Life Lessons from Steve Jobs: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Steve Jobs delivered a commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford. It’s hands down the best commencement speech I’ve heard…in fact it’s one of the best speeches I’ve heard on how to live your life. The speech is filled with the wisdom that can only come from the experience of living life.

So many people get caught up in what to do with their life as opposed to how to live their life. Fortunately, Steve provides advice on the latter based on his own life experiences. What touched me deeply about the speech is how eloquently Steve Jobs captures the essence of life. He covers three stories that provide valuable lessons that you can apply to your own life.

Connecting the Dots

Steve Jobs is a college dropout. His biological mother put him up for adoption and was adamant that the couple that would take him should be college graduates. And at age 17, he did go to college like most young adults do. Also, like most young adults, he went to a college that cost a significant amount of money and that drained his parents hard earned money. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), Steve had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Because of that, he decided it was an absolute waste of time and money to continue with college, so he dropped out.

You might think that dropping out and not knowing what to do with your life would create more stress and pressure, but it actually had the opposite effect. Steve felt more alive and free after he dropped out. Instead of taking classes he was supposed to take (i.e. the socially acceptable, proper classes to take), he was able to take classes that interested him. The first of these was a calligraphy class that he dropped in on. He was immediately drawn to the simple, artistic beauty of typography. Although this had no practical use at the time, it ended up having a very legitimate use later down the road when he developed the first Mac. He integrated all of the beautiful typography and fonts that he learned about into the design of the Mac. It also clearly had an impact on the direction of Apple – to make beautiful, user friendly software and tools. Design is one of the core, if not main strength, of Apple, even today.

There are a couple of lessons to learn here. The first is trust your gut. Too many people get caught up in their mind and caught up with what they’re supposed to do instead of really looking within and listening to their intuition. Steve knew that college was a good thing, however, he also knew that it was a waste of time and money if he truly didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Instead of fumbling around and blindly choosing a major, he dropped out so he could regain his focus and concentrate his time on subjects and activities that sparked his interest.

The second lesson is you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. Whatever you do, you have to trust the fact that it will all work out if you follow your gut. You have to go beyond logical, methodical thinking and know that no matter what, if you stay true and honest with yourself, everything will work out in the end.

Love and Loss

Loving what you do is of the utmost importance. Beyond money, beyond status and beyond what other people think, you need to strive to do what you love. Steve was fortunate to find this early in his life. He started Apple in his parents garage at age 20. It wasn’t with the intent to build a huge company and strike it rich. It was with the intention to work on something that he truly loved and had a passion for.

By age 30, Apple had grown into a multi-billion dollar company with 4,000 employees. Then Steve got fired. He had earlier hired on someone to help him run the company, but later had a falling out when their vision of where the company should go diverged. The board decided to fire Steve because of this. He was a public failure and he felt like he had let down countless people. Normally, this would devastate an individual and possibly send them on a continued downward spiral. Not the case for Steve.

Getting fired from Apple was one of the best things that could have happened to Steve. By getting fired, he was relieved of the pressure and burden of continuing to grow the company at such a very young age. Once again, he was able to refocus his efforts on what he loved. This is the lesson.

Even though he was fired, he knew that he loved what he did. He had that faith and knowledge that no matter what, he absolutely knew what he wanted his work to be and that is what kept him going. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. It might not come to you as easy and at as young of an age as it did for Steve, however, don’t let that stop you. Never settle and keep searching. Listen to your intuition. When you’ve found it, you’ll know it.

Death

It’s plain and simple. Death puts things in perspective….big time. Earlier in his life, Steve read a quote that basically stated, “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It kind of makes you laugh a little bit, right? It’s true though. Unlike most people, Steve Jobs really took this to heart. Every morning he asks himself “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” If it isn’t, he takes steps to change.

The easiest way to get out of the trap of thinking you have something to lose is remembering that you are going to die. Everyone wants to live forever and most people live like this. They live like they have nothing to lose. They live like they might not die tomorrow. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Make an effort every day to realize the impermanence of life.

A year before he gave his commencement speech, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His doctors told him that he didn’t have more than 3-6 months to live. Fortunately, when the doctors did the biopsy, they discovered that he had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that was treatable with surgery. The doctors started crying.

The lessons learned from an experience like that can only be conveyed by someone who truly went through it. Quite simply, it puts life into perspective. As Steve states, “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent.” What it comes down to is this: Life is short. It’s way too short to be living someone else’s life. It’s too short to live up to expectations that aren’t your own. You have to do everything in your power to tune out the outside noise. Honestly, it’s scary as hell, isn’t it? When it comes down to it, there is only you. Nobody else on this planet can tell you or give you advice on what do do with your life. You most certainly can receive guidance, but at the end of the day, the buck stops with you. It takes courage and most of all, it means following your heart.

I’ll end with the final words from Steve’s speech and with something that you should constantly repeat to yourself. Make it your mantra: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Video: Here is the actual video of the speech. While I tried to capture the essence of the speech in this article, I strongly encourage you to take the time to listen to the speech itself. It’s roughly 15 minutes in length, but it could quite possibly be the best use of 15 minutes of your time.

Photo Credit: Allistair Israel