Lesson Learned from Steve Jobs’ commencement Speech
I am an Apple user and I love this product. As a marketer, I learned something unique about this brand that in fact, this brand can sell itself. Unlike, its competitor that almost always spend their money on ads, this brand is rarely put any ads and people still love to stand in the long lines just wanna be the part of those first people who have the newest iPhone. That’s amazing!
We do familiar with his creation, but just like his creation, Steve Jobs himself is an amazing person. I would like to take you on a tour of his speech,
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, dare to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs
This speech is delivered by Steve Jobs on the morning of June 21, 2005, at Stanford University. It’s very well crafted, simple yet very inspiring. His messages still relevant even, for now, more than 15 years later.
“Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories,” Jobs began.
Here are the three main stories Jobs told during the session:
CONNECTING THE DOTS
His first story is about connecting the dots. It’s all started when he dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before he quits. During his drop-in periods, he didn’t have to take the normal classes and decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. He learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, he said, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and he found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in his life.
But 10 years later, when he was designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to him. And he designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If he had never dropped out, he would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class and maybe Mac will have different typography now. He said,
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.” — jobs
Up until now, that phrase is still resonating with me. I often look back and connecting the dots, the experiences, the decision I made that maybe not look ideal at the moment I made it but then I am so grateful for that right now. Those paths shape me today.
LOVE & LOSS
The second story is about love & loss. He told about how he built Apple with Woz and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. And he got fired, from the company that he built. What had been the focus of his entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. But instead of being down, he bounced back and being a beginner again by started another company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become his wife. Again, he saw life differently. Sometimes, being rejected is the way the universe shows you a plan, that much better than yours. I relate to this situation, I must deal with rejection that brings pain to my mentality, but turns out it’s something that I am grateful for.
And this story, he also highlights that love what you do is an essential thing in life as he said,
Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
DEATH
It’s the last story from him. It’s the last & the scariest, yes it’s about death.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
At the end of the day, we will die. By thinking about it, we have the courage the life every bit of time the full of joy & excitement. Life itself is a celebration, it’s not something we need to worry about too much. And most importantly, life is short. Be authentic, be the person you will always proud of.
Thank you for reading!
Leave some comments if you feel relate to the story in Job’s speech above ;)
