How to Inspire Others

From the greatest commencement speech of 2023

My son Joshua graduated from preschool this week, which I think may nearly officially end the graduation season which starts in April, clobbers May, and trails off sometime after Father’s Day in June. While his ceremony was moving (yes, both dads teared up a bit) and his teacher Susan’s remarks compelling, there was another commencement address this season that truly set a new bar for these annual speeches: Mark Rober’s Address to the MIT Class of 2023.

I’ve joined Rober’s legions of fans in the past few months since hearing his talk at Qualtrics X4 in March. His YouTube science demonstrations are legendary, and he has a way of beautifully embedding clear science within viral content that my kids and their dad cannot get enough of. His commencement address took this to an entirely new level.

Image via @mit/YouTube

In a nutshell, he offered three pieces of advice:

• Embrace naïve optimism

• Frame your failures

• Foster relationships

• Engage in playful anarchy (see what he did there?)

At 17:57, he does a brilliant summary of what he just shared but goes one step further by demonstrating his advice with a scientific experiment: making his mortar board not just sail into the air, but fly over the iconic dome of Building 10 at MIT (where countless pranks of playful anarchy have occurred over the decades). I invite you to watch his entire address and see if he fails or succeeds. The attempt, and the musical score by Strauss, are remarkable and worth your time.

While many people will recall Mark’s risky, entertaining showmanship, I’m hoping my readers will remember his sage advice and, moreover, how he didn’t just share his advice as most speakers do, but showed it in action.

I cannot dedicate a newsletter to great grad speeches without mentioning the best and worst in my book. I love the iconic speech by Barbara Bush in 1990 at Wellesley, where she faced protestors who believed the first lady had only “married well” and did not deserve to be their speaker. The entire address is very good, but you can skip ahead to 10:00 to catch her remarkably well-written and well-timed ending. She so met the moment.

On the other side of the political aisle, and the other end of the excellence spectrum, is this hilarious look by John Oliver at how every graduation where Senator Chuck Schumer speaks gets the exact same speech.

So, I ask you, what message do you wish to deliver in this next week? How can you show it, not just share it? It may amplify your impact and bring joy to you and your audience.

JD’s Recommendations: what I’m reading, hearing, and seeing:

• Reading: for Father’s Day I gave several dads I admire signed copies of The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids. It’s a treasure!

• Hearing: my dear friend Javier turned me onto Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcast where he interviewed Rick Rubin on “How to Access Your Creativity.”

• Seeing: delighted to share my friend and mentor Chip Conley’s 2018 TED talk What Baby Boomers Can Learn from Millennials at Work—and Vice Versa.

Thanks for enjoying my newsletter. I always welcome your feedback and view it as a gift.

As always, jds

P.S. Communication Matters may be even a bit more occasional in July as Ken and I vacation for a few weeks and then teach our one-week class, The Roadmap to Your Soul’s Expression, in Baja Mexico. Our first-ever MEA workshop has just a few seats remaining if you’d like to join us as we cover this compelling topic with Chip Conley, MEA’s founder.