Apple’s Steve Jobs told students to never ‘settle’ in their careers: ‘If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking’

“Your work is going to be a big part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you think is great work,” Jobs said during his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. “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.”

Many Generation Z are concerned about which career they should choose. Some are taking any job they can get in today’s job market, where roles are rapidly being disrupted by artificial intelligence, and jobs that were once lucrative are losing popularity. But Jobs’ story is a reminder to young professionals that pursuing a long, passionate career in what they love is a recipe for sustained success. After all, they have nearly 50 years of career ahead of them.

The many jobs Steve Jobs had and loved

Jobs has a variety of successful projects under his belt — including Pixar Animation Studios, and the software company NeXT — but Apple was his ultimate brainchild. Jobs led the company through its many iterations, helping to create products that defined a generation for decades. Baby boomers waited in line for the Apple II computer in 1977; By 2001, millennials were flooding their music collections onto the iPod classic; And throughout the 2000s, Generation Z were given their first iPhones.

Apple may seem like an unmovable force today, sitting in fourth place on the list of global companies luck 500 and sold more than three billion iPhones. But his appearance was nothing but sunshine and rainbows; Despite co-founding the industry giant, Jobs was forced to resign by then-CEO John Sculley in 1985, resulting in a volatile career.

The entrepreneur recalls making the most of a bad situation, entering one of the “most creative periods” of his life by launching NeXT and revamping Pixar Studios. But even he couldn’t resist the attraction’s decline to “the best thing that ever happened.” [him]”Apple”, he returned to the fledgling company as CEO in 1997, and remained in this position until just two months before his death in October 2011.

“Sometimes life hits you on the head with a brick,” Jobs said. “Don’t lose faith.” “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You have to find what you love.”

Jobs’ love for his work turned him into a billionaire

Although he left behind a fortune estimated at $10.2 billion at the time of his death, Jobs made it clear that his ambitions were not tied to his bank account. One of the reasons Apple has become a trillion-dollar innovator may be his devotion to the products, an undying love for technology that he first discovered as a passionate teenager hungry for opportunity.

“I was worth more than $1 million when I was 23, more than $10 million when I was 24, and more than $100 million when I was 25,” Jobs said. TV show In 1996. “And it wasn’t that big of a deal, because I never did it for the money.”

The iPhones in millions of back pockets and MacBooks spread across large office spaces might not have existed without Jobs’ dedication to the craft. When he was just 12 years old, he took a leap of faith to put his passion into action; Jobs looked up Hewlett-Packard (HP) founder Bill Hewlett’s phone number in the Yellow Pages and called him for a favor. The twin needed parts to build the frequency counter, but he got much more than just some nuts and bolts.

Hewlett offered Jobs a gig at the famous technology company, and it served as a launching pad for his future successes dominating the same industry. Jobs set himself on the path to greatness because he mustered the courage to try.

“I’ve never had anyone who wouldn’t want to help me if I asked them for help. I always call them,” Jobs said in a 1994 interview, archived by the Silicon Valley Historical Society. “I’ve never had anyone say ‘no’ or hang up the phone when I call them. I just ask.”

“Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask… You have to be willing to talk to people on the phone, when starting a company, or anything. If you’re afraid of failure, you’re not going to get far.”