Who among us does not know the inspiring genius Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple and the spiritual father of hundreds of entrepreneurs around the world?
We bet you already know a lot about the tall, skinny guy who used to wear the same outfit every day. Its impact on your life cannot be ignored. In less than 40 years in business, Steve Jobs added many innovations that – without a doubt – affect an important aspect of your life, from computers, movies, and smartphones to music and communications. Although Steve Jobs may have been more creative than others- if you apply some of Steve Jobs’ advice in your working life, this will undoubtedly be a big step towards success.
This article gives an overview of Steve Jobs’ success story, some of his qualities, tips, and success secrets, and discusses how you can adopt them in your working life to unleash the Steve Jobs inside you.
Steve Jobs’ background
Stephen Paul Jobs was an American inventor, designer, and businessman. He was the co-founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the famous Apple company, and the owner of many products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, which are now seen as the pinnacle of the development of modern technology. Steve Jobs was born in 1955, the son of two graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, who put him up for adoption. He was adopted by Coast Guard expert Paul Jobs and accountant Clara, who gave him the name Stephen.
Steve Jobs was very smart, but without a plan or specific direction to take advantage of his intelligence- as he dropped out of college and tried many different activities before he co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976.
Jobs’ early career
Although Steve Jobs was always innovative and had outstanding ideas from a young age, he was full of frustration on the scholastic side. Jobs was a riotous student in elementary school because of his constant feeling of boredom, and his teacher in the fourth grade always needed to bribe him in order to study. However, Jobs was such an exceptional student that elementary school officials wanted to transfer him to the high school directly, which his parents blatantly refused.
After high school, Steve Jobs attended Reed College in Oregon, though due to his lack of ability to set passion and direction in his life, Jobs left college after six months and spent the next eighteen months attending creative classes at the school. It was whilst he was doing this that Jobs enrolled in a calligraphy class, which helped him a lot after that in designing the Macintosh computer interface.
In 1974, Steve Jobs took over as a video game designer at Atari, but after a few months left the company to make his own way. In 1976 – when Jobs was just 21 years old – he and his friend Wozniak started Apple Computer in the Jobs family’s garage. To fund their venture, Steve Jobs sold his own bus, while Wozniak sold a scientific calculator he used in his work.
Later in Jobs’ career
In 1985, nine years after founding the company, Steve Jobs left Apple to start a new hardware and software project called NeXT. Despite Steve Jobs’ efforts, the company faltered in its attempts to sell its operating system in America, forcing Jobs to sell his company to Apple in 1996 for $429 million. In 1997, Jobs returned to his position as CEO of Apple – and just as Jobs ensured the success of Apple in the 1970s, he has been credited with revitalizing the company again in the 1990s.
With a new management team, Steve Jobs put Apple back on the right track, as Jobs’ innovative products (such as the iMac), effective branding campaigns and stylish designs again attracted the attention of consumers.
Jobs’ ill health
In 2003, Jobs discovered that he had a tumour in the pancreas. Despite it being treatable, Steve Jobs chose to change his diet and resort to physical therapy, instead of opting for surgery right away. In 2004, Jobs underwent successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumour, but after that Jobs began to neglect his health little by little until health problems returned to him again; coming to a peak in 2009. In January 2011, Jobs announced to his company’s employees that he was going on a long medical leave.
Jobs then resigned in August 2011, leaving the position of CEO of Apple to Tim Cook. Sadly, not long afterward, Jobs died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, leaving a great legacy that will remain engraved in the minds of millions for decades.
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Jobs’ legacy
There is no doubt that the words of Steve Jobs have inspired many entrepreneurs around the world and with good reason. Steve Jobs was a bold, far-reaching visionary who revolutionized the technology industry. Even today, many years after his death, people still consider Steve Jobs a role model and an inspiring story of success and innovation.
Fortunately, we can continue to learn from him, through his previous TV interviews and speeches, as his invaluable tips will help guide the next generation of innovators and creators. The following are some of Steve Jobs’ tips for the success of projects, which any of us can adopt to achieve success in our working life.
Steve Jobs’ top tips
You must be passionate about your project
It is certain that you have to have a lot of passion for what you do, and the reason is that you will face a lot of challenges and hurdles on your way that you will have to face and try to solve over a long period of time. If you don’t like what you do, you don’t enjoy doing it and you don’t have any passion for it, you will surely give up!
In fact, this is what happens to most people. If you think about the story of people who end up being successful, they often have a passion for what they do, so they can persevere and endure when it gets really tough. Those who don’t love their work and don’t enjoy every moment of developing their own project often end up giving up.
Who wants to bear all this pressure and stress for something they don’t like?
Therefore, always know that when working on your own project there will be a lot of hard work that will disturb you for long periods, so make sure that you have a passion for what you do. In fact, the passion for what you do is the most wonderful thing in the whole experience.
Work on building a great team for your project
This is one of Steve Jobs’ most important sayings and advice, that he directed toward entrepreneurs. The level of business projects always depends on the level of the team, as good teams can help build a successful and exceptional project, while weak and unqualified teams can greatly harm the project. Therefore, it is very important to build a strong team that can help take the business to higher levels and show its best.
In order for your project to be successful, you have to be a high-class talent scout. No matter how smart you are, you always need a team of great people to be by your side; so you have to learn how to choose the right people and exclude those who are not qualified to perform the job.
What can you look for when building a team to ensure your project has a great team?
Always look for proactive individuals who have the ability to act and make business decisions on their own, without anyone telling them what to do. You should also choose individuals with excellent communication skills.
It is important that your team members demonstrate strong communication skills when dealing with the responsibilities that you give them. They must be able to listen, respond briefly and then communicate with each other, to implement what is required.
Hire the most appropriate person for the role, in terms of experience, skills and behaviour. Do not make any exceptions to this condition. When you hire someone, you need to be as objective as possible and you need to research their background, as to what would fit the role.
Strive to provide high-quality products and services
One of the sayings of Steve Jobs, about his experience with his team in making the Mac, is that they initially did not make the device in preparation for selling and distributing it to the public, but rather they made it for themselves. Steve Jobs put himself, and his team in the shoes of the users, who would judge whether a device was great or not, as he was eager to make the best thing he could. Jobs simply decided he wasn’t going to go out and do market research, he just wanted to make the best thing that could be made.
For another example, when you are a carpenter making a cabinet, you will undoubtedly pay a lot of attention to the front and the shape of the drawers, but you will not give much attention to decorating the back of the cabinet, because it faces the wall and no one will see it. According to Steve Jobs, this contradicts the principle of quality that he calls for; as you must be keen to add an element of beauty and quality to your product, all the time, because this will certainly reflect on the reputation of your product and thus on your sales.
Remember, marketing is always about value.
According to Steve Jobs, marketing completely depends on the value of the product.
In a world of competition, you won’t have many opportunities to remind people you exist. Therefore, you have to be very clear about what you want them to know about you – and to make the value of your project, so that it gives to customers the primary marketing method.
The best example of this is one of the most important marketing models the world has ever seen, which is Nike’s marketing campaigns.
Nike did not make a giant technological breakthrough like other companies, it only sells shoes. However, when you think of Nike, you think of something different. You think about just a shoe company. You will find that Nike does not talk much about its products, in its advertising campaigns; doesn’t talk about the advantages of its shoes, and why they are better than others.
What does Nike do in its ads?
It only features famous athletes and honours great athletes in its advertising campaigns. That’s just what it’s all about. This is the value that Nike has instilled in the hearts and minds of customers and nothing more.
The value you provide to create a connection between your product and customers around the world is as important as the quality of the product itself or the service itself.
Let your curiosity and intuition guide you.
In his fantastic inaugural speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs emphasized the importance of trusting your intuition and following your curiosity. Jobs encouraged students to pursue their interests, even if they seemed impractical at the time.
Steve Jobs attributed much of his success to this philosophy.
For example, Jobs took a class in calligraphy. Although the separation was cool, it did not serve any practical purpose at the time; only later did Jobs realize the importance of this calligraphy separation, as he later used it when designing the Macintosh computer interface.
Curiosity and intuition are reliable guides
This is one of the most important sayings of Steve Jobs – and was his advice to entrepreneurs. Even if you cannot see where every decision leads you, you must trust that your curiosity and intuition lead you to the right path.
Don’t pay attention to other people’s expectations.
Steve Jobs repeatedly advised many entrepreneurs to ignore the restrictions imposed on them by others, advising them to create their own lives and to move forward, to implement their own ideas that may seem a little crazy to others.
In a 1994 interview, with the Santa Clara Valley Historical Society, Jobs discussed the false nature of society’s boundaries and stated his belief that people should question these limitations. This was because Jobs believed that people had the power to change their lives—and the lives of others—if they were willing to challenge the status quo. Steve Jobs repeated this point in his commencement speech at Stanford University, where he said:
“Your time is limited. Don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t get caught up in living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions drown out your inner voice. Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They already know what you want. Really become, everything else doesn’t matter.”
Source: Pix4Free by Nick Youngson
Don’t be afraid to fail and take the first step
Steve Jobs discussed this fear of taking the first step, in the 1994 interview with the Santa Clara Valley Historical Society, when he related his story to Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Steve Jobs, at this time a 12-year-old boy, contacted Hewlett at home to ask him if his company had any spare parts he could use to build a frequency counter. Hewlett not only gave Jobs the parts he requested, but also hired him to work on the production line and assembly of his company’s frequency counters.
Jobs used this example to prove that success only comes when you are willing to take the right step and not be afraid of failure. Instead of fearing Hewlett’s response and making excuses, Jobs seized the opportunity, which undoubtedly paid off.
In that interview, Steve Jobs explained that this is what separates the people who do things from the people who dream of them – you have to take the necessary step and you have to be willing to fail. Remember above all, that mistakes are only part of the journey; the more mistakes you make, the greater your chances of improving and developing your skills and career path.
In addition, you should know that your personal goals and achievements should not have limits. It is a never-ending process. Success is a journey, not a destination, and the goal is to benefit from and enjoy this journey as much as possible.