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today I want to tell you three stories
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from my life that's it no big deal just
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three stories
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[Music]
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the first story
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is about connecting the dots
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I dropped out of Reed College after the
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first six months but then stayed around
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as a drop-in for another 18 months or so
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before I really quit
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so why'd I drop out
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it started before I was born
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my biological mother was a young unwed
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graduate student and she decided to put
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me up for adoption
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she felt very strongly that I should be
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adopted by college graduates so
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everything was all set for me to be
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adopted at Birth by a lawyer and his
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wife
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except that when I popped out they
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decided at the last minute that they
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really wanted a girl
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so my parents who were on a waiting list
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got a call in the middle of the night
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asking
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we've got an unexpected baby boy do you
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want him they said of course
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my biological mother found out later
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that my mother had never graduated from
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college and that my father had never
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graduated from high school
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she refused to sign the final adoption
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papers
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that a few months later when my parents
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promised that I would go to college
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this was the start
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in my life
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and 17 years later I did go to college
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but I naively chose a college that was
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almost as expensive as Stanford
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and all of my working-class parent
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savings were being spent on my college
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tuition
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after six months I couldn't see the
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value in it I had no idea what I wanted
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to do with my life and no idea how
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College was going to help me figure it
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out and here I was spending all the
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money my parents had saved their entire
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life
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so I decided to drop out and trust that
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it would all work out okay
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it was pretty scary at the time but
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looking back it was one of the best
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decisions I ever made
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the minute I dropped out
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I could stop taking the required classes
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that didn't interest me and begin
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dropping in on the ones that looked far
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more interesting
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it wasn't all romantic I didn't have a
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dorm room so I slept on the floor in
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friends rooms
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I returned Coke bottles for the five
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cent deposits to buy food with and I
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would walk the seven miles across town
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every Sunday night
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to get one good meal a week at the Hari
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Krishna Temple
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I loved it
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and much of what I stumbled into by
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following my curiosity and intuition
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turned out to be Priceless later on
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let me give you one example
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read college at that time offered
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perhaps the best calligraphy instruction
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in the country
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throughout the campus every poster every
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label on every drawer was beautifully
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hand calligraphed
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because I had dropped out and didn't
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have to take the normal classes
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I decided to take a calligraphy class to
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learn how to do this
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I learned about serif and Sans serif
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typefaces about varying the amount of
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space between different letter
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combinations about what makes great
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typography great
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it was beautiful historical artistically
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subtle in a way that science can't
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capture
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and I found it fascinating
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none of this had even a hope of any
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practical application in my life
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ten years later when we were designing
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the first Macintosh computer it all came
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back to me and we designed it all into
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the Mac it was the first computer with
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beautiful typography if I had never
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dropped in on that single course in
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college the Mac would have never had
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multiple typefaces or proportionally
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spaced fonts and since Windows just
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copied the Mac it's likely that no
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personal computer would have them
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if I had never dropped out I would have
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never dropped in on that calligraphy
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class and personal computers might not
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have the wonderful typography that they
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do
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of course it was impossible to connect
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the dots looking forward when I was in
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college but it was very very clear
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looking backwards 10 years later
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again you can't connect the dots looking
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forward you can only connect them
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looking backwards so you have to trust
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that the dots will somehow connect in
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your future you have to trust in
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something your gut Destiny Life Karma
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whatever
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because believing that the dots will
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connect down the road will give you the
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confidence to follow your heart even
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when it leads you off the well-worn path
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and that will make all the difference
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[Music]
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my second story
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is about love and loss
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I was lucky I found what I love to do
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early in life was and I started Apple in
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my parents garage when I was 20. we
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worked hard and in 10 years Apple had
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grown from Just the Two of Us in a
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garage into a two billion dollar company
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with over four thousand employees we
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just released our finest creation the
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Macintosh a year earlier and I just
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turned 30.
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and then I got fired
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how can you get fired from a company you
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started
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well as Apple grew we hired someone who
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I thought was very talented to run the
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company with me and for the first year
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or so things went well but then our
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visions of the future began to diverge
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and eventually we had a falling out when
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we did our board of directors sided with
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him and so at 30 I was out and very
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publicly out
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what had been the focus of my entire
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adult life was gone and it was
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devastating
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I really didn't know what to do for a
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few months I felt that I'd let the
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previous generation of entrepreneurs
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down that I had dropped the Baton as it
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was being passed to me
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I met with David Packard and Bob Noyes
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and tried to apologize for screwing up
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so badly
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I was a very public failure and I even
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thought about running away from the
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valley
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but something slowly began to dawn on me
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I still loved what I did
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the turn of events at Apple had not
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changed that one bit
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I'd been rejected but I was still in
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love
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and so I decided to start over
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I didn't see it then
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it turned out that getting fired from
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Apple was the best thing that could have
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ever happened to me
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the heaviness of being successful was
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replaced by the lightness of being a
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beginner again less sure about
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everything
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freed me to enter one of the most
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creative periods of my life
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during the next five years I started a
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company named next another company named
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Pixar and fell in love with an amazing
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woman who would become my wife
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Pixar went on to create the world's
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first computer animated feature film Toy
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Story and is now the most successful
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Animation Studio in the world
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in a remarkable turn of events Apple
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bought next and I returned to Apple and
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the technology we developed it next is
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at the heart of Apple's current
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Renaissance and Lorraine and I have a
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wonderful family together
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I'm pretty sure none of this would have
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happened if I hadn't been fired from
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Apple
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it was awful tasting medicine but I
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guess the patient needed it
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sometime life sometimes life's going to
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hit you in the head with a brick
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don't lose faith
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I'm convinced that the only thing that
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kept me going was that I loved what I
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did you've got to find what you love and
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that is as true for work as it is for
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your lovers
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your work is going to fill a large part
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of your life and the only way to be
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truly satisfied is to do what you
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believe is great work and the only way
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to do great work is to love what you do
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if you haven't found it yet keep looking
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and don't settle
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as with all matters of the heart you'll
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know when you find it and like any great
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relationship it just gets better and
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better as the years roll on so keep
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looking don't settle
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my third story
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is about death
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when I was 17 I read a quote that went
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something like if you live each day as
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if it was your last someday you'll most
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certainly be right
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it made an impression on me and since
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then for the past 33 years I've looked
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in the mirror every morning and asked
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myself if today were the last day of my
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life what I want to do what I am about
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to do today
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and whenever the answer has been no for
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too many days in a row I know I need to
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change something
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remembering that I'll be dead soon is
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the most important tool I've ever
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encountered to help me make the big
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choices in life
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because almost everything all external
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expectations all Pride all fear of
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embarrassment or failure these things
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just fall away in the face of death
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leaving only what is truly important
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remembering that you are going to die is
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the best way I know to avoid the Trap of
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thinking you have something to lose you
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are already naked there is no reason not
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to follow your heart
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no one wants to die
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even people who want to go to heaven
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don't want to die to get there
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and yet
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death is the destination we all share
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no one has ever escaped it and that is
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as it should be because death is very
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likely the single best invention of life
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it's life's change agent it clears out
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the old to make way for the new
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right now the new is you
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but someday not too long from now you
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will gradually become the old and be
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cleared away
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sorry to be so dramatic but it's quite
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true
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your time is limited so don't waste it
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living someone else's life
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don't be trapped by Dogma which is
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living with the results of other
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people's thinking
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don't let the noise of others opinions
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drowned out your own inner voice and
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most important have the courage to
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follow your heart and intuition they
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somehow already know what you truly want
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to become
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everything else is secondary
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stay hungry stay foolish
