For weeks and years to come you will hear the name Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs died earlier this week at the age of 56 of pancreatic cancer. You will see Steve’s name in every newspaper, on every newsreel around the world. Why? Because he was a visionary and creative genius.
Now I am not going to give you his life story, you would have read it already probably ten times, but what I am going to say is what Steve Jobs did for every single small home business owner and aspiring entrepreneur around the world. He gave hope!
Steve Jobs set out at the age of 20 to change the world and he achieved this several times over. Let me explain.
Firstly, in an age when only big business could afford to use computers and technology to automate processes, spreadsheets, word processing, Steve Jobs along with his partner started Apple, and with it, the personal computer revolution. They gave every man, the little man, the opportunity to compete with the big boys.
At thirty he was fired from the very same organisation.
Jobs stepped into the media game and purchased Pixar for $10m. His intentions were to change the way that we consumed movies and in particular animation, by utilizing computers to do most of the work. In 1995 Pixar released Toy story which grossed $425m. In 2005 Jobs sold Pixar for $7.4bn.
After this, Jobs went back to Apple and with Apple floundering, their market share around 2% of the entire market, Jobs set his sights on revolutionizing another area of business, music. In 2001 Jobs released the iPod and iTunes, and overnight radically changed the music industry forever.
I could go on and on, another of his ideas, the iPhone, is one of the best selling devices of all time. The iPod is only a few years old and is already an icon of our generation and a must have device for many image conscious and tech enthusiasts.
I said earlier that I did not want this to be a piece on Steve Jobs’ life’s work because this context couldn’t justify it. What I wanted to point out was this…Out of all the game changing and innovative ideas and technological ideas and advancements made by Steve Jobs the one thing that inspired me more than anything else was this:
When Jobs became CEO of Apple for the second time, one of the first things Jobs did upon his return was to pack up the internal Apple museum—all the company’s papers and old machines—and send the materials to Stanford University for archiving.
“[We] cleared out the cobwebs and said, ‘Let’s stop looking backward here,‘ “Jobs explained at the 2007 conference. “It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, ‘Well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that.’ It doesn’t matter. Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.â€
And from one of the most inspiring business leaders of my generation, I take heed of that advice and always look to the future and never to the past. You can’t change your past but you can and should re-write your future starting today.
About
James Debono is a small business owner and Internet entrepreneur. James dedicates his time to helping other small business owners leverage the power of the Internet to drive business growth and positive change. Click here Join James Debono on Google+
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