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Lessons From Steve Jobs

Guest post by: Drew Stevens Ph.D.

Article Overview: The impeccable visionary from Apple past away from a dreadful disease but his passion and vision will leave lessons for us for years to come. Discover what Jobs taught and what he continues to teach.

Lessons From Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs the influential and well respected leader of Apple has passed but his passing leaves many lessons for all.

• Vision – having a purpose is what life is all about. Live your life with purpose and intentions.
• Passion – Mr. Jobs love building computers and creating new things more than he loved life. When people told him no he kept pushing. Always move forward and stand up for what you believe in, never take no for answer.
• Creativity – Creativity sparks innovation. Our great country was formed from the innovative talents of the Fords, Columbus’s, Lincoln’s, Franklins and others of the world. Mr. Jobs saw the future and he paved the way for others such as Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Use your creativity wisely.
• Live your purpose. When told no he marched forward. When terminated he only saw bumps. Live each day with purpose, direction and desire.
• Excellence – Mr. Jobs was on an endless quest to make every product perfect. While success and perfection are hard to achieve always seek to be the best you can be. Be the best you can be each and every day.
• Communicate with others – Great people communicate up and down the ladder. Great people always seek mentors and mentors always seek feedback. Communication is good, communication is necessary, and communication is understanding and education.
• Connectivity – This is not technical connectivity but great people always seek out to build out great communities. Apple continually does well because they engage with customers to build the community allure.
• Inspire others – Working as he did, sharing his vision and mission helped to inspire all people around him. All great leaders in history provide inspiration in their thoughts and in their passion. Inspiration builds the collaboration needed to incite great teamwork.
• Skip too much research and get close to clients – Mr. Jobs had a knack for knowing what customers wanted. He knew that remaining close to clients helped to acquire and retain. Skip the crap on profits and productivity. Focus on your number one asset – customers. Meet with them, speak with them and focus on them stop the rote research that tends to lead to indecision.
• Take risk – One amazing concept of Mr. Jobs was his relentless pursuit to take risks. When he as fired from Apple he began the computer company NeXt. He helped build Pixar and started a new way of animation the world had not seen. He built a small homogenous device for music when music downloading and during a recession. And continued to build devices when the world was stuck on “crack berry” and notebooks. He said, try it, do it the heck with what they think. Sometimes we get in our own way because of our comfort zone – Mr. Jobs had none.

Rest in peace Mr. Jobs. iSad.

© 2011. Drew Stevens PhD. All rights reserved.

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Article Tags: Leadership, Practice Management, Sales Development, Steve Jobs, Strategic Thnking



Related Forum Posts
Re: What If Steve Jobs Hadn't Returned To Apple In 1997? - Thanks for sharing with us Yinko. Steve Jobs is definitely a visionary. Not only his products are innovative in a technological sense, but he's managed to turn a tech-company's products into a lifestyle.... a lifestyle!! [quote:zfqoq43n]Fast Forward to today. Apple has the sexiest products in the business: iMacs, Macbooks, iPhones, iPods and more.[/quote:zfqoq43n] I think not only tech would be different (music players and phones), but ways we can think of marketing and branding. What Steve Jobs did was of course no easy task for the smaller businesses, but he did start somewhere. What I did not know was that Apple is worth about as much as Google. How do you think Apple accomplish what they did? In terms of strategy wise? If you could advice Steve on one thing, what would it be?
Re: Citizen Journalism: There's no such thing - This clearly shows that if Steve Jobs sneezes the price of the stock will drop. Since Apple is a great company why do they have to link the rise and fall of the stock to one man? So eventually when Steve passes on what is going to happen to Apples stock?
Re: Are you getting an iPad 2? - @GT - we can talk more about it once I get one and I'm happy to answer any questions to see if it might fit your lifestyle. @Yinka - Sorry, no payment from Steve Jobs... I wish!
Re: What are the top videos for entrepreneurs on YouTube? - I've seen the Steve Jobs video a few times and it is a great one. Off to watch David's suggestion right now. Thanks guys! I'll try to find one of my own to add to the list.
Re: Citizen Journalism: There's no such thing - [quote="ideasuniversity":2zpdpyk9]This clearly shows that if Steve Jobs sneezes the price of the stock will drop. Since Apple is a great company why do they have to link the rise and fall of the stock to one man? So eventually when Steve passes on what is going to happen to Apples stock?[/quote:2zpdpyk9] That's a very good point. He needs to appoint a successor now or in some way affirm that the company will exist even if he goes under!


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