BG Staff
Steve jobs in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address gave an amazing speech. Truth be told, this was the closest of best motivation doze in ages. Here it goes.
Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life.
Reed College at that time offered the best calligraphy training in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because, I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do it.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life but 10 years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.
We designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was learning calligraphy a decade back but, it was very clear looking backwards 10 years later.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward.
You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something your gut destiny like karma.
I started Apple in my parent’s garage when I was 20. We worked hard and in 10 years. Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a two billion dollar company with over 4,000 employees.
We just released our finest creation, the Macintosh a year earlier and I just turned 30. I got fired but something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did.
I’ve been rejected but I was still in love so I decided to start over. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again less sure about everything during the next five years.
I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar. Later, Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
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 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.
Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
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.
Never give up on yourselves in life.
