Lately, I am reading the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson. To my surprise, there are so many things I had no idea about him that got revealed to me through this book. I am sure most of you already know but I had no idea that he was adopted and his dad was not a highly educated man. His dad, Paul Jobs, was a mechanic. Issacson writes that Paul was a perfectionist and took interest in details. For example, he would care for the hidden parts of the cars as much as he would care about the outer part of the body. For him every cable, every nut has to be clean and should be presentable as if people will open the engine of the car and will take a look.
As a little child as Steve was growing, he would go to his dad's garage and observe how he worked. He got a lot of inspiration from him. That is why when Steve started working on computers he would ask the engineers to place the hidden wires in a way that people would open the computer and look at it. Often engineers would ask him that who would open the computer and see all the nuts and wires and he would reply they wouldn't know but you know.
This kind of taste and details made apple what it is today. Imagine if his dad was not a perfectionist or detailed person. Maybe Steve would have grown up to be a different person and then we probably we wouldn't have iPhone, MacBook, etc. That one act of his dad left a deep impression on him.
As I was thinking of this story I was thinking to myself just like steve when he was young many young kids come to YTJ. You never know who is observing us in a way that they want to be like us. We could be their heroes or someone they look up to. One day I was talking to a part-time staff member and she told me that how her hero is _____ San. She told me that she wants to be like her and whenever she has time she loves to talk to her and take her advice about work and life in general.
This story of Steve has given me a reminder that I should be careful about my words and action. Who knows I might be someone's inspiration.
Thank you
EN