Ode to Steve Jobs

My MacBook, iPhone, an iPod are sad today mourning the loss of Steve Jobs. So am I. The media reminds us that we’ve lost a great visionary who was an inspiration to people all over the world even outside the technology industry.

As I read these wonderful tributes, they seem incomplete.  No…I don’t need the details of his personal life, although I’m sure some magazine will dig those up to make a profit.  While Steve Jobs may have been an extraordinary visionary, he must have also been extraordinary in many other ways to be able to bring his visions to life. 

To have a vision is one thing – a wonderful thing – but you need more than creativity.  It needs a foundational purpose that will inspire others to adopt it as their own, and this will fuel the fire for doing the hard work needed to make that vision a reality. 

I know so many people who have great ideas and grand visions, but their ideas aren’t grounded in a purpose other than to boost their bank balance and ego.  I saw a sign on a church down the street:  Heart is happiest when it beats for others.  Purpose provides the fuel, and when the purpose is ‘other’ centered, the foundation is rock solid.  Steve Jobs had a sense of purpose to make daily lives better.  In my opinion this formed the foundation for his visionary thinking and gave his creativity a target.

His communication and presentation skills were also extremely strong.  When he spoke, people were mesmerized.  I read a book on the techniques he used to craft and present his message.  The key was simplicity (and tons of editing).  He understood his vision so well that he was able to condense it down to its core and then communicate it in simple terms so others could not only understand it, but were inspired to follow.  When the vision is yours, that’s easier to do. 

In my corporate job I had to listen to a lot of presentations.  I could always tell when someone was presenting other people’s ideas or content or were presenting to an audience who didn’t share a common vision.  Their message was often muddled.  They needed to dwell on details and complexity in an effort to sound like they knew what they were talking about or to compensate for a lack of shared vision.  It was usually a disaster.

Having ideas is fun!  But if you aren’t ready, willing, and able to do the hard work to take those ideas and turn them into reality, they just stay inside your head.  As often happens, someone else will have a similar idea, but they will do the hard work to make it happen, and poof!  Your great idea is making someone else’s dreams come true. 

We’re bombarded with stories of fast and easy money.  I’m so sick of it!  (That’s a rant I’ll save for another post.)  If you want a great example of someone who had an idea out of the blue and put in the hard work to make it happen, check out April Morris’ story.  Express Effects Cosmetics  I met April at the Dream University conference I attended a couple of weeks ago, and I’m now a big fan.  She had an idea while in her car one day – I wonder if you could add an appetite suppressant to lip gloss to help people lose weight.  It took her years to turn that idea into a product, THINgloss^®, but she was driven by the underlying purpose to create a better life for her two kids.  She leveraged her strengths so she could change careers, which enabled her to fund her prototype, went back to school to become an herbalogist so she could work with chemists to develop the prototype, and then started marketing.  She now has success beyond her wildest dreams.

Do you have an idea that’s burning a hole in your head?  Check to make sure it’s driven by an other-centered purpose, clarify your vision so you can communicate it clearly so others will be inspired to join you, and make sure you’re ready, willing, and able to do the hard work.  Who knows, you could become your own version of Steve Jobs.