Rhetorical Analysis Of You 'Ve Got To Find What You Love'

Wherever you are, if you look around you will find at least one person with an IPhone. I am typing this now on a MacBook. Steve Jobs formed an empire that changed the lives of a multitude of people. In 2005 at the Sanford graduation ceremony Steve Job’s spoke a coming of age speech about doing what you love. Now, over a decade later, the importance of this speech remains the same. Job’s has always presented new products for Apple in a compelling way, by structure his speech, and using pathos and repetition, he does the same during his inspiring You’ve Got to Find What You Love speech.
Jobs structured his speech in an attention-grabbing way. He does not start his speech with a thesis statement or main point. He follows to split the speech up into three main ideas: connecting the dots,

love and loss, and death. Him stating that he has three main points helps the audience follow him. It also helps layout the rest of the speech. Additionally, using structure as a rhetorical strategy allowed Jobs’ conclusion to state his main points and end with a thesis statement. Ending with his main points allowed the listeners to not focus on his ideas behind it, but the stories, which are his why. Throughout the entire speech, Steve Jobs does a superb job at setting the story up so it is easy to comprehend.
Furthermore, these speech is title “You’ve Got to Find What You Love”, so it’s natural that Job’s would use pathos to compel the audience.

Job uses his from nothing to everything story to make the audience go from feeling pity for him to feeling like he is superman. He does so by declaring how he used to walk seven miles to get one good meal every week at one point. During this time, he was also sleeping on floors in his friend’s dorms. His parents were giving up everything so that he could go to college and he did not see the point anymore. Job’s says, “We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees.” These statements pull on the audience’s heart strings and boosts their confidence because many of these students have it better than he did, so why can’t they accomplish the same? They are graduating from one of the elite universities in the world, Stanford. Job’s even jokes that “Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation”. At the time of the speech he was a billionaire, so the fact that these students have a better education them him, enhances their

self-esteem.
When Job’s reaches the end of his speech, he finally reveals his thesis: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” The last few words of his speech were repeated various times. This emphasizes the message he is attempting to voice to his audience of graduating students who are about to start their lives. Also, Job’s again speaks about what he did in the beginning of his. He talks about following his heart, like he did when he dropped out of college. Restating these concepts helps the listener summarize his theories and reminds them at the end of the speech.