Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

Randy Pausch is an inspirational and motivational speaker. For someone with a couple of months left to live, he has a great view of life. He never wanted anyone to have sympathy on him. He just wants to share his childhood dreams and show how he achieved them even while encountering problems. He made his lecture enjoyable and humorous.

Randy Pausch talks about wanting to be in the NFL. He talks about how he was not the right size for professional football. Since he hit that brick wall he is where he is today. He uses an analogy about how his childhood football coach, Coach Graham, had no ball practices. During the first no ball practice, all of the players was wondering where the ball was. The coach asks the players how many players have the ball at a time and they replied one. He says well we are going to practice on what the other 21 guys are doing. Randy Pausch says the point of the practice is to work on fundamentals, because that is more important than the fancy stuff.

In the video, he calls the problems he encounters “brick walls.” When he comes to his brick walls, he just finds a way to overcome and accomplish what he has strived to do. He talks about how “Brick walls are not there to keep us out, they are there to show us how badly we want something. They are there to stop the people who do not want it bad enough.”

I am so glad I had the opportunity to watch such a great lecture. He is truly an inspiration and this is something that would be great for students to watch. They would be able to see how Randy Pausch accomplished his dreams. This would have been a great lecture to have attended.