{"id":4387,"date":"2011-07-05T01:20:31","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T08:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robertfagan.com\/?p=4387"},"modified":"2025-03-18T23:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T06:41:11","slug":"illbedeadsoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/coaching\/4387\/illbedeadsoon","title":{"rendered":"I’ll Be Dead Soon…"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ll be dead soon\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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No these are not my words, but the essence of a graduation speech that Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs delivered to a 2005 Stanford University commencement \u2013 less than a year after he first learned he had cancer.<\/p>\n

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Steve Jobs said,<\/p>\n

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“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool that I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.\u00a0 Because almost everything-all external expectations all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure-these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.\u00a0 Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.\u00a0 You are already naked.\u00a0 There is no reason not to follow your heart.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Steve Jobs’ remarks remain some of the most cogent, wise ones I have experienced in recent memory.\u00a0 One thing that you and I have in common with Steve Jobs is that we are all going to die.\u00a0 While Jobs is still living a productive life a half-dozen years later, we all share the same fate and therefore it would seem reasonable to ask ourselves the same question.\u00a0 Have you?<\/p>\n

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I know I have made many choices for what I can now view as for the wrong reasons.\u00a0 The nice thing is that I realize that we can grow more accepting of ourselves and others and move on in a better way.<\/p>\n

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Jobs continued,<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor the past 33 years I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: \u00a0\u201cIf today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?\u201d\u00a0 And whenever the answer has been \u201cNo\u201d too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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So how do we change things?\u00a0 That is an issue that both I as a Coach and an individual have to confront time and again.\u00a0 Sometimes it is as easy as just stepping aside and viewing things from a different perspective.\u00a0 Other times, it takes for our discomfort to grow to such unpleasant and extreme proportions that we simply must<\/em> change.<\/p>\n

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Recently I came a brief article by Erick Calonius who drew upon a fascinating study by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire.\u00a0 I will paraphrase Calonius who wrote that Wiseman surveyed a number of people and, through a series of questionnaires and interviews, determined which of them considered themselves lucky\u2014or unlucky.\u00a0 He then performed an intriguing experiment:\u00a0 He gave both the \u201clucky\u201d and the \u201cunlucky\u201d people a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside.\u00a0 He found that on average the unlucky people took two minutes to count all the photographs, whereas the lucky ones determined the number in a few seconds.<\/p>\n

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How could the \u201clucky\u201d people do this?\u00a0 Because they found a message on the second page that read, \u201cStop counting.\u00a0 There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.\u201d\u00a0 So why didn\u2019t the unlucky people see it?\u00a0 Because they were so intent on counting all the photographs that they missed the message.\u00a0 Wiseman noted,<\/p>\n

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\u201cUnlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else.\u00a0 They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends.\u00a0 They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs.\u00a0 Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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I think Steve Jobs would agree wholeheartedly with this.\u00a0 In fact, in his Stanford address he described how he dropped out of Reed College after a mere six months.\u00a0 After that, he said he hung around the campus, slept on the floor in a friend\u2019s room, walked seven miles across town on Sunday nights for a good meal at the Hare Krishna Temple, and took a few classes, whatever he wanted.\u00a0 It sounds like a waste\u2014like Jobs should have been \u201ccounting the photographs\u201d in life rather than meandering about.\u00a0 But as you can imagine, it isn\u2019t true.\u00a0 Says Jobs:<\/p>\n

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\u201cReed College at the time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.\u00a0 Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.\u00a0 Because I had dropped out and didn\u2019t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class and learn how to do this.\u00a0 I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, and about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s the kicker:<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf I had never dropped in on that single course in college,” Jobs explained, \u201cthe Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionately spaced ones.\u00a0 And since Windows just copied the Mac, it\u2019s likely that no personal computer would have them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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He added,<\/p>\n

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\u201cOf course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.\u00a0 But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.\u00a0 Again, you can\u2019t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.\u00a0 You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.\u00a0 You have to trust in something\u2014your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.\u00a0 This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes a lost job, broken relationship, or a disappointment or supposed \u201cfailure\u201d can really turn out to be a huge blessing.\u00a0 We must not be too anxious to judge.\u00a0 Often the dust may have to take years to settle until we can see or reap the blessings from our detours.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps what Jobs meant by \u201cchanging something\u201d was not a decision to do this or that, but an emotional choice to keep our minds open.\u00a0 To stop counting the \u201cphotographs.\u201d\u00a0 To look around.\u00a0\u00a0 To open our eyes, our ears, and our heart, to bring real life\u2013raw, untamed and full of promise\u2014into our world.\u00a0 And thank you Steve Jobs and Erik Calonius for your insight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, I ask you, are you keeping your mind and heart open?\u00a0 If not, could you?\u00a0 Would you?\u00a0 If you would, when?\u00a0 How about now?<\/p>\n

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\u201cUnlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.\u201d\u00a0 – Richard Wiseman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cI\u2019ll be dead soon\u2026\u201d   No these are not my words, but the essence of a graduation speech that… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":4388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2107,2109,2248],"tags":[2381,65158],"class_list":["post-4387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","category-life-coaching","category-business-coaching","tag-apple","tag-stevejobs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2011\/07\/Jobs.jpg.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4387"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18837,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions\/18837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}