Blog Post Assignment #7

Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture” was a very inspirtrational video to watch. First, Pausch was very courageous to give a lecture after being diagnosed with cancer and told that he only had 3-6 months left of good health. Pausch made a point that he was not going to talk about cancer or spirituality and that he did not want pity from the audience.

Pausch presented a very dynamic personality on stage that really captured my attention. For example, I found him completely hilarious when he stated that he was probably in greater shape than most people in the audience and dropped down to do push-ups. His funny personality had the audience completely mesmerized.

Pausch’s lectured focused on a couple of points, how to achieve childhood dreams, how to enable the dreams of others, and the lessons learned from helping others achieve their dreams. First, Pausch’s talked about how to achieve childhood dreams. He gave a list of his childhood dreams which included playing in the NFL and winning big stuff animals. He explained how he achieved his dreams even though some may have seemed impossible or silly. For example, he wanted to defy gravity and later in life he had a chance to have an experience without gravity.

I also liked the concept of the “head fake”, where you learn what learn indirectly. For example, one of his dreams was to play in the NFL. Although he did not get a chance to play in the NFL, he learned a lot of things from playing football as a child. He learned how to be disciplined, how to work with other people, and many other concepts. In essence, parents who have their children join little league football or not trying to have them learn football, but are trying to help them learn other things that being on a team teaches.

Finally, the way he communicated how to enable people to do their dreams and how you can accomplish your dreams by enabling people was very effective. Pausch made some interesting points throughout the lecture. I think it’s important that we all have dreams and try to accomplish those dreams. Most importantly, by accomplishing dreams, you become more confident to set higher goals and achieve bigger things. All in all, Pausch’s entire lecture was very enjoyable and motivational.