In Bill Gates' new book (Business @ The Speed of Thought), he lays out 11 rules that students do not learn in high school or college, but should.
He argues that our feel-good, politically-correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality who are set up for failure in the real world.
• RULE 1 - Life is not fair; get used to it.
• RULE 2 - The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
• RULE 3 - You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
• RULE 4 - If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
• RULE 5 - Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping, they called it opportunity.
• RULE 6 - If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, So don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
• RULE 7 - Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try "delousing" the clothes in your own room.
• RULE 8 - Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they will ask as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
• RULE 9 - Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
• RULE 10 -Television is NOT real life! In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
• RULE 11 - Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Bill Gates - The 11 Rules in Life
Steve Jobs --lessons
trying to do better.” - Steve Jobs
His accomplishments and character helped define a generation and change the
world. He is co-founder of the fairytale company we now know as Apple
Computers. And he is the visionary of the personal computers world that led the
entire computer hardware and software industry to restructure itself.
This man with boundless energy and charisma is also a master of hype, hyperbole
and the catchy phrase. And even when he’s trying to talk normally, brilliant
verbiage comes tumbling out.
Here’s a selection of some of the most insanely great things he said, golden
lessons to help you succeed in life, Jobs-style:
1. Steve Jobs said: “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a
follower.”
Innovation has no limits. The only limit is your imagination. It’s time for
you to begin thinking out of the box. If you are involved in a growing
industry, think of ways to become more efficient; more customer friendly;
and easier to do business with. If you are involved in a shrinking industry – get out of it
quick and change before you become obsolete; out of work; or out of business. And
remember that procrastination is not an option here. Start innovating now!
2. Steve Jobs said: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment
where excellence is expected.”
There is no shortcut to excellence. You will have to make the commitment to make
excellence your priority. Use your talents, abilities, and skills in the best way possible and
get ahead of others by giving that little extra. Live by a higher standard and pay attention to
the details that really do make the difference. Excellence is not difficult - simply decide
right now to give it your best shot - and you will be amazed with what life gives you back.
3. Steve Jobs said: “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. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when
you find it.”
I’ve got it down to four words: “Do what you love.” Seek out an occupation that gives you
a sense of meaning, direction and satisfaction in life. Having a sense of purpose and
striving towards goals gives life meaning, direction and satisfaction. It not only contributes
to health and longevity, but also makes you feel better in difficult times. Do you jump out
of bed on Monday mornings and look forward to the work week? If the answer is ‘no’ keep
looking, you’ll know when you find it.
4. Steve Jobs said: “You know, we don’t grow most of the food we eat. We wear clothes
other people make. We speak a language that other people developed. We use a
mathematics that other people evolved… I mean, we’re constantly taking things. It’s a
wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human
experience and knowledge.”
Live in a way that is ethically responsible. Try to make a difference in this world and
contribute to the higher good. You’ll find it gives more meaning to your life and it’s a great
antidote to boredom. There is always so much to be done. And talk to others about what
you are doing. Don’t preach or be self-righteous, or fanatical about it, that just puts people
off, but at the same time, don’t be shy about setting an example, and use opportunities that
arise to let others know what you are doing.
5. Steve Jobs said: “There’s a phrase in Buddhism, ‘Beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to
have a beginner’s mind.”
It is the kind of mind that can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can
realize the original nature of everything. Beginner’s mind is Zen practice in action. It is the
mind that is innocent of preconceptions and expectations, judgements and prejudices. Think
of beginner’s mind as the mind that faces life like a small child, full of curiosity and
wonder and amazement.
6. Steve Jobs said: “We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and
you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.”
Reams of academic studies over the decades have amply confirmed television’s pernicious
mental and moral influences. And most TV watchers know that their habit is mind-numbing
and wasteful, but still spend most of their time in front of that box. So turn your TV off and
save some brain cells. But be cautious, you can turn your brain off by using a computer
also. Try and have an intelligent conversation with someone who plays first person shooters
for 8 hours a day. Or auto race games, or role-playing games.
7. Steve Jobs said: “I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in
one year…. It’s very character-building.”
Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake. There is no such thing as a successful
person who has not failed or made mistakes, there are successful people who made
mistakes and changed their lives or performance in response to them, and so got it right the
next time. They viewed mistakes as warnings rather than signs of hopeless inadequacy.
Never making a mistake means never living life to the full.
8. Steve Jobs said: “I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.”
Over the last decade, numerous books featuring lessons from historical figures have
appeared on the shelves of bookstores around the world. And Socrates stands with
Leonardo da Vinci, Nicholas Copernicus, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein as a beacon
of inspiration for independent thinkers. But he came first. Cicero said of Socrates that, “He
called philosophy down from the skies and into the lives of men.” So use Socrates’
principles in your life, your work, your learning, and your relationships. It’s not about
Socrates, it’s really about you, and how you can bring more truth, beauty and goodness into
your life everyday.
9. Steve Jobs said: “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be
here?”
Did you know that you have big things to accomplish in life? And did you know that those
big things are getting rather dusty while you pour yourself another cup of coffee, and
decide to mull things over rather than do them? We were all born with a gift to give in life,
one which informs all of our desires, interests, passions and curiosities. This gift is, in fact,
our purpose. And you don’t need permission to decide your own purpose. No boss, teacher,
parent, priest or other authority can decide this for you. Just find that unique purpose.
10. Steve Jobs said: “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 results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of other’s 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.”
Are you tired of living someone else’s dream? No doubt, its your life and you have every
right to spend it in your own individual way without any hurdles or barriers from others.
Give yourself a chance to nurture your creative qualities in a fear-free and pressure-free
climate. Live a life that YOU choose and be your own boss.
=-=-=
Saturday, February 20, 2010
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says in STANFORD ADDRESS
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, 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.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. 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.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for 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 still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
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.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. 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. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and 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. 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. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
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.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. 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. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
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 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.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.