Summary

This is the most famous speech given by Steve Jobs in Stanford College during the convocation ceremony. He has divided his speech into three categories that are his life story. Each category helps the readers to improve their way of thinking and do what they think is the best even if they feel that is not going to work for them; it will come to use in coming days.

1. LINKING THE DOTS:

Here in this story, he has shared his accounts connected with his introduction to the world, reception by Paul and Clara Job, commitments behind leaving Reed School, and difficulties and battles in his day to day existence. He claims to be apprehensive about the next steps in his life. He happened to enroll in the calligraphy classes that piqued his interest. He learned typefaces with serifs and sans serifs. He ended up using his calligraphy skills and knowledge to his advantage. After ten years, he designed the first Macintosh computer by utilizing his caligraphy skills. With the assistance of his companion Woz, he had the option to plan Mac PC with lovely typography. He has depicted each stage of his life as a series of distinct dots. He claims that if we look back over our lives, we can see how all of these dots are connected. Nobody can make sense of their life in the future. The various dots continue to connect, paving the way for the future. In addition to having faith in our gut, life, destiny, or karma, we must perform our duties with the expectation of a prosperous future.

2. A LOVE AND LOSS STORY:

Steve Jobs has talked about the most significant loss of his life in this story. He claims that the board of directors of his own business fired him when he was thirty years old. He never gave up hope. Once more, he was helped by his devotion to his work. He reached new heights in the tech industry thanks to his knowledge, abilities, and love. He was able to start his new company, Next, and Pixar, a world-famous animation studio that made the animated feature film "Toy Story". Here, he has counseled everyone not to settle on their search for their desired jobs. He says that people should love what they do and want to do the good work. In their search for the best work, they should not settle.

3. HIS THIRD ACCOUNT OF DEATH:

Here in this story, Steve Jobs has related his experience of his ailment because of pancreatic disease at the age of 49. He was very close to his death at that time. He came up with the idea about death. He claims that death is the greatest invention of life. This intellectual concept must be shared by everyone. Change in life comes from death. It makes room for the new and gets rid of the old. He was able to get rid of his pancreatic tumor after surgery. He carried on with his work once more with complete enthusiasm. He has instructed everyone in this story to remain foolish and hungry. He believes that we ought to always be eager to learn about and accomplish significant life goals. We ought to try something new in our lives with new ideas.

UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT

a. What is the background to the birth of Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs was born to an unmarried graduate student at college. During her pregnancy, she made the decision to give her baby up for adoption. She wished for an educated family to adopt her child. The family of a lawyer was initially prepared to adopt Steve Jobs. However, the lawyer's family decided not to adopt Steve Jobs after his birth. They wanted to adopt a girl as a child. Later, Paul Jobs, a mechanic, and Clara Jobs, his wife, adopted Steve Jobs and promised to send him to college so he could study.

b. What exactly does he mean when he says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward;" You can only link them by looking back.

He is attempting to convey to each of us that our current successes and failures are dependent on the various dots from our past, not our future. When we look back, we see that all of these dots in our life are connected. No one is able to connect these dots when considering the future. Our past and various life dots are the determinants of our present and future. Life makes sense when we look at history, even though we cannot foresee the future. It means, you can only control what you can do at the present, but not the future. Therefore, thinking about the future and trying to do things out at present is only complicating it. One should focus on the journey, not the destination. If you are satisfied and happy during the journey, it is sure that your destination will be beautiful.

c. What happened to steve jobs when he turned 30 ?

At the point when Steve Jobs turned 30, he was terminated from his own organization by the top managerial staff.

d. Jobs argues that to be successful at something, you need to enjoy it. Why do you think it is correct? Why?

This saying can be connected to Gita, the Hindu scripture. In Gita, Lord Krishna says that we should not trouble ourselves by thinking or expecting the result of our work, but we should focus on our work. The result is not in our hands, but the action (karma) we perform is. Therefore, if our karma is correct, then the result is sure to come as we expected or else not. Therefore, I concur with his views because a passion for our work can propel us toward success. It is critical for each of us to enjoy our jobs if we are to perform at a high level. We won't be successful in our work if we don't love it.

e. Is death truly the greatest creation of life?

Indeed, death is the greatest invention of life. Because there is darkness, we value day. There is death so we value life. In addition, as new day brings in new hope, death also creates space for new people, new talent and new inventions. Old must be replaced to move forward and continue the world. Therefore, without death, life would be meaningless and so it is the greatest invention.

REFERENCE TO THE CONTEXT

a.Read the following excerpt and respond to the following questions:

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

i. Who was the boy?

Steve Jobs was the baby boy.

ii. What is meant by "do you want him?” mean?

It refers if they wanted to adopt Steve Jobs.

iii. Who is referred to as "they"?

They here refer to Paul and Clara Jobs.

b. Describe the following phrases:

i. "You have to trust in something—your gut, your destiny, your life, karma, or whatever else."

There is a tendency of people listening to others more and listening to themselves less. People are more concerned about what other people such as parents, friends, relatives think about their decision and most succumb to decisions made for them by others. Here, Steve Jobs differs and says that everyone should trust themselves, take decisions by themselves and work in that direction that gives them happiness and satisfaction without bothering about others. It will surely make you successful.

ii. “Don't waste your time living someone else's life. Your time is limited.”

Steve Jobs wants his listeners to listen to their hearts and do what they think is good for them. Everybody’s situation is different and no one should surrender to other people’s thinking and opinion. One should take responsibility of personal failures and success because if we understand that late in life, it will have been already late as we are only for a certain period of time in this earth.

c. What does "don't settle" mean to him?

“Don’t settle” means we will make mistakes in life, or get tired, exhausted and frustrated. We may also take wrong decisions sometimes and the outcome could be overwhelming. However, unless and until we achieve our goals we should not settle.

d. Which style of speech does the speaker use to convince the audience?

The speaker uses a personal, casual style of speech to convince the audience. His speech seems to be narrative, and he tries his best to inspire his audience with stories about real life.

e. Motivating other people is hard. Why do you believe Steve Jobs's speech is so motivating?

Steve Jobs is a person who has reached that height where someone looks up to. He is a successful businessman, an innovator and philanthropist. He has seen both good and bad in life which is known to everyone as a result of being a public figure. Therefore, in this speech he tells his life story and also connects it to his message of not giving up in life and following the passion without caring about others without prescribing rules to anyone. It sounds like some prophet is speaking. Therefore, I believe his speech is so motivating.

f. Describe the reason you believe Steve Jobs used personal narrative storytelling in his speech. What kind of impact does it have on the public?

Steve Jobs motivated his audience through his speech by employing the personal narrative storytelling approach. His speech contains a number of facts about his life's difficulties. These true incidents from his own life convince the audience to believe him because while giving the speech he was already a well-known and successful person. His success exactly matches his speech which encourages the public to follow what he says due to the deep impact of his words.

REFERENCE OUTSIDE OF THE CONTEXT

a. One of Steve Jobs' guiding principles was, “Think outside the box.” Can this help someone achieve success in life? What obstacles do you face when thinking differently?

Yes, this helps to achieve success because thinking like everybody else will not make you different. It is said that winner do not do different things, but they the things differently. In the same way, if we think like other or do not change our thinking, then we will be in the same place where we are now. If we want to achieve success, thinking outside of the conventional thinking is essential.

There are many kinds of people in the world. Some are jealous; some do not want you to succeed while others do not understand what you are up to. Therefore, these kinds of people will always try to devalue you or create problems in your life because they do not understand it differently. For example, only 10 years back, nobody had imagined that it is possible to build reusable rockets. If Elon Musk had listened to people who gave their opinion on the impossibility of building such rockets, he would not have been able to build such rockets today.

b. What does "stay hungry, stay foolish" mean to you?

When a person thinks that he knows everything, then the enthusiasm to know more stops and the success stops. However, when a person considers him foolish, that person will always try to know more and update on the current developments. There are lots of things changing daily in the world and in order to be successful, one needs to learn every day.

c. What exactly does it involve to be a visionary? What distinguishes Steve Jobs from a fortune teller?

A fortune teller bases his predictions on the movement of planets. However, Steve Jobs bases his prediction and vision on the basis of facts and connecting the dots. A fortune teller believes in already set destiny but a visionary strives to change the destiny relying on one’s capabilities and information gathered. This is the major difference between a visionary and a fortune teller.