Randy Pausch was a computer science professor and alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University. He got pancreatic cancer which took away his life at the age of 47 on 25 July 2008, 10 months after he delivered this last lecture.
The talk has been uploaded into the Internet and viewed by millions of people. A best-selling book titled "The Last Lecture" based on the lecture has also been published and translated in thirty over languages.
To date, his Last Lecture titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" is still giving great impacts to people around the world.
His talk was about his childhood dreams, how he overcome the barriers to realise his dreams (or at least getting close to it). He also talked about enabling the dreams of others, and some lessons learned.
He mentioned several times that "the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. Brick walls let us show our dedication."
Some of his important advice:
- Be good at something: it makes you valuable
- Work hard … “what’s your secret?”
- Find the best in everybody; no matter how you have to wait for them to show it
- Be prepared: “luck” is where preparation meets opportunity
Click here to download the presentation slide of The Last Lecture by Dr. Randy Pausch.
Click here to download the transcript of The Last Lecture by Dr. Randy Pausch.
I really love his book.
ReplyDeleteI do think his children will be touched when they know what Dr. Randy did...