2. Remembering that
you are going to die
is the best way I
know to avoid the
trap of thinking you
have something to
lose. You are
already naked.
There is no reason
not to follow your
heart.
3. I think if you do
something and it
turns out pretty
good, then you
should go do
something else
wonderful, not
dwell on it for too
long. Just figure out
what’s next.
4. When you’re a carpenter
making a beautiful chest
of drawers, you’re not
going to use a piece of
plywood on the back,
even though it faces the
wall and nobody will see
it. You’ll know it’s there,
so you’re going to use a
beautiful piece of wood
on the back. For you to
sleep well at night, the
aesthetic, the quality,
has to be carried all the
way through.
5. If you haven’t found
it yet, keep looking.
Don’t settle. As with
all matters of the
heart, you’ll know
when you find it.
And like any great
relationship, it just
gets better and
better as the years
roll on.
6. You can’t 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. You have to trust in
something – your gut,
destiny, life, karma,
whatever. This approach
has never let me down, and
it has made all the
difference in my life.
7. No one wants to die. Even people
who want to go to heaven don’t
want to die to get there. And yet
death is the destination we all
share. No one has ever escaped it.
And that is as it should be, because
Death is very likely the single best
invention of Life. It is Life’s change
agent. It clears out the old to make
way for the new. Right now the
new is you, but someday not too
long from now, you will gradually
become the old and be cleared
away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but
it is quite true.
8. If you don’t love
something, you’re not
going to go the extra
mile, work the extra
weekend, challenge the
status quo as much.
10. The heaviness of
being successful was
replaced by the
lightness of being a
beginner again — less
sure about
everything. It freed
me to enter one of the
most creative periods
of my life.
11. If you keep your eye
on the profit, you’re
going to skimp on the
product. But if you
focus on making
really great
products, then the
profits will follow.
12. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it
living someone else’s life. Don’t be
trapped by dogma — which is living
with the results of other people’s
thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’
opinions drown out your own inner
voice. And most important, have the
courage to follow your heart and
intuition. They somehow already
know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.
13. I’m convinced that
about half of what
separates the
successful
entrepreneurs from
the non-successful
ones is pure
perseverance.
15. But innovation comes
from people meeting up
in the hallways or
calling each other at
10:30 at night with a
new idea, or because
they realized something
that shoots holes in how
we’ve been thinking
about a problem.
16. If you really look
closely, most
overnight
successes took a
long time.
17. Creativity is just
connecting things.
When you ask creative
people how they did
something, they feel a
little guilty because they
didn’t really do it, they
just saw something. It
seemed obvious to them
after a while.
18. Design is not just
what it looks like
and feels like.
Design is how it
works.
19. Here’s to the crazy ones — the misfits,
the rebels, the troublemakers, the
round pegs in the square holes. The
ones who see things differently —
they’re not fond of rules. You can
quote them, disagree with them,
glorify or vilify them, but the only
thing you can’t do is ignore them
because they change things. They
push the human race forward, and
while some may see them as the
crazy ones, we see genius, because
the ones who are crazy enough to
think that they can change the world,
are the ones who do.
21. That’s been one of my
mantras — focus and
simplicity. Simple can
be harder than
complex. You have to
work hard to get your
thinking clean to make
it simple. But it’s worth
it in the end because
once you get there, you
can move mountains.