Turns out Walter Isaacson didn’t write the definitive Book of Jobs. Ken Segall did.
I’m reading his new book – Insanely Simple: The Obession That Drives Apple’s Success.
The book deconstructs Apple’s success in a first-hand account from someone who was in the trenches of Apple’s marketing for years. It’s tremendous and fascinating.
In it, there’s a quote from Jobs that struck me yesterday:
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.
Isn’t that something? On the plane, I read it over and over and over again.
Focus is about saying ‘no.’
Not just to bad ideas. To good ones.
Focus is about knowing what to leave out – even when it’s really flippin’ good.
It’s hard – whether you’re building a staff or starting a new company or writing a book or giving a workshop.
I’m doing all four of these things. Right now. That quote hit me like a shovel upside.
Another brilliant thinker, Michele Miller, used to tell me to wake up in the morning and figure out what to say ‘no’ to each day.
Something to think about today – for you and me.
To what will you say “no” today?
Pick carefully.
Tim, no is a keyhole to results. Once led a national team of service providers and we had a very focused approach to acquiring business. It worked, very successfully. Several years later I ended up with a new boss who declared this approach was too narrow,…we needed to respond to everything everywhere and abandon the focused approach. You might imagine how that ended. As difficult as it was, I decided it was time to be focused in my ability to continue to offer my services. I said no.His approach resulted in failure two years later