How to Live Before You Die Steve Jobs

 

Steven Jobs (1955-2011) was an American business

magnate, industrial designer, investor, and media

proprietor. He was the chairperson, chief executive

officer (CEO), and co-founder of Apple Inc. and one

of the pioneers of microcomputer technology. He was

named the most powerful person in business by Fortune

magazine in 2007.

The then CEO of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs’ speech 'How to Live Before You Die'

adopts a tripartite structure and uses autobiographical anecdotes to communicate a

message of resilience and personal integrity. This inspiring speech was delivered

at Stanford University 2005 commencement address.

Reading

Now read the following transcript of Steve Jobs’ full speech.

I am honoured to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest

universities in the world.

Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to

a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three

stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a

262 English: Grade 11

drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate

student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should

be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at

birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last

minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a

call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want

him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother

had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high

school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months

later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as

expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent

on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea

what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure

it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at

the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I

dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin

dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’

rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk

the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare

Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity

and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.

Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand

calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes,

I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif

and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter

combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical,

artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later,

when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we

English: Grade 11 263

designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I

had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had

multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the

Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. 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 backward ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking

backward. 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.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my

parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from

just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We

had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just

turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?

Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the

company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions

of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our

Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had

been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous

generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being

passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for

screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running

away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what

I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but

I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

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.

264 English: Grade 11

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named

Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar

went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is

now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events,

Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is

at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family

together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It

was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. 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.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it

was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me,

and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and

asked myself: “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 I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered

to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external

expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall

away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. 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.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and

it clearly showed a tumour on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was.

The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and

that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to

English: Grade 11 265

go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means

to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them

in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be

as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck

an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a

needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumour. I was sedated, but my

wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the

doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer

that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a

few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more

certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get

there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And

that is as it should be, because 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. Right now the new

is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be

cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog,

which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named

Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic

touch. This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing,

so it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like

Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: It was idealistic, and

overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then

when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I

was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early

266 English: Grade 11

morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were

so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their

farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always

wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

NOTES

David Packard (1912-1996): an American electrical engineer and the co-founder of

Hewlett-Packard Company, manufacturer of electronic measuring devices, calculators,

and computers

Bob Noyce (1927-1990): an American engineer and co-inventor of the integrated

circuit

Stewart Brand (born in 1938): an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole

Earth Catalog

Glossary

calligraphy (n.): decorative handwriting or handwritten lettering

commencement (n.): a ceremony in which degrees or diplomas are conferred on

graduating students

dogma (n.): a principle or belief accepted as true

generation (n.): all of the people born and living at about the same time

intuition (n.): an ability to understand or know something immediately based on your

feelings

naively (adv.): in a way that shows a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment

relent (v.): to change one’s mind; agree to something

sedated (adj.): being in a calm, relaxed state

serif (n.): a short line at the end of the main strokes of a letter

unwed (adj.): not married

Understanding the text

Answer the following questions.

a. What is the story about Steve Jobs’ birth?

 The story about him is, his biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate

student, and she decided to put him up for adoption. She felt very strongly that she should

be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for him to be adopted at

birth by a lawyer and his wife. But they wanted to have a girl. To their unexpected surprise, he got birth. But they were fine with that. Later his biological mother later found out that the mother

had never graduated from college and that his father had never graduated from high

school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. But later she agreed when his parents promised to his biological mother that he would someday go to college.

b. What does he mean when he says, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward;

you can only connect them looking backwards”?

You can learn many things from the past. So he means to say that it's important to take lessons to make an important decision.

c. What happened when Steve Jobs turned 30?

He got fired when he turned 30.

d. Jobs contends that you need to love to do what you do in order to be great at it.

Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Yes I agree because  to bring a remarkable result one needs to work persistently that is only possible when one loves to do that. 

e. Is death really life’s greatest invention?

Reference to the context

a. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:

“We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.”

i. Who was the baby boy?

The baby boy is Steve Jobs.

ii. What does ‘do you want him mean?

That means if they still like to adopt him because they wanted to adopt a baby girl.

iii. Who does ‘they’ refer to?

They are the non-biological new parents of Steve Jobs.

b. Explain the following lines:

i. “You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

It is important to trust something to lead a successful life. According to Jobs, we should have belief in our own gut. The gut is our intuitive power to understand what we can accomplish. Likewise, destiny is not in our hands yet to keep going we should have a belief that life is in our hands to do the karma. These factors can determine the level of success in our life.

ii. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Steve Jobs asserts that we live for a certain time and our life ends at some point. So it is important to know our original aspiration than living in somebody else's life. To live up to other's wishes and expectation is the loss of our good life. To make the most out of our life, we should live our own life on our terms and condition.

c. What does he mean by “don’t settle”?

He thinks we should not be contented with any of the achievements. We need to keep going on, working, planning, and dreaming. So settling down is not the best thing to do.  

He means we should be best and shouldn't settle down for less. Achieving great is not important and non of the achievement is great to settle down. So keep working is more important and we shouldn't be satisfied with anything.

d. Which style of speech is used by the speaker to persuade the audience?

He has used tripartite structure and uses autobiographical anecdotes to communicate a message of resilience and personal integrity style of speech to persuade the audience.

e. It is not easy to motivate others. How do you think Steve Jobs’ speech is so

inspiring?

I think his speech is so inspiring to me. After reading the speech I learned to know myself first to set the journey to achieve something in our life. Hunger for learning is important in life. We should remain foolish to learn new things. While going ahead we should connect the dots to learn from the past. SO his speech so inspiring.

f. Why do you think Steve Jobs used the personal narrative storytelling technique

in his speech? What influence does it have on the audiences?

I think Steve Jobs used the personal narrative storytelling technique

in his speech because new graduates from Standford University can learn from his personal experience. So he began from his birth to his encounter with death. He shows how uncertain life is and how we should cope up with uncertainty in life. Despite being kicked out from Apple he kept working to bring a new company NeXT which became instrumental for him to get back to the same company he founded. It is delivered in simple language in three categories which is why it is comprehensible for us. It has a positive influence on the audience.