The Last Lecture – Unexpected Inspiration from the Weekly Monday Sales Meeting
August 28th, 2008 | 
Author: My company has a weekly Monday morning sales meeting. Consulting Engineers are not required to attend but are encouraged to make it as often as possible. I usually dial in and listen, but from time to time like to show up and sit in the back row. Honestly, I never expect to gain much other than getting an understanding of what kind of month we’re having and the occasional insight into the executive direction and strategy. This Monday was different. Steve, our President and CEO who usually hosts the meeting, immediately began telling us about his personal life and challenges. I won’t go into what he said, but apparently he was inspired to do so because he watched Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.
Steve wanted his employees to see and hear how Randy Pausch, a terminally ill Carnegie Mellon professor, dealt with the “brick walls” in his way of achieving his childhood dreams. After listening to Steve talk and only watching the first 25 minutes of the YouTube video during the meeting, it was also obvious that through this recorded lecture Steve was renewed in spirit with an energy to face the tough times he was going through now both professionally and personally. Steve wanted to share some of Randy Pausch’s magic with his company, and therefore me.
I’m not usually a fan of motivational speeches or books. If you look at my book shelf it is full of
technical manuals and the occasional Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, and other like novels (from the rare times I get to read for pleasure any more!). So when Steve told us Monday that we were going to watch a video I admit I thought “Oh great, a rah rah sales message. Boy, did I pick the wrong day to show up.” I could not have been more wrong. I did not want to stop watching Randy’s lecture when we ran out of time in our sales meeting, and I have since watched the whole video once and different parts of it multiple times.
Maybe it is because Randy Pausch was a technology Professor who worked at Disney and Electronic Arts, had a student that went on to work on the last 3 Star Wars movies, or he was also an instrumental leader and pioneer in the field of Virtual Reality that made him easy to relate to, but Randy’s life story is truly inspirational. So, as Steve pointed out to me, watch this video if you need some help with your “brick walls”. More importantly, don’t be surprised if you are inspired to become a better engineer, manager, co worker, friend, and parent.
Here’s some background on the video and Randy Pausch from thelastlecture.com web page.
“On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged.
Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, as has the book he wrote based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all, for generations to come.”
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