Bog Post #7

Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture"

http://images.usatoday.com/life/_photos/2008/07/25/pausch-familyx.jpg

In this video Dr. Pausch explains about his cancerous tumors, and that he only has a few good months to live. He was very humerous and said he just needed to deal with the cards he was dealt. There was nothing he could do to change it. I love when he talked about not being in denial about his tumors. He even said he was in better shape "than most of you" and got on his hands and feet and did push-ups. He went on to explain the things "We're not talking about". He didn't want to talk about cancer (because he did that a lot), and didn't want to talk about his family, or religion. He said those things he can't talk about "without tears".

Instead, he talked about "childhood dreams", "enabling the dreams of others", and "Lessons learned: how you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others". He talked about his childhood and how he went back through his old pictures and couldn't find a picture when he wasn't smiling. That is so important and is also something that I hope my children will be able to say in the future! (That they were always happy!) That shows how great of a childhood he had and the pictures are proof of that fact. He talked about many specific childhood dreams that he had when he was younger. He explained how not reaching some of his goals was actually a good thing for him, because it taught him life lessons. One of his examples was of a coach that told him everything he was doing wrong. The assistant coach came up and told Randy that it was a good thing that the coach was telling him what he was doing wrong. That meant the coach cared enough and had faith in Randy, and was trying to help him.

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted".

"Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things"

Here, Randy discussed that there are always going to be things we want to do or succeed in, but it is all up to how badly we want it. (Because the brick walls "are there to stop other people")

In about the middle of the presentation he showed a short clip of an interactive animation of some things they had done when he was a professor. To me, that was a great way to break up his lecture and really focus on keeping the audience's attention. At the end of the clip when the woman clicked "exit" the animation was saying "what are you doing? You can't end this now!" Then when the woman went to open another program, the character crashed through it. All of a sudden, you could hear the character say "not control, alt., delete!" And then it showed the character and its world, shutting down and flying away. It was very funny and it was great to see how much of the thinking for the game was "outside the box".

Dr. Pausch helped develope a curriculum for students to get their master's degrees. They didn't have to report to the dean, they could "break the mold", it was a project-based curriculum, it was intense and fun, and they went on field trips.

At the end of the lecture, he summarized by saying, "Never lose the child-like wonder", "help others", and explined how loyalty "goes both ways". He said that you need people to help you; and you can achieve that by telling the truth, being earnest, apologizing when you screw up, and by focusing on others (not just yourself).

I found it very powerful and emotional when he had the entire audience sing "Happy Birthday" to his wife (as an example).

"Don't bail; the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap"

Another thing he shared was to show gratitude. Always make sure to thank those who have helped you along the way. At the end he said "This talk wasn't for you guys. It was for my kids".

I really enjoyed watching this video. Randy Pausch kept me entertained throughout the entire presentation. I love how animated he would get as he told each story! Everything he talked about (he made it seem as if) it just happened and he was excited to tell about it. Dr. Pausch was really an amazing man who was very effective in his presentations and in the incredible amount of things he achieved in his lifetime!!