Those not familiar with the mission of Brigham Young University or its sponsoring institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, may be surprised by the religious overtones in the talk. Given the nature of the university, I felt it was appropriate.

“Freely ye have Received, Freely Give”

(Matthew 10:8)

2010 Commencement Address

Greetings Administrators, Professors, family members, friends and fellow classmates. I am honored to speak with you today.  My message is a simple one; I will introduce it with a story.

On my mission [for the LDS Church], my companion and I were [going door to door] one evening when we came to a home with a fence around it. There was a sign on the fence that said, “Beware of Dog.” We rattled the gate to see if a dog would bark. Nothing happened. We rattled the gate even louder but no dog came—so we opened the gate and walked inside.

The gate swung shut behind us as we walked towards the door. I was a couple of steps in front of my companion when we heard a loud barking noise. A giant dog came running around the side of the yard.

My companion turned and ran for the fence. He began climbing it and the dog was jumping up trying to grab his feet. But my companion made it over the fence and was safe. I on the other hand was in trouble. The dog was between me and the fence. I could see no other escape so I ran towards the front door and (without knocking) opened it.

“Help!” I yelled. “Help!”

A large man came running down the stairs yelling at the dog.

When the dog calmed down the man turned and yelled at me, “What are you doing in here?”

I said, “Well we were just trying to share a spiritual message…”

He cut me off. “I’m not interested!”

And that was fine with me because I was just happy to get out of there alive. Then the man said, “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you read?”

And he had a point. The sign “beware of dog” was clear, but my companion and I chose to ignore it, thinking that we knew better.

I share this story with you because I feel that this is a “beware of dog” message. It is simple and easy to overlook. But I think it is important.

My simple message to you today is summed up in brief statement made by the Savior. He said, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

As students we have freely received in so many ways. We have received from our classmates, from our professors and from our families. Freely we have received, freely we must give.

First we have received from our classmates. We have participated in study groups, shared notes and ideas, prepared each other for tests, and given each other feedback. I’m sure you have had classmates like I had where some of the best learning came as we heard from one another. As we move forward we will have many peers who depend on us for support. This might take place in a school setting as we assist a fellow teacher needing help on a lesson plan. It could also take place as we reach out to brothers and sisters in our wards through home and visiting teachers. As we have gone through school we have gained from our peers. Now we have the responsibility to give back to our peers. The Savior said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

Second, we have received from our professors. Have you ever had professors so caring and focused on mentoring as those at the McKay School of Education? I want to speak a little bit about my experience, which I am sure you have shared. When I was just beginning my program a professor emailed me and invited me to participate in a special project he was working on. His reaching out to mentor me changed my life as he introduced me to ideas, people and opportunities that I otherwise never would have had.

I think of another professor who when I asked for his help agreed to assist me. I knew that this professor had a large work assignment, and on top of that had just received a heavy church calling. So when I went to his office I expected only a few minutes of his time. After we had visited for a couple of minutes about my project he began to teach me about other interesting things he was working on. We spent over an hour together and I learned so much. As I left I was astonished at how such a busy man could be so generous in giving his time to me.

Another professor helped me during a time in his life where he was going through serious struggles. Another smiled and gave me friendly encouragement whenever I saw him. I could go on and on.

As future teachers we will have many opportunities, in like manner to give to others. These opportunities will come in many ways. Some of us will teach students in a classroom setting. There will be lonely students who want to talk to us before or after class. Will we take the time to help them? Will we go to our students’ choir concerts, or write notes of appreciation? One of the most important things we can remember is that we are not teaching classes – we are teaching students. Individual students. President Howard W. Hunter said, “I…encourage you to think about the students you teach and try to reach them on an individual level.…You must remember that you are teaching and trying to reach individual students… The very best teaching is one on one and often takes place out of the classroom” (President Howard W. Hunter, “Eternal Investments”, address to CES, 1989).

Not all of us will be classroom teachers. But all or most of us will have opportunities to serve as teachers in the church. What will we do to reach into the hearts of the people we will serve? Will we use the skills and attributes we have developed at BYU to make a difference in the lives of the individuals we are called to serve? I believe we will. We have been given much, and much is required of us. The Savior said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

Third, we have received from our parents and other family members. From the thousands of meals that mom prepared to all the times dad helped us with homework, our family members have loved and supported us. The most important role that we will have in our lives is that of husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. President David O. McKay, for whom our college is named said, “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” It will not be easy for us to give our families the priority they deserve. Some of us may need to adjust our careers, or quit a hobby. There will be diapers to change, chores to be done, and service to give. But with all that our families have given us, can we do any less? As the Savior said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

The wonderful book In His Steps [get it, it's free]contains the account of people who chose to do what the Savior did. He is the master teacher. We can follow his steps. He said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

I am sure that you have contemplated that today is not an end, but a beginning. During the past years we have been given so much from our classmates, our professors and our families. Although the Savior’s message is simple I hope we will not neglect it. He said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

Thank you.

1. An interesting experiment in which researchers sold two kinds of treats. Deluxe chocolates for 15 cents and Hershey’s Kisses for 1 cent. 73% of consumers chose the deluxe chocolates, which were priced at about half their wholesale cost. Then they sold deluxe chocolates for 14 cents and Hershey’s kisses for free. Same price differential, but now 69% of folks chose the Kiss.

This illustration shows the power of “free.” Free is not just another price, it’s a radical price — there’s free, and then there’s everything else Anderson says. Free takes away the question of “should I pull out my wallet” and makes a “purchasing” decision much easier.

2. I was intriged by an account by Derek Webb. He had a record he likes, but it wasn’t selling. So he started giving away copies, but he would also collect email addresses, zipcodes and asked people to email five friends to let them know about the CD (he did not collect the email addresses). So he gave away 80,000 copies of the album and filtered his list by zipcodes to find out where “fans” were who might be interested in a concert. He sells out shows and sells a lot of merchandise.

To me that seemed like a very clever way to take “free” and make money on it.

I still remember reading this article and being fascinated with the concept of “free.” A lot of my doctoral work centers around the concept of “free” and I was hungry for information on the subject. As I was finishing the article I thought to myself, “This would make a great book. Maybe I should contact the author of the article and try to write it with him.”

Then I finished the article and saw that it was based on a forthcoming book by Chris Anderson – Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Ever since then I’ve been waiting with eager anticipation.

Happily for me, the wait ended today when a surprise package arrived containing the book. I’ve been devouring it. I plan to give an in-depth review of the book and I’ve been having too much fun reading to stop to write. So tonight I’ll probably just get started.

First, let me tell you that a free abridged audio book is available at http://hyperionbooks.com/free. I’ve already downloaded the whole thing and though it says “abridged” the prologue at least was word for word. Read by Chris Anderson and very high quality. I read on an Amazon forum a post saying it was ironic that the book Free wasn’t “free” and I hope that the undoubtedly nice, but also less-informed individual reads the comment I made.

I feel like I’ve studied a lot about free, but even the first chapter taught me new things. For example did you know that Jell-O got it’s start with “free”? The short version of the story is for several years Jell-O was a failing company. There was little or no demand for the product. To make things worse, salespeople were not allowed to “sell” Jell-O door to door. So instead they would give away free recipe books and then consumers would go to local stores to buy them. It worked for Jell-O!

Anderson then talks about the Gillette model and also debunks the myth that the main staple of “free” with Gillette was to give away the razor and sell the blade.  In fact Gillette sold its razors at discounted prices to banks and they gave them away.

Just to whet your appetite of what’s to come, Anderson addresses head on  doubts people have about free, and also includes 50 business models built on free.

I’m going to keep blogging about Free and I highly recommend you grab a copy now.