I absolutely am a BIG fan of Apple products (I love iPads and my iPhone), but I’m also a BIG fan of Steve Jobs. There are so many lessons we can learn from looking at what he did with Apple, and he was one of the greatest thought leaders and business professionals of his generation. We will definately be learning from him for many generations to come. Here are just a few of the powerful lessons that Steve's wisdom has taught us.
1. Trust In Yourself
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. 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.”
2. Love What You Are Doing
“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. The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
3. Go For Excellence - Quality Counts
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
4. Pick Your Ideas Carefully – Sometimes You Must Say “NO”
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
5. Keep Everything as Simple as Possible
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
6. It's Okay to Steal Great Ideas - Just Design them Differently
“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
“If you take something and make it your own… it’s your design and that is the dividing line between copying and stealing.”
7. Your Main Goal Isn’t Just to Make Money
“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products. We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence, we’ll make some money.”
“You know, we don’t grow most of the food we eat. We wear clothes other people make. We speak a language that other people developed. We use a mathematics that other people evolved… I mean, we’re constantly taking things. It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge.”
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful..that’s what matters to me.”
8. Keep the Faith
“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year… It’s very character-building.”
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
9. Surround Yourself With Great People With Great Ideas
“I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people, you don’t have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. Ask any member of that Mac team. They will tell you it was worth the pain.”
10. Listen to Your Heart
“Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
If you’re burned out from trying to be what everyone else thinks you should be, and your're tired of trying to live someone else’s dream, then maybe you should take some time to reflect, and see how these lessons might apply to your own life.
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