The Last Lecture

I haven’t seen Coach Graham since I was a teen, but he just keeps showing up in my head, forcing me to work harder whenever I feel like quitting, forcing me to be better. He gave me a feedback loop for life.

I ended up being so glad I’d spilled that soda. Because later in the weekend, little Chris got the flu and threw up all over the backseat. He didn’t feel guilty. He was relieved; he had already watched me christen the car. He knew it would be OK.

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.”

Start-up companies often prefer to hire a chief executive with a failed start-up in his or her background. The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.

But she told me the crucial thing is to tell them the specific idiosyncratic ways in which I related to them. So I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I’ve decided to tell each of my kids things like: “I love the way you tilted back your head when you laughed.” I will give them specific stuff they can grasp.

recognize that there are respectful, considerate things that can be done in life that will be appreciated by the recipient, and that only good things can result.

Before going to see him, I did eighty hours of homework. I asked all the virtual reality hotshots I knew to share their thoughts and questions about this Disney project. As a result, when I finally met Jon, he was wowed by how prepared I was. (It’s easy to look smart when you’re parroting smart people.) Then, at the end of the lunch, I made “the as

When you use money to fight poverty, it can be of great value, but too often, you’re working at the margins. When you’re putting people on the moon, you’re inspiring all of us to achieve the maximum of human potential, which is how our greatest problems will eventually be solved.

The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.