By
Carmine Gallo
Author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely
Great in Front of Any Audience
Teenagers
have named Apple CEO Steve Jobs the entrepreneur they admire most. In a recent
Junior Achievement survey, Jobs beat out a list of high profile celebrity
entrepreneurs including Oprah Winfrey. Steve Jobs has plenty to teach teens and
young adults, many of whom are facing the worst job climate in decades. Here
are five life and work lessons Steve Jobs would offer young people today as
they enter a tight job market and an uncertain future.
Follow Your Heart, Not the Joneses. From
his earliest interviews it was clear that Steve Jobs was more motivated by
creating great products than by how much money he would make selling those
products. Jobs once said that "being the richest man in the cemetery"
didn't matter to him; rather "going to bed at night saying we've done
something wonderful, that's what matters to me." Far too many people are
unsatisfied and unsuccessful in their careers because they chose a path that
made their neighbors or friends "rich." Typically, however, followers
are too late to cash in. Their life is a never-ending stream of disappointments
and frustrations. "You've got to find what you love," Jobs told
Stanford graduates in 2005. "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. Have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition. You somehow already know what you truly want to
become."
Make a Dent in the Universe. Choose to be world-class
at whatever path you choose. Steve Jobs is said to have a "reality
distortion field" around him, meaning he has an ability to convince nearly
everyone of everything. This "RDF" stems from a commitment to change
the world. People seek meaning in their lives and when they meet someone who
taps into this basic human craving, they find it intoxicating. In 1983, on a
balcony overlooking New York's Central Park, Steve Jobs turned to then PepsiCo
president John Sculley, who Jobs was trying to recruit to join Apple, and
asked, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water
or do you want a chance to change the world?" Sculley would later write
that the question would hit him like a punch to the gut. You will never inspire
anyone unless you're inspired yourself. Find something that inspires you to
pursue higher levels of achievement.
Sell the Benefit. Potential employers don't care
about you as much as they care about solving their problems. Steve Jobs never
introduces a new product without a clear explanation of the problem it solves.
For example, when he introduced the iPhone in January, 2007, he spent time
explaining the limitations of the existing SmartPhones. These limitations
included a stylus which was awkward and tended to get lost and the keyboard
which took up one-third of the space on the phone. The iPhone, Jobs argued,
would solve those problems. Young people should approach job interviews the
same way. The fact that you graduated with honors doesn't tell a recruiter how
you're going to solve the company's problems. Do research on the company, its
competitors and its challenges. Make the connection between your
accomplishments in school and how that experience will help the company achieve
greater success.
Articulate a Twitter-Friendly Vision. Steve
Jobs has a vision for every product he introduces. The vision can easily fit in
a 140-character Twitter post. For example, when Jobs introduced the MacBook Air
in 2008, he simply said, "It's the world's thinnest notebook." If
that's all you knew about the computer, it would tell you a lot. As a young
professional, your personal brand is the most important brand of all. Treat
your brand like an Apple product and ask yourself, "If I had to describe
my brand in a Twitter post, what would I say?" For example, long before I
could claim Fortune 500 companies as clients, my business cards read: "The
communications coach for the world's most admired brands." Those sixty-one
characters gave my brand a vision. What vision do you have for your personal
brand?
Master Life's Most Important Skill. Steve Jobs is
considered the greatest corporate storyteller on the world stage. His keynote
presentations are hot tickets and leave his audience with a sense of awe and
excitement. Communicating the vision behind his brand is one of Steve Jobs'
greatest gifts. But he works at it. Jobs spends hours and hours rehearsing
every facet of his presentations. He makes it look effortless but that polish
comes after weeks of grueling practice. Every day, millions of PowerPoint
presentations are made and every day, millions of people watching those
presentations are bored to death. Master speaking and presentation skills to
set yourself apart.
For
more than three decades, Steve Jobs has been creating products that enrich
people's lives. But in some ways, his greatest achievement could be in what he
has taught us about work and life: expect excellence from yourself, create
great experiences for your customers, and follow your heart.
©2009 Carmine
Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be
Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience
Author Bio
Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve
Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, is a
presentation, media-training, and communication-skills coach for the world's
most admired brands. He is an author and columnist for Businessweek.com and a keynote speaker
and seminar leader who has appeared on CNBC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC.com, BNET, RedBook, Forbes.com, and in the New York
Times, the Wall Street Journal and Investor's
Business Daily, as well as many other media outlets. Gallo lives in the
For more information please
visit www.carminegallo.com.
-Carmine points out some good points about find one’s purpose and driving to
that vision no matter what. It’s what successful entrepreneurs know and it
guides all aspects of their business life. To “think different” as Apple
coined, you have to be ready to constantly adapt to changing conditions whether
it’s economic or cultural. The bottom line is to be a change agent stay true to
your goals.
