28. Love What You Do

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

CLICK HERE to watch... June 2005… At his Stanford University commencement speech, Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar, urges us to pursue our dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself.

Hypothetical alternate universe:

What if Steve Jobs, after getting fired from Apple (his own company) at age 30, decided that he was just going to listen to all those doubts and fears and nay-sayers and give up on the technology business and take his money and go live comfortably and safely in some big schmancy house, watching TV, eating bon-bons and nursing his wounded pride all day?

Would you have blamed him? No. Certainly not. But then… would we have the iPhone? Perhaps not.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs… for not choosing the safety of bon-bons.

If he hadn’t persevered, the world would have never known some of the AMAZING visionary innovations yet to come! 

Even with a devastating defeat at 30, he continued to follow his passion and do what he LOVED. Not because he wanted make a lot of money, but because he had, somewhere inside his brain, a spark of a vision for some cool devices that could make people’s lives better. He wanted to make those ideas a reality. He couldn’t stop. He knew he had so much more to GIVE.

Soooo go with me here...

• Steve Jobs is just a human. You are also a human.
• He has gifts and talents. You also have gifts and talents (though probably different ones than Mr. Jobs).
• He chose not to let fear of what other people thought/said/wanted to stop him from using his gifts and talents to make the world a better place according to his vision… You see where I am going with this?

It’s YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to humanity to use your time here on earth to give to the world what ONLY YOU CAN GIVE. 

So don’t be afraid. Don’t give up. Don’t do it for the money. Do it for LOVE.

Remember, you’ll be dead soon too. So give NOW. And live the life you want to live today.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Love,

Virginia

“Don’t ever let your mind get in the way of having a good time.” – Jason Mraz