RIP Steve Jobs – 5 Lessons We Can All Learn from an Innovative iCon

As you have probably heard by now, Steve Jobs, entrepreneur, innovator, and co-founder of Apple, died yesterday.

It’s quite a loss, not just to the technology world, but to the world as a whole. Apple’s products, driven by Jobs, truly changed so much about how we live our day to day lives.

There’s going to be a lot said and written about Jobs in the next few days. For my part, I’d like to use this opportunity to share five lessons from Steve Jobs life that can help all of us live our own lives to the fullest:

Start Early, Stay Late

“So it’s a lot of hard work and it’s a lot of worrying constantly and if you don’t love it, you’re going to fail.”
-Steve Jobs

I’ve read a lot of profiles recently of people who started companies from humble beginnings that grew to change the world. The one thing they all have in common is that they all worked damn hard.

Waking up early, staying up late, working weekends, doing whatever it took to get the job done and grow the company.

I am a strong believer in work/life balance, so I am not suggesting that you start working 100-hour weeks. Unless you want to build the next Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc., you don’t have to give up your entire life for work.

However, success has a cost. Too many people want to be more successful, make more money, make an impact on the world, etc. but are unwilling to pay that price.

Cost can come in many forms, but the most common one, and the one that most people are unwilling to pay, is time. You may fin some shortcuts to success, but at the end of the day you’re going to have to put your ass in the chair, or hit the streets, or spend hours in the studio. There’s no getting around it.

Question: Are you really putting in the time to achieve what you want? Or are you half-assing it, waiting for success to find you?

Action: Make a commitment right now to pay the price to achieve the things you want. Then pay that price, every day. If you are not willing to commit, that’s ok; you’ll just have figured out that that goal was not as important to you as you thought. Now you can let it go and figure out what you really want.

Understand Your Customer

“…it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do. So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what’s the next big [thing]? There’s a great quote by Henry Ford who said, “If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.”
-Steve Jobs

Along with his charisma, I think Steve Jobs’ greatest business strength was his ability to get inside the minds of his customers.

Time and again, Apple put out products that customers went wild for, even though they may not have made much sense before hand!

At times it seemed like Jobs understood his customers better than they understood themselves. Rather than giving them what they wanted, he gave them what they would want when they saw it.

I used to own a very old-school basic cell phone. Before I bought the iPhone, I said to myself, “I know I don’t need an iPhone, but I also know that once I get one I won’t be able to live without it.”

I was right. I love my iPhone now, and can’t imagine not having it (or one like it).

While PC folks were making functional hardware that often required an engineering degree to figure out (thank God I have one!) Jobs knew that customers would care about (and pay a premium for) design, simplicity, and stability.

It was against what other companies were doing, but Jobs understood his customers. And that made a huge impact on Apple and the world.

Question: How well do you understand your customer? Even if you don’t own a business or work in sales, you interact with others. How well do you understand them? Can you get inside their minds?

Action: First, figure out who your “customer” is. Second, understand them as deeply as you can. Third, ask yourself not only, “What do they want,” but also, “What will they/could they/would they want?”

Have an Unwavering Belief in Yourself and Your Dream

“People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true. And the reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up. It’s really hard. “
-Steve Jobs

The thing that fascinates me about Jobs, and about all the innovators who have gone on to achieve great things, is that they 100% absolutely believe in themselves and what they are doing.

If you listen to any of these people in an interview, there is no doubt in their mind about the course they are on. There is no ambiguity. They don’t hem-and-haw or hedge their bets.

Even if time proves them wrong, they pick themselves up (see the next point) and move on to the next idea with the same level of certainty and confidence.

This doesn’t apply to just people on Jobs’ level. The most successful small business owners and salespeople I know have this same belief. This doesn’t mean they’re arrogant jackasses; they just belief in themselves and their ideas to their core.

Question: How strongly do you believe in what you are doing? When someone asks you about your business, your job, your hobby, or your passion, are you uncertain, or are you confident? Do you doubt, or are you a believer?

Action: This point, more than any other, will determine your likelihood of success. The road to success is often long and hard. If you don’t believe in yourself 100%, you won’t have the fortitude to keep going (see next point). Moreover, if you don’t believe in yourself, why would anyone else?

Keep At It

“That’s the moment that an artist really decides who he or she is. If they keep on risking failure, they’re still artists.”
-Steve Jobs

Apple seems to keep rolling out hit after hit. It’s almost as if Steve Jobs could do no wrong.

But that’s not true. At least, it certainly hasn’t been the case in the past. The Lisa, Apple TV, and the G4 Cube are a few of Jobs’ failures.

Oh, and being removed from the company he founded in 1986 could be considered a pretty big setback too…

In the face of all of these, Jobs could have quit. Instead, he kept going with the next idea, the next innovation, the next product, or the next company.

As a result, he ended up with a stake in Pixar, Disney, and then again back with Apple. Oh, and he made an obscene amount of money doing it. 

Question: How do you respond when setbacks happen (Ding!)? Do you quit, or do you persist?

Action: Stay the course! Of course you can and should make adjustments, but don’t give up if and when things don’t go your way. Move on to the next idea, the next innovation, the next product, or the next company.

Be Nice

“If you want to hire bright and creative people, you can’t over rule them. You can do that once or twice a year.”
-Steve Jobs

Jobs wasn’t perfect. In his first run at Apple, he had a reputation for being…ah…a bit of an unbalanced tyrant who would rip people apart.

However, after his (potentially humbling) ouster from Apple in 1986, and his subsequent re-hiring (via Apple’s acquisition of NeXT) in 1996, Jobs appeared to be a little more mellow.

At an interview at the D Conference, Jobs said, “If you want to hire bright and creative people, you can’t over rule them. You can do that once or twice a year.”

He was still driven, but he seemed to be more open and collaborative. This may be a case of correlation, not causation, but it was in Jobs’ second, slightly softer, tenure that Apple grew to be the most highly valued company in the world.

Question: Are you running roughshod over people to achieve what you want? Are you so focused on what you want and what you think is your best path to get there that you aren’t paying attention to the human element?

Action: Think collaborative and open. Be driven and push others, but don’t be such a jackass that people are afraid to bump into you on the elevator…Not only do you need other people’s help, but the help they provide could improve upon your original idea.

Rest in Peace Steve, you will be missed.

About

By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+

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