Steve Jobs Famous Speech Stanford Graduation

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Steve Jobs Speech for Year 2005 Stanford Graduation

Steven Paul Jobs was an American inventor, designer and entrepreneur who was the co-founder, chief executive and chairman of Apple Computer.

Since 2007, I always fascinated by the Apple brand, with its sleek, elegant and futuristic design. I am one of the Apple hard core fans.

My loyal toward the brand because I am a fan of Steve Job, the founder of Apple. Despite his personality, I have to admit that he is truly a visionary and made it all came true.

Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004 but it did not slow him down, until his dying day in October 2011.

One of the event I always remember was when he delivered the famous inspirational speech for year 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.

He shared three stories for fresh graduates on how life’s award him.

#1 Connecting The Dots

He states:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.”

He stopped taking class that didn’t interest and gave him no value. At that time, dropped out from collage seemed chaotic, crazy and totally bad idea. But looking back, he can “connect the dots.”

If someone does what is right for them, thing will work out in the end. Nobody can be certain on what the future tells and things could look bad at the moment. Later on he added:

“You have to follow you’re your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.”

Steve Jobs believe that his decision to drop out from college and learn calligraphy is what makes an Apple has different technology from other.

He had no idea what he wanted to do. He decided to learn calligraphy just to learn something new. He believes that his calligraphy skills helped him design the world’s most beautiful computer Macintosh.

The typography in the Macintosh simply differentiates between Apple computers and other computers.

The life lesson he gives is that you can never connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward.

Just believe that the dots will connect in the future. He believes that this trust and destiny, has never let him down and indeed made all the difference in his life.

#2 Love and Loss – Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry

You will be considered lucky if you can find about your passion in the early age and as soon as possible. Jobs was found his passion on early 20’s.

This helped him in restricting his interest and completely focus on it. He started Apple at 20 in a garage with Steve Wozniak. Apple later turned into a billion-dollar company with over 4000 employees. But that’s not the end.

His love helped him in life comes next when at the age of 30 Steve Jobs was fired from his own company.

After getting fired, he launched companies named NEXT and PIXAR. Pixar created the world’s first computer animated film named Toy Story and today it is the most successful animation studio in the world.

Next was purchased by Apple and Steve Jobs got a call back to his own company. Today, Next is the heart of Apple’s renaissance.

“What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating, I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. And so I decided to start over.”

If he had not been fired from Apple, he would have never found Next. It turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing ever happened in his life. He says that:

“Sometimes life hits 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.”

#3 Death – Live Life to The Fullest

Death is unavoidable. It will come one day. He went on to talk about being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, hearing that his death was imminent, and then being treated and cured.

Sadly, that same cancer would return and claim his life about six years later, though he didn’t know it at the time.

Even so his wisdom about how to best use our brief lives was right on point:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything-all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure-these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. 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.”

Knowing your time in life is limited, he told the students, think carefully about how to spend it.

“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 own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Summary

Steve Jobs has very simple, structured and insightful speech. It was delivered in a meaningful way considering he was so close to death.

The lesson that he shared were ideas on how to live as he follows. STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH. It was famous idioms from Steve Jobs so we don’t get easily satisfied on what we achieve.

The goal is to grow, to be a better you each day by doing what you passionate about.

Believe in your heart that if you’re doing what you love, it will love you back in return. No matter how many times you fall, get up and don’t give up!

Please share your opinion in the comments column below! Thanks :)

References:

Harshul_madaan. September 27, 2015. A Summary of Steve Jobs Stanford Speech. Icytales.com – https://goo.gl/bFcNQZ
Minda Zetlin. Jul 1, 2017. 5 Important Life Lessons Steve Jobs Wanted You to Learn. Inc.com – https://goo.gl/6rxFR9

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