Close-up on Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech

My personal transcript:

1) Connecting the dots
Soon after joining University as student Steve knew that he was at the wrong place and had to leave after the year. Therefore he had the freedom to check out classes completely unrelated to what he was supposed to study. He did out of the box learning and took - for instance - classes in typography. Later, this allowed him to design the Apple with beautiful built-in types and revolutionized the world of computing.

But you can't plan for that - you only can connect the dots backwards, not forwards. Trust that the dots will connect will allow you to trust your heart and what to do.


2) About love and loss
Jobs was fired by Apple - the company he built up. He was really disappointed, but the cool thing was, that he was lifted of the obligation to be succesful. He was entrepreneur again and started Next as well as Pixar. He also met his wife.

"Sometimes life will hit you in the face with a brick - don’t lose faith."

Steve says: "I am convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what i did - you got to find what you love -- that’s true for work and love... keep looking and don’t settle..."


3) When you life every day as it will be your last - someday you will be right.

From Steve:
In the last 30 years i have looked into the mirror and have asked myself: if today would be the last day of my life - would i love to do what i am about to do? "hen the answer was no in too many days in a row i knew i had to change something... Remembering that you are going to die is the best thing to avoid thinking that you have something to lose

No one wants to die - even people that want to go to heaven don’t want to die in order to get there. Death is the destiny we all share... Death is life’s change agent... it clears out the old and makes way for the new.

- Your time is limited - so don’t waste it living someone else’s life
- Don't follow a dogma
- Don't listen to other people’s opinions...
- Follow your heart and intuition - they already know what you want to become...

Steve's personal motto and recommendation for the students us:
Stay hungry - stay foolish.