What did Steve Jobs try to tell us with his connecting the dots speech?
You might have heard Steve Jobs’ connecting the dots speech in 2005. If you have, did you use the concept to come up with new ideas or innovative solutions? Connecting the dots is the concept behind Steve’s successful innovations. But, what does it really mean?
Below is part of his speech.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. 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
It sounds simple and straightforward. However, do you think you truly understand what it means? It’s ok if you don’t or are unsure. I am sharing my thoughts and my interpretation of Steve’s famous concept in this post.
Stock up the dots
In order to connect the dots, you must have dots in your brain in the first place. The starting point to successfully come up with new innovative ideas is to stock up the dots — the more dots the better.
What did I mean by stock up the dots?
Stocking up the dots (in your brain) means you have to invest in a “knowledge acquiring process”. Each piece of knowledge represents a dot in your brain. You can accumulate knowledge from multiple sources. I list a few sources below for you as a starting point.
1. Your previous experiences
Everyone is an expert on something. You have spent a lot of times to do what you do. You learn things along the way. It would also be great if you are also serious about self-development. It means you would have accumulated knowledge along the way of your life journey.
2. Reading books or listening to podcast/video
It’s hard to do this when you have a busy life. You have work and family commitments. I struggle to keep my reading habit myself. Every year, I set up a goal to read x number of books. While I could achieve my goal, the process was far from easy. My secret? I don’t have one. My technique is simple. I chop things into small pieces and I finish those pieces one at a time.
I read books by spending 5, 10, 15 minutes interval whenever I can. I don’t aim to finish a chapter, 2 chapters or anything like that. I believe in small accumulations. It works well for me so far. If you struggle to finish a book, you should try my approach — 5 minutes of reading at a time.
Furthermore, you don’t have to restrict yourself only to books. Many people like to listen to podcasts when they exercise. You can do that too. I am learning Chinese at the moment and I do it during my morning run.
3. Reading news/industry updates
Another thing that you should do is to update yourself with daily or weekly news or articles in your industry or in your area of interest. I create a habit of reading online newspapers and business articles every morning. I again don’t set up a goal to read 5 or 10 articles. I only scan the list and focus on a few pieces that interest me.
4. Your network
It’s always useful to have conversations with people in your network. It could be face-to-face or online conversations. You can learn true life experiences with different perspectives. Acquiring knowledge this way gives you dots and the links among those dots. People like to tell stories and those stories could make some senses of the existing dots in your brain.
As you can see, the process of accumulating the dots could take some time. It’s an ongoing process. You have to be curious all the time. Your brain is like a bank account that you have to keep on depositing money into it.
Connecting the dots
After you create a habit of creating the dots above, you would have dots everywhere in your brain. When you encounter a problem — business or personal — your brain will search for a solution. When you set a focus to solve a problem, the connections of the relevant dots in your brain starts to work. It’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Only one new piece of information could connect the dots and give you the solution you want.
A few months ago, I struggle to come up with a new promotion idea. One morning while I was driving to work, I listened to an unrelated TedTalk video. I heard one keyword from the speaker. All the sudden, that keyword connected all the dots for me. I came up with a very successful promotion when I arrived at work.
This is the key benefit of connecting the dots that Steve tried to tell us. You don’t know when great ideas will come. But, creating the habit to acquire new knowledge (aka creating the dots) on a daily basis gives you more chances to get there.
Final Thoughts
There is no short cut in dot connections. You have to start by accumulating dots in your brain. And it can only be done by acquiring new knowledge, which requires great discipline. You have to build it as a part of your daily habits. You can employ my approach in dividing things into small pieces and finish them one at a time. It could surprise you with amazing results.
