Thank you, Dr. Hornsby, for your inspiring remarks this morning.

I would like to add some brief remarks about a quality we all must demonstrate to be successful in life, and to share two examples of that quality that we are witnessing in the world today.

The quality is resilience, defined by Merriam-Webster's as "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change."

Nine years ago, a 25-year-old man checked himself into a hospital in Indianapolis. He needed treatment for testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain. Doctors gave him a less than a 50 percent chance of survival. It seemed tragic, nearly unbelievable to those who knew him or came to know of him, that someone so young and so talented, who was finally being recognized as among the best in his profession, would be stricken with cancer.

Some believed him when he said he would beat cancer, but few believed he could keep his vow to resume his career. After all, his chances of regaining his status as an elite athlete seemed more out of reach than the summits of the mountain peaks in the French Alps and Pyrenees where he has staked his claim to sporting immortality. Some of you are, no doubt, wearing a symbol of his victorious battle on your wrist today.

Barring some unprecedented catastrophe Lance Armstrong will make a largely ceremonial ride tomorrow into Paris and claim his seventh straight victory in the Tour de France. No man before him has won more than five of these grueling, three-week-long tests of endurance.

Sure the scientists will tell you that his genetic makeup—a larger-than-normal heart that pumps more blood and lungs that process oxygen much more efficiently than 99 percent of the human population—gives him a physical advantage unmatched by his rivals. Add to that a punishing training regimen, and you have the recipe for success.

We marvel at his determination to beat cancer, to ride again, and to encourage others to fight the brave fight. All of his tour victories came AFTER he beat this life-threatening disease, and Armstrong calls cancer "the best thing that ever happened to me."

"LIVESTRONG" has become the rallying cry for cycling enthusiasts, cancer patients and survivors, those who have lost loved ones to the disease, and others who have been inspired by Armstrong's story. Those yellow "LIVESTRONG" bracelets some of you are wearing have banded many together in a show of solidarity and a testament to the power of a resilient spirit.

But we don't have to be sports heroes to display this quality. It is evident in how we go about our everyday lives. Two weeks ago and a day after three bombs ripped through the London subway system and another destroyed a double-decker bus, killing 56 people, Londoners returned to the public transportation system, determined not to let terrorists scare them away.

The unfolding investigation has provided unsettling details about the terrorists—they were not foreign mercenaries, but rather second generation Brits. As authorities continued to question potential collaborators and searched houses for clues that might unearth plans for future attacks, terrorists struck again just two days ago. No one was injured physically, yet surely the terrorists caused psychological harm. And then Friday, police shot and killed a man they say was connected to Thursday's attacks.

Winston Churchill once said "The maxim of the British people is 'Business as usual,'" and this maxim is being played out before our eyes. The resiliency of the British struck me quite profoundly recently when a reporter asked a man on the street how the country could spring back so quickly from the bombings. The man replied simply, yet spiritedly, "They don't call us GREAT Britain for nothing." Indeed.

Your educations have helped you develop the critical thinking skills you need to adjust to misfortune or change. You may find, like Lance Armstrong, that your resilience springs first from a personal need to persevere. At other times, your personal display of resilience may be necessary for the common good, like those Londoners climbing aboard public transportation. Together, their individual acts weave the fabric of a strong society, certainly frayed recently, but not torn. The future of a free society depends upon all of us to follow their lead.

Wherever you find the motivation in your lives, your determination to LIVESTRONG will pay great dividends as you heed Dr. Hornsby's call to find those defining moments that define your lives.