If I had $1,000 ...

How to get their attention.

We're nearing the end of graduation season. Every year, it seems one speech always stands out from the crowd.

Last year was no different. The clear choice, at least to my way of thinking, was Robert Hale Jr.’s address to the graduates of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, during which he gave each graduate $1,000 in cash. This included:

• $500 for them to keep, and

• $500 to give away to someone (or some organization) that needs it even more.

Of course, you’re probably going to win a crowd over if you literally give them money. If that had been everything that went on here, I’d probably note it, smile, and move on.

But, there’s more going on here, including things you can use in your next speech, even if you’re not in a position to give away a dime. Let’s go through the main points, all of which have to do with leveraging emotions:

1. Generosity and gratitude.

Hale is a multibillionaire and the founder of Granite Telecommunications. And, he has a track record of generosity: His company was recognized as the top philanthropic in Massachusetts, giving away $73 million to local charities last year alone.

That single word, “giving,” which he used repeatedly in his speech, really sums things up. It was one of the two big themes of his speech (the other was overcoming failure).

As a result, the gifts at the end continued the theme, which made it more powerful than if it had been out of the blue. It also made the additional condition that the graduates were to use half of the money to help someone else quite poignant.

2. Envy.

Hale isn’t the first speaker to offer graduates a gift. Two others jump to mind:

Robert F. Smith offered to pay off the student loans of every member of the class of 2019 at Morehouse University when he spoke there, and

Snapchat co-founder and billionaire Evan Spiegel paid off the loans of graduating seniors at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 2022.

Those are very generous gifts. But I think the size and dual nature of Hale’s gifts ($500 for you, and $500 to give away), threaded the needle of being generous and resonable enough not to spur envy or discord.

Put it this way: How would you feel if you graduated from Morehouse in 2018 with massive loans, or 2023 at Otis? Whoops, missed it by a year!

3. Multiple senses

I love this part: Hale didn’t just give the students a check, or Venmo them the money or add it to their student accounts.

Instead, he made the money a tangible gift — envelopes stuffed with cash. This increased everyone’s level of attention by leveraging multiple senses: hearing him announce it, looking over at the truck where the $3 million in cash was located, etc.

And it was important because of a key factor I haven’t mentioned yet: The weather.

4. Empathy

Yes, you’ll see if you watch the video below that Hale gave this speech outdoors, and in pretty lousy, rainy weather. He remarked that it was hard to see the graduates’ reactions, because they were all hidden by umbrellas.

Apparently on the spur of the moment — and I thought this showed real awareness — Hale took pity and cut his speech very short, cutting at least two planned sections.

My sense is that Hale could tell that he wasn’t going to be able to keep everyone’s attention under the circumstances anyway, and he had empathy for their positions: getting wet, while he at least stood under a canopy.

5. Drama

Given the weather, Hale really was up against something — but that’s why I thought the way he gave away the money to the graduates worked especially well.

In short, he moved quickly through an abbreviated version of his speech and nearly left the dais — getting a medal from the head of the university and signaling that things were over — before executing a sort of oh-by-the-way moment and returning.

It was only then, at the very end, that Hale announced the cash giveaway, plus the giving condition. I’m actually not sure that the graduates all understood everything he was saying, but I’m sure they will remember the emotion and drama of the moment.

Here’s the speech via video. Take a look and tell me if you don’t agree.

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7 other things worth knowing today

• Russia launched its largest-ever drone-and-missile assault on Ukraine overnight into Monday, including more than 350 explosive drones and at least nine cruise missiles. The latest attacks came as president Trump issued a strong rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin: "“He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers," Trump wrote on social media. "Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever." (The Wall Street Journal)

• King Charles III is set to deliver a significant speech in Canada's parliament on Tuesday that is expected to offer his support in the country's dispute with US President Donald Trump. It will be the first time in almost 50 years that a monarch gives the "Speech from the throne", with the King's decision to come to parliament in Ottawa seen as a symbolic show of support for Canada. (BBC)

• A crypto entrepreneur was arrested Friday after a tourist from Italy told police he was tortured in the suspect's luxury apartment in New York City for more than two weeks, according to police. The alleged victim told police that John Woeltz and another person, who has not been apprehended, beat him, used electric shock and hanged him off a ledge after he refused to provide his bitcoin password, according to the criminal complaint. (ABC News)

• The FBI will launch new probes into the 2023 discovery of cocaine at the White House during President Joe Biden's term and the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court's draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a top official announced on Monday. Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster-turned-FBI deputy director, made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on the cases' progress. (Reuters)

• Google's newest AI video generator, Veo 3, generates clips that most users online can't seem to distinguish from those made by human filmmakers and actors — and also terrifying them with a sense that real and fake have become hopelessly blurred. (Axios)

• Am I hot or not? People are asking ChatGPT for the harsh truth. (The Washington Post)

• Photo essay: As more Argentines choose not to have children, dogs have become their companions of choice, reshaping Buenos Aires with a growing number of pet hotels, boutiques, cafes and even cemeteries designed for canines treated like family. (Associated Press)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.