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From the Book of Jobs

Visionary. Change agent. Technology Czar. In the way he courted life and grappled death, Steve Jobs taught us how not just to live life, but also to leave a dent on it! It can be said with impunity now Steve Jobs was one of the greatest men alive in our lifetime. A veritable God of Technology. Somehow it is easier to accept godliness in death than in life. Its only when a person passes on that people are willing to acknowledge he was a living legend. And thanks to technology quite a bit of which was contributed by Steve Jobs himself everything he said and achieved is recorded for posterity. Steve had an unusual life, weighed as low with sorrows and setbacks as it soared high with innovations and achievements. Through these all the man stood tall and sturdy, soaking up lifes lessons and applying them as best he could to strengthen his sole passion changing the way the world communicates and entertains itself with technological innovation. His greatest strength seems to have been a deep-rooted belief in himself and his vision for the future. For he believed in arriving before anyone else had even planned the journey, in giving people not what they desired, but what they did not yet know they desired. In that sense his life was a race against time, an attempt to preempt the future and arrive along with it. When he was given just a few weeks to live with pancreatic cancer, he still managed to hoodwink Destiny for another eight years, during which he gave us the iPhone and the iPad! And then, as was bound to happen, one day Destiny and Time caught up with him. Interestingly, a maverick though he was, Steve Jobs was also an eloquent speaker and thinker. One of the greatest CEOs the world has seen, his words and achievements are a rare study on how to maximise the impact we make on life. For like he said, Were here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here? For those of us who wonder at the brilliance of the man and his magical, almost unbelievable, power to reboot technology time and again to upload new innovations, here are some nuggets of wisdom culled from his life We are here for a purpose Just believe! Steves life was dedicated to the purpose he believed he had to fulfil. In his words, Having a higher purpose doesnt just help you find success. It redefines the meaning of the word. Life however taught him that planning doesnt mean things will turn out exactly as you expected. There will always be interesting twists and turns, regrets and failures. What is important is that you maintain faith. As he

said in his Stanford Commencement address 2005, You have to trust in something your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has made all the difference in my life. It all adds up to something! Something that may seem like a failure or a rejection today, may lay the foundation for some of your lifes greatest successes. Again, you cant connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future, Steve said in Stanford. Given up for adoption at birth by his unmarried mother, Steve was brought up by adoptive parents in Silicon Valley, which perhaps inspired his future. He dropped out of college but not before attending a few classes on Design, which held him in good stead when he invented the Mac. When he would have been graduating, he launched Apple with a partner. Turn adversity to opportunity Steve Jobs taught us neither to worry about what others think or say, nor let a few bumps discourage us on way to our purpose. Steve never rested, neither on his laurels nor after a setback. He was thrown out of Apple, the company he launched, by the person he chose as his successor. Undaunted, he launched NeXT and acquired Pixar which he made a name in the field of animation. NeXT was acquired by Apple and Steve found himself back in the saddle! Sometimes lifes gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Dont lose faith, he said. Then again, Im the only person I know thats lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year Its very character-building. Insist on getting the best! Surround yourself with the best. Know your weaknesses and get a team of people who know better in fields you are weak in. Steve was a visionary and a great business guy, but not an engineer. A believer in leading from the front, Steve ensured he had a cracker team that delivered exactly what he wanted. Know what you want and make sure you get it! Follow your heart! And here is my favourite quote from Steve Jobs. If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you will most certainly be right. For the past 33 years I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself if the day were the last in my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And when the answer has been No for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. And as an answer to what is that something that needs to be changed, here is the answer from Steve Jobs himself. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know