Thinking about the month about to go by on this penultimate day of August, I thought, 2 men who have changed and shaped the history of different parts of the world, retired this month. I looked at their lives and was so encouraged reading their biographical profiles of how they had come up and did the things that they did. I thought that I must share this with you and share some of the excitement that I feel as I look at people who have lived lives that have touched many people beyond themselves.
The most current retirement that has been making the news has been Steve Jobs. He retired a couple of days back and a friend of mine, Nathan, sent me a text of a commencement address that was delivered by him in 2005. What caught my attention in that text was that he had very humble beginnings. His biological mother was a young unwed college graduate student. She couldn’t look after him so she decided to put him up for adoption. The parents who adopted him had never been to college. But his mother had made it a point that whoever adopted him, would send him to college. Steve Jobs says that he went to college but couldn’t handle it and dropped out and did a whole lot of other things. He says, “I discovered early on what my love in life was.” So when he was 20, together with another friend Woz started Apple in his parents’ garage. He says, “We worked hard and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the 2 of us in a garage, into a 2 billion dollar company with over 4000 employees.
But as you look at his life and even at the success he had at that age, adversity hit him as well. We know that he got sacked from the company that he started when Apple fired him. But he went out and started NeXT and Pixar, firms that were landmark companies that contributed so much to the entertainment industry, to animation and to technology. Then Jobs was re-hired by Apple and served till just recently. Of course, he is now still Chairman of the Board. But in his speech to Stanford University, he ends by saying, “Stay hungry; stay foolish.”
I like the first part of that sentence – stay hungry. I thought that’s what one needs to continue, to be able to do the things in this world, to reach for the stars is to stay hungry for the things that we need to be doing, to never lose the zest for life, to pursue dreams and the vision that God has placed for each one of us.
Steve Jobs took Apple to amazing heights. I am an Apple fan: I use a MacBook Pro and love Apple products and am just so thrilled by everything Apple. I don’t know how many of you have been to New York and seen the Apple store; a huge glass cube rising out of Manhattan – beautifully done. Their flagship store! But it has brought in such an extraordinary culture into computers; the iPods and the iPads and everything else that goes with Apple.
But it started with humble beginnings. He says:
Our life should not be in vain. We need to be able to leave a legacy of significance behind us. What kind of significance? Only you and I can know. But we need to search deep in our hearts to find it. My prayer is that you will find it.
God Bless You All.
The most current retirement that has been making the news has been Steve Jobs. He retired a couple of days back and a friend of mine, Nathan, sent me a text of a commencement address that was delivered by him in 2005. What caught my attention in that text was that he had very humble beginnings. His biological mother was a young unwed college graduate student. She couldn’t look after him so she decided to put him up for adoption. The parents who adopted him had never been to college. But his mother had made it a point that whoever adopted him, would send him to college. Steve Jobs says that he went to college but couldn’t handle it and dropped out and did a whole lot of other things. He says, “I discovered early on what my love in life was.” So when he was 20, together with another friend Woz started Apple in his parents’ garage. He says, “We worked hard and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the 2 of us in a garage, into a 2 billion dollar company with over 4000 employees.
But as you look at his life and even at the success he had at that age, adversity hit him as well. We know that he got sacked from the company that he started when Apple fired him. But he went out and started NeXT and Pixar, firms that were landmark companies that contributed so much to the entertainment industry, to animation and to technology. Then Jobs was re-hired by Apple and served till just recently. Of course, he is now still Chairman of the Board. But in his speech to Stanford University, he ends by saying, “Stay hungry; stay foolish.”
I like the first part of that sentence – stay hungry. I thought that’s what one needs to continue, to be able to do the things in this world, to reach for the stars is to stay hungry for the things that we need to be doing, to never lose the zest for life, to pursue dreams and the vision that God has placed for each one of us.
Steve Jobs took Apple to amazing heights. I am an Apple fan: I use a MacBook Pro and love Apple products and am just so thrilled by everything Apple. I don’t know how many of you have been to New York and seen the Apple store; a huge glass cube rising out of Manhattan – beautifully done. Their flagship store! But it has brought in such an extraordinary culture into computers; the iPods and the iPads and everything else that goes with Apple.
But it started with humble beginnings. He says:
- 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 other people’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.
- 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.
Talk about courage and you automatically think about the other great icon who retired this month: Infosys head Narayana Murthy, co-founder. His partners talk about him and say, “The best part about him were his qualities of courage and his decisiveness; quick decisions and the guts to follow through with them.” He also had humble beginnings. In 1981, 6 other software code writers got together and Murthy put in Rs. 10,000 as seed money, which was the amount his wife Sudha got by mortgaging all her jewelry. Mr. Narayana Murthy, from that point on, rolled and built Infosys and today there are 130,000 Infosyians all over the world.
Humble beginnings and yet, a dream, courage, decisiveness, the guts to follow through with it! And both have built something wonderful, something tangible; companies that have helped people all across the world. But both refused to accept the situations and circumstances that they found themselves in. Both were willing to break out and say, “Circumstances don’t determine who I am or who I will become. I have a dream in my pocket and a passion in my heart.” Then resources and money and influences and people and contacts don’t matter; the dream can be fuelled.
Steve Jobs of Apple, Narayana Murthy of Infosys: 2 icons who have left their mark in this world. This made me think about you and me. As we go through this world, are we leaving footsteps that cannot be erased? Are we leaving behind something of significance?
In the Bible, God says, “I made you in my image.” And if God says that He has made us in His image, then it is an image of significance. We are significant people and that, I think, is the key. You and I may not be called to run or make Fortune 500 companies. We may not be called to be the most popular, the most famous, the most rich; but we are called to be significant because we are made in the image of God. Significance is what you and I need to push for and significance comes when we can reach into our hearts and find that dream. We need to follow that dream, not looking at situations and circumstances and adversities that we may be caught in, but be able to reach and follow hard that dream with courage, decisiveness and guts; not willing to give in but stay humble.
Martin Luther King Jr. is attributed with this saying:
Humble beginnings and yet, a dream, courage, decisiveness, the guts to follow through with it! And both have built something wonderful, something tangible; companies that have helped people all across the world. But both refused to accept the situations and circumstances that they found themselves in. Both were willing to break out and say, “Circumstances don’t determine who I am or who I will become. I have a dream in my pocket and a passion in my heart.” Then resources and money and influences and people and contacts don’t matter; the dream can be fuelled.
Steve Jobs of Apple, Narayana Murthy of Infosys: 2 icons who have left their mark in this world. This made me think about you and me. As we go through this world, are we leaving footsteps that cannot be erased? Are we leaving behind something of significance?
In the Bible, God says, “I made you in my image.” And if God says that He has made us in His image, then it is an image of significance. We are significant people and that, I think, is the key. You and I may not be called to run or make Fortune 500 companies. We may not be called to be the most popular, the most famous, the most rich; but we are called to be significant because we are made in the image of God. Significance is what you and I need to push for and significance comes when we can reach into our hearts and find that dream. We need to follow that dream, not looking at situations and circumstances and adversities that we may be caught in, but be able to reach and follow hard that dream with courage, decisiveness and guts; not willing to give in but stay humble.
Martin Luther King Jr. is attributed with this saying:
“If I can help somebody as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,
If I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong,
Then my living will not be in vain.”
Our life should not be in vain. We need to be able to leave a legacy of significance behind us. What kind of significance? Only you and I can know. But we need to search deep in our hearts to find it. My prayer is that you will find it.
God Bless You All.
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