Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was delivered on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium. Over 450 Carnegie Mellon students, staff members, and friends of Pausch attended the lecture, leaving only standing room as this was more than the auditorium could hold. Pausch later commented about this in an interview, saying "A couple of hundred people in a room, looking and listening and laughing and applauding – hopefully at the appropriate times – that gives a lot of validation to my kids that a lot of people believe in this, and a lot of people who knew me believe that I did my best to try to live this way." The first introduction of the speech as well as the series of lectures was given by Indira Nair, the Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon. Nair first explained the university's aforementioned lecture series called "Journeys", in which eight more professors from Carnegie Mellon would share their insights on their professional and personal experiences over the years.
Joseph Roberts (motivational speaker)
Joe Roberts departed the business sector and focused on speaking to children/youth based on the idea that if he could transform, anyone could. Roberts realized he had a passion for transformation and decided to focus on philanthropic advocacy and motivational speaking. In 1998 Roberts began speaking to youth about drug prevention. He shared both his successes and failures inside school and youth programs. Roberts quickly learned that his authenticity allowed young people to listen and take action in their own lives. Joe found himself speaking and sharing his story in schools, but quickly expanded into the business world. He found businesses were interested in not only his success, but also by the fact that he was once homeless and able to share his story of overcoming adversity to become successful1. These two audiences began to grow, and associations, businesses and conferences began to request Roberts to share his story.
Today Roberts has spoken to well over a million people from elementary school students, to CEOs and government officials. By using his lived experience, both as a person who experienced homelessness and a successful Canadian entrepreneur, Roberts’ message resonates across all sectors and groups1. The release of Roberts’ national best seller, 7 Secrets to Profit from Adversity (2003) led to speaking to different clients across many industries. Roberts realized the impact that sharing his story had on youth, which led to The Push for Change Foundation.