You are not Steve Jobs

Yes, Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is a great work about a fascinating man. When Jobs does it was amazing to see the outpouring of sympathy for him on cyberspace - this for the CEO of a large company at a time when CEOs were viewed as barely better than rapists and murderers. People talked at that time, and when Isaacson's book was published, about how "inspiring" his life had been. Clearly, Jobs had been no ordinary CEO and, reading not too far between the lines, he could have been a much better one, as well as being a better human being (at which he was godawful). He was a visionary whose vision was so acute that he could create markets where none had existed before. His most audacious statement - "Some people say - give the customers what they want. That's not my approach. People don't know what they want until you show it to them". Brilliant stuff, right? Inspiring, right? WRONG! Not wrong because every Harvard Business School professor will tell you so, though they will. Wrong for a much simpler reason - you are not Steve Jobs. He was a one-off (perhaps thankfully), and no amount of "inspiration" will give you his gifts, Most of us (nay, all of us) lack any degree of Jobs' vision - and  so what? We can still appreciate the beauty and brilliance of his products (I deliberately keep my iPhone unsheathed just to look at its lines). We can stand in awe of his accomplishments, and in judgment of his faults. But if we try to imitate him, we'll fail. I am reminded of an old Hasidic tale - the rabbi finds Mendel alone in the synagogue, weeping. "Why are you weeping, Mendel?" asks the rabbi. Mendel looked up and said "I am old and dying. I am not a great man of learning like you, rabbi, I am a simple farmer. But when I go up to heaven, I am farid of the question I will be asked". "What question is that?" the rabbi asked. Mendel replied :God will not ask me why I have not been a great scholar or pious figure. He knows the modesty of my accomplishments. Instead, he will ask me if I have been the best Mendel I could have been, and that question I fear".  Don't try to be a pale imitation of Steve Jobs. Be the best Mendel you can be.