Sunday, April 22, 2007
subhash
A month ago , I heard this commencement speech by Steve Jobs ,CEO ,Apple and Pixar at Stanford University in my computer.This inspiring speech by Mr.Steve has changed my idea about the life and it has really helped me in going through some difficult phases.I wanted to share the speech to my readers so that it will help you and inspire you to do something big in life.Ill narrate it in the words of Steve Jobs.I changed the colour of most inspiring words in the speech to green.He divided his speech into three stories.The first one is :Connecting Dots :"I dropped out of college after 6 months and continued as drop in for 18 months before I quit.Why I dropped ? My biological mother was a unwed graduate.She decided to put me on adoption.She wanted to give me to only graduates for adoption.but my parents are not graduated and my father is nt even a high school graduate.so my biological mother gave me to my parents on one condition that they will send me to college and will make me a graduate.Later on I went to college after 17 years.but I even chose a college which is as expensicve as stanford and all of my working class parents savings are spent on college tution.After 6 months I didnt find any value of the money that is being spent.I had no idea what was going with my life and how college is going to help me.Here I'm spending the money my parents has saved their entire life.so,I dropped out and trusted that all will work out ok.It was scary at that moment.but it was one of the best decisions I had ever made.The minute I dropped out,I stopped taking required classes that didnt interest me and began dropping in on ones that looked far more interesting.It wasn't so romantic. I slept on floor in friends rooms,worked in coke parlours,walked 7 miles every sunday night to get one good meal a week at hari krishna temple.Much of all I stumbled into by following my curiousity turned out to be priceless.Later on, my college offered best caligraphy instructions in the country.Through out campus evrything has been beautifully caligraphed.So I took caligraphy class and learnt about serif,sans serif,letter combinations and all.It was beautiful,historical and artistic, all that which science can't capture. I found it fascinating.none of it has a practical relevance in my life at that time.but after 10 years when we designed first Macintosh ,it all came back to me.We desinged all this in Mac.It was first computer with beautiful typography.If I wouldn't had dropped in college,Mac wouldn't have proportionately spaced fonts and multiple type faces.And just windows copied MAC it's likey no one would had them.It was impossible connecting dots looking forward in earlier life.But it was very very clear looking backwards 10 years later.You can only connect dots looking backwards but not forward in real life.so you have to trust that dots connect somehow to future.You have to trust something like your guts,your destiny, life watever.B'coz believing the dots will connect down the road will give u confidence to follow the road even when it lead you out of the path and this will make the difference."Second Story :Love and loss :"I was lucky because I found what I love to do early in life.I started Apple when I was 20.We worked hard and in 10 years Apple has grown from 2 people in a grudge to a 2 billion dollar company with 4000 employees.We just released Mac a year earlier and I was 30.I was then fired.How can I get fired from the company I started ??Eventually I hired someone who was more talented to run the company.When our visions for future diverged , We started falling out.At that moment the board of directors sided him and at 30,I was out and publicly out of Apple.whatever has been the focus of my entire adult life has gone now and its devastating.I didnt understand what to do for a few months.I felt that I let the previous generations of the young enterpreuners down.I then met with Mr.David Packard and apologised for screwing up so badly.I was a public failure and I thought of running out of the valley.But somethng slowly began to dawn on me.I still loved what I did.I had been rejected but I was still in love.so I decided to start over again.I did'nt see then but getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could had ever happened to me.The heaviness of being sucessful has been replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again.Lets be sure about everything.It freed one of the most creative periods in my life.During the next years I started a company called "next" ,one more called "pixar" and fell in love with a amazing woman who became my wife.Pixar created worlds first animated feature film and is the most sucessful animaton studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events,Apple bought next and I returned to Apple and the technology devoloped by next is the heart of renaissance of Apple.I'm pretty sure, none of this would had happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.It was aweful tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life is gonna hit you in the head with the brick,don't loose faith.Im convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.You got to find what you love.and that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.your work is gonna fill a large part of your life and the only way to get 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 hadn't found it yet,keep looking and dont settle until you find it.As would all matters of heart,you know you will find it and like any great relationship it just gets better and better,as the years roll on.so keep looking,don't settle."Third story :Death :"I read a quote When I was 17 ,that if you live each day as if it will be your last,someday you will be right.It made a impression on me and since the past 33 years every morning I look in the mirror and ask myself if this is the last day of my life, would I wanna do what Im about to do today ?? whenever the answer is no for some conescutive days ,I know that I need to change something.Remembering that all be dead soon is the most important thing that I encountered that helped me in making some big choices in life .Because almost everything all external expectations of pride, emarassment of failure or fear,all these things just fall away in the face of death leaving only what is truly important.Remebering that you are going to die,is the best way I know is to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago,I was diagonised with cancer and I was having a very rare form of cancer which is curable.Doctors found this thing at the last moment and I am alive by god's grace.Having lived through this kinda condition,I can say this with a great certainity to you now , that death is a pretty useful intellectual concept.No one wants to die,even people who wanna go to heaven dont wanna die to get there.Death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it,that is as it should be.Death is the single best invention of life.It clears all the paths for new.Right now the new is you.but someday not 2 long from now you will gradually become the old and be clear to give the way.This might sound to be dramatic and it is true.Your time is limited,so don't waste it living someone else life.Don't b trapped by trauma which will result by other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice.Follow your own heart.Most important is to have courage to follow your heart and initution.They somehow already know what you truly wanna become.Everything else is just secondary.Finally what I say yo the new graduates is "Stay Hungry,Stay Foolish""
If you have heard any of this kind of interesting speeches,Send me along with your link.Subscribe to this blog for getting more updates.Post your comments if you have any inspiring words to say.
Sometimes you might have to change the extension of your files , like I mentioned in How to send .exe files in Gmail , for some specific purposes.But you might not be getting succeeded unless you have some knowledge of xp.Here by I'm explaining you how to change the extension of a file.
