Something that caught my attention right away with Jobs’ commencement speech is the same thing that made his keynote speeches for Apple so popular, and so memorable, and that is his ability to be direct. It’s strange because it should be painfully easy to be clear, concise, and direct with what you’re saying and trying to convey, but it just isn’t, and i’m sure we’ve all experienced that to some capacity. When Jobs has a point to make, he makes that point very clear.
Whether or not you like him as a person, Jobs is a damn good speaker, and after introducing and outlining his speech, he starts with his first story, “Connecting The Dots”. This story parallels some of the ideas discussed in the introduction of Designing Your Life, as he describes his notion for success that contradicts what we’ve come to understand and trust as the necessary steps for success. As he covers his unique circumstance for his college education, he shares an anecdote about dropping in to a calligraphy course, and being captivated even though he, at the time, saw no practical value in the course. Expectedly, the anecdote loops around to the beginnings of Apple, and his experience with that course coming back as it came time to design the typography of the Mac.
We’re raised in a way that we often expect others to know what’s in our best interest, what we should and shouldn’t do. As the idea of ‘dysfunctional beliefs’ has made brutally clear, we can easily believe in something that isn’t true, even if that thing is directing very important life choices. Jobs says in his speech, “you can’t connect the dots looking forwards, you can only connect the dots looking backwards”. This is a great sentiment to keep in mind for Thesis, as it can be at times too easy to fall into traps along the lines of “would other people think is a good project?” or “is my project as ambitious as other peoples?”. While these thoughts can be constructive, more often than not they will have a negative impact on both the person and the project. It can be tough at times to decipher if what you want to do is really what you want to do, but the best tell is just if it feels right.
Jobs’ next story, “Love and Loss”, covers the necessity of failure. He makes the very important point that even after being fired from his own company, he still loved what he did. This idea should hold true for anything we truly love doing. Failure shouldn’t be a reason to turn back, and if it is, the passion was never truly there. From having worked on large scale projects myself, and from talking with others and their own experience through Thesis, knowing when to walk back on a faulty idea, and knowing when to push through on a great idea is far more valuable than striving for 100% success. Simply put by Jobs, “don’t settle”.