Talk about the future! Jesus & Steve Jobs
(Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford University and Jesus’ way in the Scriptures)
“I am going to prepare a place for you. Doubtless, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” Jesus
“The Kingdom of God is like a farmer, like a seed, like a man plowing, and like a man who left and entrusted his servants with his money. You should abandon everything and seek the Kingdom first and above everything. To get into the Kingdom you must be like a child. The first shall be last. The ruler is a servant. Faithful over a few little things and be a ruler over many things.” Jesus
“The Kingdom of heaven is coming so change everything and come back to God!”
The statements that Jesus gave us were in the context of his death and leaving us. He talked about the future so much as to inspire us to create with him both the Kingdom of God on earth, and in the time to come. Anyone who is a devoted follower is motivated by the fact that life here is not the end game. Life right now, where we are is not our final home. This place, these circumstances are the not the end, but the end of the beginning for you and I.
I prefer the future, but not so I can escape the now. Rather, the future lets me live more freely in the present. I live foolishly and hungry. I trust in my passion. I risk failure freely, and as each day could be my last I embrace today fully. Jesus said, “To live is to die.”
1. Connect the dots of life.
“… 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.” Steve Jobs (http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html)
God understood that to move forward people He would need a leader to connect back to. Steve Jobs alludes to this fact: You can’t connect the dots looking forward. Our future is always tied to our past and God’s divine providence. When talking about the future of your company or life the past should give you confidence of God’s guiding hand as you have wandered with Him. Leaders look back to connect the present to the direction they wish to go. Trusting and knowing what others can’t the leader guides others forward into a new future! You have to trust in this “something” as Jobs calls it “karma”. It is God’s sovereign leadership of your life!
Think of leaders who have acknowledged this truth in our country. Washington in his first address as president acknowledged trusting in God’s guidance. Lincoln at Gettysburg acknowledged trusting in God’s guidance in his life, the countries life, and the soldier’s life and moved the country forward. Reagan looked back and connected our country to its past to move us forward. Leaders help others connect their dots.
2. Failure is freeing not fatal.
“My second story is about love and loss. … I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. Steve Jobs (Ibid. 1.)
Jesus’ life is considered by some to be a terrible waste. He died at a young age. He never really had a great following. He touched very few men’s lives and mostly women and children followed him. He touched just 10-11 men’s lives. He was a failure by today’s standards as a leader. However, the scriptures teach us something entirely different. His followers took up his mission and his message and story became God’s love story. Failure is often more freeing than fatal.
Steve Jobs acknowledges this truth when he talked about how the future is affected by failing. The future is often inhibited by success but it is enhanced the opportunity failure often provides. We should not be afraid to fail, or fear failing. Success can be a heavy weight that prevents and inhibits us from being what we are made to be and from doing what we are made to do.
As leaders embrace the opportunities that failure may free you to have. As you talk about the future and help others connect the dots to from the past to the present and into the future acknowledge that failure is a real possibility. Never forget that what you were made to do is to risk failing.
Edison failed. Bill Gates failed. Michael Jordan failed. Jesus failed. You and I will fail. Is failure a prison cell or a ticket to freedom? Leader’s help their followers embrace risk and failure so that they move forward into a preferred future. Success is always temporary, always fleeting, and always connected to a past failure. Help your people be free to fail.
3. Live as though today were your last.
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. …No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.” Steve Jobs (Ibid.1.)
Jesus spent most of his last year talking about leaving. He spent a lot of his time preparing people for his departure. He spent his time with his followers preparing them for the time when he would no longer be with them. When we look back at Jesus’ life it is as though he had this in mind from the very beginning. Invest in leaders, leave them a legacy, and leave them to carry on. It is as though he knew every day that it was close to his last day. Leaders seem to have a sense of the end of their lives and are always preparing others for it.
Steve Jobs has cancer. He is stepping down, but he has been preparing his company for his departure. He has risen up several knew leaders and innovators in his place. In living his life he didn’t waste it living someone else’s life. Leaders prepare others for their departure. What is your succession plan? Jesus had one and you and I should have one. Your time is limited. Who are you investing in right now that could replace you?
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish” Steve Jobs (Ibid. 1.)
