Steve Jobs: Connecting the Dots

• Steve Jobs chose his own path based on his passions, even when it was difficult.
• His story is inspiring and unique because he remained true to himself and his passions.

Connecting the Dots

• Dropped out of Reed College after 6 months, but stayed as a "drop-in" for around 18 months before quitting.
• His biological mother wanted him to be adopted by college graduates.
• He was almost adopted by a lawyer and his wife, who changed their minds at the last minute.
• His parents, on a waiting list, were called and asked if they wanted him.
• His biological mother refused at first because his adoptive mother never graduated from college and his father never graduated from high school.
• She relented when his parents promised he would attend college someday.
• He chose a college that was as expensive as Stanford, spending his working-class parents' savings.
• After six months, he didn't see the value of college.
• He decided to drop out and trust that it would work out, later calling it of the best decisions he ever made.
• After dropping out, he could stop taking required classes he didn't like and attend ones that interested him.
• He slept on floors in friends' rooms and returned Coke bottles for 5¢ deposits to buy food; he walked 7 miles every Sunday night for a meal at the Hare Krishna temple.
• He stumbled into what would become priceless information by following his curiosity and intuition.
• If he had not dropped out, he would not have taken the calligraphy class that led to personal computers having wonderful typography.
• It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when he was in college; this became clear ten years later.
• You can only connect the dots by looking backward and must trust that the dots will connect in the future.
• You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, or karma and the approach has never let him down.

Love and Loss

• Apple started in his parents' garage with Woz when he was 20 years old.
• Within 10 years, Apple grew into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees.
• The Macintosh was released, and he had just turned 30 when he got fired.
• He was fired because as Apple grew, the talented person hired to run the company with him led to diverging visions and a falling out; the board sided with the other person.
• Losing the focus of his adult life at 30 was devastating.
• He felt like he had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down.
• Getting fired from Apple turned out to be the best thing that could have happened because it replaced the heaviness of success with the lightness of being a beginner and it freed him to enter one of the most creative periods of his life.
• He started NeXT and Pixar.
• Pixar went on to create Toy Story, the world's first computer-animated feature film and became the most successful animation studio.
• Apple bought NeXT, he returned to Apple, and the technology developed at NeXT is now at the heart of Apple's current renaissance.
• None of this might have happened if he hadn't been fired from Apple.
• The only thing that kept him going was that he loved what he did.
• You have to find what you love, it is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
• The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.
• The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
• Don't settle, you'll know when you find it, and it gets better as the years roll on.

Death

• When he was 17, he read "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."
• For the past 33 years, he looked in the mirror every morning and asked if he would want to do what he was about to do if it were his last day.
• If the answer was "no" for too many days, he knew he needed to change something.
• Remembering that he'll be dead soon is the most important tool he's ever encountered to make big choices.
• External expectations and fear fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
• There is no reason not to follow your heart.
• He was diagnosed with cancer about a year prior.
• A scan showed a tumor on his pancreas.
• Doctors told him it was incurable and that he had three to six months to live.
• His doctor advised him to get his affairs in order, meaning to prepare to die and say his goodbyes.
• He lived with that diagnosis all day.
• While he was sedated, doctors found it was a rare form of pancreatic cancer that was curable with surgery.
• He is now fine after having the surgery.
• Death is the destination we all share and no one has ever escaped it.
• Death is very likely the single best invention of life and life's change agent.
• It clears out the old to make way for the new, everyone will gradually become old and be cleared away.
• Don't waste your time living someone else's life or be trapped by dogma.
• Don't let others' opinions drown out your own inner voice and follow your heart and intuition.
• They somehow know what you truly want to become.