Computer Science Professor Randy Pausch, who has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer (see his blog for details), gave his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University last week. He gives excellent advice on how to live your life and achieve your most outrageous dreams. It’s a must see for entrepreneurs, and really anyone looking for a refresher course on living life to achieve your maximum creative potential. My favorite quote from the video is when he talks about brick walls impeding your march towards goals. They’re to stop other people, he says, and overcoming them just proves to you how much you want something.
Thanks to Paul Bragiel, the founder of Meetro, for sending this to me and a recommendation to spend an hour and a half watching it. I’ve now seen it twice, and think it is worth sharing with our readers.
Randy is my hero!
Agreed. I saw this last week. Incredible speech and more importantly seems to be a great man.
Professor Pausch documents his ups and downs on his college blog. Worth a look.
http://www.cs.c...news/index.html
Thanks Alex. I added a link to his blog above.
Thanks for sharing Mike – comes at a perfect time for me.
“Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals” – so many startups forget this to make the glitzy tool without remembering that the base has to be strong to support the trees growth.
That is so frigging sad. Look at the man’s children.. they are so damn young. Fathers (parents) shouldn’t leave when their kids are so young.
I wish his family the best.
Yes … it is really sad. Today I added to my blog a reference to his last lecture as well. I had the post ready for the last 3 days but never had the time to post it. It made my wife cry. I will add a link to his blog too.
Thank you.
I wish him luck!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Amazing. Thank for writing this up Michael. This is Techcrunch on its best day.
Incredible! Thanks Mike for sharing this, the ending just really hits you.
Faramarz – yeah, the part about the presentation not being for the audience but for his kids? Heart breaking.
I’ll watch this when I arrive home this evening. I’m currently reading “The 4-Hour Workweek”, and I’m certain this video will add further reminders to what matters most in life, how to live it, etc.
As someone who’s worked behind the scenes to establish relationships with the likes of Bill Gates and other prominent CEOs, I can tell you that “brick walls” are indeed only obstacles for those who refuse to cross them.
Despite my current challenges to succeed in the new media space — and to receive proper recognition for my accomplishments — I am reminded of everything I’ve accomplished in my life to date. Sure, I am penniless, still fresh out of a crappy relationship and marriage that sucked the life out of me for at least three years — I am reminded of the great things I’ve done.
Through no effort of anyone else, I’ve convinced major newspapers, web sites and others to write about me over the years. I’ve convinced major CEOs and other prominent individuals I’ve viewed as role models — to share some of their time teaching me their values, invite me for tours of their companies, etc.
It’s easy to look at your life as empty when you’re faced with adversity, but it’s when I recall all the things I’ve done in these 28 years of life — that I smile, because while I am not have much NOW, I am certainly RICH with experiences, accomplishments and accolades to last a LIFETIME.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind — the cycle of life. If you think back to some of the most inspiring moments of your life, you’ll find that you were most creative and innovative as a child — because it was that fire that led you to progress and success (it did for me). Perhaps returning to our childhoods for enlightenment will lead us to discover the fire that once propelled us to greatness — I know I plan to — and soon.
very cool.
Very inspiring. Thanks for sharing it.
Very moving. Goes to show you how life is so damn fleeting.
What’s pathetic though, is Wikipedia. They slap this crap on his page …
The current version of this article or section is written in an informal style and with a personally invested tone. It reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry.
Yep, it’s a personal story. The world is still full of people…
Thank you for posting this.
Simply..thank you. My wife, children and myself are richer for hearing your teaching to your own children.
I love that video.
I will not forget that Jackie Robinson photo “Don’t complaint; Just work hard”. Thanks for sharing…
I remember I was kid… My schoolteacher told me. Don’t listen to people tell you what you can’t do. If you are born disability. You can do anything you want and create greatest triumph.
- Beethoven master his music without hearing
- Ray Charles play piano without seeing notes.
- Thomas Edison lost his hearing and invented light bulb.
As hard of hearing, my biggest dream to become first disability to get into IPO and create greatest bullish stock company. I saw Google & Baidu stock. They are expensive to buy.
I want to start tiny penny share. Bulltex is my tiny stealth mode search engine. http://www.bulltex.info (I’m still working on it)
All I need to do is create something bigger than looksmart, Yahoo financial, zoominfo, business.com website. I have work hard with Google API, Adsense, and Google killerapp plug-ins. I have work this alone.
@#14 Martin:
If you look at the Wikipediia history on that article, you’ll see that DanielPenefield added that bit at 12:07, 24 September 2007.
Best part of Wikipedia: If you don’t like it, take it off! Delete that part that says “{story}” and it’s gone (at least for a while).
This was awesome – probably the most moving speech I’ve ever seen in my life. Watched it 3 times since.
I really really hope he never dies….somehow. The world needs people like this!
Professor Pausch is a brilliant, brilliant man, and I’m honored to have studied under him and taken his course while at Carnegie Mellon. I don’t have much to add other than to thank you for this posting.
Martin, you don’t have to complain about Wikipedia. It’s a wiki. You can fix it, and I just did. See if this looks better now:
http://en.wikip...ki/Randy_Pausch
@#18 & 21 – Good that it’s been fixed. I’m not really into Wiki’s or Wikipedia, just thought it was a bit harsh, a bit cold – especially visiting it after watching one of the most moving speeches I’ve ever seen.
This is not the time and place to have a gripe at Wikipedia (another time) – but to watch a great mind and person at work who’s facing his fate with such dignity I’ve never seen before.
It was a real honor to watch this video – and I plan to watch it a few times more, because some of the wisdom he offers on life and living is priceless.
I agree completely, Martin – that “informal tone” tag on the article did seem awfully tacky. Rather than just remove the tag, I cleaned up the article so it will hopefully be less likely that someone will tag it again. Let me know if they do and I’ll fix it again!
Randy Pausch is a remarkable individual and an inspiration to us all.
Hats off to a gr8 man
and no links this time….
All i want to say, that is one remarkable man..
To have the courage to fight on, even though he knows his fate.. remarkable!
Its ironic that even though he is unlucky getting cancer, his also very, very lucky to get a chance to say good bye to his loved ones, as well as.. having the opportunity to spend quality time with his family..
God bless him, his wife and kids.
Mohammed
I attended CMU and never missed the Building Virtual Worlds day. Professor Pausch is an incredible person. My heart goes out to him and his family.
Many things to learn from his speech. Great man. God bless Randy and his family.
Very Inspiring, driving away the clouds in mind, breaking down the brick walls between dreams and reality! perishable body is nothing compared to the strength and wideness of spirit with focused mind and intellect.. your aura will inspire me at moments of weakness to wake up.. my salutations superman..
Excellent. Thank you.
My rule of thumb is if you were to die today would you feel satisfied? And if not why not? And fix it. As Bob Dylan said “He not busy being born is busy dying.” Randy Pausch is being born more vibrantly as he is dying than most people are living. A great human being.
Very very inspiring and interesting. Thanks for mailing.Everybody must see this and follow these in their life.
very much inspiring. Iam an school student in TVSMHSS, Madurai, Tamil Nadu. I was very much impressed by this. I have asked my friends to watch the same
He’s got some BIG ASS BALLS
I love this lecture/performance. I worked with holographers, animators and artists in the eighties in LA and co-directed a holographic show in conjunction with the Olympics. During those years, I got to work with holographer Lloyd Cross and to know a lot about Star Wars rotoscoper and animation filmmaker Adam Becket (Red Star, L.I.T.A.–unfinished). It is really hard to capture the excitement of those Commodore days when Disney animators, physicists and artists all knew each other, the French minister of culture was at loft parties, the Japaneses government was studying the “scene” for its “creativity,” no one had money and the graphics were amazing. Randy Pausch captures that kind of all-nighter, low budget/no budget enthusiasm that can’t be bought or sold. The Last Lecture got me focussed back on what’s really important just a few seconds into it. My favorite image was the elevator. My kid was trying to design a DIY backpack size high rez game system for kids when he was in junior high–communicating online with physicists in Spain. The Last Lecture made me really grateful for knowing a certain inspiring and generous gaming/simulation colleague where I teach. It makes well-lit, chandelier crystal clear how our dreams live on in each other.
Thanks for sharing this. I wanted to watch the video on the day I read about it here, but I was able to see it today only.
It was very inspiring.
Some lessons from Randy Pausch’s last lecture that especially moved me:
1. Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.
2. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
3. Never lose the child-like wonder.
4. If we do something which is pioneering, we will get arrows in the back. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people will have a whole lot of fun.
5. Be good at something; it makes you valuable.
6. If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you.
Check out the tribute quiz on the lecture at http://www.mystudiyo.com : you can add your own questions at the end of the quiz.
http://www.myst...ity.php?act=558