The students were not exactly overjoyed that Steve Jobs was going to be the speaker. Everyone wanted Bill Clinton. After all, his daughter Chelsea had gone to school at Stanford. So every year that Clinton was not named speaker was a disappointment no matter who it was.  Graduation is not in order. It wasn't until we started walking into the stadium that I even realized that I'm actually graduating right now. Stanford has this tradition, the wacky walk, where everyone dresses up in different clothes or throws Frisbees or beach balls. I'm from the South so I had a seersucker suit shipped in from back home in Georgia. Some other guys dressed up as iPods. It was good fun. That was an interesting contrast to Job's speech. He started talking about being fired from Apple and then having cancer, how doctors told him he was going to die and how he was adopted as a baby into a family with parents who never went to college --- an unusual experience that played out over his life. His speech was very raw and very open.  He told us that he gets up every morning and looks in the mirror and asks "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" "If the answer is not for too many days in a row", he said, "it's time to make a change. That has really driven a lot of my decisions since then. When I've reached certain points in my job where I'm not very excited to get to work early or stay late or work on something over the weekend or all night. When I lose that excitement then it's probably not the right thing for me anymore". He said, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." Exactly.  Death is a great motivator. You have to get out there and do something because some day you won't be there. Of all the advice I've received I rely on that the most. What is the most important for Jobs in doing things?
Decisions. Excitement. Death. Devotion.