This is a video that I can categorically say has changed my life for the better.

I will never forget when I first watched this video 10 years ago during my final year of university. Watching this talk was the first time I had ever really thought about what I wanted my adult life to be like and the specific things that I had always wanted to do.

Until that point, it was all pretty vague and there was a rough notion of goals, but I had never put any intention into discovering and planning them in a systematic manner.

Dr Randy Pausch was a Professor of Computer Science and specialist in Virtual Reality at Carnegie Mellon University.

The university organised a series of lectures, setting speakers the task of presenting what they thought was the most vital wisdom that they would confer if they only had one last lecture to give before they died.

However, before his lecture, Dr Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, in a case of life imitating art, the hypothetical became real.

What follows is Dr Pausch’s touching talk, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, posted below. You can also download the slides from the talk Randy Pausch Last Lecture Slides.

It is full of wisdom, humour, and kindness. Some great learning points in there include:

• “head fake” = teaching kids one thing secretly by actually getting them to learn something else (i.e. learn teamwork and perseverance by playing sports)
• “Brick walls are there to how much you really want it.”
• “Loyalty is a two-way street.”
• For women: “When it comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s simple. Just ignore everything they say and watch everything they do.”
• “Don’t bail; the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap.”
• “Don’t complain; just work harder.”

Causes to support in memory of Dr Pausch:

• Alice project – http://www.alice.org/
• PanCan – https://www.pancan.org/

You can also buy a copy of his book, the Last Lecture, on Amazon.