Arise, Awake!

Project #3: Get to the Point
Manual: Competent Communicator (CC)
Dec 15, 2006

Good evening President, Fellow Toastmasters and Guests. For quite some time I was looking for a theme for my 3rd speech and when I browsed through the TM’s manual last Sunday, I decided on inspiration theme. I am sure that almost all of us have some goals in life. So my question for you today is “How many of you are working towards achieving those goals?”

Well, this speech is an attempt to fire up few cells in your body to work towards your goals. As soon as I decided this theme, two things came to my mind: First one is Steve Job’s commencement address at Stanford University. It is one of the excellent inspirational speeches I have ever heard. Second one is a forwarded email titled “10 Things you can do today to jump start success.”

To begin with, Jobs’ speech is about 3 stories of his life: Connecting the dots, Love & loss and death. I would like to share my personal story and some excerpts that like from his speech.

Ever since college days, I dreamt to do higher studies, but soon after I completed my undergrad I joined Wipro Technologies as a Software Engineer. A year passed by and the academic spirit was still lingering in my thoughts and by mid 99, I decided to do Masters in Science. My GRE and TOEFL scores were decent enough to get into an US university. But the Creator had a different equation for me. The day I took GRE exam, my Dad had a heart attack and Doctor told that his coronary artery has 90% blockage. A week later he underwent an open-heart surgery and being the only son and I was indecisive as whether to do higher studies. But my Mom came to me and said, “Dad asked you not to get distracted with the recent happenings and do what you like to do.” She also reminded me about my friend who had plans to pursue his career abroad. That rang a bell and I took a job in US and trust that it would work OK.

Jobs mentioned that one can only connect the dots of one’s life when looking backward, not looking forward, and 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.” In retrospect, given the recession and dot COM burst during 2001, my trust worked out pretty well for me. Thankfully my Dad is in good health and I am doing MBA at SCU.

In his second story, Job shared his failure at Apple, where he was fired from the company he has created. Two snips I liked from his 2nd story are: “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.” Next, “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.”

When I heard this, I recalled Winston Churchill’s golden words: "Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts."

Jobs’ 3rd story was even more inspiring and the message was: “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 others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

I would like to mention a fantastic quote by Walt Disney here: "All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them."

Next, I am going to share few things that you can do today to achieve your goals:

First, Read or listen to something that motivates you every day. Don’t let a single day go by without providing yourself external motivation.

Second, Make goals and re-write them every day. The hardest part of making big goals is starting. Break down the task into milestones that you can reach in few years.

Third, only sleep as much as you need to. Sleep is obviously important, but don’t use the most important hour of the daydreaming. If you go to bed at 12 and wake up at 8, begin to wake up at 6:30 and go to bed at 11. Chances are there is an extra time each day that you could use to do things that make you more happy and successful.

Next, Focus on what you can do. Stop assigning blame and don’t look for excuses. Do not try to change others, make a decision and then take action.

To conclude, if you can do only one of the above-mentioned things, then my recommendation would be “Read or listen to something that motivates you every day”. Also, I would like to remind you of Robert Frost’s poem: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep” and a quote from Swami Vivekananda “Arise, Awake and stop not till your goal is reached!”

--
Copy of this presentation can be found here.