I love you
I thought I'd shared this. No? Well then, let's remedy that.
Funny thing. I shared the story of Billy Joel's commencement speech yesterday.
I came across that story, as I mentioned, because I looked up the commencement speech at my own graduation, which I like to think of as the best graduation speech of all time.
Quite a few readers emailed me afterward to say: Wait, how can you mention offhand that you were there for the best-ever graduation speech of all time, but just leave it at that and only talk about Billy Joel?
This revealed a mistake: I thought I'd shared the “best speech” story here before. But, alas, I think that's not true! (I write a lot; sometimes I can’t keep it all straight!)
Anyway, let’s remedy that. I think of this as a story about how to give an amazing speech -- one that people will remember fondly, literally decades later.
I was in the 50th graduating class at Fairfield University in Connecticut. The university celebrated by asking a retiring political science professor to speak.
The professor, whose memorable name was Carmen Donnarumma, was well-respected, and he was known for the catchphrase he'd ended every class with for years: "Thanks for bearing with the boring. I'm free for lunch."
Let’s just say it seemed a little less special for our graduation speaker to be someone my classmates had heard speak two or three times a week for a semester or more, even if they liked and respected him.
So, on the beautiful, sunny morning of our graduation all those years ago, Donnarumma had his work cut out.
He started by acknowledging that he was an unusual choice, and he went through some themes that could have been part of many speeches: "community, celebration, proclamation, and service."
But then, he ended it all with an emotionally intelligent power move -- a closing that ensured the audience was completely on his side:
Even when I go for my ultimate departure, I shall still be here.
You will know it. Because you and I have eternally been joined in that great Fairfield tradition, that community that neither one of us will ever leave.
So I'll say unto you like I did at the end of every class: I thank you for bearing with the boring.
And remember: I love you.
It was those last three words that did it: "I love you." Here we are three decades later, and the emotional impact still hits me.
They're the most powerful and memorable words in the English language. If you can use them correctly and authentically when they're not expected, they're a secret weapon.
(Obviously, we mean "platonic" love, not "romantic" love.)
I asked a few classmates from back then if they remembered Donnarumma's speech; every single one of them recalled the final line fondly.
Then, the university PR department was kind enough to dig up a scratchy audio recording for me; indeed, I'd remembered his remarks verbatim, 32 years later.
(Sadly, it’s not really good enough quality to share here, so you’ll have to trust me.)
Donnarumma died in 2013. He wasn't well-known and didn't get any media coverage back then.
Still, that only makes his speech more impressive. He really did have to overcome audience expectations, and build rapport. His three-word ending really did make it all work.
I've watched, listened to, and written about hundreds of speeches like this over the years. I have a pretty good basis for comparison. There are a lot of very bad graduation speeches ever year (not naming any names).
We were fortunate to hear what we heard that day.
The "I love you" twist that Professor Donnarumma used at the end all those years ago is difficult to pull off.
But if you can do it with authenticity, I guarantee your audience will remember you fondly.
Maybe somebody will write about your speech 32 years later, too.
See you in 2056.
7 other things …
More than 60.3 million viewers watched Tuesday's debate between former President Trump and Vice President Harris. To put it in perspective, Trump's debate with President Biden in June attracted 51.3 million. But back in the day, audiences were bigger; the record was 80.6 million people who watched the Reagan-Carter debate in 1980. (NY Post)
In April, a poll conducted by a libertarian think tank suggested that a Taylor Swift presidential endorsement "could make a huge difference in swing states" given the sheer number of "Swifties" in the U.S. Swift in fact endorsed Harris immediately after the debate Tuesday, and in the first 12 hours following, more than 306,000 people visited Vote.gov using the voter registration link she shared. (Axios)
A Northern California woman and an Idaho man have been accused of running an international white nationalist terror ring. Federal prosecutors say they took over leadership of an online terrorist organization called Terrorgram in 2022, using the app Telegram, and called for "enemies of the white race." Thousands of miles away, prosecutors say, they were linked to killings at a Slovakian gay bar and a spree of stabbings outside a Turkish mosque. (SF Gate)
Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that the House would not proceed with a planned vote on a stopgap measure to keep the government funded past the end of the month, in an acknowledgment of opposition from members of his own party that likely would have doomed the bill to fail. (CBS News)
First came space tourism. Now comes an even bigger thrill for the monied masses: spacewalking. The stage is set for the first private spacewalk Thursday, when tech billionaire Jared Isaacman will pop out of the hatch of his orbiting SpaceX capsule on a chartered flight that lifted him and his crew higher than anyone since NASA’s moonwalkers. (AP)
Will Ferrell expressed a bit of regret in a podcast over the “Janet Reno’s Fantasies” sketch from Season 23 of SNL, which featured Ferrell in drag as the eponymous attorney general. "That’s something I wouldn’t choose to do now." (Variety)
The words “Titanic moment” are possibly the last thing you want to hear on a boat – but that was the phrase used by one passenger on board the Carnival Spirit cruise ship last week, after the vessel unexpectedly struck an iceberg. No one was hurt on board and the ship was undamaged by the incident, which a Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson described as the vessel hitting “an errant piece of drifting ice” in Alaska. (CNN)
Thanks for reading. Photo credit: Photo by Good Free Photos on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.
I wasn't there and I had never heard of this professor. Nevertheless, I cried when I read the speech. No wonder you remembered.
"But back in the day, audiences were bigger" ... I think that's incorrect. Back in the day, they only had TV. The modern number isn't counting a LOT of people who watched on social media, websites. and streaming.