Chances are, you have already heard of Randy Paush, but I wanted to share his world famous speech anyway just incase someone out there has not. This is so awesome and can truly inspire anyone that watches it!

Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” has been viewed over 10 million times on YouTube!

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave–”Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”–wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Please take an hour of your life to watch this video… It will be well worth your time!

Here is a shorter 10 minute version of Dr. Randy Pausch on the Oprah Winfrey Show:

Randy Pausch on Good Morning America:

Inspirational Nike commercial with US basketball player Matt Scott…

These 3 Michael Jordan commercials are awesome!

It will take less than 3 minutes to watch these videos and I know they will inspire you!

Michael Jordan on Failure:

“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot . . . and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why . . . I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan on Persistence – Become Lengdary

Look Me In The Eyes – Become Legendary

Sometimes in this world people are self-serving, self-centered and lazy. We need to be reminded of our attitudes and being generous towards others. We need to be reminded that life just isnt about us, it is about giving. It is better to give than to receive. Living with honor and respecting others is what we need to get back to as a society.

Take just the next 3 minutes and watch this short video called, “Smile & Move”…

I first read “Father Forgets” many years ago while reading Dale Carnegie’s best seller “How to Win Friends & Influence People”.

It hit me pretty hard then, but now that I am a parent, it really sinks in.

This beautiful story casts light on a perspective we can often miss as parents.

Children don’t know what we know. It’s up to us to have the love, the patience, and the kindness to teach them all they need to learn, and remember that they do not know what we know.

Think of this story before you decide to criticize somebody, especially a child, even if you think you are right.

If you prefer to listen to the audio, click here.

Father Forgets:

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped.You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: ‘He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!’

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

- W. Livingston Larned