Several us of have been following Randy Pausch since we heard (or heard about) his final lecture at Carnegie Mellon. In the May 3, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Jeff Zaslow, Randy Pausch’s co-author on a new book called The Last Lecture, tells the story about how he met Randy and how they wrote the book together. According to traditional media, some people have been critical of the authors for “exploiting the situation” by writing this book, I disagree. Watch the lecture (or read an excerpt from the book) before you decide.

I previously wrote about Randy Pausch and his battle with cancer in February. If you don’t know the back story, Dr. Pausch delivered a insightful and inspirational final lecture to his students that became immensely popular. (Visit the previous post to view a video of the lecture.) Dr. Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in August of 2007.

Since that time, Randy has managed to accomplish quite a bit. He lobbied congress to increase funding for pancreatic cancer research, he wrote a book titled, “The Last Lecture”, and he made a trip to Disney World with his family. In addition, he did all of this while battling cancer.

If you would like to support Randy’s fight against pancreatic cancer, you can support or get involved with Lustgarten foundation, and/or the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN).

If you would like to find out more about Randy’s battle, you can read his online journal.

This is a video of Randy Pausch’s last lecture. Dr. Randy Pausch is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and he was recently diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. This video is his last lecture to his students. He has many great tips for all of us and is an example of living with enthusiasm and courage. Randy speaks truth and we are fortunate that we get to listen to what he has to say.

My favorite quote is “The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

If you knew that you only had a handful of days to live, would that change anything about what you are doing with your life today? (The irony is that we all have a finite amount of time on Earth.)

Update: It has been brought to my attention that the full length version of his lecture is too long. So, I am posting a shorter, reprised version of his lecture on Oprah after the jump.

(more…)