This one is another classic. I guess most of you have already watch it (more than 8 million peope have already done it), but just in case you haven’t, I highly recommend that you watch this 14-minute Commencement Speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005.
It is so inspiring that I must have seen it about five or six times these last years. And it always touches my heart.
The speech is divided in three stories from Steve’s life:
- Connecting the dots
- About love and loss
- About death
Here below you can find some of the things Steve Jobs shared with Stanford graduates, but it’s much better to listen to it directly from Jobs. And listening to how he saw the world, it’s not surprising that he said these last words before dying.
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. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your 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. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
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.
Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
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 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.
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
You can find the entire text of the speech here.
