When I listen to this, I don't just hear a speech; I hear a lifeline being thrown to every single one of you standing on the edge of a new world, a world that feels, as she says, 'bewildering and destabilizing'. It's okay to be scared. Sandra's honesty about her own fear, her own self-doubt, is a gift. It tells you that you are not alone in that feeling, that even the people you look up to have stood exactly where you are, terrified of saying the wrong thing, of not being enough.

Her message is a challenge, but it's the most important one you'll ever receive: don't run from discomfort. Lean into it. Let it be your teacher. In my classroom, we found our voices in the stories of our own pain and struggle. That's where the real learning happens. It's in those moments of friction, those 'impasses', where you discover who you are and what you stand for. That discomfort is where the gold is buried, where you forge a resilience that no one can ever take from you.