers (who did hear it every year) and the parents also enjoy it. In addition to the 5th grade farewell, I have given this talk to High School and College football teams, businesses, and in many social gatherings with audiences as few as 1 and as many as a 100. I will dig into the Nursery Rhyme, line by line.