25 Lessons I Learnt from Steve Jobs’s Life
During this last summer, I visited an amazing uncle of mine with my awesome brother. We discussed my future path and other related issues. At the end of the discussion, my uncle recommended that I read the biography of Steve Jobs. On that very day, my brother handed the book to me. It is titled ‘Steve Jobs’ and authored by ‘Walter Isaacson’. I gladly accepted and started reading it. It is one of the best books I have read so far. Thus, I see it worthwhile to share it with everyone.
Walter Isaacson began the book by discussing how the book came to be. Thank God, Jobs insisted and Isaacson agreed. The book had a great impact on me.
The book started from the story of Steve Jobs’s real parents and how he was abandoned, then taken up for adoption and accepted by a loving couple that showed him parental love. He grew up with them just like any other kid would with his parents even though he knew they were not his real parents at an early age. Jobs went to Elementary school then to Highschool and finally to College. However, he dropped out of College. Some of the interesting things about his life include the founding of Apple, founding of NeXT, growing Pixar and so on. I won’t go into details about his life since my focus is on the life lessons I learnt which i believe will be beneficial to everyone especially dreamers like me:
- Never give up no matter how hard it becomes: one of the most notable qualities of Jobs was that he doesn’t give up. A lot would have made him do that, but he didn’t. For instance; when they started out in their garage and didn’t have enough funding, when they couldn’t reach their anticipated sales, when he was ousted from Apple, etc. The secret is ‘just keep moving’.
- Don’t compromise when it comes to priorities and quality: Jobs does not compromise when it comes to these two things. He is always focused on priorities and can’t afford to replace anything with something that is less qualitative. He always goes for perfection. He advised people to always focus on two to three priorities at a time and then give laser attention to the higher priorities and ignore the lower ones.
- Live your own lifestyle: when it comes to lifestyle, Jobs doesn’t care about the trend or what anyone thinks. This include his eating habits, dressing, communication and a lot more. Just be yourself.
- Have a vision of your life and anything you take important: this is what made Steve Jobs great. He wasn’t a great genius when it comes to programming, engineering and management. However, he had a vision and believed it was possible. Therefore, he looked for the possible ways to achieve that and here we are today, enjoying his products.
- Fixing pressured datelines: because of his distortion reality field quality, Jobs was fond of fixing often-impossible pressured datelines for launching products and other tasks. This made his team to work extremely hard.
- Don’t be discouraged: Jobs never get discouraged. Whenever something goes against his plan, instead of being discouraged, he immediately finds another way. Also in vice versa, he never get too excited about things when it met his expectations.
- Think different: Steve Jobs thought differently and was an advocate of ‘think different’. This was what led to the popular 1997 ‘think different’ Apple ad. He believed that people that think different and goes against the status quo are the world changers and come on; he is right. Isn’t he?
- Aim for the best: He craves for perfection and thus he always aimed for nothing but the best.
- Show the customer what he wants: Steve Jobs believed that the customer doesn’t know what he wants until you show it to him and that was his approach. The best way is to find out what the customer needs and provide it to him. Indeed, it worked for him.
- Making use of available resources: often times, people only focus on what they don’t have not realizing that they could have used what they have to help them either achieve or guide them to what they want. Steve always focused on the resources he has or can get.
- Challenge yourself: It is only through challenges that people become better, creative and successful. Steve Jobs loved and faced challenges.
- Bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand: again, thanks to his reality distortion field. Jobs doesn’t care about facts when they go against his plan. Therefore, he has a way of twisting facts in such a way that they suited him and he normally get away with them.
- Be the chosen one: one of the things that really pushed Steve Jobs to become successful was that he believed he is special and a chosen one. I think sticking to this belief can make us more hardworking. Therefore, we should always be proud of what we are and what we do.
- Never stop innovating: Jobs never stopped innovating. He always believed that no matter how good a product is, it can be improved.
- The customer is not always right: Jobs does not believe in the popular business saying that the ‘customer is always right’. And so does Richard Branson.
- Simplicity is the key: while most production companies let engineers make the functional part of the product before giving it to the designers to make the visual part, Apple was different; products are first designed to look SIMPLE and BEAUTIFUL before letting engineers work on the engineering part. This was because, Jobs truly believes that ‘simplicity is the key’ and it is very important to beautify whatever you do.
- Identity and impression of a company matters: this is what made Apple stand out. They have reached a level that leaves customers with a positive impression. The strategy used by Steve Jobs here was one of his beliefs that says: you only have one chance to get it right. Therefore, it is good to utilize the chance and do it best!
- Company management: These are collections of valuable advices for companies; if something is wrong, don’t ignore it and say you’ll fix it later: Jobs is a big fan of ‘do it now, never later!’ and it has helped him a lot and this is recommended for any enterprise. He also loved unity in a company to the extent that he preferred Apple to unite all their divisions to run under one cohesive and flexible company that will have one profit and loss and margin. Lastly, ‘Don’t settle for anything less than excellence’ in your enterprise and always transfer power right.
- Take risks: Steve Jobs’s life was full of risks. He proved that risks must be taken to become successful. Thus, we should go extra mile and do what we love and do it for ourselves even if it entails taking risk.
- Never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself: when most people and businesses are afraid of this, Steve Jobs was never afraid of it. In fact he said “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will,”.
- Ideas occur during discussions: Steve Jobs insisted that Apple’s offices have a large connected open lobby where staffs will stumble and bump at each other. This is because he strongly believed that ‘greats ideas occur during informal discussions not in boring meetings’.
- Remember you’ll die: Jobs stressed how important it is to always remember that we are going to die. When we do that, we will realise that, we have nothing to lose and that we have a short period of time on this earth. We probably have the opportunity to do a few things really great and do them well. In addition, we shouldn’t do things to be liked but do the right things and we shouldn’t stay mad. In other words, we shouldn’t worry about offending or pissing people off when it comes to the right thing. And also contribute to the flow doing what you do best.
- Be honest: Despite the issues and problems that Jobs had with his family, colleagues and so on, he advised people to always be honest. Admit being wrong and have the courage to change.
- Jobs’s advice to Larry Page: towards his death, Jobs advised Larry Page about Google. He said that they should focus, choose the right people, know who to trust and build a team. He also added that, they should protect the company from B players, figure out what they want to be when they grow up and focus on five products and get rid of the rest.
- Profit is not the priority: Perhaps, this is the best advice to all companies. Steve Jobs never took money as the priority of a company. Instead, he focused on making great exceptional products. He stated that, “The goal was never to beat competition, or to make a lot of money. It was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater.” Thus, the journey is the reward.
