Brian Johnson (Heroic +1) reflects on Randy Pausch’s "Last Lecture," summarizing Pausch’s background (CMU professor who gave a viral last lecture after a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis and authored a book of 53 microchapters). Johnson issues a two-part prompt: (1) ask listeners to name the one to three core lessons they would teach their children if they had only weeks to live; (2) challenge listeners to examine whether they currently live in integrity with that wisdom, stressing embodied demonstration for future generations and closing with a personal note about writing with his own children in mind.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. Have you seen Randy Pausch's Last Lecture YouTube video? Over 20 million people have watched it and if you're one of them, you know just how magnetically inspiring Randy is. If you haven't seen the video yet and don't know who he is yet, you can watch the video. It's linked in this plus one. And here's the short story. Randy was a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and when it became terminal, he gave his last lecture. The talk was recorded, it went viral, and he wrote a great book that extended the ideas from that talk. That book, as you'd expect, is called the Last Lecture. As we discuss in the notes, the book features 53 microchapters, each telling a different story from Randy's life. It's packed with wisdom. In the introduction to his book, Randy tells us that he, at the time he wrote the book, shortly before he passed away, was the father of three young children. He recorded his last lecture and wrote the book as a way to teach his kids the things he wished they could have learned from him if he was able to be with them as they grew up. Now, today's plus one is simple yet demanding. If you have kids and. Or if you aspire to have kids and. Or if you did have kids, what would you want to teach them if you only had weeks to live? Seriously, we don't need to go on a mini retreat to script the lecture or write the book per se. Although that might be a wise idea. What immediately arises for you? What one or two or three things would you definitely want your kids to know about how to live a good, noble, heroic life? Let's pause for another moment while you connect with your daimon and let's consider those three things. Now, if I only had a week to live, I'd want to make sure my kids knew these three things about what I think would help them live a noble life. What is it for you? Number one, Number two, and number three. It's worth taking the time to think about that. Beautiful. Bless you and your wisdom and your kids. Now for the much more challenging question. Are you living in integrity with that wisdom now? Because as you know, our kids are reading the book that is our lives and learning how we think they should live all day, every day. And if that isn't a sobering wake up call, I don't know what is. Let's make sure we're giving them the lectures by our embodied demonstration of the wisdom we cherish, that we hope they embody in the years and decades ahead. Memento mori, Hero. Today's the only day we're guaranteed. Let's show up and act like we mean it for our kids and their kids and everyone we love. A little PS Here. I write every one of these plus ones, thinking of my kids and yours. Here's to raising the next generation of heroes that can change the world.
