I read The Last Lecture quickly, huddled in the tiny, drafty studio apartment that I lived in for six months in Manhattan’s Koreatown following the end of a relationship for which I’d given up a great 1 BR on the Lower East Side. I was newly single, sleeping on the extra long twin bed that I’d had since my youth, and I’d work all day at the company I’d started and then late in the evening would snuggle into bed and read books with WQXR playing softly on my clock radio.
I guess, then, I read this book at the right time. It’s a story told by a Carnegie Mellon professor, more than a little cocky, who was dying of pancreatic cancer. The story is the last lecture that he gave, his reflections on life. While he comes across as just the kind of smart-ass I loathe, at the same time, I think I found parts of his personality despicable because he reminded me of, in part, me.
What follows are passages that spoke to me at the time:
From Chapter 4, ‘The Parent Lottery’:
“Just because you’re in the driver’s seat,” [my father would] say, “doesn’t mean you have to run people over.”
From Chapter 14, ‘The Dutch Uncle’:
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’ve always had a healthy sense of myself and my abilities. I tend to say what I’m thinking and what I believe. I don’t have much patience for incompetence.
These are traits that have mostly served me well. But there are times, believe it or not, when I’ve come across as arrogant and tactless. That’s when those who can help you recalibrate yourself become absolutely critical.
From Chapter 23, ‘I’m on My Honeymoon, But If You Need Me…’
Time must be explicitly managed, like money…
You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I’m a big believer in to-do lists. It helps us break life into small steps. I once put “get tenure” on my to-do list. That was naive. The most useful to-do list breaks tasks into small steps. It’s like when I encourage [my son] Logan to clean his room by picking up one thing at a time.
Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? …
Develop a good filing system. When I told [my wife] Jai I wanted to have a place in the house where we could file everything in alphabetical order, she said I sounded way too compulsive for here tastes. I told her: “Filing in alphabetical order is better than running around and saying, ‘I know it was blue and I know I was eating something when I had it.’”
Rethink the telephone…
Delegate. As a professor, I learned early on that I could trust bright, nineteen-year-old students with the keys to my kingdom, and most of the time, they were responsible and impressive. It’s never too early to delegate.
Take a time out. It’s not a real vacation if you’re reading email or calling in for messages. When Jai and I went on our honeymoon, we wanted to be left alone. My boss, however, felt I needed to provide a way for people to contact me. So I came up with the perfect phone message:
“Hi, this is Randy. I wanted until I was thirty-nine to get married, so my wife and I are going away for a month. I hope you don’t have a problem with that, but my boss does. Apparently, I have to be reachable.” I then gave the names of Jai’s parents and the city where they live. “If you call directory assistance, you can get their number. And then, if you can convince my new in-laws that your emergency merits interrupting their only daughter’s honeymoon, they have our number.”
We didn’t get any calls.
Some of my time management tips are dead-on serious and some are a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I believe all of them are worth considering.
Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.
From Chapter 24, ‘A Recovering Jerk’:
This chapter explains a 360 review methodology that he developed to help his students get better insight into their ‘growth opportunities’ from a ‘team player’ standpoint. Every two weeks, he’d have everyone in the class rate everyone else on stuff like:
- Did his peers think he was working hard? Exactly how many hours did his peers think he had devoted to a project?
- How creative was his contribution?
- Did his peers find it easy or hard to work with him? Was he a team player?
From Chapter 29, ‘Earnest Is Better Than Hip’:
Earnestness is highly underestimated. It comes from the core, while hip is trying to impress you with the surface.
I highlighted the entirety of Chapter 31, ‘Let’s Make a Deal’, which begins:
When I was in grad school, I developed the habit of tipping back in my chair at the dining-room table.
From Chapter 35, ‘Start By Sitting Together’:
This chapter’s also worth reading in its entirety, especially if you intellectually understand the importance of ‘networking’ but find it a wee bit vomitrocious on some levels.
Meet people properly: It all starts with the introduction…
Find things you have in common: You can almost always find something in common with another person, and from there, it’s much easier to address issues where you have differences…
Try for optimal meeting conditions: Make sure no one is hungry, cold or tired. Meet over a meal if you can; food softens a meeting…
Let everyone talk: Don’t finish someone’s sentences…
Check egos at the door…
Praise each other: Find something nice to say, even if it’s a stretch…
Phrase alternatives as questions: instead of “I think we should do A, not B,” try “What if we did A, instead of B?”…
From Chapter 39, ‘Be the First Penguin’:
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
From Chapter 53, “Never Give Up’:
“… If you’re going to be a salesman, you might as well be selling something worthwhile, like education.”
From Chapter 59, ‘Dreams for My Children’:
It can be a very disruptive thing for parents to have specific dreams for their kids. As a professor, I’ve seen many unhappy college freshman picking majors that are all wrong for them. Their parents have put them on a train, and too often, judging by the crying during my office hours, the result is a train wreck.
I’m glad I read The Last Lecture.
I’m also glad that that relationship ended and that I lived in that drafty ground floor studio for six months. But I wish I hadn’t sold that bed on Craigslist!
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