The best advice CEOs gave the class of 2019 at college graduations

"Call upon your grit. Try something," Apple CEO Tim Cook told graduates of Tulane University.

"You may succeed. You may fail. But make it your life's work to remake the world because there is nothing more beautiful or more worthwhile than working to leave something better for humanity."

Robert F. Smith, an investor and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, shocked the graduating class of Morehouse College by announcing he would establish a foundation to wipe away their student debt.

In his speech, Smith also touched on the importance of small, yet intentional change.

"Don't forget that communities thrive in the smallest of gestures. Be the first to congratulate a friend on their new job," he said. "Be the first to console them when they face adversity."

Julia Sweet, the CEO of Accenture North America, urged graduates from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas to have open, honest dialogues within their communities about diversity and inclusivity. She said that "being inclusive could not mean asking entire communities to park their experiences at the door."

Janet Foutty, chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP, challenged graduates of New York University's Stern School of Business to adopt a "we" mindset instead of falling back on "familiar excuses," such as "They're responsible for pollution or poverty or prejudice. They're the ones who choose this leader. They are sexist or racist or homophobic."

"What if there was no 'they'?" Foutty said. "When we build a we that spans diversions and apartments, spans organizations or works between business and government, we have a much longer lasting and a much further reaching impact."

In a speech to Vassar College graduates, Van Jones, a CNN political commentator and the CEO of the criminal-justice initiative Reform Alliance, drew parallels between pulling together the graduation robe and pulling together people from different political and socioeconomic backgrounds.

"When you want community, you don't start at the top," he said. "You don't start with the elites. You don't start with the people who have everything already. You start at the bottom. And you start pulling up from the bottom."

Esther Brimmer is a foreign policy expert and the director and CEO of the international education nonprofit NAFSA.

Addressing graduates of Pomona College, Brimmer encouraged students to both share their talents generously with the world, but also take time to replenish.

"Engage your head, your heart, and your soul," she said. "Your head tells you to run with the swift, your heart entreats you to give back, and your soul implores you to find your fun."

"To avoid being a one-hit wonder, you've got to develop a great radar as a leader and then be willing to recalibrate because nothing ever stays the same very long," Brooks Running Company CEO Jim Weber told graduates from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

Mary C. Daly, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, started her career as a 15-year-old high school dropout before earning advanced degrees She told Syracuse University graduates she credited help from others and owning her situation as the keys to her success.

After Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 went down on March 10, killing all 157 people aboard, the airline's CEO Tewolde GebreMariam decided to indefinitely ground the company's entire fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes.

GebreMariam told graduates of the University of Mississippi's School of Journalism and New Media that although his deciesion carried a huge financial risk, it was the right thing to do.

"How you handle yourself in that crisis situation and the decisions you make when things are not good will define who you are after the crisis has past," he said.

Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America and the CEO of education nonprofit Teach for All, urged graduates of the University of California, Berkeley to not only challenge the status quo as it relates to systemic injustices, but also the status quo of how those problems are approached.

"To create different outcomes, we need to develop different capabilities than most of us have learned," she said. "We must learn to build authentic relationships across lines of difference, to see the strengths in those from different walks of life and different ideological perspectives, to listen and learn from each other."

"And we must be literate with trauma — our own, others' and the world's — so that we can have generative conversations, even when others hurt us."