Do What You Love

Despite the fact that my life is in a whirl-wind this week (having my Mom get through successful brain surgery - thank you, Lord - and twin sons delivered safely to PITT to start a second successful year, in the same week), I took a few moments on-line to learn about Steve Jobs.   Candidly, I'm not a long-time fan of Mr. Jobs and only have a superficial knowledge of his career.   He is a liver transplant survivor, which interests me because my son had a successful heart transplant last Thanksgiving.   I may take the time to read his biography, which is scheduled for release in November (nothing like timing the marketing of a book for the Christmas season).

The news of Steve Jobs' retirement as CEO of Apple shared headlines this week with an earthquake in Washington, DC.   His retirement created a rumble in the digital business world.  This headline piqued my interest, and my digital exploration uncovered a few "gems".   For example, here's a quote from Jobs:

“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. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
[Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

My hope and prayer for you is that you are doing exactly this, that you are truly professionally satisfied by doing what you believe is great work.   We spend the majority of our days working, and life is too short to not be doing what you love.   I have been blessed to discover what I want to do when "when I grow up":   I love to help make the dreams of small business owners come true.   It may sound a little goofy, but that "in a nutshell" gives me tremendous professional satisfaction.

With young adults heading back to school, having hopes of attending a graduation ceremony in the future, I thought that it might be fun to share this commencement address from a Silicon Valley icon. May you be successful as you pursue your dreams in life.

Thanks for sharing 102 seconds of your day (plus 15 minutes),
Smitty