the Tao of Jobs or iZEN

Steve Jobs has had to reinvent himself over and over again and each time he has been labeled an innovator.  I believe this had everything to do with Jobs being able to go into every new situation in the state of beginner’s mind.  The idea of beginner’s mind, which in the video metaphorizes as starting a job you have no clue how to do, can be seen in almost every part of Job’s career life.  Starting Apple, Jobs has no clue how to run a company, just the idea of what the product should be.  Then he gets kicked out of Apple, and goes on to start a film company.  How do you start a film company? I am not sure Jobs even knew how to do it, but he made it successful, a success that his rivals have been trying to recreate since Toy Story came out.  Then he goes back to Apple, which suffered in his absence and he again has to go into it with Beginner’s mind—how do I turn this around?  Do I think that Jobs had any idea how to turn around a company... no, no I do not.

Here, I’ll illustrate what I’m saying to you, in the Jobs biography, on 240, Jobs initially let Pixar run itself, only to find himself taking a role in the ideas it was churning out.  Now I am no computer programmer graphic artist or really anything close to either of that, but I can imagine how terrifying it would be to go from one side to the other. 

Lastly, I think no chapter illustrates my point better than Think Different. Really, what else can you say? Steve was back at Apple, the iCEO and he had to do something to bring Apple back. By using the ideas of Beginner’s mind, Jobs had to think differently.  Now I understand that the last sentence seems like complete bullshit, and it is.  That is until you explain it.  Beginner’s mind- knowing nothing about anything you are doing. This is a principle problem that the world has; we are all about replicating instead of innovating.  You cannot innovate by doing the same thing that everyone else is doing and expecting something better to come out, you have to THINK DIFFERENTly.  Jobs smashed the preconceived notions of what apple had become and essentially boiled it down to the basic idea of what he wanted apple to be, and said Go.