Whittaker Associates: Giving Information Meaning">Whittaker

Let me start with a question: if today were the last day of your life, would you still want to do what you are about to do today?

I recently had the privilege of viewing an exceptional commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple, and founder of Pixar Animation Studios. Jobs’s speech was first given at the Stanford University commencement in 2005, but via YouTube, I was quickly transported all the way to California and seated in the front row for his phenomenal presentation.

In a series of three stories, Jobs presents some deep questions, imparting pointed encouragement and knowledgeable advice. He claims that his best motivation for living life, and his most humbling conviction, is to remember that he will be dead soon. Each morning when he wakes up, Jobs looks in the mirror and asks himself if he’d still do what he is about to do that day, even if he knew it was his last. If the answer is “no” too many days in a row, he knows that something needs to be changed.

The reality that life eventually ends in death shouldn’t be depressing; it should rather motivate you to remember you have nothing to lose by pursuing what you love to do. Our time on earth is limited; don’t waste it by living someone else’s life. What good are you to the world in a job for which you don’t have passion, one that you don’t enjoy? Take risks. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

To be successful in your pursuit, you need to have faith that life will work out. At the age of thirty, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company that he founded. He claims it’s the best thing that ever happened to him; it placed him back into a spot of insecurity and made him dig down deeper into his storeroom of creativity. Out of it, he designed Next and Pixar. In a crazy turn of events, Apple bought Next and Jobs was placed right back to where he started: at the head of Apple. Looking back, each dot connected. However, Jobs was only successful, very successful, because he had the tenacity to keep looking for his adventure.

So, look at yourself in the mirror. Stop. Think. Decide. Do you love what you are doing? Enough to do it on your last day of life?

If the answer is yes, great! Keep doing it. If the answer is no, find a new path. Jobs offered the following advice: you must start by doing what you believe is great work. Find what you love.  Keep looking. Don’t settle. “As with all matters of the heart,” says Jobs, “you’ll know when you find it.”

Feel free to watch the speech. It is about 15 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

By Jim Bruckbauer

Organization gurus like to divide activities into four categories or quadrants.  You’ve probably heard how they’re defined: Quadrant I activities are urgent and important; Quadrant II activities are not urgent, but important; Quadrant III activities are urgent but unimportant; and Quadrant IV activities are neither urgent nor important (a.k.a. seductive time-wasters).

We could go into great detail about all four Quadrants and how they affect our lives and productivity, but for now, let’s just look at Quadrant II a little more closely.

Since many important activities don’t give us the added impetus of urgency, they tend to get pushed to the back burner.  But Quadrant II activities are essential to eliminating the unimportant activities that seem to take up most of our time.  Examples of Quadrant II activities include planning, relationship building, preventative measures, and regular exercise. These are the proactive things we can do to keep pressing problems from arising in our lives.

One of the most important Quadrant II activities we can do is to practice self-renewal.

Stephen Covey calls these exercises “sharpening the saw” and says that if you work on these dimensions of your life for one hour a day, “no other single hour of your day will return as much as you invest in sharpening the saw.”*

Self-renewal exercises work to renew the four dimensions of the human personality: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Physical – Participate in some kind of balanced, moderate, regular program of aerobic exercise. Stretching for flexibility and doing resistance exercises for strength are also very helpful.

Mental – Exercise your mind through reading, creative problem-solving and writing.

Social/Emotional – Practice empathetic communication and cooperation, seeking to serve others.

Spiritual – Spend time on the things that deeply inspire and uplift you. For some it’s religion and prayerful meditation. For others, it’s great literature or music.

If all these dimensions work congruently with each other, tremendous energy and effectiveness can result.

My challenge to you is to try to spend an hour a day on self-renewal and see if you feel a difference and if others see a difference.  Some of the activities can be done naturally throughout the day, while others will need scheduled time. It’s time well-invested, however. It will improve your self-esteem and positively impact your relationships with others.

*Covey, Stephen R., The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People