Randy Pausch

Coach Graham used to ride me hard. I remember one practice in particular. “You’re doing it all wrong, Pausch” Go back! Do it again!” I tried to do what he wanted. It wasn’t enough. “You owe me, Pausch! You’re doing push-ups after practice.”

When I was finally dismissed, one of the assistant coaches came over to reassure me. “Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he?” he said. I could barely muster a “yeah”.

“That’s a good thing,” the assistant told me. “When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you”.

That lesson stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better. Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

One aspect of preparing well is having the right mind-set. “In so many areas of life, you need to be a long-term optimist but a short term realist”.

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