As I was surfing the web the other day, I chanced upon a video of Randy Pausch’s inspiring yet bitter-sweet public lecture (on 18th Sept 2007). He’s a Carnegie Mellon computer professor (and founder of Virtual Reality) who was diagnosed with an incurable pancreatic cancer. This was probably his last public speech as the doctors have only given him a few months to live.

Yet, standing at the podium in McConomy Auditorium on the campus, Randy Pausch did not focus on impending death. Instead, he celebrated the chance he had been given to live the life he had always dreamed of.

Rather than making this post an emotional one, I want to explore some of the inspirational elements of Randy’s speech so that you too can create a speech that is both inspiring and moving.

Here are some reasons why I find Randy’s speech inspiring.

Randy was inspired by his own speech! The topic itself was inspiring to him - dreams. And not just any dreams, HIS dreams and how his life has been a major dream come true.

Here’s a brief description of his public speech so that you have an idea of what he spoke about.

Almost all of us have childhood dreams: for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don’t achieve theirs, and I think that’s a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I’ve actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/), of helping many young people actually *achieve* their childhood dreams. This talk will discuss how I achieved my childhood dreams (being in zero gravity, designing theme park rides for Disney, and a few others), and will contain realistic advice on how *you* can live your life so that you can make your childhood dreams come true, too.

Use of personal stories. Randy’s speech was story-intensive. Every dream he had as a child was peppered with at least 4 - 5 interesting anecdotes. With pictures and videos to boot no less! Not only were his stories engaging, the experience he created made his audience feel like they have known him all along.

Randy also leveraged on stories to share life lessons. In one particular story, he shared about his fearsome football coach. On their first lesson, he did not bring any footballs with him. “How are we going to have practice without footballs?” one of the kids asked. And the coach went “How many players are there on the field?” The kids replied, “22″. And the coach went, “Right, and how many players are touching the football at any one time?”. “1″ replied one of the kids. “Good, so we are going to work on what the other 21 guys are doing.” Randy then introduced the lesson - it’s all about fundamentals! Imagine he sharing the lesson without the story? You are going to forget it within the next few minutes.

Some of the other memorable lessons he shared in his lecture include:
- When you screw up and no one is bothering to tell you anymore, this is a very bad place to be in.
- Experience is what you get when you din get what you wanted.

Watch the video below to enjoy some of the interesting stories and pictures Randy shared. (especially the one on zero gravity!)

Randy also touched on things that truly matter to his audience An obvious one - death. It’s hard NOT to feel depressed or frightened when you know that your days are numbered. And yet Mark was able to laugh it off.

“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.”

His act of courage gave his audience a silent hope that they too can be strong in the face of death.

So if you want to be an inspirational speaker, you must first have a keen awareness of what truly matters to your audience: What values and beliefs are they willing to fight for? What do they constantly hope to achieve? What keeps them up at night?

Looking back at Randy’s speech, he spoke about how life should be lived. He painted his audience a future that they have always yearned for. He reminded them that every brick wall they face is a test to how badly they want things. And lastly, he demonstrated to his audience what it was like to fulfill all their dreams before they die. He himself was a living testament to that.

By identifying and talking about the things that matter to them, Randy evoked strong emotions in his audience. Hope. Conviction. Pride. Joy. And as people’s emotion often carries much more weight than reasoning, (think about shopaholics and patriots), the chances of them getting inspired also increase exponentially.

Here’s another abstract of his public speech - with voice over from a reporter.

…which leaves me to a question for you to think about.

“If this is your last speech, what will it be about?”

Cheers,
Eric Feng
Your Public Speaking Coach

P.S: Check out Randy Pausch’s full speech.

Related Entries
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Randy Pausch’s Blog

The Last Lecture of Dr Randy Pausch

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