Brian Johnson reflects on Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" and the power of naming hard truths. Pausch revealed his late-stage cancer on stage: a CT scan showed about 10 liver tumors and a three to six month prognosis. Johnson connects this to his brother's pancreatic cancer and the resources he compiled to help others facing the disease.
Questions this episode answers
Approximately 10 tumors in his liver.
Three to six months of good health (he noted that was a month prior to the talk).
March 2, 2023.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, we talked about Randy Pausch and his touching last lecture YouTube video and companion book. I challenged you to to consider what you would want to share with your kids if you only had weeks to live. Then I issued a much bigger challenge as I asked you if you were living in integrity with that wisdom. Now, because of course, our kids don't listen to what we say as much as they model who we are in what we do. As you know, if you are blessed to be a parent, that is one of the most sobering facts of parenting. Now today, I want to chat more about the wisdom from Randy's last lecture. First, as I say in the notes, I've got to say that Randy reminds me of a blend of NASA astronaut Chris Hadfield. Check out our notes on An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, former Notre Dame philosophy professor Thom Morris. Check out our notes on True Success, the Stoic Art of Living, Plato's Lemonade Stand, and More Shadows, Stanford professor of Engineering Bernard Roth. Check out our notes on the achievement habit and Mr. Rogers. Check out our notes on the world according to Mr. Rogers. Many ways to say I love you and you are special. All great notes and great human beings. And the fact that this book was based on a talk that went viral. YouTube talk reminds me of Admiral William McRaven and his book make youe Bed. And now that I think about it, it also reminds me of Amy Cuddy and her great book presence. Check out all those notes. To be clear, the fact that he reminds me of those people is very high praise. So today I want to chat about the elephant in the room. Here's how Randy puts it, and I quote, this is from his last lecture that he gave in person to an audience at Carnegie Mellon. I thanked the audience for coming, cracked a few jokes, and then I said, in case there's anybody who wandered in and doesn't know the backstory. My dad always taught me that when there's an elephant in the room, introduce it. If you look at my CT scans, There are approximately 10 tumors in my liver. And the doctors told me I have three to six months of good health left. That was a month ago, so you can do the math. He tells us that he flashed a giant image of the CT scans of My liver, he says onto the screen. The slide was headlined the Elephant in the Room and I had helpfully inserted arrows pointing to each of the individual tumors. He says. I let the slide linger so the audience could follow the arrows and count my tumors. All right, I said, that is what it is. We can't change it. We just have to decide how we'll respond. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. End quote. Now, Randy says he won the parent lottery. His dad was literally a hero. He earned a medal for heroism in World War II and was so humble that he never even told his son about it. He was also a witty and wise human. As Randy playfully quips, his dad taught him that when there's an elephant in the room, you should name it the Elephant in the Room. With Randy and the hundreds of people there to hear his last lecture on really achieving your childhood dreams. His late stage pancreatic cancer. So he threw up that slide of his CT scan with helpful arrows pointing to each of his 10 tumors as he let them all know he had months to live. Then, before giving his inspiring talk and modeling the very wisdom he was talking about, he channeled his inner wise stoic and reminded us that although we can't change the cards we're dealt, we can decide how we're going to play the hand. And although he also made the point that his talk was not about cancer, I'm going to take a moment to talk about cancer. As you may know, several years ago my brother was also diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer, which as you may also know, is among the very worst cancer diagnoses you can get. Now, when he was diagnosed, I immediately read and created notes on 10 of the leading books on the subject of cancer and did everything I could to help my brother and his family with you and your family in mind. As I did so, I also created two classes on the subject Conquering Cancer 101 and Conquering Cancer 102, all of which is linked in this plus one. Now, though we lost my brother after a two and a half year or two year battle, I have been told by many members of our community that these notes and classes have been powerful AIDS for them on their journey through their own or a loved one's cancer diagnosis. And I hope you find the wisdom empowering and encouraging when or if you or your family go through a similar experience. You can check out our collection of notes on the Metabolic Approach to Cancer by Dr. Naysha Winters. Anticancer by Dr. David Sirvan. Schreiber Cancer as a Metabolic Disease the book and journal article by Thomas N. Seyfried Radical Remission by Kelly Turner Tripping over the Truth by Travis Kristofferson Keto for Cancer by Miriam Kalemian Outside the Box Cancer Therapies by Mark Stengler and Paul Anderson the Truth in Small Doses by Clifton Leaf and the Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. And that's today's plus one. Again, all those notes are linked in this plus one. Generally speaking, let's make sure we have the courage to name whatever elephant may be in the room. Ignoring reality is never a good strategy if we want to optimize it. And if you or someone you love is going through a battle with cancer, I'm sending all of my love. Day 1 Memento Mori let's go, hero.
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