Steve Jobs: Love What You Do

It was early one morning when the company had a gathering in the conference room. We were shown a video, of Steve Jobs making a speech at Stanford College. Apparently this was meant to be an educational experience for the staff.

During the video, Jobs said this.

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do."

No, I have no problem with what Jobs said, whatsoever. In fact, I concur.

What was interesting was when our Office Manager used that quote to illustrate her own behavior. She told us she loves what she does - and that's why she comes in early and leaves late. It's true - she does that, and I offer no argument to the contrary.

What did pose a problem, however, was that the entire exercise was meant to inspire staff to work harder and put in that extra mile. I'm afraid it could very well have been taken the wrong way.

Love what you do.
LOVE IT!

The staff seemed to be being fed the concept that loving what you do means spending more time in the office.

Dead wrong. On so many levels. But I'll address the most pertinent one - that you don't have to be in the office, or even part of your current company, in order to love what you do.

Yes, spending more time in the office can be a result of loving what you do. But loving what you do should never be confused with loyalty to the company. At some point in your career, your company and you are going to part ways. Bank on it. But you will remain who you are, what you are.

I am a web developer. I write scripts, code and test. I design layouts and systems. I set up databases.

I love what I do.

I love it so much that I leave the office on time whenever possible, so that I can continue honing my craft once I reach home.

I love it so much that the insane amount of competition flooding this little island has not deterred me one bit.

I love it so much that even though I could feasibly be making more money doing something else, this is what I want to do.

So much that most of my waking hours I spend doing just that, on my weekends and vacations. And I will continue to love it even if, one day, I no longer work for this fine company. Because I would be doing what I love somewhere else.

That is what it means to love what you do.

Much love,
T___T