“You’ve Got to Find what you Love”

Rhetorical Analysis of Steve Jobs’ “You’ve Got To Find What You Love”. There is one man that has touched and affected the entire world, Steve Jobs. Eight years ago, the world witnessed the death of this successful businessman and a great technological leader in the United States. Steve Jobs was the CEO of NeXT, Chairman of Pixar Animation, and the pioneer of Apple Inc. All of his discoveries and inventions including, the iPhone, Macintosh Computer, and the iPod has changed the world forever.

Since Jobs’ reputation and impressive speaking skills, he was invited to present a speech at the commencement ceremony at Stanford University in 2005. He gave a fourteen minute speech that has now been seen by over ten million people on YouTube and is known to be one of Steve Jobs’ best and most memorable speeches. Throughout this entire speech, Jobs’ makes connections to his audience by providing them with personal experiences, reflections of those times, and comic relief. He appeals to ethos and pathos to relate to the graduate students and his listeners and convince them to pursue their dreams and fine their passions.

With being a successful businessman and technological leader, Steve Jobs had to overcome challenges to reach the top. Success comes with failure and ups and downs to fully understand how pursue your dreams. Steve Jobs was a prime example of this by sharing some of his most personal experiences. He mentions that he, “...started Apple in [his] parents’ garage” when he just turned twenty (Jobs). This allows his audience to relate and see how successful Jobs’ really is. He utilizes metaphors and imagery to receive pity from the listeners and audience as he mentions being fired from Apple, the company that he created. Jobs’ states, “I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me” (Jobs).

He was upset with himself and how he overcame this difficulty. He notes how much he loved what he did and preserved by not quitting. He later in life started, NeXT and Pixar and tells his audience, “the only way to do great work is to love what you do” (Jobs). Jobs establishes a sense of humor and humbleness after stating that he speaking at the ceremony is the “...closest [he has] ever gotten to a college graduation” (Jobs). It allows the audience to feel more comfortable with Jobs and relate to his life. Steve Jobs uses his personal life experiences to evoke pity from the audience and a humorous sense of tone to make them feel more comfortable.

Credibility and respect is hard to gain when you are speaking to millions of people. However, Jobs’ is able to capture his listeners attention when speaking about how to pursue their dreams since it is a topic he knows well. Preparing for the speech, Jobs’ understands that he is giving a speech at one of the most pristine universities in the United States and his audience is filled with brilliant individuals who are at the point in life where they are searching for what they want to do.

He repeatedly states that he is, “...honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world” (Jobs). As successful and known Steve Jobs is, he has “never graduated from college” which shocks the audience, however he still grabs their attention (Jobs). This point showcases that even without a college degree, the students still have the ability to follow their dreams, be successful, and love what they do.

Steve Jobs had to work hard for everything that he earned. He states that “it wasn’t all romantic” growing up and figuring out his place in the world (Jobs). He shares that he had to sleep on friends floors and return coke bottles for money to get by. Jobs’ connects with the graduates by overcoming his hardships because those hardships are the checkpoints to connect the dots looking towards the future. This idea is brought out by Jobs in saying that the graduates have to “trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, and karma, whatever” and how it has “made all the difference in [his] life” (Jobs). These ideas establishes ethos for Jobs’ as well as being the CEO of NeXT, Chairman of Pixar Animation, and the pioneer of Apple Inc.

Jobs has a powerful conclusion to his speech by repeating the phrase, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish” (Jobs) which sufficiently summarizes the ideas behind his speech and addresses his overall argument to the graduates. Jobs encourages the graduates to keep on learning and trying new things.

Steve Jobs uses many different personal life experiences to relate, be honest, and make the audience comfortable during his speech. These tactics allow Jobs to be more trustworthy and convincing to the graduates and all the listeners online. He presents his beliefs in an insightful way, that Jobs allows his audience to relate and better understand him. Due to Jobs’ impeccable speaking abilities, he is able to successfully encourage the graduate students that the most important aspect of life is to uncover what they love and pursue their dreams.

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