The speech is simple yet profound for a CEO in corporate America. Certainly nothing I would hear on CNBC in the morning. After watching the video, the speech stuck with me. I've found myself quoting from it while helping friends deal with some difficult life changing issues this week.
His speech has three parts--all involving key lessons learned from Rejection and Loss. He calls part one, Connecting the Dots where he talks about how all events in life have meaning and purpose--even the rough ones. He says you won't know that the dots connect until you look back on your life. You can't see them connecting if you look forward. He gave an example from his own life where he dropped out of college because his parents really couldn't afford the tuition payments. He decided to follow his own interests even when they clearly had no practical use and weren't making him any money. He advised to "Follow your curiousity and intuition." Connecting the dots of his college drop out experience, he said that if he didn't drop out, he wouldn't have taken a caligraphy class which greatly enhanced the feature offerings of the first Mac which contributed to his success.
Part two is about Love and Loss. He talks about being fired from the company he founded. He was humiliated, but it turned out to be the most creative time of his life. The experience taught him to be humble. During this time, he met and married is current wife--a woman he calls his soul mate. If he was never fired, he wouldn't met his wife and he wouldn't have cranked up his creative juices to come back with even stronger product offerings which made his company one of the most successful in the world.
Part Three is about Death. In 2005, he had just escaped a cancer scare with an operation that put him in remission. By facing death, he got clear about priorities. He learned that he needed to live every day as if it were his last. He also found it important to do what he loved to do every day. He said (I paraphrase), "Remember, you are going to die. No one escapes death. It's a great plan. Life clears out the old to make way for the new. Some day you'll be cleared out too. You're already naked, so why not follow your heart and do what you love to do? There's no good reason not to. Time is limited."
Remember Steve's core message--You can't connect the dots of your life looking forward...only backward. The way to start connecting the dots forward is to do what you love to do and follow your intuition. Trust that the Universe has plan for your life, even if you can't see it clearly right now. Eventually, you'll look back and see that everything worked out exactly as it was supposed to,
In my opinion, the speech is more important than any product he ever produced. It has an eternal shelf life. I have no doubt it will be quoted one hundred even two hundred years from now when all of his current inventions are in landfills or museums around the world.
I highly recommend that you listen to the video. You won't forget it. "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."-Steve Jobs
Other Blog Posts by R. Ann Rousseau: A Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom Moment, Disappearance of the Universe Book Review, Breaking Out the Top Shelf Advice for Rough Times, Eat Dessert First -The Art of Extreme Self Care, Wayne Dyer Needs the 12 Step Quotaholics Program-Excuses Begone Book Review, Queen of the Law of Least Effort-Seven Spiritual Laws of Success Book Review, The Secret of Instant Healing Book Review, Transforming Fate into Destiny Book Review, Awakening the Lightworker Within Book Review, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane Book Review, Trust Your Gut Book Review, The Spirit Whisperer Book Review, Astrology for the Light Side of the Brain Book Review, My 9/11 Story, How to Be Inspired Book Review, Infinite Quest Book Review, Biology of Belief Book Reveiw, The Morning Breeze Has Secrets to Tell, The Gentle Way II Book Review, Do You Fear or Respect Mother Nature?, You Can Heal Your Life Movie Review, Hereafter Movie Review, North Wind Blowing -Time for a Change, Just Say NO to Straws, Presence University, Impossible Situations are Great Opportunities, Do You Have Enough?, Moon Tides Soul Passages Book Review, Compromise with the Varmints! Yankke Doodle Discord Book Review, A Wright Brothers Moment! The Sacred Promise Book Review
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