Benefits Of Failure

Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?

Steve Jobs and JK Rowling are both very successful people that have overcome tremendous difficulties. Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford focused on three stories. The first story’s topic being connecting the dots, this refers to the idea that no matter what happens one must trust that they can look in the past and connect all the dots to where they are currently. Everything that one does leads up to where they are currently and one must trust themselves, it is that concept that Steve refers to when he says connecting the dots. Steve then moves onto the topic of love and loss. Steve was a person who, fortunately, found what he loved doing at a very early age. Steve also unfortunately encountered various problems which led to several losses. Steve ends his speech on the idea that one should live everyday like it is their last alive. JK Rowling has the subjects that failure has benefits and imagination can be used to sympathize as well as manipulate. Comparing both commencement speeches Steve Jobs delivered his message the most effectively using rhetoric. Both speakers include their history with struggles that they overcame, this demonstrates ethos which established their credibility. Steve Jobs and JK Rowling are both known to be incredibly successful and do to this fact they are already credible, but both went further to explain how they got to where they are now. The main difference noticeable is that Steve Jobs states “The first story is about connecting the dots

Author J. K. Rowling, in her 2008 Harvard Commencement speech, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”, emphasizes that failing is okay and touches upon the importance of imagination. Rowling’s purpose is to convey her views on failure and why imagination is so vital on those in attendance, and any who may hear this speech. J. K. Rowling expresses her points by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as, but not limited to, humor and irony.

Hundreds of students, parents, and faculty members gathered and created an audience to witness J.K Rowling’s speech at Harvard University in 2008. J.K Rowling is a well-known author, famous for her Harry Potter book series, and much more. Rowling’s speech was well thought out, and delivered excellently, with three main points she addresses throughout the speech. The three points being: failure can lead a person to success, never give up hope on your dreams and aspirations, and lastly Rowling emphasizes the importance of imagination. Sometimes we fail to see that the obstacles in our life help shape the road to our success in the future, and Rowling points out to us that failures and obstacles is what helped us become successful , and to never ignore that.

Steve Jobs effectively uses pathos throughout the speech to appeal emotions of his audience, effectively connecting with audience. Jobs starts off his speech by using pathos saying “I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation” (Jobs). From these first two

Steve Jobs focuses his speech on how one can be successful by doing what makes an individual happy even if it contradicts the intended

Jobs uses the rhetorical device of pathos most commonly in his speech. Through his short explanations of life experiences, he connected to the audience on a deeper and more personal level. Pathos is described to appeal to the audience’s emotions, which is exactly what Jobs’ specialty is. Steve Jobs’ second topic in the speech that he discussed was failure/loss. Jobs explained that he created a company named Apple with another individual, and they were fairly successful, until they hired a new boss they thought was talented and capable of co-managing the company. As soon as that boss’ views differed from Jobs’ views, they “had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating” (Jobs 11). When Steve Jobs explains this experience to his audience, he connects with them. Every individual has had their fair share with failure, so they understand the feelings behind it. Therefore, they share something with the speaker. That creates a strong use of pathos in his commencement speech.

One element that contributes to Steve Jobs’ ethos is the fact that he is so successful in his career. Already knowing who Steve Jobs was, he led the audience to the appeal that we is successful because of his company in which he worked hard for. One of the first things he mentioned in his speech to make it so he is comes off as smart when he says he created Apple, a multi-billion dollar company, and Pixar, the “most successful animation studio in the world.” This adds on to his knowledgeable self, creating validity because the people listening view Jobs as being high in the successful level and makes the audience believe him. Jobs continues with his reliability by saying that he was a college dropout and still went on to be extremely successful.

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, addressed a speech at the Commencement at Stanford University. “You’ve got to find what you love,” he said to point out the main reason for his speech. Jobs was addressing to the students at Stanford, but he is really addressing to students at every colleges and universities. He point out three different stories to engage the listeners/readers. The three stories are the major points of his life. He was addressing them to show his listeners/readers that there is a way for anything even if you are struggling. It is effective, because as a reader; I find Jobs’ speech incredibly inspiring. Jobs uses three different stories that have a huge impact in his life. These three stories point out the strategies that he used to gain the listener/reader’s attention.

Jobs first starts off his speech with this quote “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.” By saying this he engages the audience with a sense of humor as well as to prove not everyone needs a college degree in order to be happy and successful. Not only does he use this quote to start of humorous but as well as to give him an open gateway for the rest of his speech

In Steve Jobs speech he uses the tactic of proving that he is trustworthy by past experience. When writing a speech it is important to make sure your audience can trust you and is comfortable trusting you. Steve Jobs uses his past experiences to show that if you can find what you love early in life, you have a better chance being successful. In How to Live Before You Die Steve said, “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me… So I decided to drop out… Looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made”. He uses his past to tell them that sometimes you just have to take a chance and hope it just works out. He needed to put this earlier in his speech to show the class that he is not just making things up and even a successful person like himself was scared for a period of his life. Later in his speech he talks about how he could take any class he wanted. He gives most of the credit for creating the Macintosh to a calligraphy class. “If I had never dropped in on that calligraphy class, the Mac would

In 2005 during his Commencement address, Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple and Pixar, uses ethos to inspire Stanford graduates to follow their dreams no matter the obstacles in life. Jobs focuses on three stories of his life. His first story is about him dropping out of college in which he said was the best that could have happened to him. From this, he was able to become successful in what actually interested him, which were computers and their typography. Jobs second story describes how he was actually kicked out of his own company, giving him a fresh new start to create something new. From this misfortune, Jobs was able to found the companies NeXT and Pixar and also where he met his wife, Lauren.Thirdly, Jobs speaks about his close experience

Jobs’ uses pathos starting from the first line of the speech. He starts by saying “I am honored to be with you today” and give the audience a sense of importance. He then says, “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.” This statement has two main uses in appealing to emotion. First, by using the phrase “this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation” he is relating to the audience by stating this is an important day to him as it is to them. Second, he is giving the audience a

Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, Pixar, and NeXT says, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do” during the June 12, 2005, Stanford University commencement address. Jobs gives a speech about his life and the hardships he experienced to further motivate the college graduates to reach their dreams by doing what they love and to succeed even as they get knocked down. Jobs tells the audience. “Your time is limited,” meaning that, when doing something they love, they must keep at it because time is of the essence, and life is too short to hate doing whatever they do or are going to do every day. Taking the audience through the events of his life, Jobs speaks with a humorous and hopeful tone. Steve Jobs successfully

In 2008, author J.K. Rowling wrote and gave a commencement speech to the graduating class of Harvard University. Rowling aptly named the speech “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”. In this speech Rowling tries to convey the message that failing can be beneficial or an individual and that people should not be afraid to use their imagination. Rowling begins the speech with a reflection on what went through her mind while writing the speech and how the process affected her. During this time Rowling asked herself what she wished she had known at her graduation and came up with the two main ideas of this speech; the merits of failure and significance of imagination. Rowling explains the benefits of failure by using her own personal failure of living in poverty with her daughter and what that failure taught her. For the significance of imagination, Rowling describes it not in terms of how it helped her out of poverty, but of how it opens up people to the world and other individuals around them.