In October of 2007, I wrote a blog entry where I talked about Randy Pausch and his “Last Lecture” speech given a few weeks prior. Recently I just finished reading his book titled, “The Last Lecture”. The book revolves around Randy being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in 2007 and given 3-6 months to live. As a professor at Carnegie Mellon, he was offered the opportunity to give a final speech on what mattered to him. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"

Randy lost his battle to Pancreatic Cancer on July 25, 2008 and as a tribute to his children and family, he left behind his last lecture speech and book. Overall the book offers anyone hope and inspiration and focuses on chasing our childhood dreams. Randy offers a ton of advice and wisdom, and here are some of my favorite points.

“Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
 

“Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”
 

“If you wait long enough, people will surprise and impress you.”
 

Great for the father’s with daughters (who will soon be me): “When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.”
 

“Be the First Penguin. In essence, it was an award for glorious failure, and it celebrated out-of-the-box thinking and using imagination in a daring way. The title came from the notion that when penguins are about to jump into water that might contain predators, well, somebody’s got to be the first penguin. ”
 

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
 

“A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard. As I see it, if you work more hours than somebody else, during those hours you learn more about your craft. That can make you more efficient, more able, even happier.”
 

“Go out and do for others what somebody did for you.”
 

“Brick walls are there for a reason. And once you get over them—even if someone has practically had to throw you over—it can be helpful to others to tell them how you did it.”
 

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
 

For more information, please visit the following:
 

Alice Organization: http://www.alice.org/
 

The Last Lecture Home Page: http://www.thelastlecture.com/
 

Randy Pausch’s Home Page: http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
 

The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network:  http://www.pancan.org/
 

The Lustgarten Foundation:  http://www.lustgarten.org/