Tom McCarthy Blog

I walked into the kitchen the other day and my wife was watching Good Morning America as she prepared breakfast. I was barely paying attention when I heard Diane Sawyer, the host of the show ask, “What would you say if you were to give the last lecture of your life?” Being a lecturer myself, this caught my attention and I decided to watch. What I saw next was truly amazing. My wife had left the room and when she came back in I had tears in my eyes and she asked me what was going on.

Carnegie Mellon University has a program called “The Last Lecture” where they invite prominent professors to share the most important ideas they would like to leave behind if it was the last lecture they would give in their lives. In the Good Morning America feature Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was the featured speaker as part of “The Last Lecture Program”. Professor Pausch is a highly acclaimed expert in virtual reality, but what he is known for around Carnegie Mellon is as a teacher who helps his students achieve their dreams. Pausch also is in the final stages of pancreatic cancer and his doctors have informed him that he has approximately 2-5 months to live. This truly was his last lecture.

Pausch was not looking for any pity. He talked about what a wonderful life he has lived and about the boyhood goals he had and how he had achieved them and the lessons he wanted to pass on to help others achieve their goals. He used humor, stories and experiences to craft an amazing speech that captivated the audience (and me watching it on my television). He ended the videotaped presentation by telling the audience that he had not really given this speech for them. He had given it for his 3 young children so that he would be able to share the most important lessons with them when they got older. You’ve got to see this presentation, so I’ve created a hyperlink for you below to click on. It is on ABC’s News site, so there might be a short commercial before you see the video. Bear with it. It’s worth the wait. After you have seen the ABC News segment, you may also want to see the full presentation, so I have also provided you with the link for that too.

Link for ABC News Segment
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3633909&affil=kgtv

Link for the entire speech
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=362421849901825950&hl=en

Have an outstanding day,
Tom McCarthy

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