In Steve Job's commencement speech, How to Live Before You Die, at Stanford he focused on three main points; connecting the dots, love and lost, and death. I had read transcriptions of this speech before, but I never got to hear the full thing. Well let me just say that it is definitely worth listening to. There are a lot of great points in there about life and finding that thing that you love to do, or as I like to call it, living your dream. Anybody that knows me knows that this is an area that I'm incredibly passionate about. I'm always doing what I can to encourage people to go for it, including myself. So, listening to this speech truly hit home for me.
Connecting the dots
In this section of his speech Steve said two things that resonated with me. He said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," and "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." This has certainly been true in my life. There's no way that I could've peered into the future, back when I was living at home in Detroit and taking classes at Wayne State University, and knew that one day I would live in Lincoln, Ca and that it would be the best move for me to make for my life, musically and beyond. But that's exactly what happened.
Love and lost
This is where he talked about the time that he got fired from Apple, the company that he created, and then got brought back to lead the company to its greatest success yet. I can't even fathom that. I would be UPSET if something like that happened to me and the company I created. The cool thing about Steve is that he got fired from one amazing company, and went and started another amazing company. A little movie studio named Pixar. Maybe you've heard of it?! The quote that I love from this one is, "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." I feel you Steve, and I'm working on it!
Death
"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"
That's an exceptionally poignant question right there Steve. All I can say about it right now is that I'm working to get myself to that point.
This was a truly on point speech, I highly recommend that you give it a listen, its inspired me, and I hope that it'll do the same for you. I'll let Steve finish up this post for me.
"There is no reason not to follow your heart."
Connecting the dots
In this section of his speech Steve said two things that resonated with me. He said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," and "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." This has certainly been true in my life. There's no way that I could've peered into the future, back when I was living at home in Detroit and taking classes at Wayne State University, and knew that one day I would live in Lincoln, Ca and that it would be the best move for me to make for my life, musically and beyond. But that's exactly what happened.
Love and lost
This is where he talked about the time that he got fired from Apple, the company that he created, and then got brought back to lead the company to its greatest success yet. I can't even fathom that. I would be UPSET if something like that happened to me and the company I created. The cool thing about Steve is that he got fired from one amazing company, and went and started another amazing company. A little movie studio named Pixar. Maybe you've heard of it?! The quote that I love from this one is, "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." I feel you Steve, and I'm working on it!
Death
"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"
That's an exceptionally poignant question right there Steve. All I can say about it right now is that I'm working to get myself to that point.
This was a truly on point speech, I highly recommend that you give it a listen, its inspired me, and I hope that it'll do the same for you. I'll let Steve finish up this post for me.
"There is no reason not to follow your heart."
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