Steve Job’s Formula: How to be Successful at Anything

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Steve Jobs needs no introduction. We bet you already know a lot about the tall, slender guy who used to wear the same outfit every day. His impact on your life cannot be ignored. In less than 40 years in business, Job’s innovation has touched every aspect of your life, from computers, movies, and smartphones to music and communication.

Although Steve Jobs might be more innovative than an average individual with tremendous creativity, ambition, and all the good qualities, if we can apply at least some of these in our life, that’s a huge step towards success. This article will discuss some of his advice and success secrets and how you can adopt them.

1. Success demands repetition

To master something, you need to be patient and work hard. You’ll get better at something the more times you practice it. This is one of the reasons older employees are frequently more competent at particular tasks.

But for how long should you repeat a single task? The answer is when you’re confident enough and can’t wait to share your product. It’s the state when you should stop adjustments and repetition.

When Jobs was getting ready for an iChat demo, he said, “I’m going to make the audience sh** their pants.”

Apply this in your life

• Start with an end goal. You can write it down and be specific about the timeline and metrics of your plan. For example, you are determined to sell three coffee machines in one week.
• Break it down, divide the goal into specific actions you need to take, and do them repeatedly. Maybe you have to make 50 phone calls to sell your coffee machine.
• Carefully notice how much effort generates your desired output. Repeat again and again until you’re satisfied with your product.

2. Learn how to put two and two together

Have you ever imagined how Pablo Picasso came up with the revolutionary style “cubism?” Pablo Picasso was influenced by the highly stylized or non-naturalistic African traditional masks, which nevertheless represent a vivid human figure.

This is what artists do. They look for sources of inspiration constantly. They think out of the box when they look at a random object. According to Steve Jobs, creativity is simply connecting things. If you ask creative people how they did do something so unique, they will feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it entirely. They saw something that led to innovation. That’s because they had mastered the art of connecting experiences and synthesizing new things.

Apply this in your life

• You have a note app on your phone. Write down the ideas for what you want to learn. It might be calligraphy, a new language, or anything that interests or motivates you.
• Write down your thoughts, quotes, or anything that seems essential to you.
• Most importantly, spend time with intelligent people. Famous motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, “we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.”
• Only learning is not going to take you far. You have to put yourself into practicing what you’ve learned. Skill and knowledge are useless if you don’t use them.

3. Learn to say “NO.”

When Steve Jobs came up with Apple’s design ethic, he figured out what was important and how it was delivered and eliminated thousands of things. That meant saying “no” to various distractions, even if it upset some customers and partners.

John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple, said something like this. According to Sculley, Steve’s methodology differs from others as he always believed that the most critical decisions are things you choose not to do.

Apply this in your life

• Don’t hesitate to say, “No, I don’t want to,” or “I won’t.” Be straightforward. Sometimes this is the best approach.
• Offer an alternative. For example, “I won’t be able to do that, but X might be interested.”
• Take control of your priority. Always check your work schedule and priority list before saying “Yes “ to something.

4. Do what you love

“Follow your passion” is the worst advice people can give you. Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple just because one day he woke up and realized his passion for computers. Instead, he had a burning desire to develop tools that enabled people to reach their full potential.

Great things require a lot of work, and unless one is passionate about what one does, giving up makes the most sense. Looking at history, Jobs concluded that successful people were passionate about their work and persevered, especially when circumstances were highly challenging.

Apply this in your life

• Don’t dive into your passion. Let it grow day by day. Keep your 9–5 job and carefully test your passion and how long you can keep up. It’s less risky.
• The truth is that if you choose to remain alone, it will take you years to piece together a project that, with a group, would have only taken a week — network with people who share similar interests.
• Have a backup plan in case things go south.

Success-this small two-syllable word eventually gives your life a meaning, a perspective. What is success? For most people, it’s the satisfaction they get after achieving their goals. But this definition has a catch. Often success and satisfaction don’t come together.

Furthermore, where do people’s goals and achievements end? It’s a never-ending process. Success is a journey, not a destination. We wish you not to lose your way on this journey.