It's an honor for me to be here today. Every time I get in an awesome situation like this I think of a story that took place several years ago when my family and I lived on the west coast. Our oldest boys, who were seven and eight at the time, decided to take a friend to church with them one Sunday. This young boy had never been to our Church before.
It happened to be a fast and testimony meeting that Sunday always a unique time to take a new friend to church. Our friend watched in awe as several people marched up to the stand to say nice things. After seeing a few young people do it, he decided, without any hesitation or warning, to jump up and head for the podium. When he finished what he had to say it was obvious he had not yet mastered how he should conclude his remarks. As he pondered for a moment, and as we held our breath, he finally smiled and looked over the audience and said, "Holy Moses, amen."
I think about that in relationship to how I feel as I stand in the presence of such awesome people and outstanding graduates people who are going to make a major difference in the world. I feel honored to have this opportunity and obligation. I am going to share two formulas today that I expect you to memorize, internalize, and add to the education you have gained during your stay at BYU. If you do this, you will find that these two formulas combined will have a dramatic impact on your future success. I can say that boldly because neither one is my formula. The first formula comes from an autobiography written by J. Paul Getty, an oil tycoon. He wrote, "Get up early, work hard, and find oil." I used to kind of laugh it off as an introduction until I began thinking about it. It began to dawn on me how true it is. If we could learn how to get up early, work hard, and then find some kind of oil not necessarily the gooey type of oil we would be successful. These people on the stand, academic achievers, have found their oil in academics, consulting, writing books, or teaching. They have found tremendous power and opportunity in serving the academic world.
Others in the audience have different success stories about where they've found oil oil of some sort that has allowed them to be successful and gain self-confidence. It doesn't matter whether it's academics, farming, or real estate. The formula works. Get up early, work hard, and find some kind of oil.
The second formula I'd like to suggest to you today was given to me during an interesting experience I had with Elder David B. Haight, who was my mission president in Scotland in the early 1960s. The last preparation day of my mission we were on a boat cruise with the members of the Church in Scotland. Elder Haight came up to the side of me on the rail of that ship as I was meditating about the last week of my mission and said, "Go home Jim. Get your education. Make your mark. And get prepared to be used."
That statement had a dramatic impact on the way I've lived my life and on what kind of objectives and goals I have set. I went home and became obsessed with doing exactly what he had said in the order he said to do it. Get my education, make my mark, and get prepared to be used.
Let's combine the two formulas: "Get up early, work hard, find your oil, make your mark, get prepared to be of service, and have a wonderful, adventurous life." Now, let me tell you two quick stories. A few years ago when we lived in California, I was reading the L.A. Times when an article struck me. It published the results of a study of successful Jewish people, especially those living in the Los Angeles basin. The researchers tried to identify common denominators to their success. One of the common denominators that stood out to me was their participation in a twenty-eight day Jewish camp in Simi Valley for young Jews called the Brandeis Bardein Institute. The reason that caught my eye is because I happened to be living in Simi Valley, and nearly every day I drove past this sign that said Brandeis Bardein Institute pointing up into the foothills of Simi Valley. It looked like an old farmhouse. I'd never paid any attention to it until I read that report.
The next day I drove up to the farmhouse, knocked on the door, went inside, and said, "I need to know who you are." As a stake president involved in Church education, I was very interested in the Church's youth. I questioned, "Tell me what happens here that makes you so significantly powerful in the lives of your Jewish people." They said, "Come and see." They invited my wife and I to come and spend a Jewish weekend with them, a day and a half's time where they introduce their program to Jewish parents. The usual wealthy parents then spend thousands to bring their sons or daughters to this twenty-eight day camp. We accepted their invitation, and we turned out to be the first non-Jewish guests at their camp. They called us their Mormon spies. They were very gracious hosts. They shared fun and interesting experiences, trying to convert us in a sense, to what they did at their camp that had such long-term impact on the lives of their youth.
On Sunday morning when we left the camp, we had our answer. We knew their secret. From one twenty-eight-day experience, twenty-five years later these young people were giving this institute credit for their success in life. Their message was, "Thou art a Jew, and Jews are successful. You have to be successful. You are a Jew. There are no mediocre Jews." Man, was I impressed.
I began to ponder that if there was ever a group on the planet that ought to be able to infiltrate the minds of its young people with truth, with an impact on who they are, it ought to be Latter-day Saints. It ought to be us. It ought especially to be graduates of BYU. Today you become a member of a great group of people called BYU graduates. There are things expected of you. You cannot be mediocre. You must not be average. You cannot go into the communities of life and be mediocre or fail. You have to succeed. You are of the house of Israel.
I believe that with all my heart. It's a "Holy Moses, amen" experience as I look in your eyes and see the two to three hundred of you who are going to leave these hallowed halls today with the formula in your mind. Get up early, work hard, find your oil, make your mark, and get prepared for a great life of service and adventure. The world needs you to be successful. You have to make your mark. You have to get ready to be used.
Let me conclude with one story that happened a few years ago. Because five of our children were mutual age, I accompanied our ward youth group on a houseboat trip to Lake Shasta in Northern California. We left Simi Valley at midnight on Sunday. We were nearly to the lake when we approached a steep, very winding road. It didn't take long for the big, long, full-sized bus to jackknife with the front of the bus heading over a cliff and the back of the bus against the mountain. For safety reasons, we proceeded to unload everyone from the bus. The last person off the bus was a man named Ray Hutchingson, an engineer from Bonneville Corporation. He waited until last, and as he got to the bus driver at the head of the bus, he leaned over and said to him, "Would you like me to drive the bus?" We then watched from the safety of the rocks, as this bus driver stood up and abandoned his seat. Ray stepped into the drivers seat and began to maneuver this bus back and forth, an inch at a time, until he finally got it away from the cliff and back on the road. The rest of us then got back on the bus, and Ray drove us the rest of the way to the houseboat.
Later that evening I asked Ray, "Why did you do that? Imagine the liability that you assumed taking over this $100,000 bus." He said, "You know, I'd been watching this bus driver all night long, and he was a nervous man. When he got in a jam I knew he was in trouble." He continued, "I remembered back in my early days at BYU, the summer between my freshman and sophomore year I hauled hay driving a big diesel rig. Two other summers, I drove a cement truck." He said, "I remembered back those fifteen years and the experiences I had driving those diesel rigs," and he concluded, "I could see the driver was in a jam, and I offered to drive the bus."
What's that got to do with the formula and your graduation success? I believe that not only can I say to you, "Thou art a BYU graduate. Thou must be successful," but I also can say to you, "because you are of the house of Israel and because you came from a divine heritage and an foreordained past, you are going to make a difference in the world." You came as a final generation of young people. You are honored and privileged to be some of the finest graduates this school has ever produced. You are going to make a difference in the world. Because you are the house of Israel you knew what was expected of you when you came here. You came to earth with all kinds of expectations. You were foreordained to do great things.
It's time for you to drive the bus! It's time for you to take charge. It's time for you to reach back in your heritage and back in your mind and to read your patriarchal blessings and stand up and say, "I am a Latter-day Saint. I am the house of Israel. I know who I am, and it's time for me to drive the bus. It's time for me to take charge. It's time for me to pay back." My fellow graduates, you are an awesome sight. You are a "Holy Moses, amen" experience. You are the people who are going to make a difference in this world. May I leave you with the formula? Leave these doors today. Tomorrow morning get up early. Work really hard. Find your oil. Find something in this life that you're best at, that you're really good at, that you can do better then anybody else. And with that oil make your mark. Let your communities know you're there. Let your families see what a BYU graduate does. Thou art a Latter-day Saint. Thou art a BYU graduate. Get ready for an adventurous life. May God bless you. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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By James W. Ritchie
About The Speaker
When James W. Ritchie "retired" the first time at the age of thirty-five, he owned and managed twenty-six different entrepreneurial ventures. Included among his businesses were Ritchie Enterprises, LP; First World Travel; a Chevrolet dealership; an International Harvester dealership; a Ski-Doo dealership; a Sears catalog store; a tire store; a KOA campground; a Meadow Gold dairy products distributorship; a feed processing plant, a farm store, several trailer parks, several restaurants and motels, and various land development projects. After retiring, Ritchie spent time with his eight children and served as an institute director, stake president, mission president, and regional representative. Eleven years later, he joined Franklin Quest as senior vice president over sales and training. Following a second retirement, Jim and his wife, Carolyn, accepted a two-year Church assignment in New Zealand and Australia. In September 2001, Jim began his calling as area director of the Church Educational System in Southeast Africa. Jim has a BS in accountancy from BYU and has done graduate work in law and business at the University of Utah and UCLA.
