How to Find Your Purpose: Lessons from Steve Jobs
It was a sunny day in California when Steve Jobs offered his prolific commencement speech to hundreds of wide-eyed Stanford graduates.
"You can't connect the dots looking forward,” he said.
“You can only connect them by looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Not everyone knows that Jobs dropped out of Reed College after only six months. A young man without a clue as to what he wanted to do with his life, he felt he couldn't justify draining his working-class parent’s savings to get a degree in something he might not even use.
It was one of the most terrifying decisions of his life. But despite his fear, he trusted, took the leap, and dropped out.
But he didn't leave Reed College. He decided to stick around campus for another 18 months to follow his curiosity.
Without the pressure to take the required classes that didn't interest him, he instead enrolled in courses that sparked his interest, including one in calligraphy.
While this class appeared to have no “real-world” value, something within the young Jobs encouraged him to follow that inner spark.
He listened. And because he did, the first Macintosh computer was born in 1984.
Let me explain. While designing the first Apple computer, Steve envisioned making it more than just a functional computer. He wanted it to be something truly beautiful. And the calligraphy course 10 years earlier would help him do just that.
Drawing from the ideas he learned in that class, he and his design team would introduce beautiful typography to the computer's interface.
Prior to that innovation, computers used only simple block letters that were far from aesthetic.
And while this may seem like a small detail, that innovative idea and attention to aesthetics would give Macintosh the competitive advantage it needed to surpass its competitors.
Lessons from Steve Jobs’ Story
Job’s’ story highlights three powerful points worth considering when we are seeking to uncover our own purpose.Or if we are educators or parents looking to help young people discover theirs.
Those points are:
Courage
Curiosity
Trust
Courage
Steve dropping out of college took tremendous courage. While Steve himself said it was among the hardest decisions he would make in his life, he also said it was one of the best.
This highlights an important principle:
Our ‘growth’ lives on the other side of our ‘comfort zone’
How often in life do we stick to the safety of our known and well-tread pathways because we are terrified to venture into the unknown?
Yet every tale of personal growth tells us we must courageously step outside of our comfort zones and enter into the unknown. Every hero’s journey begins that way, with resistance. The root of the word courage literally means “to move forward with heart.” And while leaving the safety of our known world can be scary, if we follow our hearts, we will soon discover by doing so that on the other side of that comfort zone, lives our potential.
With this in mind, while you take steps along your own journey of purpose, remember to be courageous, to move past your fears, to take that leap, and to follow your heart. And if you're helping someone on their journey, you can en-courage (fill them with courage) to do just the same.
Curiosity
When we are discovering what it is we are feeling called to do in life, it’s important to be open and curious in the process. After Jobs dropped out of school, he took time to explore different classes, wrestle with new ideas and concepts, and follow where his curiosity would take him. It was this principle of following his curiosity that led him to the many innovations in his life.
With our own purpose, we need to have the same level of curiosity from the beginning. We need to explore, try and test things out, and be open as we see where they take us. Sure, we may go down some dead ends. In fact that’s almost guaranteed. That’s okay! When we explore who we are, what we like, where we can serve, and what we are feeling called to do, we need to entertain an attitude of openness as we uncover what is seeking to emerge through us.
I like to think of it like travelling to a foreign land with a light itinerary in mind, instead of a rigid agenda. This level of travel requires that we be responsive to experiences that come our way. When we offer life this level of openness, life will present opportunities we could not have imagined. But that can only happen if we are curious, open to the experiences around us, and flexible with our plans.
What are you curious about? Get on out there and explore!
Trusting ourselves
Hand-in-hand with curiosity, is trust. In Jobs’ story, we see how curiosity led him to a calligraphy course, and his trust in his intuition encouraged him to stay and learn regardless of the class's “utilitarian value.” It was in fact that very trust in his inner wisdom that led to his success.
Just as a Monarch butterfly is miraculously born with an inner compass to guide it 3000 miles, over several generations, across the rocky mountains to winter by the millions and breed in central Mexico, I truly believe that each one of us has a similar inner guidance system that knows exactly where we need to go. While we may not have the whole picture in front of us, just like Jobs, if we are courageous, take the leap, and trust that something within us knows what is best for us, we will live life far beyond what we could have imagined on our own. As Jobs told those eager graduates:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
“You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
“Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path; and that will make all the difference.”
So let’s all remember to be courageous enough to follow our hearts, to be curious, and to trust the process will guide us to where we need to go.