innovative thinking

My feeling on Steve Jobs' commencement speech in 2005

Up today I am among the "4 point two Million and something" viewers of this sensational video about the famous speech Steve Jobs gave almost six years ago at the Stanford University - don't remember exactly how many times I viewed it. I truly respect and sincerely admire the person, the entrepreneur, the innovative genius, the great leader and the great companies he founded. This is why I don't believe there is something valuable I could possibly add to what he said: I feel his message is so clear, so powerful and so strong that doesn't need to be commented. My only intention here is to share a very strong feeling with you: every time I watch this video, I feel Steve Jobs is talking directly to me about my life. It's like if I had a very special personal coach. It's like he already knew me and my whole life. This is - in my opinion - what makes this video really invaluable. I thought that if it sounds so deep and true to me, it will do the same to many others. Love what you are doing, listen to your heart and keep the faith during the tough times: the reward will not be too far.

[...] And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. […] If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. […] Again, 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. […]

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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. 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 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. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

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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."