Reading Reflection No. 1

Week 7:         Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

1. Steve Jobs is one of the most fascinating entrepreneurs I have ever heard of. I think what honestly surprised me most about him what his early life. I had no idea at all that Steve Jobs was adopted after his birth parents had to give him up due to religious differences essentially. It is crazy that he ended up being adopted by a man who worked in a field of engineering, and that may have opened the door to what Steve Jobs would end up doing for the rest of his career. I think I most admired his determination. It is just so difficult to work that hard for so long and continue to have faith in your product and yourself. It takes serious guts to work on something you believe in for so long, even when it isn't necessarily going very well for you all the time. I wasn't a huge fan of his handling of the his relationship with Chrisann and the birth of his daughter. I think he just overall could have handled the situation better, and he may have been a little harsh. Although Jobs was already very healthy by his early 20's, he still encountered a ton of adversity. Many times, he really just kept innovating and adapting. He was willing to try and test out new things and not be scared to fail, and I think that is one of the major reasons he was so successful.

2. The major competencies that I would say Steve Jobs exhibited would be his dedication to his dream and working hard, and his ability to constantly innovate and think at a level where other people weren't thinking. When you have someone who is extremely intelligent and extremely dedicated to a certain idea or business, I think that is the most important factor in him becoming so successful and reaching the degree of success that he did.

3. I was fairly confused about the exact situation between his original birth parents. I understand that they couldn't get married because of religious pressure, but was it necessary for them to give the baby up for adoption. I think I was just confused about their exact reasoning. Ironically, I think I found the most interesting parts of the book were about the drama surrounding his family life.

4. I would ask Steve Jobs, how you find the courage to just focus on your dream and your idea and put everything else behind you? I would ask this because I think a lot of people struggle with having an idea, but not being willing to take a risk and go all out on it. I would also ask him, what his advice for a young entrepreneur would be. I know that is boring, but if you get a chance to ask the one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time for his advice I think you have to. 

5. I think his opinion of hard work is that it's one of the most important aspects of being successful. You can be a genius who has brilliant ideas, but if you don't put enough effort into what you do you'll end up being unsuccessful.