Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Dead Serious Post on Why I Love Steve Jobs

I usually try to keep this blog care free and fun (for comedic value of course) but today I'm breakin it down for you buys and girls... Steve Jobs style.
My mom has forwarded me some of the things that Steve Jobs (creator of Apple, Pixar, and NeXT)
Image Source
said before passing away this year and they have really hit home for me.  I think this guy had life figured out.  
He gave this speech as his second story of his Commencement Address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005.

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 4000 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 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.
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 worlds 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."
Steve Jobs
1955-2011

And another quote from him...

"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 other's 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."
Steve Jobs
1955-2011, Co-Founder of Apple Computer

Every time I read his words I get goosebumps.
Some reasons why...
*I think it's so crazy that because he was fired from Apple, Pixar was created. A company that has brought so much joy to everyone who has watched its films.  You always hear the saying, when one door closes, another opens.  Steve Jobs truly brings light to this phrase.  
*We shouldn't settle for something we don't love.  I think so many of us, including myself, settle for something that will pay the bills.  But consequently in doing so, precious years of our lives are lost and passed with feelings of unfulfillment and resentment.  Bummer.  
*I also love when he said, "Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice."  My mom always says that it's the free U S of A and to make things my own.  Do what I want to do.  And it's so true.  "Don't be trapped by dogma-which is living with the results of other people's thinking."  Life is too short.  
This reminds me of a quote I have on a card displayed in my living room...
I love this.  I often times will think, "Will my friends think I'm too out there if I wear this."  Or wonder, "Did people think I was weird when I painted my bedroom walls hot pink or moved our bed to the living room?"  Or "Do people think it's weird that I blog."
When I have these thoughts I think back to the card above.  "Shape this world or someone else will."  Be different, be weird.  Why would you want to be ordinary or blend into the crowd?
That's no fun.
And if someone has a problem with it?  Forget about em.
You're better off without the negative energy anyway.  

I try not to get so serious on this here blog of mine, but Steve Jobs, what can I say?
You brought it out in me today.
You seemed like an awesome guy!

One last message to leave you with...
This video gives me big fat goosebumps too.