We love Steve jobs for many things. He was inspiration defined; he knew exactly how to infuse his passion in a particular commodity. He understood what simplicity is and he is an everyday guy….. He will be remembered for many things but mostly for what he was. As a Nigerian, I find it as a force to push me to rise above every limitation, challenges and excuses to pursue excellence. An inspiration, a make believe that anything is possible. Anytime, I read about him, what he said or did, it inspires me to pursue my dreams and live my best life. His words are dosages of Inspiration and I hope after you have read Steve in his own words, it will inspire you too. The quotes are everywhere especially now but I have selected my favourites…. Enjoy and be inspired!
STEVE JOBS IN HIS OWN WORDS
- That’s been one of my Mantras- focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end. Because once you get there you can move mountains.
- You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your guts, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down and it has made the difference in my life.
- Remembering that you’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve 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 to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose. You are already naked. There are no reasons not to follow your heart.
- Sometimes when you innovate you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.
- Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
- Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower
- We don’t get a chance to do that many things and everyone should really be excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief and then you die. You know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.
- Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. They’re not fond of rules…. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things…they push the human race forward and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because the ones who think they can change the world are the ones who do. Think Different.
- Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma- which is living with the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly to become. Everything else is secondary.
- I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneur from non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
- I don’t see it then but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
- It’s not about pop culture and it’s not about fooling people and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. 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 we went to Atari and Said ‘Hey we’ve got this amazing thing even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary; we’ll come work for you. And they said ‘NO’. So then we went to Hewlett Packard and they said, ‘hey we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet’.
- Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
I love Steve Jobs and he will always be an inspiration. What this says about life is simple….Life can be likened to a short trip. Maximise your experience while you are travelling, there is nothing you can do again when you reach the end of that trip. He was a great man and he’ll remain part of our lives for a very long time. What’s going to be my own legacy? I ask myself. I certainly will not be Steve Jobs but I have the responsibility to brighten my own little corner.
