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名人梦想的英语演讲稿【篇一：十大名人英文演讲】1. steve jobs2005年6月12日remembering that you are going to die is the best way i know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. you are already naked. there is no reason not to follow your heart. your time is limited, so dont waste it living someone elses life. dont be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. dont 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。

记着你总会死去，这是我知道的防止患得患失的最佳办法。

赤条条来去无牵挂，还有什么理由不随你的心？！你的时间是有限的，因此不要把时间浪费在过别人的生活上。

不要被教条所困——使自己的生活受限于他人的思想成果。

不要让他人的意见淹没了你自己内心的声音。

最重要的是，要有勇气跟随你的内心与直觉，它们好歹已经知道你真正想让自己成为什么。

其他的，都是次要的。

2. david foster wallacenovelist 小说家kenyon college 肯尼恩学院may 21, 20052005年5月21日there are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “morning, boys. hows the water?” and the two yo ung fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “what the hell is water?”... simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:“this is water。

Steve-Jobs-斯坦福大学演讲稿中英文对照The commencement speech Steve Jobs gave atStanford University in 2005Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.谢谢。

今天来参加世上最好大学之一的毕业典礼让我感到荣幸。

老实说，我大学从未毕业而现在是我离大学毕业最近的时刻。

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.今天我想告诉你我生命的 3 个故事。

就这样。

没有什么。

只有 3 个故事。

第一个故事是关于把点连接起来。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, “We’ve got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?” They said, “Of course.”My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduatedNone of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.这没有一样有任何希望会在我生命里被实际运用。

Steve.Jobs在2005年对Stanford毕业生的演讲（中英文）Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had noidea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts,and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, 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.My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was beingpassed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. 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, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. 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. 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, and like anygreat relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through mystomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. 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, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Googlecame along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.Thank you all, very much. 乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲（中文稿）史蒂夫· 乔布斯（Steve Jobs）今年6 月在斯坦福大学的演讲中谈到了他生活中的三次体验，这三次体验不仅在斯坦福大学的毕业生，也在硅谷乃至其他地方的技术同行中引起了巨大反响。

史蒂夫·乔布斯在成就学院的演讲稿SteveJobs-AcademyofAchievement第一篇：史蒂夫·乔布斯在成就学院的演讲稿 Steve Jobs-Academy of AchievementSteve Jobs-Academy of Achievement(1982.6.26)Good afternoon.Everyone’s probably been sitting here for a long time, huh? I just got here this afternoon, so I’m… my mind is somewhere over Iowa.But, a few things.Everyone here, I was told, is real bright.Is that true? Plus, I want to meet Eric later.Which one’s Eric? Oh hi Eric, how you d oin’? We’ve got about 3,500 people at Apple, and we build computers, and I had a chance to meet some of you today, and a bunch of you have used ‘em and told me about that and I appreciate that a lot.I was talking to a man named Ralph.Ralph’s about 11 or 12, and Ralph uses an Apple.And I was telling Ralph about when I was a kid, because we didn’t get a chance to grow up with Apples.And about how my first experience with a computer was having to take all these – type out a program and take all these cards to a computer center and half an hour later you’d get the result, and it was prehistoric compared to the way it is now.And Ralph didn’t understand this at all.And it really signaled that the real optimism of youth is that they don’t understand how bad it used to be.And that they really take the accomplishments of the last generation for granted and they’re still not happy.And so if there’s one thing that I wish, is that all the sorta “God bless America” stuff you’re hearing from us doesn’t dull you into compla cency with the way things are, and that you retain that idealism, and you retain that feeling that the way things are isn’t good enough because you’re all citizensof the world and the world desperately needs your idealism and desperately needs your help.And a lot of stuff here is rags to riches.I was listening back there.Sorta wanna be careful about that because there’s a lot of people that have been real successful in other terms that aren’t here, because maybe they didn’t make a lot of money, that you wa nt to listen to very carefully.And one of the things that tends to run through some of the things that people here have talked about is innovation and creativity.And if you’re really bright —Have you ever thought about what it is to be intelligent? Probably some of you have, right?‘Cause you meet your friend, and he’s pretty dumb, and maybe you think you’re smarter and you wonder what the difference is?And I’ve thought about this a little bit myself, and one of the things is, it seems to me a lot of it’s m emory, but a lot of it’s the ability to sorta zoom out like you’re in the city and you can look at the whole thing from about the 80th floor down at the city, and while other people are trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B reading these stupid little maps, you can just see it all out in front of you.You can see the whole thing, and you can make connections that just seem obvious because you can see the whole thing.That’s why bright people feel guilty a lot, because they come up with stuff that they just say “Hey, look at this,” and other people give them these dumb awards and they feel funny.But the key thing is that if you’re gonna make connections which are innovative, you’ve —to connect two experiences together, that you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does, or else you’re going to make the same connections, and then you won’t be innovative, and then nobody will give you an award.So, what you gotta do, is get different experiences than the normalcourse of events.And, one of the funny things about being bright is everyone puts you on this path, you know, to go to high school, go to college… I heard about some kid that’s 14 on his way to Stanford, and that’s great.That’s sort of out of the ordinary, but you might want to think about going to Paris and being a poet for a few years.Or might wanna go to a third-world country.I’d highly advise that, and see people and leppers with their hands falling off and all that stuff.It’s very much so worth doing.You know, fall in love with two people at once.You know.Walt Disney took LSD, do you know that? He did it once, and that’s where the idea for Fantasia came from.It’s true, and you can go hear stories about all these people, and the key thing that comes through is that they had a variety of experiences which they could draw upon in order to try to solve a problem or attack a particular dilemma in a kind of unique way.And so one of the things that you’ll get a lot of pressure to do is to go in one very clear direction, and believe in God and all that other stuff, and that’s great, but don’t ever walk by a Zen Buddhist because of that.Sit down and talk and buy him lunch.One of the things that I had in my mind growing up —I don’t know how it got there, but that the world was sort of something that happened just outside your peepers, and you didn’t really try to change it.You just sorta tried to find your place in it and have the best life you could, and it would all just go on out there, and there were some pretty bright people running it.And, as you start to interact with some of these people, you find they’re not a lot different than you.The people actually making these decisions everyday, that’re sorta running the world, are not really very much different than you.And they might have a little more judgment in some areas, but basically they’re the same.And,once you realize that, you start to feel you have a responsibility to do something about it, because the world’s in pretty bad shape right now.And, I guess, one of the things that motivates a lot of people that I’ve seen, that actually get out and do something in any different field, is that we all sort of eat food that other people cook, and wear clothing that other people make, and speak a language that other people evolved, and use someone else’s mathematics, and we’re sorta taking from this giant pool constantly.And the most ecstatic thing in the whole world is to actually put something back into that pool.And I think that people from all the fields maybe you’ve heard from here, and a whole bunch that you haven’t, would express the same sort of feeling.It’s the most ecstatic thing that I’ve encountered, so I would highly recommend it.And one of the major areas – I know probably with all this stuff I might not be invite d back here next year, so I’ll say it now… When you pass a certain age –I don’t know what is, 25, 30 years old, you sort of as a human being inherit the responsibility of being a guard of the Earth for future generations, of which you are all a member to inherit.And, I’m not exactly sure what that means, but just obviously that’s the case.And I think our particular —this particular — generation of people that is your guardian, is doing an extremely poor job in one area, and one area where all of the help that you all can muster is really necessary.And that is that the chances that this planet is gonna remain in one piece through your natural lifetimes is not extremely high right now.And it’s fairly dismal.And I anticipate having some kids one day, and help ing ‘em grow up to be sane human beings.And you people are gonna be the people that’re running the planet when my kids grow up, so would you please pay attention to this problemand try to do something about it, ’cause I’d like to see my kids grow up and be able to come here and sit like you and listen to a buncha funny people.Thank you.第二篇：史蒂夫乔布斯执着的逐梦者史蒂夫.乔布斯《史蒂夫.乔布斯传》，沃尔特.艾萨克森著，这本号称史蒂夫.乔布斯唯一授权的传记，记录了乔布斯疯狂而又充满传奇色彩的一生。

Barrons的博客--贝乐斯一定要找到你热爱的这是苹果创始人史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）于2005年6月12日在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的讲话。

几年前，当我第一次读到这篇文章时就被深深的震撼了。

我把整个文章翻译了一遍。

时至今日，这篇文章仍然激励着我，去追随自己内心的想法，去做自己真正热爱的事。

这篇文章里的名句“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”很难翻译。

“Hungry、Foolish”仅从字面上理解是“饥饿、愚蠢”的意思。

但我把这句话译成“保持渴望。

固执愚见。

”这里的Hungry，我理解是年轻人对新事物的渴望与好奇，虽然穷困饥苦却渴求新知。

就像史蒂夫·乔布斯年轻时一样，条件艰苦甚至真饿肚子却到处去学自己真正感兴趣的东西。

这里的Foolish，我理解是指年轻人的年少轻狂，不精于世故，出生牛犊不怕虎的一股蛮劲，蠢劲。

在老于世故的人看来，这当然是愚蠢。

但正是这种不知天高地厚，不懂人情世故的固执愚见，才让年轻人能开创与前人不同的事业。

一定要找到你热爱的我很荣幸能在今天与你们一起参加一个世界上最优秀的大学的毕业典礼。

我从来没有从大学毕业。

说实话，今天是我最离大学毕业最近的一次。

今天，我想给你们讲我生活中的三个故事。

就是这样。

没什么大不了的。

只是三个故事。

第一个故事是关于把我生活中过去的点点滴滴联系起来。

在过了最初的六个月后，我便从Reed学院辍学了。

但是，在我真正离开那里前，我又呆了大约18个月。

我为什么辍学呢？这一切在我出生前就开始了。

我的亲生母亲是一个年轻的未婚大学生。

她决定把我送给别人收养。

她坚持认为，我应该被有大学学历的人收养。

所以，一切本来都已经安排好了，我将会被一个律师和他的妻子收养。

但是当我出生以后，律师夫妇在最后一分钟决定他们真正想要的是一个女孩。

所以，我的养父母，本来是在等候的名单上的。

他们在半夜接到了一个电话，“我们有一个意料之外的男婴。

乔布斯的十大经验教训：倾听内心的声音从今往后数年时间里，我们的子孙将会询问，史蒂夫·乔布斯担任苹果公司首席执行官（CEO）时是什么样子。

他们会说：“乔布斯是最棒的CEO，他是什么样的？你从他身上学到了什么？”你的答案是什么？忽视此时此地的重要性是人类的本性。

那些在我们中间的伟人，看起来似乎很平常，因为他们和我们处于同一时空。

但是，千万别搞错，一旦史蒂夫·乔布斯离开我们，将会出现情感的井喷。

颂词将层出不穷。

届时，我们都会后悔，当初在他还活着的时候，我们没有觉醒，也没有重视。

在每一次重要讲话、电话业绩会议或是在YouTube上传的闲聊，他所分享的智慧将显得比以往明智10倍。

因为他离去了。

因此，现在停下来，回忆一下史蒂夫·乔布斯给予我们的经验教训如果我们一直愿意留心：1. 艺术与科学结合的创新最持久史蒂夫一直认为，苹果和历史上其他电脑公司（包括后PC时期）的最大区别在于，苹果公司一直努力将艺术和科学相结合。

乔布斯指出，Mac的创始团队成员背景各异，人类学、艺术、历史和诗歌都有。

这在令苹果公司的产品脱颖而出的过程中非常重要。

iPad和其他前前后后所有平板电脑的区别就在这里。

艺术和科学的结合是一个产品的外观和感觉，是它的灵魂。

但是，计算机科学家和工程师很难明白两者结合的重要性，因此任何企业都必须有一位能够了解其重要性的领导者。

2. 可以通过焦点小组创造未来管理理论的一个学派认为，如果你是面向消费者提供产品和服务，那么就得倾听消费者的心声。

史蒂夫·乔布斯认为这是浪费时间，他是最先如此认为的人之一。

现在的消费者并不总是明白自己想要什么，尤其是面对自己从未见过、听过或接触过的东西。

当苹果公司被证实将推出平板电脑时，许多人都曾心怀疑虑。

当听到这款产品的名字iPad时，Twitter上的网友拿它开了一天的玩笑。

但是当人们拿到手使用后，iPad就成了必需品。

他们不知道自己以前没有这玩意儿时是怎么过来的。

乔布斯演讲稿英文Ladies and gentlemen, 。

Today, I am honored to be standing here in front of you to deliver this speech. We are living in an era of rapid technological advancement, and it is my belief that innovation and creativity are the driving forces behind this progress. As we look back on history, we can see that many great innovations have come from the minds of visionary individuals who dared to think differently and challenge the status quo. One such individual is Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc. and a pioneer in the world of technology. 。

Steve Jobs was not just a businessman, but also a visionary and a masterful communicator. His ability to captivate and inspire audiences through his speeches is legendary. Today, I would like to share with you some key elements of Steve Jobs' speechwriting style, as well as some insights into the art of delivering a compelling and impactful speech.First and foremost, Steve Jobs understood the power of storytelling. He knew that in order to truly connect with an audience, he needed to tell a story that would resonate with them on a deep and emotional level. By weaving personal anecdotes and experiences into his speeches, he was able to create a powerful narrative that drew people in and held their attention.In addition to storytelling, Steve Jobs also had a keen understanding of the importance of simplicity and clarity in communication. He was a master at distilling complex ideas and concepts into simple, easy-to-understand language. He knew that in order to truly connect with his audience, he needed to speak to them in a way that they could relate to and understand.Furthermore, Steve Jobs was a master of the dramatic reveal. He understood the power of building anticipation and suspense, and he knew how to use it to his advantage.Whether it was unveiling a new product or sharing a groundbreaking idea, he always knew how to keep his audience on the edge of their seats.Lastly, Steve Jobs had an unparalleled ability to inspire and motivate. He knew how to tap into the hopes and dreams of his audience, and he knew how to use that to drive them to action. His speeches were not just about informing or entertaining, but about inspiring people to think differently and strive for greatness.In conclusion, Steve Jobs' speeches were a masterclass in the art of communication. He understood the power of storytelling, simplicity, suspense, and inspiration, and he used these elements to great effect in all of his speeches. As we move forward in this age of innovation and progress, let us all strive to learn from the example set by Steve Jobs and use the power of speech to inspire, connect, and drive positive change in the world.Thank you.。

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.Truth be told I never graduated from college.And this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That is it, No big deal, just three stories.The first story is about connecting and the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months.But then stayed around as a drop-in.For another 18 months also before I really quit.So, why did I drop out?It is start before I was born.My biological mother was a young unwed college graduate student.And she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates.So everything was all set for me.To be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.Except that when I popped out.They decided at the minute that they wanted a girl.So my parents who were on a waiting list got a call in the middle of the night.Asking we got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?They said of course.But my biological mother found out later.That my mother had never graduated from college.And my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later.When my parents promised that I would go to college.This was a start in my life.And 17 years later I did go to college.But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as StanfordAnd all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months I could not see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.And no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money.My parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out.And trust that it would all work out ok.It was pretty scary at the time.But looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out.I could stop taking the requires classes that did not interest me.And begin dropping in on the ones that look further more interesting.It was not all romantic I did not have a dorm room.So I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms.I return coke bottles for 5 cent deposit to buy food with.And I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night.To get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition.Turn out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example.Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster.Every label on every drawer was beautifully hand calligrapher.Because I had dropped out and did not have to take the normal classes.I decided to take a calligraphy class.To learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces.About varying the amount of space between letter combinations.About what makes great typography great.It was beautiful historical artistically subtle in a way that science cannot capture.And I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college,The Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.And since Windows just copied the Mac, it is likely that no personal computer would have them. If I have never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class.And personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of cause it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward, when I was in college.But it was very very clear looking backwards ten years later.Again you cannot connect the dots looking forward.You can only connect them looking backwards.So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something, your gut destiny life karma whatever.Because believing that those dots would 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 has made all the difference in my life. My second story is about love and loss.I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life.Wiz and I started Apple in my parent’s garage, when I was 20.We worked hard and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.We just released our finest creation The Macintosh a year earlier and I had just turned 30 and then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started?Well as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented.To run the company with me and for the first year or so, things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge.And eventually we had a falling out.When we did our Board of Directors sided with him.So at 30 was out and very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone.And it was devastating.I really did not know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down.That I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.I met with David Packard and Bob nonce.And tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.I was a very public failure.And I even thought about running away from the valley.But something slowly began to dawn me.I still loved what I did.It is turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.I been rejected but I was still in love.And so I decided to start over.I did not see it then but it turned out that getting fired from Apple.Was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.The heaviness of being successful was replaced.By the lightness of being a beginner again.Less sure about everything.It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years I started a company named neXT.Another company named Pixar.And fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film “Toy Story”. And is now the most successful animation studio in the world.In a remarkable turn of events Apple bought neXT.I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT.Is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.And Laurence and I have a wonderful family together.I am pretty sure none of this would have happened if I had not been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine. But I guess the patient needed it.Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.Do not lose faith.I am convinced that the only thing.The kept me going was that I loved what I did.You have got to find what you love.And that is as true for your work as it is for you lovers.Your work is gonging to fill a large part of your life.And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is a great work.And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.If you have not found it yet. Keep looking, do not settle.As with all matters of heart.You will know when you find it.And like any great relationship.It just gets better and better as the years roll on.So keep looking do not settle.My third story is about death.When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like.“If you live each day as if it was your last someday you will most certainly be right”.It made an impression on me.And since then for the past 33 years.I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself”If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today”.And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row.I know I need to change something.Remembering that I will be dead soon.Is the most important tool I have ever encountered.To help me make the big choices in life.Because almost everything, all external expectations all pride, all fear of embarrassment of failure.These things just fall away in the face of death.Leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking.You have something to lose. You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning.And it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I did not even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable.And that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised to go home and get my affairs in order.Which is doctor’s code for prepare to die.It means to try to tell your kids everything.You thought you had have the next 10 years to tell then in just a few months.It means to make sure everything is buttoned up.So that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later about evening I had a biopsy.Where they stuck an endoscope down my throat through my stomach and into my intestines.Put a needle into my pancreas and got few cells from the tumor.I was sedated but my wife who was there told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying.Because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer.That is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and thankfully I am fine now.This was the closest I have been to facing death.And I hope it is the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it.I can now say this you with a bit more certainty than when death was useful but purely intellectual concept.No one wants to die even people who want to go to heaven. Do not want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it and that is as it should be.Because death is very likely the single best invention of life.It is life’s change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now the new is you.But someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic but it is quite true.Your time is limited.So do not waste it living someone else’s life.Do not be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.Do not 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.When I was young, amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand.Not far from here in Menlo Park.And he bought it to life with his poetic touch.It was in the late 1960’s.Before personal computers and desktop publishing.So it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras.It was sort of like Google in paperback form 35 years before Google came along.It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog.And then when it had run its course they put out a final issue.It was the mid-1970s and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road.The kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on, if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words “stay hungry stay foolish”.It was their farewell message as they signed off.Stay hungry , stay foolish.And I have always wished that for myself.And now as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry stay foolish.Thank you all very much!。