Entrepreneurs are an ambitious bunch.

To be able to take chances and not let anyone get in the way of your dreams says a lot about a person’s character. These are the kind of people that don't let rejection interfere with the path to success.

Don't let rejection get in the way of dreams and success: Even Michael Jordan was once cut from his high school basketball team. He used failure as a motivation for success.

What do you think of when you hear the word entrepreneur?

Self-starter, self-made → people who took things into their own hands and took control of their lives.

You need to take this proactive approach upon graduating from college. Not saying you need to start your own business here, but make things happen, take chances (like an entrepreneur would), embrace vulnerability, and think outside the box when it comes to landing that desired position/job.

It's a big duty for a graduation speaker to get up on stage and preach their words of wisdom to the graduating class. They must do this while not being boring, being part funny, and being inspirational to the listeners.

While being "funny" during a speech is not necessarily a requirement, you will usually find the speaker cracking a joke or two at the beginning of the speech to loosen up both the speaker and the audience.

It can be hard to keep an audience's attention for 10-20 minutes, especially with the graduates, who probably have a million thoughts running through their heads and are sweating to death in their graduation gowns.

Typically, a commencement speaker will include a parable in their speech and follow it up with some motivational words of advice for the graduates' future and career.

After analyzing several college graduation speeches, we have collected this list of highly motivational commencement speeches.