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.
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The livestream featured many notable guests, including U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Chelsea Manning, actress Mara Wilson, journalists Paris Lees and Owen Jones, "Adam Ruins Everything" creator Adam Conover, author Chuck Tingle, Matt Christman and Virgil Texas of the "Chapo Trap House" podcast, "Donkey Kong 64" composer Grant Kirkhope, game designers Rebecca Heineman, Josh Sawyer, John Romero and "Night in the Woods" co-creator Scott Benson, youtubers Natalie Wynn, Lindsay Ellis and Jim Sterling, as well as the CEO of Mermaids, Susie Green. Colin Mochrie, Neil Gaiman, Cher, Matthew Mercer, Adam Savage, Hidetaka Suehiro and SonicFox also tweeted in support of the livestream and the charity. The livestream began with a goal of , but it passed that goal and several subsequent funding targets quickly. In the first 24 hours, the livestream raised over $100,000. In total, over $347,000 () was raised for the charity through the livestream, with over 659,000 people watching the stream. The official page for the Mermaids charity praised and thanked Brewis for the livestream. It was described by "The Guardian" as "an antidote to the worst of gaming culture", and praised in a motion lodged in the Scottish Parliament by Patrick Harvie.