The Eternal Journey

The Eternal Journey

From jobs to 'no jobs'... WIIIFM???

          Finally it had to happen. After a great duel, death took its winning medallion on the day of victory, Vijayadasami (Dussehra). However, the actual victory was not death’s. It was Steve Jobs’. Steve is to the present century, what Edison was, to his century. A visionary, an innovator, and a great human mind who believed in success, and only success, here is a man respected by the entire world for his attitude.

           I feel gods are always obsessed with Apples. Is it because they know that “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”? And is it why gods lived happily forever? Only on a lighter side. However, probing into history, there were many instances when the living beings of the other worlds were jealous of the earth. Well, Satan gave the first apple that seduced Eve. Eris threw another apple onto the table between Athena, Juno and Venus and that finally ended up in the Trojan War. Some unknown force threw another apple on the top of Newton’s head and he started his journey in discovery of that unknown force. And the events of that journey, even today, kill many of us (students) and enable us hate physics. And not long after, here is another gentleman who named his tiny venture APPLE. Probably is it again the same obsession of Gods that called Steve to the other worlds?
          Well, gods were this time really jealous of humans. We enjoyed the best of technology on this planet, the best of the gadgets, etc. More than that, we were enjoying a completely different world created by our co-humans, the world of animation. From the age-old Macintosh to the brand new Macbook Pro, from the first iPod to the present day’s iPad2, Steve’s innovation is behind it all. He was one person who believed in selling DREAMS and not just assembled pieces of fabricated material (with all due respects, I mean, a product).
          There are a lot of lessons that we could learn from his life, but I’d like to discuss some prominent ones that could help us in our daily professional as well as personal lives.
Inspire those around you
During the development of the original Mac, Jobs always insisted that the team could put a dent in the universe. It might sound crazy to those few, but then it was the source of motivation for the team. They were motivated enough to put in 90 hours a week on this project, and in hindsight, they succeeded because of being motivated.

Bounce back when you get knocked down
It ain’t over till it is over. For someone to be forced out of his own company by shareholders, the will he had, to come back and regain ownership over the same company is undeniable. He could have spent the fortune he made sitting back and relaxing. But he did not. Instead, he founded NeXT, tried pitching it on par with Apple (though it couldn’t), however, finally in 1997, Apple bought it over and Steve became the CEO of Apple.

One breakthrough is never enough
In this world of speed, this is something that each one of us should remember. One breakthrough invention can change the world. But that alone is never enough. The world is moving at such a pace that the Product Life Cycles have started shrinking. Even before you could bask on the success of your innovation, there would be someone out there ready to knock you down and steer ahead. So, the mantra is continuous innovation. And Steve depicted it in every sphere. The never ending stream of innovations from apple is a testimony.

Live everyday as if it were your last.
This might sound philosophical but it is THE UNDENIABLE TRUTH. We might aim to become scientists, businessmen, teachers, lawyers, doctors, managers, CEOs, and what not. We might think that is our destination. Unfortunately not. The sole destination that every one of us has to reach in life is DEATH. And that is uncertain. I might die as I’m writing this and you might die as you are reading this. However, the HOPE OF LIFE is the only thing that keeps us alive and in a Planning mode. So, live everyday of your life as if it were our last day. Rather, we should try living each moment of our life as if it were the last. And thus, when time comes, we leave this world with no regrets.

Have a philosophical angle in life.
I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates” was one of his famous statements. Today, we are lost in the pace of the materialistic world that we only think of matter. Nothing we do has a humane or a human touch. We should remember that we are made up of matter, but that is not it. There is something more than this mere existence. Search for that. Question the existence. And find answers to those unanswerable questions.

Focus. FOCUS... You can do wonders.
Do not diverge your energy onto multiple things. Focus on one single activity, one at a time. That would enable you to concentrate all your energies on to it. The amount of power that it can generate is phenomenal. And that is the source of excellence, that is the source of innovation, and that is the source of Success. Even the dispersed sun light can burn things when focussed using a lens.

Time is not your ancestral property. Use it judiciously
Time is something that only a few of us respect. In fact, that is the most invaluable thing on this planet. Humans are researching onto valuing Human life. But I’m sure there would be never a day when someone will have valuated time. In just 56 years on this planet, Steve did may things that made the entire world mourn his death. This is also true for many other legends that left this planet. Each one of us is here for a purpose. So, it is time to question ourselves “Am I making the best use of my time?”

           Without much more gyaan, I would like to conclude. In tribute to him, I can’t find 33 crore verbs, but it would be no exaggeration if I say that from now on, the heavenly duties would be renamed as iShine, iRain, iBlow, iRule, iCreate, iDestroy, and so on.
           I have been always hungry, and I am still foolish enough to pick up random correlations between things. So, to me, Steve will always be a beacon to motivate me being myself. Thank you Steve, for your wonderful quote,
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

P.S: For those who did not understand the acronym in my title, WIIIFM stands for What Is In It For Me.

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About Uday Sankar Yerramilli

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6 comments :

  1. Steve Jobs is one of those legends who come once in a century. But somehow looking at his life makes me feel that it is a proof of destiny/fate playing its game.

    Many aspects of his life still bowls over and doesnt has any logical explanation to it. We may write it off as his being genius innovator, thgh i feel there was some hidden force blatantly biased in his favor :)

    Very insightful lessons, Uday. It was motivating to read em.

    PS

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  2. Gud observation Prashant. This could actually form another blog topic.

    Steve's life actually comes close to many examples from the book 'OUTLIERS'. There were many favourable conditions for his success. However, the bottomline is that he was successful.

    Unless someone like us analyzes the reasons behind each one of them, the facts could be considered at their face value. And definitely yes, destiny played a very good role in his success..

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  3. a very good abstract on the life of the person who literally changed the dreams of the people with his dreams!! Looks like whoever has messed up with apple has became legends in the history! unforgettable legends. The legends who changed the future(their future) with their acts!

    - Rama Krishna

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  4. I agree Jobs was a great innovator. I agree that he is an inspiration to many techies and businessmen. But beyond that do you think he really deserved all the out of the world accolades he got?.

    People said he did great service to mankind .. he changed the world etc etc. Did he really do all that? Personally i've always found Apple to be a very elitist company which makes products only for the rich :D .. To this date i couldn't afford a lot of their products and always found a cheaper substitute which kept me just as happy :D .. Perhaps it is this bias that is kicking in i don't know.

    Nevertheless i think there is this utter glorification and deification which i somehow feel is slightly misplaced. I mean alright he was behind Ipods, Imacs, Iphones, Ipads ..Yes.
    But tomorrow would we react similarly if say something happens to Tim Berners Lee (God Forbid !) .. also contrast all this with the silence over the death of Ritchie. It seems more like a personality cult now :).

    Sorry if my views on this offended you.

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  5. Well said Halley "in short".

    You are absolutely right. Steve was exactly at the crossroads of technological revolution and he found a way to make a change. I support your view that he made elite products only for the rich. In fact, I have never used an apple product myself till date. However, his benchmarking innovation led his competitors to do a bit of frugal engineering and provide something almost similar at a very low and affordable prices. So, god forbid, tomorrow if the father of frugal engineering (God Knows who) passes away, I'd definitely write a blog on that too.

    However, in this blog, my attempt was only to highlight the good things in Steve's life and the lessons that we can learn from them. I just believe in taking the good qualities in others and trashing the unwanted qualities. And hence, my piece of writing.

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  6. Nice one basu! You're getting better at doing this, blog-after-blog :)

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