Florian Hollender | floho.com

This week has a lot going on for me.
Monday and Tuesday I spent at Les Fontaines, the Capgemini University. There I helped to facilitate/give the global Business Case training - that was absolutely exciting. The room packed with 18 participants from Australia to Finland, and me standing in front of them, telling them about financial analysis etc…. I would not have thought that I’d be in Les Fontaines in a trainer role so soon, but boy was it fun! Maybe I’ll get to engage in training that is not dealing with numbercrunching as well - I think that would be even better.

Yesterday and today I am in Berlin, working from our Headquarter, building a training model for an executive workshop. Good to be back in Berlin for a change - remember, I spent my first three months at Capgemini here, and I sure met some familiar faces. The Institute though has already turned on its head staff-wise (no surprise, as everybody stays for three months, and it was January when I left… so no chance of known colleagues still being there). I stayed in a fantastic hotel for this night - you know, one of those with sound and a telephone in the bathroom, with pillows that are actually pillows and not just folded linen, and with a breakfast buffet that would kill me if I stayed there more often. Too good. Mango juice. Salted butter. Two types of salmon. Fish. Cheese. Really really good variety of stuff. They had banana milkshakes. BANANA MILKSHAKES!
So you see why my day was off to a great start.

Now to something of actual importance. Yesterday night I found out about Randy Pausch. Randy is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who delivered (and recorded) two very interesting speeches. One is called “Time Management“, in which he talks about very practical tips on how to get more things done in life. This is not a theoretical talk - it is very down to earth, it is full of things you can directly apply yourselves. The other talk is called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams“. In this talk, part of CMU’s “last lecture” series, he talks about how he managed to achieve his childhood dreams, and how one can work towards that - or help others achieve their dreams.

The “last lecture” series at CMU is asking the speaker to imagine - if this was the last lecture he or she gave before they died, what would they talk about? For Randy, he needs no big imagination. Randy gave this speech knowing he will most likely die from the cancer he has in the next few months. He already knew that when he gave the speech on time management as well. Don’t shy away now! His lectures are incredibly funny. There is no darkness and sadness in them. All this frightening fact really does is make the speeches more intense. For me, on the receiving end, it feels like an incredible gift Randy has given to us. He even made the last lecture a book - how awesome is that!

When you watch those lectures, you wil realize what a fighting spirit Randy has. Not surprisingly, he is still alive, still fighting hard, still making the best out of the days he has. On his personal website you find a summary of all the things I just introduced to you, as we as updates on how he is doing.

A personal note: Six years ago today, my mum was buried. She died on April 3rd 2002, and boy, I miss her more than words can say. Had she known how limited her time on earth was, I am sure she would have given an awesome last lecture, too. Luckily, she had already filled my childhood with love and some really good advice from which I profit every day.