The Last Lecture - Jeffery Zaslow Style

Thursday night I had the awesome opportunity to go to a lecture given by the co-author of The Last Lecture, Jeffrey Zaslow. (Thanks again Viv!) If you haven't read this book yet I highly recommend it. You can find it just about anywhere and it is a really easy read. I have really enjoyed reading the book and was looking forward to what Jeffrey had to say about it.

First off, Jeffrey Zaslow writes a column for the Wall Street Journal titled "Moving On" which focuses on life transitions. He started out by sharing some stories regarding writing and his column. He then went in to how the book came about (the stuff I was waiting for).

Jeffrey didn't know Randy Pausch from Adam but coincidentally enough attended the same school where Randy was a professor and giving his last lecture. Someone contacted Jeffrey about this lecture and when hearing that the person giving it was actually dying, Jeffrey decided he wanted to go listen and write a column for the Wall Street Journal about it. After putting a four minute clip of the lecture up on The Wall Street Journal's website a couple days later, things just started snowballing. Good Morning America contacted Jeffrey to see if he could "get that professor" for them. Randy did the interview and a couple more with ABC and also went on Oprah. Jeffrey brought up the idea of a book to Randy and Randy's only requirement was that it didn't take any time away from his family. So to make that happen Randy and Jeff talked via cell phone for an hour a day during Randy's neighborhood bike ride. After 53 days the book was written and published quickly after so that Randy could see it before he died. The book is now is 44 languages and there will be no movie. He said they got offers but Randy said he wanted his kids to see him not Tom Cruise.

The whole lecture was amazing and emotional. He showed clips of the actual lecture and some of the interviews Randy did. Randy was an amazing man and left such an example for everyone. He lived his last months/days to the fullest and left great advise for everyone to keep revisiting. One of my favorite things he said was during one of the ABC interviews, "Don't let tomorrow wreck today." He also told Jeffery to stop googling him and go hug your kids.

After the lecture Jeffery was signing books so Viv and booked it out of the auditorium to be as close to first in line as possible (we had kids to get home to).

I had him sign the book for both Brandon and I and his inscription really applied to me. It was a great night and one I won't soon forget.