In his brief but powerful speech, Pausch made passion his second and final piece of advice. He warned that external measures of success create an endless treadmill of comparison. True passion, he said, must come from the things that fill you from the inside — and in his experience, it will always be grounded in people, in relationships, in what others think of you when your time comes. He waited until age 39 to get married because he needed to find someone whose happiness was more important than his own.