Noted author and lecturer Josh McDowell reportedly spent
60 hours preparing to give the commencement address at his son's graduation at
a California university in 1998.
McDowell came to the podium, cleared his throat, and said:
Do
everything to build a loving relationship with your spouse; spend time with your
children.
Do
everything to build a loving relationship with your spouse; spend time with your
children.
Do
everything to build a loving relationship with your spouse; spend time with your
children.
Then he sat down.
One sentence repeated three times.
Speech over.
Question: If you gave the commencement address at your son's or daughter's university, what would you say?
10 comments:
good questions. I don't know how to answer it right now. I never did such a big speech before.
I guess it wouldn't have been this short and this precise. I never would have thought that these words would be appropriate for a graduation speech.
I would say like:
You can be proud of you all, because your family who loves you is already proud of you.
I'm a bad speecher
I would tell them:
"Take chances. Dream big. Go for it."
Short, simple, sweet....
if I read Joseph's post my comment is going down and down in value. Good comment Joe!
Tobi, your comments are always valuable. :)
It's strange, yes, that this esteemed lecturer would give such a short speech. One would expect him to provide at least 30 minutes of content. Perhaps more.
I think the point he was trying to make is that sometimes life needs to be reduced to the simplest of points. When extra information is stripped away, then we can see the core of truth.
For him, he wanted to instill in his son's graduating class the point that spouse and children are highly important, and that too many executives and leaders fail to put forth the time needed in this area.
I wouldn't recommend this style of speaking for every speaking engagement, nor, I doubt, would he.
But note how he gave this speech in 1998--fourteen years ago, and it's still being quoted today. Proving that something was highly memorable about this technique--and his message that day.
I think he felt his son's graduation was very important to him and he really wanted to write a good speech. If it's true he spent 60 hours preparing it, he probably spent most of that time writing out a real long one as you would expect, tweaking and editing it, but he never became really content with it. I mean, his son's graduation probably meant a lot to him and he wanted to give an appropriate speech and was striving for perfection. In the end he probably felt frustrated with not being able to express himself as he wanted, and instead just stripped the whole speech down to its core, having its meaning repeated twice quite magnificently.
I've done it as well, being a little over-enthusiastic trying to write a good speech just ending up editing the whole thing down to half. ;)
I still think the best graduation speech is the one Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University. It has so much to it, and the ending words are truly important ones - "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish".
Got to love that, powerful.
Karl, good words man. Thanks, --MB
In my high school speech, the mayors of both of our towns (we had a regional high school) got up on stage. The first one made this big long, well-presented sermon to inspire us all. My town's mayor followed it up with, "Congratulations!"
thanks for making out Josh's point! I'm with you! Sometimes it's neccessary to stick to the core and not tell a long speech where the deep core get's lost or washen.
T
Doug, your town's mayor was the coolest.
and congrats on that "Art of Manliness" deal! Always good to expand...
T
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