Nearly two decades after it was delivered, Apple founder Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement speech continues to resonate with and inspire professionals. The Commencement Address delivered by Jobs on June 12, 2005 has a ‘simple’ career lesson for young people – the importance of doing the work you love – a principle he said kept him going over the years. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do,” Jobs told students then. “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking—and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it,” he continued.
Turning a career setback into major creative work period
Despite being one of the co-founders of Apple, Steve Jobs was pushed out of the company in 1985 by the then CEO John Sculley. However, Jobs said it was then he entered one of the “most creative periods” by launching NeXT and revamping Pixar Studios.Even so, Jobs said he felt drawn back to Apple, calling it the “best thing that ever happened to [him].” He returned as CEO in 1997 and stayed in the role until two months before his death in October 2011.“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith,” Jobs said. “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.”
I never did it for money: Steve Jobs
In a 1996 interview with PBS, Jobs revealed that despite becoming a millionaire at at the age of 23, it wasn’t ‘important’ to him because he “never did it for the money.”“I was worth about over $1 million when I was 23, and over $10 million when I was 24, and over $100 million when I was 25,” Jobs told PBS. “And it wasn’t that important, because I never did it for the money.”