“Last Lecture” & Leaving A Legacy

Randy Pausch, the professor/scientist who gave the famed “Last Lecture”, has succumbed to the terminal cancer he was diagnosed with back in 2006. His lecture leaves something more valuable than assets or items, it is values and a legacy. Too often estate planners and their clients focus on the money and ignore family, faith, and value issues, especially when planning for families with young children.

Here is his video on YouTube, it is the full lecture and over an hour long, but well worth watching if you have not.

Last Lecture

Here is the CNN story reporting his passing.

The WSJ wrote a quality article about his situation, read it here. From the article

Early on, he had vowed to do the logistical things necessary to ease his family’s path into a life without him. His minister helped him think beyond estate planning and funeral arrangements. “You have life insurance, right?” the minister asked.
“Yes, it’s all in place,” Randy told him.
“Well, you also need emotional insurance,” the minister explained. The premiums for that insurance would be paid for with Randy’s time, not his money. The minister suggested that Randy spend hours making videotapes of himself with the kids. Years from now, they will be able to see how easily they touched each other and laughed together.
Knowing his kids’ memories of him could be fuzzy, Randy has been doing things with them that he hopes they’ll find unforgettable. For instance, he and Dylan, 6, went on a minivacation to swim with dolphins. “A kid swims with dolphins, he doesn’t easily forget it,” Randy said. “We took lots of photos.” Randy took Logan, 3, to Disney World to meet his hero, Mickey Mouse. “I’d met him, so I could make the introduction.”
Randy also made a point of talking to people who lost parents when they were very young. They told him they found it consoling to learn about how much their mothers and fathers loved them. The more they knew, the more they could still feel that love. To that end, Randy built separate lists of his memories of each child. He also has written down his advice for them, things like: “If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, ‘Tell the truth.’ If I got three more words, I’d add, ‘All the time.’ “

You can also view the Last Lecture in written form by reading the transcript here.