It’s cap-and-gown season again, when graduates from America’s schools are awarded their diplomas and round out another stage of their lives. This rite of passage ranges in scope from homeschooled high school seniors receiving their recognition in a backyard ceremony celebrated by relatives and friends to a university stadium packed with thousands of proud parents, grandparents, and others eager to witness the latest achievement in the family saga.
Typically, these events bring a guest speaker to the stage whose purpose is to encourage graduates as they commence their next adventure. Some of these commencement speakers appear because of their accomplishments and prestige. Some are renowned for their power to move an audience with their enthusiasm, passion, and stories. Some are invited to the podium for their ability to touch the hearts and minds of the young.
A Turnabout Tale
Hajim’s story qualifies as a classic rags-to-riches Horatio Alger tale for our time.His father’s early financial success was wiped out by the Depression. The Syrian immigrant was in St. Louis when he met the young woman who would become Hajim’s mother. Once married, the couple set out for California, where Ed was born in 1936, but the family continued to struggle financially. When Ed was 3, his mother took him back to St. Louis and filed for divorce.
“When people fail early in life,” Hajim said of his father, “they sometimes have an awful time later.” He then added, “My father loved me more than anything else in the world.”
His father loved him so much, in fact, that he kidnapped him on a visit to St. Louis and took him back to California, telling his son that his mother had died. More than 50 years would pass before Ed learned the truth about his mother, tracked her down, and reestablished a relationship with her.
His adolescence was chaotic, to say the least.
“I lived in 15 to 20 places before I was 18,” Hajim said. Work took his father away for long periods of time, leaving Hajim first to the care of babysitters and then to foster parents. Eventually, he landed in an orphanage where his life took on some semblance of order and stability.
After winning a Navy ROTC scholarship, Hajim attended the University of Rochester, where he majored in chemical engineering. After a stint in the service and some time as an engineer, he attended Harvard Business School, found employment on Wall Street, and rose to the top of his chosen profession, serving in executive positions in all manner of brokerages and businesses, and becoming a legendary figure in the world of finance.
Hajim credits many people and factors, including luck, for his success, but none more than his wife Barbara. They’ve been married for nearly 60 years.
Lighting the Fires of Learning
That Hajim feels forever grateful for his own education can be seen in his lifelong devotion to the University of Rochester, where he served for more than 20 years as a university trustee. In 2008, when he received an eight-year appointment to head up the trustees, he donated $30 million to provide students with scholarships and to endow Rochester’s Edmund A. Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He has also funded scholarships for other institutions.
But Hajim’s interest in students and learning is more personal than providing financial aid. He has delivered motivational speeches at numerous graduations and to groups of youth, including those whose background is as rocky and as hardscrabble as his own.
Passions, Principles, Partners, and Plans
“The Island of the Four Ps: A Modern Fable About Preparing for Your Future” contains a lifetime of wisdom distilled into the story of Marketus, who travels to an island from his home in search of answers to some of life’s big questions. Along with his guide, Archimedes, Marketus visits the four villages of passions, principles, partners, and plans, drawing lessons from each of them and integrating that knowledge into a working template for his future.At the end of each visit is a list of key ideas along with questions intended to fire up the reader’s own thinking. When visiting the Village of Principles, for instance, Archimedes and a blacksmith explain to Marketus that an individual’s principles apply to four realms—self, family, work, and community. These realms are then re-presented as one of the key ideas at the end of the chapter, along with the questions, “How do you apply your principles in each realm?” and “How might you apply them in the future?”
Here, then, is an elevated yet simple-to-use and fun guide to life for young adults. So if you’re looking for a graduation gift, “The Island of the Four Ps” deserves a place at the top of the list.
Hajim at Home
Ed Hajim in person is the same man we find in the books and online interviews.When I spoke with him by phone, for example, I met a man of humor, passion, and intelligence who shared his thoughts without a trace of ostentation or pretension. Here are just a few of them:
“Never be a victim. Focus your energy on what’s next.”
“A man can accomplish anything if he doesn’t want the credit.”
“It’s important to find someone to love. That’s your true partner.”
“Surround yourself with people who can do what you can’t.”
“When you have a friend, at least once or twice a year spend time together.”
“Early failure can be a gift. Trying something that doesn’t work teaches you.”
A Note to Graduates and Other Young Adults
In his introduction to “The Island of the Four Ps,” Hajim tells readers, “That’s why I wrote this book—so you can use my experience to help you navigate troubled waters.” Readers who are paying attention should walk away from this fable with some polished gemstones of wisdom.But Hajim’s book should also serve as a reminder that nearly everyone from the ages of 15 to 25 surely knows some older people—a grandparent, an uncle or aunt, an employer—whose knowledge and experiences are also worth hearing. When we actively seek out these older men and women, we often encounter stores of history and philosophy gleaned from good times and bad.
And if we avail ourselves of them, we can add to our own storeroom of wisdom.
