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 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.
Steve Jobs
1955-2011

Nine Good Reasons to Start Your Article Marketing Campaign - Master Attraction Marketing Blog

Nine Good Reasons to Start Your Article Marketing Campaign - Master Attraction Marketing Blog

Spend it or invest it (and I'm not talking about money)...

By Dr Robert Anthony

If you look at socioeconomic studies for low income households, you
will find that they may have a copy of the National Enquirer or a
Bible in their homes. If you go to a medium income household
you will find a few books (usually by the toilet!) with a glossy
gossip magazine in the family room. But what do you think you will
find in high income household?  A library of non-fiction books.

So the question we must ask is this: is the socioeconomic status
determined by what people read or does what people read bring the
status? I will guarantee you it is the latter.

All great leaders are readers.  You will never grow spiritually,
emotionally or financially by watching TV news and reading the
tabloids.  Remember there are only two things you can do with your
brainpower as it relates to time.  You can either spend it, or
invest it. Time spent (wasted) is gone forever. Investment in the
form of learning creates a lifetime of payoff not only in knowledge,
but in income as well. Decide right now that you are going to
invest your greatest asset, which is your time, in learning and
studying things that will bring you closer to your desires.

You Are What You Think

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost a cinch you won't;
If you think you'll lose, you've lost,
For out in the world you'll find
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.
Full many a race is lost
Ere even a race is run,
And many a coward fails
Ere even his work's begun.
Think big, and your deeds will grow,
Think small and you fall behind,
Think that you can, and you will;
It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise;
You've got to be sure of yourself
before You can ever win a prize.
Life's battle doesn't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the fellow who thinks he can.

By an anonymous author

Books:


You Are What You Think
 
You Are What You Think
 
You Can If You Think you Can

Is there Such a Thing as Instant Success?

"The best preparation for good work tomorrow is good work today." - Elbert Hubbard

The most frustrating thing that you can feel is to want something really badly, and not be able to get it straight away. 

Yes, frustrating – but is it realistic to want something straight away?

Many people will tell you yes it is. You just have to type “instant success” in Google, and look at the headlines: Everyone promises to deliver you instant success.

And when it comes to products being sold, you are expected to buy it instantly too.

We live in an “instant” society. Anything we want can be delivered right now, and you start expecting things you want instantly too. Most people are expecting their wants to be delivered instantly. When they want it, they want it NOW!

Most people give up on their wants if they can’t get it instantly. It is becoming increasingly rate to find people who are willing to put in the time or effort required to get the success they want. They are after instant gratification. 

This is how we’ve been taught, and we see it as our right.

Now, this is your right: It's your right to have the same opportunity to work for what you want.  You have to sacrifice to reach your dreams just like every other person who ever lived.

Your right is not instant gratification, but working for what you want. Have you ever heard the saying:  “God helps those who help themselves?” You are not helping yourself if you are after instant gratification. You are hurting yourself.  Instant gratification does not help you to grow, it does not give you any satisfaction, and it only keeps you contented. Setting and reaching goals, and taking the time to do so, gives you immense pleasure.

So take time to have the things you want. Set goals, and find out what to do to achieve them. No-one is lucky that way. Luck takes work.

Put the effort in today and you'll get luckier and luckier.  Will you reach your goal immediately?  Probably not.  Anything worth having takes time and effort. Nothing falls into your lap.

You can’t put tomorrow before today.

So set those goals. Be all you can be.

Books on Success:

The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be 


Success Is Not an Accident: Change Your Choices; Change Your Life 

The Real Truth about Success: What the Top 1% Do Differently, Why They Won't Tell You, and How You Can Do It Anyway!