Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak together cofounded Apple in 1976, now the largest publicly traded company in the entire world. The idea came initially when they wanted to personal computers but there weren’t any so they decided to make it for themselves. It then led to friends and family wanting them too, the local computer club, and the rest is history. Many trials and tribulations occurred, with Jobs being kicked out of Apple and being reinstated, Apple nearly going bankrupt on several occasions, and Wozniak eventually parting ways with Apple. Jobs ended up dying early in 2011 from disease, but has left us much to think about.
You have to believe you can connect the dots. Follow your heart, even if it leads you astray off the well traveled path. Love what you do, find what you love to do and keep looking, don’t settle. You have to love your work and those around you. Comfortable mediocrity is the most likely place that those of us in the western world find ourselves in. Settling for whoever, for whatever job, actively competing with others in climbing the corporate ladder and social status, marrying the partner who first likes us out of convenience and fear of loneliness, whittling away in quiet desperation and meaningless entertainment. Finding what you truly want and working for it, that is a life well lived.
If today is your last day, would you be ok with today? Many are existing, and aren’t actually living. It’s been said by Benjamin Graham that most people have already died at the age of 25, but just aren’t buried until they are 75. Floating through life as an NPC, where 90% of life is essentially the same from day to day, with no real purpose, lifelessly drifting away. We follow and admire sports stars, in awe of their amazing skills and persistence to push the limits of what is possible. Being spectators in a “entertainment industry” instead of taking the time to further ourselves. Sports teams are now worth billions and have gone up an estimated 10x in the last 15 years, and are projected to continue to increase in value. They are entertaining, but why are people paying such high prices and spending significant amounts of time on an activity that doesn’t benefit one’s own life? Some are in a luxurious position to do so, while most probably could improve multiple aspects of life.
Stay hungry, stay foolish; many when becoming adults end up possessing a beginner’s skillset, and at the same time, an expert’s mindset. Having the opposite is just what is needed: a beginner’s mindset, and an expert’s skillset. Most of us may know a decent amount in a very narrow field, and mistakenly transpose that towards everything else. That is simple not the case. Recognize that while one may be good at one thing, it is unlikely to be good at anything else.
We have nothing to lose, so get rid of the ego and pride. Ego is a mask for and eventually translate into low self-esteem. Killing ego with significant failure or mistake when young is much better for the long run. Basing decisions in ego rarely works out in the long run, and having to defend one’s ego constantly is too tiring. Pride often leads to the fall, as it blinds one from weaknesses and what is truly important. Avoid patting yourself on the back, there are many doing far better.
Think of the end goal, death, and work from there of how I want to live life. While this may sound depressing, knowing our destination provides a finite timeline on what to do in life. Too many have regrets from things they didn’t do when they were younger because they procrastinated and never got to it, or worse yet, not doing what they wanted to do because they didn’t want to stand out and look like a fool or lose false popularity with peers.
Follow your intuition and heart. As a child our intuition is very good as we rely on our own voices. Over time society gets noisy with too much information and input from other sources, and this makes us start to lose touch with our inner consciousness. Finding periodic quiet times via meditation, walks in quiet nature can repair our relationship with ourselves and allow us to calmly find our intuition and read it correctly. This helps reduce the odds of mistakes and finds us what we truly want.
Overnight success stories take a long time to realize. To achieve success, it takes at least 10 years to truly know what you want in a relationship. It takes 10 years to achieve business or financial success, and that’s on the low end. For many it could take between 20–30 years in a more likely scenario. For many it may never occur. Its self evident why patience is frequently mentioned as one of the oldest virtues. When we see others successes, we just see the end result, and not all the hidden away hard work that took to get there.
Sometimes you need to ask and may receive; Steve Jobs when younger had gotten a job by calling the yellow pages then for materials to build a computer, and was instead offered an internship by HP. Asking yields the possibility of some results with a rejection being some temporary hurt feelings.
This thing called life was made by others; you can shape it the way you want it, it was made by people no smarter than you. The average prescribed life is very narrow and limiting, you can do so much more. Society tells us the success blueprint looks something like: go to school, get good grades, get into a good college and good degree, get a good job with room for corporate advancement, get married, get a house, have children, retire at 65 (perhaps in the newer generations this may no longer be possible), and then spend the saved money when you have no health or energy left. Ok. How many people have you met that have done this are actually happy, content, calm, peaceful, achieved what they wanted, satisfied? I see maybe 5 that I’ve met in my whole life who followed the conventional path, out of many. That’s not good odds.
Failure is the prerequisite to success, there is no way around it. If one constantly tries to avoid new failures, they are just living in their own comfort zone and will never achieve anything worthwhile or even grow as a person, just living the same life constantly. Many of the best sports stars took years of losing before learning how to win and winning it all. Lebron James was 27 when he won his first championship, Michael Jordan was 28 when he won his first.
Disclaimer
This is not Financial Advice. This article is meant only for educational and perhaps entertainment purposes.