STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH

 

There is no straight-jacket formula for success. It is an assortment of strategies combined with precision, and of course luck and destiny play  their roles.

When we see the lives of great leaders, it looks that they have not been extra-ordinary to reach to that level.   Only their passion drove them insanely great.           

 

Steve Jobs falls into  this rare category of unconventional leaders. The world is abyss to carve out his difficult lessons. His biographer Walter Isaacson says that he acts as if the normal rules don’t apply to him.

          Jobs’ life is a story of rags to riches. The reason behind why people attentively listen to his words is  that he brought passion, intensity, and extreme emotionalism to everyday life that helped to shape his products viz. iMac, iPod, iPod nano, iTunes Stores, Apple Stores, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, App Store, OS X Lion.


            For me he is an essence of arduous spiritual practices doing silently behind scenes. He abhors the idea of ''market research'' to see what customers wanted. He says that customers don't know what they want until we have shown them. He invoked Henry Ford's line " If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, Á faster horse !

           His earthly sojourn of 56 years is worth to be remembered. He redefined the way we do personal computing. Now computers not only shrank their size, but envious features were injected  into their circuit boards   making sharing of data & multimedia an effortless spool across all devices and platforms.

          The company, Apple he co-founded in his parents’ garage in 1976 rose as the world’s most valuable company. When asked why he has a tendency to be rough on people, he replies that “look at the results”.   His inspiring leadership could be emanated from the fact that each year he takes his top 100 people on a retreat so as to indoctrinate them with his philosophy. He loves white-boards because they give him complete control of  situation and they engender focus.

         The ads of his products are always unique in a sense that they give much larger meaning. Take this ad appeared in his first marketing brochure : “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

       His product launch sessions are worth to be watched. Even being in the midst of provocative technological aids, he hates power-point presentations.  His argument is palpable. He says that ‘I hate the way people use slide presentations instead of thinking. People would confront a problem by creating a presentation. I wanted them (his team) to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of slides. People who know what they are talking about don’t need Power Point.’

           One would never forget his immortal words at Stanford University on June 12, 2005 ”Remembering that I will be dead soon is the most important tool I have ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because 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. 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 follow your heart.”

         At another occasion, he says that “your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Though, the fate has mercilessly taken away jobs from the world 5th October 2011 by pancreatic cancer, his pragmatic approach to life continues to inspire succeeding generations.