Why do I love Steve Job's Stanford speech?

You may have seen "Steve Job's Stanford speech" video. But if you haven't, then I strongly recommend it. It's one of my favourites. I have seen it maybe 50 times in the last 10 years. In this speech, he shared 3 stories of his life.

Here is why I love it -

1. Connecting the dots

In the first story, he shared many events in his life - like dropping out, auditing a calligraphy class and then how this led to the world getting multiple typefaces in computers. He concluded by saying - only when you look at life events backwards, you can see the lines connecting them.

I love this story because sometimes random stuff happens in life. I wonder why this happened to me. I try hard to make sense of it, when maybe there is none. The story guides me to believe that something - karma, destiny etc will eventually connect the dots and help me make sense of all this. So all I can do today is to move on.

2. Love and loss

The second story is about how he found what he loved to do and built his company. But then he got kicked out of his own company and in a remarkable turn of events, he came back to leading Apple.

I love this story because of how he looked at the loss of his company and the massive public embarrassment that came with it. He admitted that he needed that brick on his head. But the only reason he came back is because he loved what he was doing and that is all that matters.

3. Death

The last story is about how he looks at death and how this perspective acts as a compass guiding him to do his best work everyday.

I love this story because like everyone, I also faced many difficult choices in life. These choices often required me to either conform with what society wants or what I want. But by putting death in front, problems look smaller and choices look far more simpler.

Lastly, all the points made by these 3 stories are timeless. I draw tremendous strength from this speech and hope you will too !