Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ "12 Rules of Success"

 

Steve Jobs went from being an unemployed college dropout to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. And he did it thanks to these “12 Rules to Success”:

1. Do what you love to do. Find your true passion. Make a difference. The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
2. Be different. Think different. Better to be a pirate than to join the navy.
3. Do your best at every job. Don’t sleep! Success generates more success so be hungry for it. Hire good people with a passion for excellence.
4. Perform SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper. Don’t hesitate to throw bad apples out of the company.
5. Be entrepreneurial. Look for the next big thing. Find a set of ideas that need to be acted upon quickly and decisively and jump through that window. Sometimes the first step is the hardest one. Just take it. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
6. Start small, think big. Don’t worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. Put a ding in the universe.
7. Strive to become a market leader. Own and control the primary technology in everything you do. If there’s a better technology available, use it regardless of whether or not anyone else is using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard.
8. People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. Advertise. If they don’t know about it, they won’t buy your product. Pay attention to design. We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them. Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
9. Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you’re at the top of the chain, sometimes people won’t give you honest feedback because they’re afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources. Focus on those who will use your product - listen to your customers first.
10. Innovate. Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower. Delegate. Let other top executives do 50% of your routine work to be able to spend 50% your time on the new stuff. Say no to 1,000 things to make sure you don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. Concentrate on really important creations and radical innovation. Hire people who want to make the best things in the world. You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.
11. Learn from failures. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
12. Learn continually. There’s always “one more thing” to learn.
    Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside your company. Learn from customers, competitors and partners. If you partner with someone whom you don’t like, learn to like them - praise them and benefit from them. Learn to criticize your enemies openly, but honestly.

So, how many of Jobs’ rules to success do you agree with? Any others you might like to add? We’d love to know what you think in the comments section below.
Source: Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward by Jeffrey S. Young

Bookmark http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs for more of his quotations.

The Library of Man Knowledge

1st be a man of Virtue. 2nd be a man of skill. If you are not a man of virtues, you will have no one to show your skills off to.

41. “All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood.” – General George S. Patton

343.  Always raise the toilet seat whilst doing your business and ALWAYS put it back down when finished. And please…flush afterwards. The ladies will respect you immensely for this.

932. “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” — David O. McKay

1517. In the army we used to get punished for leaving equipment on the ground. At the very least you had to put gear on a regulation blanket or on some kind of tarp.  Respect your equipment. It is what keeps you alive.

1117. You do not have to be stressed out in order to be working hard.

1448. Three simple rules to live by:
          1. Look good.
          2. Always know where you’re going.
          3. If you get lost, or don’t know where you’re going, revert back to rule #1.

1733. “The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key.” -Fyodor Dostoevsky

2020. “Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.” -T.X. Huxley

2062.  “Don’t hesitate. When the time comes, just act!” -Wolf O’Donnell