Steve Jobs had an incredible impact at Apple.  What principles can we learn from him? I stumbled on this challenging presentation at:  http://www.beatthemonster.com/blog.  Some great advice for any leader!

1. Follow your heart – “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.”

2. Make a dent in the universe – “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me… going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.”

3. Think different – “Kick start your brain. New ideas come from watching something, talking to people, experimenting, asking questions, and getting out of the office!”

4. Sell dreams, not products – “Your customers dream of a happier and better life. Don’t move products. Enrich lives.”

5. Make products for yourself – “We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.”

6. Say ‘no’ to 1,000 things – “It is only by saying ‘no’ that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”

7. Keep it simple – “That has been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it is worth it in the end, because once you get there you can move mountains.”

8. Go for excellence – “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

9. Break the rules – “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules… because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

10. You only live once – “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.”

**One more thing: “Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life.  Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”  Steve Jobs

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What advice would YOU give to a leader?