Steve Jobs – a name that’s synonymous with Apple Computer, a company he co-founded and made it one of the most valuable brands on the planet. Steve Jobs created NeXT Computer after he was fired from Apple Computer (the company he founded). We admire Steve Jobs for a lot of reasons – constant innovation, his eye for design, combining art into technology, and many more. His comeback to Apple Computer in 1996 was quite a thing. After this comeback, Apple Computer launched an advertising campaign with the slogan words – “Think Different”. Posters were made with the following words:
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About 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 people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
These words always inspire us to follow our hearts and do what we really want to do. Not what we are supposed to do. Steve Jobs as a super successful entrepreneur was known to follow his guts as a businessman. Something we very strongly believe in. Steve Jobs not only became a brand in himself but also inspired many others across the globe.
There has been a huge void since he bid Good Bye to all of us on this very day, 5th of October 2011, two years back. Remembering him, here’s a collection of some of the right-on-the-sweet-spot quotes by Steve Jobs:
#1. 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 to follow your heart.
#2. My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
#3. Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.
#4. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back.
#5. If you haven’t found it (your passion) yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.
#6. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
#7. 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 gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
#8. Remembering that I’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.
#9. I want to put a ding in the universe.
#10. Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.
#11. I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.
#12. I didn’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.
#13. Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don’t have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don’t have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh.
#14. But Apple really beats to a different drummer. I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business.
#15. Remember, the sixties happened in the early seventies, and that’s when I came of age; and to me, the spark of that was that there was something beyond what you see every day. Its the same thing that causes people to be poets instead of bankers. And I think that’s a wonderful thing. I think that same spirit can be put in to products, and those products can be manufactured, and given to people, and they can sense that spirit.
Are you also one of those who are deeply inspired by this icon called Steve Jobs? Share with us any other quote by him which inspired you the most.