Icons, Why They Will Never die
WHAT IS AN ICON NOWADAYS...?
According to the dictionary:
i·con/ˈīkän/
Noun:
- A painting of Christ or another holy figure, used as an aid to devotion in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches.
- A person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something: "icon of manhood".
Synonyms:icon - image
A person, a thing. Well I stick with a person for now. Calvin Klein, Ford, Toyota, Edison and...
STEVE JOBS
Why he... or how he became an Icon? Is not that he wanted to... same thing with Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. What was the drive to be always passionate about perfection? And even be regarded as a mean Boss by employees? If You look at his Biography, beware and read well:
Steve was an adopted kid, meaning when he realized he was adopted; probably after five or six, right on time to start first grade school. He experienced the need to excel and be the best. If you go back 500 years, you will catch Leonardo Da vinci promising to him and to the world to prove that they were not here in vain. Leonardo was left by his dad, actually was raised by his mom who was a peasant and Leonardo resented his father who was a Wealthy Notary in Pizza. What went through the mind of these future Icons?
Steve was a drop out, Bill gates quit. Thomas Alva Edison Could not go back to first grade school in Huron Ohio. Leonardo was forbidden to do his dad's Job, since he was a 'bastard' and illegitimate children were not allowed to inherit fortune and his progenitor's profession. How about Mark Zuckerberg? You see a pattern?
Something really painful at times had to happen in their minds. We know Steve and we see him bettering an idea, going back to the creative Board, rejecting 10, 20 times a prototype. He was very passionate about the look of a product. He knew he was not like others. When he met Steve Wosniak, He convinced him to build or to make affordable the first personal computer... It was 1976. But remember also, 2 years before, he was in India experiencing changes.
Visionary and always ready to look for the next step in Technology( check his Keynotes announcements), Steve wanted to make sure that he didn't come to this world in Vain... He wanted his biological parents to feel, and be proud, and amazed. Leonardo was also the same way. His step brothers inherited his fathers' profession, but do you know any other brother that became as famous as him?
Thomas Alva Edison became an Entrepreneur, because he wanted his mother to be proud of him. She home schooled him since first grade and he made history. In order to finish his first light bulb in 1877, he had to try 750 filaments which would stand longer hours lighted for a feasible and commercial Innovation. The same pattern with Henry Ford, his mother died when he was 13 and he promised to be a better man to honor her name...and boy he did!
His father wanted him to be a farmer in the same tradition as his Irish Ancestors. Henry said, that "he was not born just to be a farmer", and he went to Detroit to become a Machinist and an Engineer; sure he came back to work on his dad's farm but this time on the Caterpillars of his time... there you go! Good start for a T model, right Henry?
Now history of Icons has a pattern. Just try to read Napoleon and Even Attila the wrath of God. Icons have a different breed or become one by nature. The fittest of the survival. Steve Jobs was different and his temper was a logical consequence of his thoughts. Michael Dell, from Dell computers said in 1997: 'Apple should be shut down and give back the shares to his stockholders. In 2006 Steve sent a memo to his Employees stating that, 'Team, As of today Apple's value has surpassed Dell's. It turned out that Michael wasn't good in predicting the future'.
Now back to Jean Jacques Rousseau, who's words are in our Constitution. His mother died when he was 7 days old and he blamed himself for it. His dad left him orphaned at age ten. What was left? The world and his mind. He was lucky in finding a second mother, the now famous madame de Warens, who paid the bills and took care of the future Philosopher, while he was reading book after book and eventually caught up with his immortality.
These are examples for us. They needed to feel a different state of mind and a desire to be the best. Look at Tom Cruise, diagnosed with dyslexia... Do you know any classmate from Glen ridge High..(here in New Jersey), that became more famous than Mr. Top Gun?
If Steve had been reading us, we know he would've said: 'boy, Lord, gee! I was so busy in my own projects that actually I never even thought of this food for thought!'
Wherever you are Steve. You were an example of innovation, courage and determination. If it wasn't for you... Gosh! the Internet wouldn't have been the same. Thanks to you I can check my email on my own sleek cell. Thanks to you I can take a picture and post it on my Facebook. My iPod is loaded with your favorite group: The Beatles. Thanks to you, Pixar made 'Toy Story' for my children( wonder if Andy was really you?).
Your life was not in vain man! Thanks and wherever you are up there... we all, the world and our kids thank you sincerely!!
“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself.”
“Write something different. Obituaries are for dead people.”
"I hate On and OFF buttons... life doesn't end that way"
STEVE JOBS
