{"id":562,"date":"2008-12-10T12:23:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-10T12:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-most-inspiring-person-of-t.html"},"modified":"2008-12-10T12:23:41","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T12:23:41","slug":"the-most-inspiring-person-of-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-most-inspiring-person-of-t.html","title":{"rendered":"The Most Inspiring Person of the Year &#8212; Randy Pausch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/imgs\/randy%20pausch2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"randy pausch2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/128\/import\/imgs\/randy pausch2-thumb-220x165.jpg\" width=\"220\" height=\"165\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/>\nLast month Beliefnet began posted the nominees for the Most Inspiring Person of the Year.<br \/>\nBeliefnet&#8217;s readers then voted, winnowing the field down to three finalists: The Boy Scouts of Blencoe, Iowa, who persevered through a deadly tornado; Stephen Curtis Chapman, the musician who suffered unspeakable tragedy when his teen son ran over his baby daughter; and Randy Pausch, the professor whose &#8220;Last Lecture&#8221; of life wisdom inspired millions.<br \/>\nBeliefnet has now chosen the winner:  Prof. Randy Pausch.<br \/>\nPausch&#8217;s lecture was delivered to a small audience at Carnegie Mellon University, yet it became an internet phenomenon that has transformed lives around the globe. His now-famous lecture, along with related videos, has been viewed by almost 20 million people. Even after his passing in July, 2008, his powerful yet simple message continues to inspire us: &#8220;We cannot control the cards we&#8217;re dealt, just how we play the hand.&#8221;<br \/>\nClick here to watch <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Inspiration\/Most-Inspiring-2008\/index.aspx\">a video of the Last Lecture <\/a>. Or click through a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Inspiration\/Most-Inspiring-2008\/Lessons-from-Randy-Pausch.aspx\"> gallery of wisdom <\/a>by Jeff Zaslow, the Wall Street Journal writer who brought Rausch to public attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month Beliefnet began posted the nominees for the Most Inspiring Person of the Year. Beliefnet&#8217;s readers then voted, winnowing the field down to three finalists: The Boy Scouts of Blencoe, Iowa, who persevered through a deadly tornado; Stephen Curtis Chapman, the musician who suffered unspeakable tragedy when his teen son ran over his baby&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Most Inspiring Person of the Year - Randy Pausch - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-most-inspiring-person-of-t.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Inspiring Person of the Year - Randy Pausch - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last month Beliefnet began posted the nominees for the Most Inspiring Person of the Year. Beliefnet&#8217;s readers then voted, winnowing the field down to three finalists: The Boy Scouts of Blencoe, Iowa, who persevered through a deadly tornado; Stephen Curtis Chapman, the musician who suffered unspeakable tragedy when his teen son ran over his baby&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-most-inspiring-person-of-t.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-10T12:23:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Most Inspiring Person of the Year - Randy Pausch - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-most-inspiring-person-of-t.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Most Inspiring Person of the Year - Randy Pausch - Steven Waldman","og_description":"Last month Beliefnet began posted the nominees for the Most Inspiring Person of the Year. 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He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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