The Ten Most Inspirational Videos (on YouTube)

photo from the Bridgemaker

List­ing down the ten best/most inspi­ra­tional videos is really just the begin­ning. I’m sure you know many many more. But I am list­ing these ten down to start the conversation.

These, to me are the most inspi­ra­tional videos in the world. Add your own in the com­ments below.

Before Susan Boyle, Paul Potts brought goose­bumps to Britain’s Got Talent.

This is Simon Cowell’s and the other judges’ descrip­tion of Paul: “After a hor­ren­dous first day of audi­tions where the one high­light was a danc­ing pig… a very ner­vous look­ing mobile phone sales­man shuf­fled on to the stage. And I sighed and I thought, ‘here we go again’.”

“And then when he announced that he was going to sing opera, well, you’ll cringe inside won­der­ing what time­less clas­sic he was going to man­gle beyond recognition.”

“Then he opened his mouth, and much to all our sur­prise he had the voice of an angel. I couldn’t believe it. The audi­ence erupted in spon­ta­neous applause, and of course I burst into tears.”

“… Now I’ve never been par­tic­u­larly good at admit­ting I’m wrong; but I am happy tonight to cre­ate his­tory: I WAS WRONG.”

The video is made even more inspir­ing by their story. Read the story, watch the video, and cry.

Pro­fes­sor Randy Pausch made a sur­prise return to Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­sity to deliver an inspi­ra­tional speech to the Class of 2008 at the Com­mence­ment cer­e­mony on May 18, 2008.

Pausch was included in TIME Magazine’s 2008 list of the world’s 100 most influ­en­tial peo­ple. His book, “The Last Lec­ture,” co-written by Jeff Zaslow of the Wall Street Jour­nal and based on Pausch’s now-famous talk “Really Achiev­ing Your Child­hood Dreams,” is a New York Times #1 bestseller.

Nick is one of the great­est teach­ers in the world right now with his Life With­out Limbs foun­da­tion. He teaches us that there are far worse things in life than hav­ing no limbs, and that life with­out limbs is the begin­ning of a life with­out limits.

What if the world embod­ied our high­est poten­tial? What would it look like? As the struc­tures of mod­ern soci­ety crum­ble, is it enough to respond with the same tired solu­tions? Or are we being called to ques­tion a set of unex­am­ined assump­tions that form the very basis of our civilization?

This 25-minute ret­ro­spec­tive asks us to reflect on the state of the world and our­selves, and to lis­ten more closely to what is being asked of us at this time of unprece­dented global transformation.

Write. Play. Draw. Sing. You Can Do Some­thing to STIR your­self, your friends and your world. Using excerpts of speeches from Mar­tin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Nel­son Man­dela and more, this video invites us all to arise, awaken, and act TODAY. Let it never be said that I was silent when they needed me.

This is a really cool video by cen​tralchris​t​ian​.com of why peo­ple do not come to Church any­more. And some more rea­sons why you should.

In honor of one of the Great­est Per­form­ers who ever lived. This is a video that makes a lot of sense NOW that you have heard the story behind the man. He lived in a ranch he called NEVERLAND. Even until the age of 50, he lived like a boy who never grew old. In a sense, that is because he never did.

In an inter­view with Oprah, he said that when he was young

“It was won­der­ful, there’s a lot of won­der­ment in being famous. I mean you travel the world, you meet peo­ple, you go places, it’s great. But then there’s the other side, which I’m not com­plain­ing about. There is lots of rehearsal and you have to put in a lot of your time, give a lot of yourself.

I would do my school­ing which was three hours with a tutor and right after that I would go to the record­ing stu­dio and record, and I’d record for hours and hours until it’s time to go to sleep. And I remem­ber going to the record stu­dio and there was a park across the street and I’d see all the chil­dren play­ing and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead.”

In a very real sense, and as this song sug­gests, his whole life has been about get­ting back that lost CHILDHOOD.

Draw­ing from some of the most piv­otal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer and co-founder of Apple Com­puter and of Pixar Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios, urged grad­u­ates to pur­sue their dreams and see the oppor­tu­ni­ties in life’s set­backs — includ­ing death itself — at the university’s 114^th Com­mence­ment on June 12, 2005.

Of course you’ve seen this movie. I think this is the best “War” speech in the his­tory of film. Be stirred once again. Because they might take our lives. But they will never take OUR FREEDOM!