Our take on Steve Jobs.
Millions have listened to his Standford University commencement address on YouTube. As commencement addresses go, you can’t beat it for riveting content. He says three things:
- don’t settle for work you don’t love;
- trust that the “dots” will connect if you follow your heart; and
- live like each day is your last.
How could we disagree? Well, we can because …
He said it was luck.
Steve says he was “really lucky” that he figured out what he loved to do when he was very young. [He was just 20 when he started a computer company in his parent's garage after dropping out of Reed College]. Given his drive for discovery and logic, we think it was more like science than luck.
Convention and expectation out the window.
Within six months of entering college, he knew that he didn’t like required courses. More importantly, he recognized that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, and that college wasn’t going to help him figure that out. Jobs discovered something really important: college does not teach you who you are or what you should do. You do.
So, without being immobilized by guilt, convention, expectation or tuition already paid, he dropped out of college and majored in being Steve Jobs. He “dropped in” on courses that developed skills and interests that motivated him. Nobody provided him with a syllabus. Majoring in “Steve Jobs” came naturally — and energized him so entirely that he was willing to sleep on the floor and live hand-to-mouth to make it happen. He was so focused that he chose a career by time he was 20. His classmates at Reed hadn’t even finished junior year. The rest is the history of Apple, Mac, iPod and Pixar.
The Disconnect between Tuition and Insight
Like Jobs, many students find college a difficult way to “find themselves.” Right now 10 million students are headed back to college in the U.S., but fewer than 5,000,000 will graduate in 4 years. Could it really be that they weren’t aware of the expense? We find it hard to believe that 5 million college students fail to figure out what four years’ of tuition will cost before they get an acceptance. Yes, the cost of college is through the roof, and students borrow more money than ever before to get a degree. But paying out that kind of cash was the plan — until they got there. We submit that college students are doing a cost/benefit analysis and dropping out. “Finding oneself at college,” that hopeful exploration of coursework in search of a subject that is a “keeper,” is just too risky. Without a roadmap, it is aimless wandering for a career that puts you deep in debt.
Live like tomorrow is yours.
Jobs approached the world like a testlab for his discoveries. But discovery can take a long time, especially if you’re not sure what information you’re looking for. (And if you use retrospection to connect the dots, you’re looking backward a lot!) Jobs took ten years to figure out that he didn’t love setting up a business. To get the message, he had to be fired from his own company.
Career Science could have told Jobs what would motivate him to move mountains, and what mountains he should avoid. Steve figured it out for himself through zealous effort, living like each day was his last. You, however, don’t have to be as unconventional or as lucky. Hey, you don’t even have to sleep on the floor. Career Science has the data, ready and rigorously examined, to give focus to your search for career happiness.
