William McRaven is a retired United States Navy four-star admiral who served as the ninth commander of the United States Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014. From 2015 to 2018, he was the chancellor of The University of Texas System.
In 2014, as part of his commencement address to 8,000 University of Texas undergraduates, he said:
“…the average American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime. That’s a lot of folks. But, if every one of you changed the lives of just 10 people — and each one of those folks changed the lives of another 10 people — just 10 — then in five generations — 125 years — the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people… think of it — over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation and you can change the entire population of the world — eight billion people.”
Positively impact 10 people in my lifetime? I think I can handle that, can you?
