Give up attachment to outcome.
Steve Jobs created Apple and was probably the most
visionary and competitive entrepreneur of the last half century. He built an iconic, industry-disrupting,
irreverent brand from the garage. And
his reward? In 1985 the Apple Board of
Directors, at the request of John Sculley (whom Jobs personally brought in to
help lead Apple) fired Jobs…from his own company! That is a bad outcome.
What did Jobs do?
Jobs had a choice. He had already
achieved unreal success and financial wealth.
Jobs could have retired. He could
have scooped up his ball and gone home. He
could have relaxed in a hot tub filled with crisp $1,000,000 bills, cold drink
in hand for the rest of his life. But that…he
did not. Jobs fought back. Over the next decade Jobs bought into and built
up Pixar, one of the most successful and profitable companies ever in the
hyper-competitive and fickle film industry.
Oh ya. And Jobs built
another computer company called Next to compete with Apple. Apple later bought Next when it brought Jobs
back to save the company. In 2005 Jobs
gave a brilliant commencement speech at Stanford (google “Jobs Stanford
Commencement Speech” to watch the video) where he said getting fired from Apple
was one of the best things that ever happened to him. Jobs had no control over the outcome (getting
fired from his company) but what he could do is put his focus on the process of
what mattered – learning from what had just happened, adjusting, overcoming
adversity and building on the bad. Remind the athlete that he or she may perform perfectly and still end up with an outcome that does not match the process and effort - a loss despite best effort. It doesn’t seem fair. But it happens… a lot. Focus on process, release attachment to outcome.
