%202.png)
Connecting the Dots, Getting Fired, and Confronting Death with Steve Jobs
In his 2005 Stanford Commencement address, Steve Jobs tells three stories from his life about dropping out of college, getting fired from Apple, and his cancer diagnosis.
Those sound like three rough life experiences, and they were in their own ways, but they each led to so much growth, faith, curiosity, and clarity around what’s really important in life.
Main Takeaways:
- You can’t see how the dots will connect going forward, but you can trust that they will connect.
- Drop the “shoulds” and travel off the beaten path (if it’s right for you).
- Sometimes being a beginner again frees us up to do our best work.
- We’re all going to die someday. Don’t be afraid, but don’t let life get away from you either.
- Everyone has something unique to contribute.
How do these apply to you? Let’s take a closer look.
Connecting the Dots, Getting Fired, and Confronting Death
Connecting the dots
“We can’t connect the dots looking forward. We can only connect them looking backward.” -Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs never could have predicted how a calligraphy class of all things would impact the design of some of the most popular personal devices in the world.
(This is another great example of the Butterfly Effect, which we talked about last month!)
Our core value of Reflection is vital for connecting those dots!
Let go of the shoulds…if it’s right for you
“Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.” -Steve Jobs
Sometimes the most significant dots are when we drop the “shoulds” and forge our own path.
But going off script in life can be scary, because we have no guarantee that it will lead where we want to go. (Not that we ever have a guarantee, but it’s especially scary when we don’t have a well-worn path to follow!)
After all, dropping out of college isn’t something you would generally recommend to people because we have the value of education drilled into our heads. So why did it work for Steve Jobs?
We think it worked because though he quit the prescribed path, Steve Jobs still threw himself into learning for the love of learning.
He didn’t drop out because it was too hard. His decisions were based on what he thought made sense. His main motivation was to understand what he wanted to do, but without the sticker cost and constraints of a set curriculum.
If you want to try something unconventional and shirk the shoulds, explore why you want to go off the path. Are you doing it to develop in your 3 Circles journey or to run away from discomfort?
Ask yourself why 5 times to get to the root. (This is a good tip for understanding just about anything.)
Sometimes it just takes faith. If you’re truly following your curiosity, if you’re trying something with the motivation to grow and improve (and not to run away from something that’s hard), it will lead somewhere good.
Be a beginner again
“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again.” -Steve Jobs
If you would have given him a choice, Steve Jobs probably would have not chosen to be fired from Apple. That experience was painful and humiliating, but it led him to start Pixar and NeXT, which both became great companies AND led him back to working at Apple. It launched him into an incredibly creative period that breathed new life into his work and stoked his passion.
Sometimes we get stuck in ruts and we don’t even know it, but trying something new and being a beginner again, either by choice or by force, can work wonders in freeing up our creativity and prompting us to try new things. And as we’ve seen, there’s no telling how those dots will connect!
Liz Wiseman also exonerates the benefits of being a beginner in her talk, “The Power of Not Knowing.” When you’re a beginner, you’re thirsty to learn. When we’re learning, we feel challenged. When we feel challenged, we feel more fulfilled.
“Shift from a place of knowing and work from a place of inquiry.” - Liz Wiseman
Starting over as a beginner can be liberating!
Life is finite
“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.” - Steve Jobs
This reminder can create a lot of pressure, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We also have to be realistic. No matter how carefully we engineer our lives, we’ll still have bad days and we’ll still have to do stuff we don’t like.
A good goal is to work toward spending 80% of your time doing things you enjoy and find fulfilling and 20% of your time on the other stuff.
If that balance is off most of the time, that’s a signal to examine how you spend your time and see if you can make any adjustments. (This balance won’t always be possible, because sometimes we just go through rough times. If you’re dealing with divorce, chronic illness, a mold problem in your house, etc., that balance might be impossible to achieve, and that’s okay. It’s a season.)
So, without the pressure of “make each second count!” how can we take this advice to heart?
Pursue your 3 Circles. We say this all the time, but it really is the journey of finding deep and lasting fulfillment and doing great work. And remember, it’s a journey. You’re not just going to wake up one day, know exactly what your 3 Circles are, and live happily ever after in a perfect 80/20 balance. But getting on that path is a great place to start.
Understand the difference between fun and meaning. They can overlap, but it doesn’t mean every moment needs to be fun. Things can be meaningful without being fun. The harder parts of raising kids could fall into this category. Working through issues at work to become a stronger team might fit here.
Sometimes our journey will be uncomfortable. There are unenjoyable moments in the process no matter what. There’s no job you’ll love 100% of the time.
Be with people you like working with. That will also infuse everything you do with meaning. They can also help you on your journey.
Contribute However You Can
Steve Jobs was mainly focused on contribution and following curiosity, not fame and fortune.
In fact, his journey got him shame and embarrassment, but he kept doing what he was doing because he loved it and it was helpful to the world.
Not everyone is going to make an iPhone. Not everyone is going to start a huge company. It’s not because they don’t have the capability, but because most of us just aren’t interested in the actual work of doing that if we’re honest. (Loving the glamourous parts isn’t the same as loving the actual work of starting a company in your garage and building it into a billion dollar empire.)
Contribute in any way you can, and know that your contributions matter, even if the effects aren’t visible right away. Scale is not an indication of value. Just because it doesn’t look immediately world changing doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. You don’t know what the ripple effects “small” contributions will create.
Conclusion
There’s a lot here. How do you take this advice and move forward?
Reflect regularly to see how the dots have connected so far in your life. Have faith that they will continue to connect and get better.
Knowing yourself and your strengths.
Always pursue your 3 Circles and your version of success.
And finally, practice Pronoia. Trust that the universe is conspiring for your good and that even if things seem bleak now, if you’re going through your version of getting fired from Apple, things will work out for the best.
You’ve got a life to live and a contribution to make!
