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My favorite Steve Jobs story

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I’m a little late to the party, but I finally read Walter Isaacson’s, Steve Jobs. It’s a scintillating read. Here’s my favorite story Isaacson shares:

When the iPhone was first conceived, it was on the heels of massively successful iPod and iTunes launches. Jobs, never one to wait for the opportunity to innovate or cannibalize his own products, decided to move forward with a phone which would combine the iPod’s music prowess with a communications device. 

Initially, the iPhone had two designs in development, one mimicking the wildly successful iPod (with a circle wheel and everything), and one more radical, utilizing a multi-touch, full screen. The circle wheel design was inherently limiting, requiring the use of the circle wheel to navigate and dial phone numbers, while the touch screen model was inherently radical and interesting. Jobs ultimately decided on the novel touch screen device. The decision presented a whole new set of questions, like what operating system to program and what physical materials to use. The iPod had, up to that point, used a plastic screen and initially that seemed useful enough for the iPhone as well, but Jobs had other plans. His unwavering commitment to beautiful designs led him to conceptualize a glass screen, which unfortunately would be much more fragile and liable to scratch. Undeterred, Jobs began researching glass design solutions. His search led him to a meeting with Wedell Weeks, the young CEO of Corning Glass. Weeks shared that Corning had developed a super-strong, even scratch-resistant glass (named ‘gorilla glass’) back in the 1960s, but they hadn’t manufactured it because there was no demand. It was exactly what Jobs was looking for, he immediately asked Weeks to produce enough, in 6 months, to supply the new iPhones at launch. Weeks quickly decried the request, saying it was simply impossible. No Corning plants were set up to manufacture gorilla glass, it couldn’t be done. Jobs “stared at Weeks, unblinking. ‘Yes, you can do it,’ he said. ‘Get your mind around it. You can do it (P472).’”

Weeks still recalls the story in astonishment. Corning converted an entire production plant in Kentucky, put their best scientists and engineers on the project, mass-produced a glass that had never been made, and fulfilled the entire initial iPhone order in under 6 months. Weeks has a plaque on his wall with the note he received from Jobs on iPhone launch day, “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Jobs encountered obstacles just like the rest of us, but this sort of response is different. Jobs saw the world as bigger, with more possibilities, and he was able to inspire his vision in other people. He certainly wasn’t gentle or subtle, in fact, he could be an incredible jerk, but people routinely report that they accomplished more than they ever thought possible when working with him. He didn’t let obstacles become excuses. He didn’t let difficulties constrain the possibilities he saw. “Get your mind around it. You can do it.”

Book Takeaways – Atomic Habits

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This year I’m a part of a book club. Each month we read one book in the genre of self-improvement and meet to discuss our findings and takeaways. January’s book was Atomic Habits by James Clear. Along with the regular book club meeting, I’m going to highlight some key ideas and actionable items for you, my readers. Books may be the single best source of knowledge and wisdom available to humans. I love reading, and I love sharing ideas I’ve read so this exercise will tick a few boxes for me. Here goes. 

  1. Outcomes are a lagging measure of our habits, we get what we repeat. This is great news because it means we can work to change our habits and get different outcomes. 
  2. Goals are not correlated to results. Clear makes an impactful point that winners and losers have the same goals. Goals are helpful for providing direction but mostly worthless in obtaining a desired result. For that, we need systems/habits.
  3. Habits change identities. I consider this Clear’s most profound and important contribution to the discussion of habits. We fail to make lasting behavior changes routinely, regardless of our intention or passion, the size or specificity of our goals, or the breadth of our knowledge. Even when faced with an ultimatum, change or die, (ie, change your diet or your diabetes will kill you) people fail to change. The reason is that our actions are closely knit with our identities, and we fail to change who we are. The antidote is to start with a tiny action. Just do something good, however small. Each good action is undeniable proof that we have acted like (been) a different person, and that begins to mold our identities. The point of all this self-improvement effort is not to accomplish goals, it’s to become different people. I don’t need to lose 20 pounds, I need to become a healthy person. I don’t need to make $200k in five years, I need to become a valuable coach. The pounds and money are only byproducts.
  4. Make good actions easier and bad actions harder. In order to begin taking the small actions that will shape our identities, it’s helpful to set ourselves up for success. Humans drift toward the path of least resistance by default, so remove resistance from good actions and add resistance for bad actions. A few examples: 1) Set out your workout clothes before bed so it’s easy to wake up and get dressed for the gym. 2) Unplug the TV after each use so you have to plug it in if you want to watch something.
  5. An implementation intention is critical for habit building and behavior change in general. We tend to set goals and hope for some motivation to begin working on them. The problem is that motivation is scarce and inconsistent. An implementation intention solves that problem, it means we make a plan to implement our new habit by giving the habit a regular time and a regular place. In order to do something different, you must have a plan for it. If you intend to work out, choose a regular time (that fits into your schedule), and a regular location (whether it’s a space in your house or gym nearby). We make plans for all sorts of important things in our lives, habits call for the same attention.
  6. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from something, the more suspicious you should be of its long-term benefit. Not that we need to stop doing things that make us happy, just be aware that immediate pleasure and long-term benefits are almost never congruous.
  7. At some point, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of taking regular good action, day after day. You become healthy by eating good meals every day. You get strong by lifting the same weights over and over. You gain wealth by doing the same important function of your work time after time after time. Fall in love with the process, embrace the boredom.
  8. Success is not a goal to achieve, it’s a system of improvement, an endless process of refinement. It’s incredible what you can build if you just don’t stop.

A story about preparation

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I learned an important lesson in high school about preparation. Some peers and I participated in a talent show/fundraiser event. A group of us got together to perform a funny old song, the details are foggy (probably for a reason). I was the lead singer, and I was pretty confident about the whole thing, the band, my part, the quality of the material. We were really going to impress some people. Maybe I yet hadn’t learned how to pay attention to nervousness, maybe I just way overestimated my own abilities, or maybe a bit of both, but the level of preparation I gave to my lines was minimal. I only sort of had the song memorized, but I was sure it would all be in my head when the lights went bright and the music began. I was even confident that they’d be there after I forgot the first time, while on stage, and had the band start over. I even thought maybe I could piece it together after the second restart, while still on stage. Somewhere through the third disastrous start, my Dad, sitting near the front row, motioned for me to use the lyrics which I (thankfully) had in my pocket. The fourth try went mostly without a hitch, though I was so broken by that point I was having trouble even reading the words. For high school me, it was fairly devastating, but emotions run high in high school. I remember thinking that the thorough humiliation I had undergone was just a wound to my overworked pride. But my Dad talked to me afterward in the depth of my despair, and said simply, “you gotta prepare.” So I learned that preparation is important.

In college, this important lesson was reinforced in a much happier way. I’m not usually a performative type person, but I ended up in another performance event (as I think back, my brother was an instigator for both of these groups and he does have the performance gene), this time lip-syncing. We gathered a few close friends, five us of in all, and set out to imitate NSYNC’s famous ‘Bye Bye Bye’ dance. We spent hours upon hours in the basement of our small college gym, dealing with crappy wifi and incomplete YouTube videos, rehearsing the beautiful (depending on the refinery of your tastes) choreography of NSYNC. The crowd was significantly larger this time (and included my future wife), the lights brighter, the music louder, and the stakes much higher. But this time an amazing thing happened, the first try went off without a hitch! And not only that, but we also won the category for ‘best applause’! We were a hit! So I learned that preparation pays off.

Preparation usually isn’t a lot of fun. The fun part is the game, or the performance, or the meeting, or the presentation, or whatever it is. But here’s the deal, the fun part sucks if you haven’t prepared, and it can be better than you hoped if you have.

Why Do New Year Resolutions Never Work?

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It’s January, the time of year when we aspire to be or accomplish something new. You don’t have to wait for January to decide to improve yourself, but it’s as good a time as any, and definitely the most popular time. We’re two weeks in now, the gyms are packed, we’re paying closer attention to our budgets, our pantries are full of healthier foods, you know how it goes. These are all good things, but unfortunately, studies show that about 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by mid-February. Maybe your resolution is already floundering.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, says people don’t rise to the level of their goals, they fall to the level of their systems. I think he’s exactly right. We’re good at setting goals and making resolutions, but we’re bad at making lasting changes. And it’s not because we don’t want it enough or because we make disingenuous resolutions, it’s because humans operate by default and we fail to address our default habits. Goals don’t change behavior regardless of how SMART they are or whether or not they qualify as BHAG. We need new systems, new defaults, and new habits, maybe not another resolution.

So how do we change our systems? James Clear talks about becoming 1% better each day by doing something small. It could be one pushup per day if you want to build a workout habit. It could be one call per day if you want to build a networking habit. You mold your identity by consistently doing the things the type of person you aspire to be does. Each time you do something, no matter how small, your new identity is reinforced. If I’m an athletic person, I workout. Weight loss and muscle gains simply follow. If I’m a successful salesperson, I network. Income is simply a result. My default habits would never change by simply thinking about my weight loss goal or even by putting down my income goals on paper (I, like most of us, have tried). Change requires action, no matter how small. A helpful quote I’ve come across (attributed to several different authors including Millar Fuller and Jerry Sternin) summarizes this idea nicely: “It’s easier to act your way into a new way thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” Alan Deutschman, in his book Change or Die, says, “It’s obvious that what we believe and what we feel influences how we act. That’s common sense. But the equation works in the other direction as well: How we act influences what we believe and what we feel. That’s one of the most counterintuitive yet powerful principles of modern psychology (p78).” He adds, “You have to do things a new way before you can think in a new way (p79).”

It’s interesting to think about the purpose of all of this. We set goals at the beginning of each year because we want to accomplish things, for sure. But I think the more significant reason we spend all of this time on goals is that we aspire to be better persons. The most basic thing we’re after is a change in our identity. I won’t stray into the mire of philosophical implications here, but I think that’s a clarifying thought. The accomplishment we’re after is a change in identity, not another New Year’s resolution. Our identity changes when our default behaviors and habits change. Act different in order to think different. Start small, start simple, do something laughably easy, and then don’t ever stop.

Don’t worry about long-term plans

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Long term plans are tough, mostly because we don’t know the future. If you’ve got a 20-year long term goal that’s great, but it’s probably not going to happen, at least not the way you planned; who knows what will happen in the next 20 years? It’s not bad to set long goals if only to set you in a direction, but don’t marry those goals, don’t die on their hills, don’t forsake all other paths or options. People achieve success more often by focusing on what’s right in front of them. It’s called short term planning. When an opportunity arises you make a decision, you work hard at the work in front of you, you make plans for things that are actionable and semi-immediate. Success tends to favor those who, instead of working backward from a goal in the future, make a decision based on the currently available options which will give them the best range of options in the future. They actually keep their options open. It’s a different perspective, instead of an early determination to go all out in one direction or after one thing, you can take things as they come. You’ll obviously still work hard and make good decisions when options present themselves, but you don’t have to sell out for a long term goal. Don’t worry about the next 20 years, worry about the week, the day, the hour in front of you, and make the most of it.