There are a few things you’re supposed to do when you graduate college:
- Wear a dumb robe while Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 plays…for ever… in the background.
- Pretend your student loans are worth it.
- Listen to some famous person give you unsolicited advice about “life.”
Most of those speeches are a zombie wasteland of clichés—“follow your dreams,” “never give up,” “the future is yours,” blah blah blah.
…Except for that one time in 2005, when Steve Jobs stepped onto the podium at Stanford and basically said:
“You’re all going to die. So stop doing stupid shit.”
Okay, that’s not exactly what he said. But close enough.
Jobs told three stories. That’s it. No corporate buzzwords. No charts. No humblebrags. Just three stories about screwing up, getting fired, getting sick, and eventually figuring out what matters.
And here’s the kicker: It wasn’t motivational. It was existential.
Let’s break it down.
1. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward.”
Translation: You have no clue what the hell you’re doing, and that’s okay.
Jobs talked about dropping out of college and taking a calligraphy class for no real reason—just because it fascinated him. Years later, that obsession with typography made the Mac what it was. The first computer with beautiful fonts.
So yeah, no big deal. Just a class that changed the future of digital design.
The point? You don’t need to justify every decision with some master plan. You don’t need to know where the dots are leading. You just need to follow what pulls at you—even if it makes zero sense right now.
Life is chaotic. Careers are chaotic. The dots only connect in reverse.
2. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
Or in plain English: You’re going to get your ass kicked. Keep going anyway.
Jobs got fired from his own company. The one he started. Apple basically told him, “Thanks for the vision, Steve, now GTFO.”
That would break most people. But instead of wallowing, he doubled down on what he loved. He started NeXT. He started Pixar. He found love. And eventually, he went back to Apple and made it the biggest company on the planet.
The lesson here isn’t “get fired and become a billionaire.” It’s this:
Rejection doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Failure doesn’t mean you’re broken.
Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you becomes the best thing for you—if you have the guts to keep going. Please now refer to my bazillion posts on moving from resilient to anti-fragile.
3. “Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered.”
Yup. The guy who sold iPods told a crowd of graduates to meditate on their death.
This was before the Apple Watch, before the iPhone, before Jobs passed away from cancer in 2011. But even then, he talked about mortality with the clarity of someone who had already faced it.
He said, “Death is very likely the single best invention of life.” Why? Because it clears out the old and makes room for the new. It forces you to stop pretending you have unlimited time to get your shit together.
He told the students: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
Read that again. Or if you’re so inclined, say it in Latin – memento mori. Remember that you must die.
It’s not poetic. It’s not motivational fluff. It’s a gut-punch reminder that you don’t get a second round.
And in an era of infinite scrolling and infinite choices, maybe that’s what we need most—a finite perspective.
Why This Speech Still Matters
Jobs didn’t tell people to hustle harder or manifest abundance. He didn’t tell them to start a YouTube channel or optimize their LinkedIn. He didn’t even pretend that following your passion was easy.
He told them: Be curious. Be stubborn. Be brave.
He told them to stop living by other people’s expectations and to pay attention to what actually matters: meaning, purpose, love, death.
The speech went viral for a reason. Not because Jobs was a tech god, but because he gave people permission to not have all the answers.
And in a world that glorifies productivity and perfect résumés, that permission is radical.
Final Thought
Most advice feels like it’s written in the margins of a self-help book. Jobs’ speech felt like a reminder from your future self—the version of you that already wasted a decade chasing the wrong things.
So no, the speech didn’t change my life when I first heard it.
But it should have.
And maybe it still can.
You just have to stop pretending you’re not going to die.