People all over the world sent in tributes about Steve Jobs when he died in October 2011. They poured into Apple Stores to tell the staff how highly they regarded him.
Do you remember that just a few years beforehand Apple was regarded as miniscule in comparison to Microsoft? Today the company is the highest valued firm in the world. Click here to find out more.
This is an inspiring story.
Steve Jobs dropped out of college after 6 months- sleeping on floors and returning coke bottles to pay for food.
At 30 he was fired from Apple, the company he had created! “We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier…. And then I got fired. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.” Said Steve
Yet today Presidents, business leaders and people all over the world are heralding him as one of the greatest business people, most successful entrepreneurs and impressive men in history!
Now that inspires me. Inspires me to think what we all can achieve if we follow our hearts.
We can be everything we dream of- Steve Jobs
When Steve was fired from Apple, he told Stamford University: “I felt.. I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.. screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me… I had been rejected, but I was still in love (with what I did). And so I decided to start over.
I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love… The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle… you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”
So how is death a gift?
Then Steve went on to say: “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. 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.
No one wants to die. … And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped … living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
How does this inspire you? Do let me know by adding your thoughts below.
