Connecting the Dots
For many small business owners, starting a new business was the biggest risk they’re ever likely to take. Today Joanna Maxwell ponders those leaps of faith and encourages others to take the plunge, because they all make sense in retrospect.
I recently rediscovered the YouTube video of Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement address. He talks about his own university experiences, and in particular, his decision to drop out.
This was a big thing for him (he describes it as ‘pretty scary’), because his biological parents had stipulated that whoever adopted him had to agree to send him to university.
Jobs talks about the need to trust himself, to ‘trust that it would all work out OK’. He hung around campus for 18 months after dropping out, taking classes that interested him.
Here’s how he tells it:
“I decided to take a calligraphy class…I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
“None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.
“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
It’s worth reading Jobs’ speech in full.
And it’s worth thinking about trusting yourself, going with your hunches sometimes, even if you can only connect the (logical) dots with hindsight. When I think about my career(s), I particularly remember my fierce sense that corporate law was not for me – and how long it took me to trust my instinct and actually do something about becoming a writer and an idea sharer instead.
What would you change if you really trusted yourself?
Joanna Maxwell, Owner, WorkInColour
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Beautiful post, Joanna! With guests like you, who needs regulars?
Abandoning my HR career after a degree and ten years scared the bejesus out of me. But staying would have been fatal. Writing is a far more fickle field, but at least I get to smell the daisies, rather than push them up!
So I heartily agree with you and Steve. Many thanks indeed. P.
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Absolutely spot on about those daisies, Paul. I think the trick is to trust your gut, to listen to yourself. When I started out, I thought that feeling fear was a sign that you had got it wrong, that you weren’t on the ‘path’, no matter what your gut said – I think that’s why it took me so long to listen. But now I know that fear is part of it – I still feel fear (sometimes even terror), but I am confident it’s fear in a good cause!
Joanna
Great post, this is my favorite Steve Jobs quote:
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’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And 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 – Steve Jobs
How good is that. I try to advance my life in some small way every day. Growth is good and meets a fundamental human need to achieve. Not everything is earth shattering. Enjoy the journey.
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Thank you muchly for that, Malcolm. I hadn’t come across that exact quote before – I especially love the line, ‘Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice’.
How good is that, indeed!
Hi Joanna (and Malcolm and Folks
,
Sorry I haven’t dived in here earlier; been a bit distracted wading through the voices, ensuring that I don’t loose my own (thanks again Malcolm
.
And a very timely post it is for me too Joanna (or was, as is likely the case from your end
. Wow! It was last week?…that’s ages in ‘Blogsvillelanddaleham’, isn’t it?
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before amongst my interminable comments, but this brings to mind a fine and almost ‘epiphanous’ (I think I just made up a word), memory:
Some years ago, a good friend of mine (I call him Captain Catastrophe), and I had an adventure helping some folks in East Timor (we went over to stop the Aid Orgs giving Insecticide impregnated, non-indigenous corn to starving locals).
Along the way, we stopped off in the Northern Territory where my friend spent some time with an Aboriginal Community/Clan/Country. We helped them get their money back from some businessmen that were stealing their allowances.
Anyway, long story almost a bit shorter, my friend was initiated into the clan and given an honorary tribal name – “Nimbali”. Literally it means ’starts things’.
To me this was such a revelation and a balm, as all my life I had been considered a ‘fly-by-nighter’ and worst of all ‘a failure’…mostly by my family. Unfortunately for a long time I didn’t even know I had an ‘inner voice’ so I was subject to the views of others.
I was gobsmacked, elated and simultaneously saddened to learn that this ancient and so called ‘primitive’ culture placed a social value (and a very high one I might add), on failures like me…people that ’start things’. I was sad that my culture did not value such people.
The timeliness and relevance of your fine post couldn’t be better Joanna, as I face my now perhaps too well documented challenges in my embryonic business.
Though it is difficult at times to show my full appreciation of the fine advice and support I get from the fine folks around me (Twitterers, Bloggers, Business Owners etc), when they are kind enough to offer it. By nature, I do consider the advice of others; the difficulty is two-fold; sometimes it’s difficult to hear my inner voice, and even more difficult when it is saying something slightly different.
Nevertheless, listen I do and trust, though a bit wobbly at the moment, I do.
Thanks again
Cheers
Stephen G
Stephen, what a wonderful post and a generous one. It is so good to hear real stories of people’s lives. And isn’t the balancing act between inner and outer voices a challenge sometimes? It’s a wonder we aren’t all locked away, with all the voices clamouring away inside us! Learning which ones are trustworthy is an art, but it’s an art that I suspect you have some experience with.
So, thank you for sharing some of that experience with us here.
Ooh! That’s a scary thought Joanna?
…here we are publishing the fact that we have inner ‘voices’, on a planet that is determined that anything more than one consistent personality requires medication and/or being locked up… 
My sister’s children when in a public school (some 15 years ago now), were diagnosed with ADHD and all the other ‘HDs’ and were about to be removed from their school for what would’ve no doubt amounted to scientific experiments and a life of medicated trauma…
My sister rang me in tears. I said to her, that if she is ever going to listen to anything I ever said, listen to this:
“Get all four kids out of that fear-factory (where the teacher’s inadequacies become the children’s problems), and get them into a Steiner School…no matter how long it takes”
Well she did listen and all four of my nieces and nephews never looked back…they’ve all blossomed with their own unique learning styles, into fine, creative, prescription drug-free contributors to society. Funny about that ey?
Here’s to unsuppressed voices…inside and out
Thanks again Joanna…and you are most welcome
Cheers
Stephen G
What a wise uncle you are – that is one of my constant rants, about the lack of tolerance of human diversity. As you say, here’s to unsuppressed voices!
Thanks Joanna…how wise remains to be seen…as my new business traverses the rigors of the birthing canal…:-P
Yeh! I’m sure we could go on for some time on that note…
Just a few years ago (about 2005 I think), I went to Uni here in Canberra…just did a short-course. I was of course surrounded my youth..but what really staggered me was that out of a class of 27 people, 25 of them were under the age of 25…and ALL of them…and this is no exaggeration, ALL OF THEM were on medication for depression.
I got an expensive looking brochure in the mail the other day. It was from Beyond Blue. They had a ‘Depression Checklist’. Against these ridiculous criteria, I don’t know of any human (including myself), that would NOT qualify as depressed in their view…it wasn’t just scary it was offensive. I know what it’s like to be ‘depressed’ and I know how to get through it…and it’s not by making it ‘the norm’!
There is ‘helping the community’, and then there is recruiting…and when advertising of this kind is done in this manner with such a sensitive and serious illness, well it makes one wonder…do we get ill or do we manufacture illness?
Surely these people are aware of the power of suggestion and the influence that positive reinforcement can have…and therefore the effects of positively reinforcing a negative?
Hmmm!
Cheers
Stephen G
How sad, all those young people either depressed or convinced they are – either way, it’s appalling.
Hi Joanna – great post. I saw steve jobs speech a while back back…wow amazing inspiring with a touch of humour in all the right places. I re watched it just recently.
For as long as I can remember I have followed my own instinct/intuition. It took me half my life to realise that people often didn’t. “that was an ah ha moment”
Learning to tell the difference between the voice that is strong “this is the voice that takes you in your highest direction” and the voice that is loud is a bit of an art, loud can be really really loud at times and try to nag you and drag you with it.
Loud and Strong: Beethoven and Rap
much appreciation Ensha
Thanks Ensha, great comment. And isn’t funny how it’s often the whisper deep down that carries the truest message…