Open" is a great thing. Everyone likes it. Unfortunately, nobody agrees what open is. There are many meanings, but in general, I think "open" must be the opposite of "closed". In the world of abstract things like software, protocols and society, closed is secret, hidden, or locked.
"Closed" limits our mobility, prevents discovery, and discourages new connections. Imagine being in a building where all of the doors are locked or guarded, and it's difficult to move from room to room or leave. A closed world is one where people are forced to stay in their place, sometimes because of physical constraints, but more commonly because they simply don't know where else to go. A closed world is giant prison.
In an open world, people are able to see more clearly, and more easily explore new ideas and possibilities. An open world is more fluid -- people and ideas easily flow over boundaries and other borders. This openness is what makes the Internet so powerful. The Internet is melting the world, but in a good way.
Open standards and open source software are important for making technology open and available to everyone, but it's important to remember that open goes beyond tech. Wikipedia makes knowledge open to everyone. Blogs and YouTube make broadcasting and mass communication open to everyone -- news and events that would have been suppressed in the past are now reaching the whole world.
These things have been discussed to death, but there's another "open" that still seems a little frivolous: our lives. We like to joke (or complain) about people who share every boring detail of their lives and thoughts on Facebook or Twitter, but they may be doing something important.
Most of our happiness and productivity comes from the everyday details of our lives: the people we live and work with, the books we read, the hikes we take, the parties we attend, etc. But how do we choose these things? How do we know what to do, and how do know if we'll like it? The obvious answer is that we do and like whatever the TV tells us to do and like. I'm not certain that's the best answer though.
By sharing more of our own thoughts and lives with the world, we contribute to the global pool of "how to live", and over time we also get contributions back from the world. Think of it as "open source living". This has certainly been my experience with my blog and FriendFeed. Not only do people occasionally say that it has helped them, but I've also met interesting new people and gotten a lot of good leads on new ideas. These are typically small things, but our lives are woven from the small details of everyday living. For example, I saw a good TED talk on "The science of motivation", shared it on FriendFeed, and in the comments Laura Norvig suggested a book called Unconditional Parenting, which turns out to be very good.
The next step is for people to open more of their current activities and plans. This is often referred to as "real-time", but since real-time is also a technical term, we often focus too much on the technical aspect of it. The "real-time" that matters is the human part -- what I'm doing and thinking right now, and my ability to communicate that to the world, right now. We see some of this on Facebook, FriendFeed, and Twitter, and also location-aware apps such as Foursquare, but it's still fairly primitive and fringe. When this activity reaches critical mass, it should be very interesting for society. It dramatically alters the time and growth coefficients in group formation. It enables a much higher degree of serendipity and ad hoc socializing.
The basic pattern of openness is that better access to information and better systems lead to better decisions and better living. This general principal is broadly accepted, but we're just now discovering that it also applies to the minutiae of our lives.
Sharing your boring thoughts and activities may seem narcissistic and self-absorbed at first (I'm still kind of embarrassed about having a blog), but there is virtue and benefit in it. Naturally there will be challenges and fear along the way, but in the long term we're contributing to a more open, fluid society, where people are more able to find happy, productive lives. It also encourages us to be more accepting of others. Everyone is flawed, and the more we see that we aren't alone, the less we need to fear that truth.
People can not truly live and thrive in a prison -- we require freedom and mobility. This may explain my incomprehensible analogy, "Open as in water, the fluid necessary for life".
Go forth and share.
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Thursday, 5 May 2011
8 Questions You Need the Answer to Before you Can Close the Deal
Closing the deal doesn’t have to be hard. It starts with building a solid relationship with the people who will make the decision, clearly understanding their needs, matching your offering to their needs to show them the fit, providing your offering for a fair price and asking for the business. (Not to over simplify, I know there are demos, trials, proposals and other things that need to happen in some cases.)
You have t0 do the hard work but I promise you, if you do it closing will be easier and I also promise that closing will be hard to do if you don’t have the answer to the following 8 questions.
What is your budget?
Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making process?
What is your timeline for implementation?
What is your timeline for making a decision?
How will our solution meet your needs?
What other solutions have you considered?
On what factors will you make your decision?
Many times salespeople tell me they are having trouble closing a deal. I ask them to tell me the situation and the answers to those questions. Typically, they can’t answer all of them but they were ready to close. Once they go back and ask those questions they are usually able to move the sale forward or at least understand why the sale is stalled.
Make it part of your sales call planning to ask these questions at the appropriate times and confirm the answers. If you do, closing will be much easier
You have t0 do the hard work but I promise you, if you do it closing will be easier and I also promise that closing will be hard to do if you don’t have the answer to the following 8 questions.
What is your budget?
Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making process?
What is your timeline for implementation?
What is your timeline for making a decision?
How will our solution meet your needs?
What other solutions have you considered?
On what factors will you make your decision?
Many times salespeople tell me they are having trouble closing a deal. I ask them to tell me the situation and the answers to those questions. Typically, they can’t answer all of them but they were ready to close. Once they go back and ask those questions they are usually able to move the sale forward or at least understand why the sale is stalled.
Make it part of your sales call planning to ask these questions at the appropriate times and confirm the answers. If you do, closing will be much easier
WHY IS YOUR NEW SALESPERSON NOT SELLING ANYTHING
You did a search, found great sales candidates, put them through a rigorous screening process, and hired the best one. Now you expect them to get out there and sell, right? The fact is,their sales performance is awful, way below your expectations. How long should it take a new salesperson to ramp up to full speed? Shouldn’t they already know how to sell? Did I hire the wrong person?
Assuming you have an adequate sales process and good lead generation, there are three basic things that get in the way of a new salesperson’s success.
Your expectations
Lack of needed sales skills for the new position
Inadequate training period
The biggest mistake we make is setting unrealistic expectations, by putting the salesperson out in the field (or on the phone) too soon, without adequate support. This is a very costly mistake. We want them to produce sales immediately, and it costs money if they don’t. But it costs more money if we don’t train them properly and it takes them longer to ramp up and they may get discouraged and leave, we fire them, or worse yet, we keep them even though they are performing poorly. To get the desired results, put training into your budget and on your schedule and don’t expect anything of the new salesperson the first three weeks other than that they follow the training schedule and ask good questions.
If prospecting is a requirement of the job, don’t assume that your new hires are good at it — or even know how to do it. We hire people and expect them to know all aspects of sales responsibilities, when in fact they may have been very successful in their old job at account management but not at prospecting. Or they may have been great at prospecting and generated lots of leads but didn’t close enough of them. Or maybe they didn’t cover the details well enough and made it to closing but didn’t get repeat business because they hadn’t educated the customer or followed through sufficiently.
Hiring right is imperative but it never makes up for lack of training or insufficient training. You need to design a new-hire training program for all your new salespeople. You owe it to them and your organization. Aside from the typical orientation and HR overview, you probably give your new salespeople product training. This is not enough. Here is the new-hire training program I recommend. You need to invest three to four weeks in initial training. There are no shortcuts. I recommend the following five components.
Learning about the company
Learning the departments, people and roles
Learning the product/service
Learning the job
Learning needed sales skills
The first few days on the job, the salesperson should be scheduled to spend time learning about the company, the history, the company vision for the future as well as alliances and partnerships, policies and procedures and any other important facts, attitudes and values. They should also become intimately familiar with the Web site and all of the recent press releases and the investor relations section.
As part of this learning they should visit every department in the company in person if possible and on the phone where distance is a problem. They need to learn who the key people are in each department and their role. A list should be ready for the salesperson with all of the contact info and a “who to call when” section. The department personnel should have an approved list of information that they go through with the new salespeople to tell them about their department, their role and how they interact with sales.
Examine the product/service training you provide. Does it cover everything? It is in-depth enough or is it too detailed? Does it need to be broken up into smaller chunks? As part of the product training the new salesperson should have the opportunity to use the product or talk to satisfied customers who use the product. They should also have the opportunity to see first hand the product production or development and shadow the people who do that. If there is delivery and installation, the salesperson should ride along to learn that aspect as well.
In my opinion the best way to learn a job is to start by shadowing. Choose carefully from your most successful salespeople and make a schedule. Each of your successful salespeople do things differently so make sure the new salesperson gets to shadow at least three. Make sure you choose successful, experienced salespeople with positive attitudes.
Unfortunately, some very successful salespeople have negative attitudes. You know who they are. Don’t choose them! Train your experienced, successful salespeople so they know what to do and say to be helpful to the new salespeople while they are shadowing. Make sure the new person gets to see a variety of activity and has time to ask questions.
Demonstration followed by discussion is the way in which most adults learn best. Next they need to do the demonstrated task with an observer followed by feedback and discussion with that observer. The last piece is doing the task on their own with no observer followed by discussion with their previous observer. Once the salesperson has shadowed several salespeople, it is time for the manager to step in. You should ride with the person to visit clients and prospects. Before each visit, discuss with the salesperson what their approach will be, observe them and take a few notes for feedback and discussion after each meeting. Once you feel secure in the salesperson’s ability, leave them on their own to perform sales calls independently, but be sure to have a follow-up discussion each week about the results of those meetings.
After evaluating your new salesperson’s skills, you will need to bridge any gaps in their skill set. If you have a good snapshot of all the skills a successful salesperson at your company needs this will be fairly easy. Make sure they have good prospecting, discovery, education and closing skills. If not, send them to a sales course in person or online or have them read a great book on sales that covers the needed skills and then have a discussion about it. Roleplaying the needed skills with the salesperson is also helpful.
Don’t expect salespeople to have all the needed skills. They may not have had any formal training. If salespeople like a certain aspect of selling, they may be better at it than in others. For example, they might be great at prospecting, but not know how to ask good questions, and even if they do, they may need to learn the right questions to ask to sell your product or service.
A caution: Good salespeople will tend to become impatient. They’ll want to jump right in and start selling. That’s a good thing but you will need to continuously reassure them that this training process will make them more successful in the long run.
Assuming you have an adequate sales process and good lead generation, there are three basic things that get in the way of a new salesperson’s success.
Your expectations
Lack of needed sales skills for the new position
Inadequate training period
The biggest mistake we make is setting unrealistic expectations, by putting the salesperson out in the field (or on the phone) too soon, without adequate support. This is a very costly mistake. We want them to produce sales immediately, and it costs money if they don’t. But it costs more money if we don’t train them properly and it takes them longer to ramp up and they may get discouraged and leave, we fire them, or worse yet, we keep them even though they are performing poorly. To get the desired results, put training into your budget and on your schedule and don’t expect anything of the new salesperson the first three weeks other than that they follow the training schedule and ask good questions.
If prospecting is a requirement of the job, don’t assume that your new hires are good at it — or even know how to do it. We hire people and expect them to know all aspects of sales responsibilities, when in fact they may have been very successful in their old job at account management but not at prospecting. Or they may have been great at prospecting and generated lots of leads but didn’t close enough of them. Or maybe they didn’t cover the details well enough and made it to closing but didn’t get repeat business because they hadn’t educated the customer or followed through sufficiently.
Hiring right is imperative but it never makes up for lack of training or insufficient training. You need to design a new-hire training program for all your new salespeople. You owe it to them and your organization. Aside from the typical orientation and HR overview, you probably give your new salespeople product training. This is not enough. Here is the new-hire training program I recommend. You need to invest three to four weeks in initial training. There are no shortcuts. I recommend the following five components.
Learning about the company
Learning the departments, people and roles
Learning the product/service
Learning the job
Learning needed sales skills
The first few days on the job, the salesperson should be scheduled to spend time learning about the company, the history, the company vision for the future as well as alliances and partnerships, policies and procedures and any other important facts, attitudes and values. They should also become intimately familiar with the Web site and all of the recent press releases and the investor relations section.
As part of this learning they should visit every department in the company in person if possible and on the phone where distance is a problem. They need to learn who the key people are in each department and their role. A list should be ready for the salesperson with all of the contact info and a “who to call when” section. The department personnel should have an approved list of information that they go through with the new salespeople to tell them about their department, their role and how they interact with sales.
Examine the product/service training you provide. Does it cover everything? It is in-depth enough or is it too detailed? Does it need to be broken up into smaller chunks? As part of the product training the new salesperson should have the opportunity to use the product or talk to satisfied customers who use the product. They should also have the opportunity to see first hand the product production or development and shadow the people who do that. If there is delivery and installation, the salesperson should ride along to learn that aspect as well.
In my opinion the best way to learn a job is to start by shadowing. Choose carefully from your most successful salespeople and make a schedule. Each of your successful salespeople do things differently so make sure the new salesperson gets to shadow at least three. Make sure you choose successful, experienced salespeople with positive attitudes.
Unfortunately, some very successful salespeople have negative attitudes. You know who they are. Don’t choose them! Train your experienced, successful salespeople so they know what to do and say to be helpful to the new salespeople while they are shadowing. Make sure the new person gets to see a variety of activity and has time to ask questions.
Demonstration followed by discussion is the way in which most adults learn best. Next they need to do the demonstrated task with an observer followed by feedback and discussion with that observer. The last piece is doing the task on their own with no observer followed by discussion with their previous observer. Once the salesperson has shadowed several salespeople, it is time for the manager to step in. You should ride with the person to visit clients and prospects. Before each visit, discuss with the salesperson what their approach will be, observe them and take a few notes for feedback and discussion after each meeting. Once you feel secure in the salesperson’s ability, leave them on their own to perform sales calls independently, but be sure to have a follow-up discussion each week about the results of those meetings.
After evaluating your new salesperson’s skills, you will need to bridge any gaps in their skill set. If you have a good snapshot of all the skills a successful salesperson at your company needs this will be fairly easy. Make sure they have good prospecting, discovery, education and closing skills. If not, send them to a sales course in person or online or have them read a great book on sales that covers the needed skills and then have a discussion about it. Roleplaying the needed skills with the salesperson is also helpful.
Don’t expect salespeople to have all the needed skills. They may not have had any formal training. If salespeople like a certain aspect of selling, they may be better at it than in others. For example, they might be great at prospecting, but not know how to ask good questions, and even if they do, they may need to learn the right questions to ask to sell your product or service.
A caution: Good salespeople will tend to become impatient. They’ll want to jump right in and start selling. That’s a good thing but you will need to continuously reassure them that this training process will make them more successful in the long run.
What is the MOST important thing you've learned about closing the opportunity once you know what will help them and how?
Closing shouldn’t be hard, it is just another part of the sales cycle. Closing the deal only becomes hard when the prospect is not ready to buy. Why do salespeople think prospects are ready to buy when they are not? How do the salespeople get all the way to the end of the sales cycle with a prospect and not know whether or not the deal will close? It is because the salesperson has moved forward in the sales cycle and the prospect has not.
In these circumstances the salesperson may be thinking:
“I’ve done everything I can, given you all the information I have, answered all of your questions and provided for all of your requests. Why won’t you buy now?”
The prospect may be thinking one of the following:
“I am not ready to buy so I don’t know why you expect me to.”
“You have overwhelmed me with information that I now have to explain to the others involved in the purchase and they are all too busy.”
“This was a priority for others in my company so I rushed to get everything they needed and now it is on the back burner and I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Although I understand your product’s bells and whistles I still don’t really know if your product is the best solution for my needs.”
“Our priorities have changed and I don’t have time to call you back or I feel bad so I don’t want to call and tell you our decision.”
Effective closing starts with getting commitment. Commitments need to be made in each step of the sales cycle by the prospect as well as the salesperson. Typically, salespeople don’t think about getting the prospect to commit until the end at closing time. Salespeople are very good at making commitments and giving information to their prospects. They know everything about the product or service they sell and are enthusiastic to share that knowledge. They feel their solution is the best and of course the prospect should choose it. We want our salespeople to feel this way and the reality is that the prospect may not. We want our salespeople to get good at getting commitments and information from the prospects. This should be easy if the salesperson is seen as a problem solver and not someone who is pushing their product or service whether it fits or not.
When approaching a prospect, salespeople need to start by asking questions to understand the situation and determine if their solution is a good fit. Once they have done that they should share only the information that shows how the product fits and educate the prospect in any areas needed. If the interest continues they should ask for a commitment from the prospect.
Answering questions like the ones below, making introductions, reading or reviewing material for the next conversation, scheduling another meeting or trying a product and rating it are examples of commitments a prospect could make. Come up with commitments that are appropriate for each step in the sales cycle. In order to move a sale to the close good questions need to be asked in the beginning. Here are some examples:
• What is your budget?
• Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
• What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making process?
• What is your timeline for implementation?
• What is your timeline for making a decision?
• How will our solution meet your needs?
• What other solutions have you considered?
• When should I get back to you to learn of your decision?
If the prospect won’t answer the questions or make any commitments it is a signal that the sale is not moving forward. Either find out why or go work on some prospects that are ready to buy. Follow up with that prospect in a couple of months when things may have changed. And even if they have purchased from someone else, follow up and see how that worked because it may not have. Closing the deal is really about getting commitment and the final commitment is making the purchase.
In these circumstances the salesperson may be thinking:
“I’ve done everything I can, given you all the information I have, answered all of your questions and provided for all of your requests. Why won’t you buy now?”
The prospect may be thinking one of the following:
“I am not ready to buy so I don’t know why you expect me to.”
“You have overwhelmed me with information that I now have to explain to the others involved in the purchase and they are all too busy.”
“This was a priority for others in my company so I rushed to get everything they needed and now it is on the back burner and I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Although I understand your product’s bells and whistles I still don’t really know if your product is the best solution for my needs.”
“Our priorities have changed and I don’t have time to call you back or I feel bad so I don’t want to call and tell you our decision.”
Effective closing starts with getting commitment. Commitments need to be made in each step of the sales cycle by the prospect as well as the salesperson. Typically, salespeople don’t think about getting the prospect to commit until the end at closing time. Salespeople are very good at making commitments and giving information to their prospects. They know everything about the product or service they sell and are enthusiastic to share that knowledge. They feel their solution is the best and of course the prospect should choose it. We want our salespeople to feel this way and the reality is that the prospect may not. We want our salespeople to get good at getting commitments and information from the prospects. This should be easy if the salesperson is seen as a problem solver and not someone who is pushing their product or service whether it fits or not.
When approaching a prospect, salespeople need to start by asking questions to understand the situation and determine if their solution is a good fit. Once they have done that they should share only the information that shows how the product fits and educate the prospect in any areas needed. If the interest continues they should ask for a commitment from the prospect.
Answering questions like the ones below, making introductions, reading or reviewing material for the next conversation, scheduling another meeting or trying a product and rating it are examples of commitments a prospect could make. Come up with commitments that are appropriate for each step in the sales cycle. In order to move a sale to the close good questions need to be asked in the beginning. Here are some examples:
• What is your budget?
• Who else besides yourself will be involved in making the decision?
• What is the best way to include everyone involved in the decision making process?
• What is your timeline for implementation?
• What is your timeline for making a decision?
• How will our solution meet your needs?
• What other solutions have you considered?
• When should I get back to you to learn of your decision?
If the prospect won’t answer the questions or make any commitments it is a signal that the sale is not moving forward. Either find out why or go work on some prospects that are ready to buy. Follow up with that prospect in a couple of months when things may have changed. And even if they have purchased from someone else, follow up and see how that worked because it may not have. Closing the deal is really about getting commitment and the final commitment is making the purchase.
Intelligence from chanakya
A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest
people are screwed first."
"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."
"The biggest guru-mantra is: Never share your secrets with anybody. It will
destroy you."
"There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship
without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."
"Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I
doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you
think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."
"As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."
"The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman."
"Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere.
Education beats the beauty and the youth."
"Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind
person."
"Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five
years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your
grown up children are your bX-Mozilla-Status ???
"A man is great by deeds, not by birth."
"God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your
temple."
"The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the
goodness of a person spreads in all direction."
"Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't
abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest."
people are screwed first."
"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."
"The biggest guru-mantra is: Never share your secrets with anybody. It will
destroy you."
"There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship
without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."
"Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I
doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you
think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."
"As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."
"The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman."
"Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere.
Education beats the beauty and the youth."
"Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind
person."
"Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five
years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your
grown up children are your bX-Mozilla-Status ???
"A man is great by deeds, not by birth."
"God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your
temple."
"The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the
goodness of a person spreads in all direction."
"Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't
abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest."
For my wife
Today's the day
People officially say
"I love you dear"
But you're not here.
How many times
And how many lines
Did we write each other
Professing our love to one another?
This year is no exception,
I have no misconseptions.
Even though we're not together
My heart's with you forever.
We've been apart so long
And still we hear our song.
Like the stars in the sky
Some feelings never die.
You tell me that you love me
And I'm your destiny.
Well ... all I know
Is that I still want you so.
It's Valentine's day today!
So once again I'll say-
No matter who... no matter how far,
No matter what... Darlin'
My Love is Where You Are
People officially say
"I love you dear"
But you're not here.
How many times
And how many lines
Did we write each other
Professing our love to one another?
This year is no exception,
I have no misconseptions.
Even though we're not together
My heart's with you forever.
We've been apart so long
And still we hear our song.
Like the stars in the sky
Some feelings never die.
You tell me that you love me
And I'm your destiny.
Well ... all I know
Is that I still want you so.
It's Valentine's day today!
So once again I'll say-
No matter who... no matter how far,
No matter what... Darlin'
My Love is Where You Are
Wishes can be horses
A man walks into a restaurant with a full-grown ostrich behind him, and as he sits down, the waitress comes over and asks for their order.
The man says, “I’ll have a hamburger, fries and a coke,” and turns to the ostrich. “What’s yours?” “I’ll have the same,” says the ostrich.
A short time later the waitress returns with the order. “That will be $6.40 please,” and the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out exact change for payment.
The next day, the man and the ostrich come again and the man says, “I’ll have a hamburger, fries and a coke,” and the ostrich says, “I’ll have the same.” Once again the man reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.
This becomes a routine until late one evening, the two enter again. “The usual?” asks the waitress. “No, this is Friday night, so I will have a steak, baked potato and salad,” says the man. “Same for me,” says the ostrich.
A short time later the waitress comes with the order and says, “That will be $12.62.” Once again the man pulls exact change out of his pocket and places it on the table.
The waitress can’t hold back her curiosity any longer.
“Excuse me, sir. How do you manage to always come up with the exact change out of your pocket every time?”
“Well,” says the man, “several years ago I was cleaning the attic and I found an old lamp. When I rubbed it a Genie appeared and offered me two wishes. My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything, just put my hand in my pocket, and the right amount of money would always be there.”
“That’s brilliant!” says the waitress. “Most people would wish for a million dollars or something, but you’ll always be as rich as you want for as long as you live!”
“That’s right! Whether it’s a gallon of milk or a Rolls Royce, the exact money is always there,” says the man.
The waitress asks, “One other thing, sir, what’s with the ostrich?”
The man sighs, pauses, and answers, “My second wish was for a tall chick with long legs who agrees with everything I say!”
The man says, “I’ll have a hamburger, fries and a coke,” and turns to the ostrich. “What’s yours?” “I’ll have the same,” says the ostrich.
A short time later the waitress returns with the order. “That will be $6.40 please,” and the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out exact change for payment.
The next day, the man and the ostrich come again and the man says, “I’ll have a hamburger, fries and a coke,” and the ostrich says, “I’ll have the same.” Once again the man reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.
This becomes a routine until late one evening, the two enter again. “The usual?” asks the waitress. “No, this is Friday night, so I will have a steak, baked potato and salad,” says the man. “Same for me,” says the ostrich.
A short time later the waitress comes with the order and says, “That will be $12.62.” Once again the man pulls exact change out of his pocket and places it on the table.
The waitress can’t hold back her curiosity any longer.
“Excuse me, sir. How do you manage to always come up with the exact change out of your pocket every time?”
“Well,” says the man, “several years ago I was cleaning the attic and I found an old lamp. When I rubbed it a Genie appeared and offered me two wishes. My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything, just put my hand in my pocket, and the right amount of money would always be there.”
“That’s brilliant!” says the waitress. “Most people would wish for a million dollars or something, but you’ll always be as rich as you want for as long as you live!”
“That’s right! Whether it’s a gallon of milk or a Rolls Royce, the exact money is always there,” says the man.
The waitress asks, “One other thing, sir, what’s with the ostrich?”
The man sighs, pauses, and answers, “My second wish was for a tall chick with long legs who agrees with everything I say!”
We learn being together. some choose the difficult way
On the premise that by observing God's hand in nature, we can gain some basic truths for ourselves:
This fall when you see geese heading back south for the winter flying in a "V" formation, you might be interested in knowing what scientists have discovered about why they fly that way. It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following.
By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
BASIC TRUTH #1 -- PEOPLE WHO SHARE A COMMON DIRECTION AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY CAN GET WHERE THEY WANT TO GO QUICKER AND EASIER BY TRAVELING ON THE TRUST OF ONE ANOTHER.
When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.
BASIC TRUTH #2 -- IT PAYS TO TAKE TURNS DOING HARD JOBS.
The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
BASIC TRUTH #3 -- IF WE WANT HELP FROM THOSE OUT IN FRONT OF US, WE WILL ENCOURAGE THEM TO KEEP DOING A GOOD JOB.
Finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded by gun shot and falls out, two gees fall out of formation and follow him down to protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and then they launch out with another formation.
BASIC TRUTH #4 -- GREAT THINGS CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED WHEN WE WORK WITH AND HELP ONE ANOTHER.
This fall when you see geese heading back south for the winter flying in a "V" formation, you might be interested in knowing what scientists have discovered about why they fly that way. It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following.
By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
BASIC TRUTH #1 -- PEOPLE WHO SHARE A COMMON DIRECTION AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY CAN GET WHERE THEY WANT TO GO QUICKER AND EASIER BY TRAVELING ON THE TRUST OF ONE ANOTHER.
When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.
BASIC TRUTH #2 -- IT PAYS TO TAKE TURNS DOING HARD JOBS.
The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
BASIC TRUTH #3 -- IF WE WANT HELP FROM THOSE OUT IN FRONT OF US, WE WILL ENCOURAGE THEM TO KEEP DOING A GOOD JOB.
Finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded by gun shot and falls out, two gees fall out of formation and follow him down to protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and then they launch out with another formation.
BASIC TRUTH #4 -- GREAT THINGS CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED WHEN WE WORK WITH AND HELP ONE ANOTHER.
DONT OVERLOAD ONESELF
Once upon a time a Washer man was bringing up two donkeys. Let us say Donkey-A and Donkey-B.Donkey-A felt it was very energetic and could do better than the other. It always tried to pull the washer man’s attraction over it by taking more load and walking fast in front of him. Innocent Donkey-B is normal, so it will walk normal, irrespective of the waterman’s presence. After a period of time, Washer man started pressurizing Donkey-B to be like Donkey-A. But Donkey-B unable to walk fast, got continuous punishment from washer man. It was crying and told personally to Donkey-A "Dear friend, only we two are here, why to compete with each other....we can carry equal load at normalspeed ". That made Donkey-A all the more energetic and next day it told to washer man that it can carry more load and even it can run fast also.Obviously happier washer man looked at Donkey-B.., his BP raised and he started kicking Donkey-B. Next day with smile, Donkey-A carried more load and started running fast. But it was breathtaking for Donkey-B and it couldn't act that way....But the washer man was frustrated, so he harassed Donkey-B terribly, and finally it fell down hopelessly.Then Donkey-A felt itself as a supreme and happily started carrying more load with great speed. But now the Load of the Donkey-B is also being carried by Donkey-A., and still it has to run fast. For some period it did, finally due to fatigue it got tired and started feeling the pain. But washer man expected more from Donkey-A. It also tried best, but couldn't cope up with his owners demand. The Washer man got angry with Donkey-A also and started harassing to take more load... Donkey-A was crying for long time and then tried its best... But it couldn't meet the owner's satisfaction. Finally the day came when due to frustration the washer man killed Donkey-A and went for searching some other Donkeys.
Its an endless story....... ...But the moral of the Story in Corporate and social life is......,
"Think all colleagues are same and that everyone is capable.... Always Share the Load equally..... Don't ever act smart in front of your Boss and never try for getting over-credit...."
Its an endless story....... ...But the moral of the Story in Corporate and social life is......,
"Think all colleagues are same and that everyone is capable.... Always Share the Load equally..... Don't ever act smart in front of your Boss and never try for getting over-credit...."
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)