At the dawn of the age of computing, one man was launching products that caused step-function transformations across numerous industries - personal computing, music, education, filmmaking etc. Having started Apple by first building computers in his garage, Steve Jobs went on to lead world-class teams that created the first Macintosh, iPod, iPad, and iPhone. To most people’s surprise, he was also pivotal in taking Pixar off the ground, initiating an era of powerful storytelling through 3D computer graphics.
What most impresses me about him is his personal philosophy and the way it is deeply embedded into Apple to this day. He was a storyteller at heart, possessing a unique ability to look back on his experiences, connect them together, and create positive change in the world. In his famous Stanford commencement speech, he offers this insight:
Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights that others don’t see … How do you get a more diverse set of experiences? Not by traveling the same path as everyone else.
The prime example of this is him attending a caligraphy class at Reed College which inspired him to add beautiful typography to the Macintosh years later. Not only did he have that knowledge under his belt, but also the discernment to bring it forward to solve a problem meaningful to him.
Instincts and Creativity
For the past few years, I’ve adopted this mindset of accumulating experiences, saying yes to opportunities and trips hoping to expand my perspectives and become a tiny bit wiser with each passing year. Between Portugal and Queens, biking for hours and learning BJJ, taking classes on animation and convex optimization, the dots didn’t always connect. I was left fatigued by the sheer amount of commitments I said yes to, battling the dichotomy of focus and exposure. What I suspect was missing is an attention to experience requisite for developing those insights paired with an awareness of problems important to me in the present.
Most mornings, I work on cultivating that attention through ten minute meditation sessions on the Waking Up app. Steve Jobs also dabbled in Eastern practices during his brief time in India when he should’ve been conducting business for Atari in Europe. He firmly believed that “some of what you follow with your heart will indeed come back to make your life much richer. And it will. And you will gain an ever firmer trust in your instincts and intuition.” I wonder if meditation is indeed effective for becoming more in touch with my heart, especially when negative emotions are all that I face in those ten-minute sessions.
The most mindful moments I’ve had recently have been in the handful of personal development focused business classes I’ve taken during my third year at Berkeley. Through classes like Negotiations, Improvisational Leadership, and Coaching I’ve grown in touch with my internal monologue and have more closely followed my conversational instincts which are a close proxy for who I really am. What worked was a cycle of knowledge gathering, experimentation, and reflection.
About a month ago, my instructor for the feedback class forwarded me the following comments from my peers:
Kevin’s willingness to share about his relationship struggles and feelings of loneliness that he has felt in the past demonstrated remarkable vulnerability, which created a safe space for open dialogue and encouraged me to be more comfortable sharing my own experiences with others.
Kevin was very vulnerable, allowing me to work on my coaching skills with a willing client, which helped me improve my skills.
I didn’t think much about the level of vulnerability I brought to my conversations, so I was pleasantly surprised when others found it impactful to witness that from me. I spoke honestly about what weighed on me at those moments. Conversation is challenging for me so finding out that others were positively impacted by the attitude I embodied was quite gratifying. It backs Steve Jobs’ sentiment that following one’s heart does enrich the world at large.
Failure
Steve failed publicly when he was ousted from Apple. During the ensuing years, he picked up the mantle at Pixar and created NeXT which eventually formed the backbone of the Mac’s operating system. He found that period immensely painful and humiliating but accepted it as instrumental to his maturity. The struggle and clarity allowed him to show up as a better leader in the teams he would go on to lead, particularly when he returned to Apple as its CEO and saved it from bankruptcy.
Having traversed the Amazon River and embarked on countless other perilous endeavors, Theodore Roosevelt reminds us that “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much.” It’s a sentiment echoed by scores of entrepreneurs, artists, and professionals at the top of their field, but one that is easy to miss when enshrined by darkness.
Nietschze correctly identifies anxiety, envy, and pain as inevitable emotions that we must face in the pursuit of something audacious. Failure indicates that we have embarked on a journey worth pursuing, a goal worth accomplishing, a problem worth solving. Too often do we shy away from opportunities for the fear of failing, and doing so publicly. Yet, here we have someone who faced humiliation when at the top of his craft and subsequently reinvented himself going into the next chapters of his life.
Where I’m At
I write this during a particularly challenging transition period in my life, one marked by lonely nights and long bouts of introspection. In search for ideas, philosophies, and routines to anchor me, I revisited this archive of Steve Jobs’ writings. His faith in positive outcomes. His love for people. His authentic voice. All of these permeate through the numerous speeches he’s done and emails he sent to himself.
In the midst of all the darkness I face, it is this idea of Steve’s that I want to come back to.
Character is built not in good times, but in bad times; not in a time of plenty, but in a time of adversity.
Let’s be audacious, follow our hearts, and put some good out into the world.