What Steve Jobs Taught a Caribbean Woman Entrepreneur About Life and Business

iNSPIRED

For me, it wasn’t just about his innovations that changed our daily lives and the way we do business, but it was also his approach to life and business that made me read everything I could get on what he had done, had said, how he thought and what he saw as his mission here – ” I want to put a ding in the universe”.

The more I read about him, the more I kept reading about his laser focus; the trust and faith in his intuition, in himself; his drive for excellence and spirit of experimentation with his ideas; how he shared what he learnt about his mistakes and business failures; how he challenged the status quo fearlessly and consistently; how he challenged us to see the future through his eyes; how he changed peoples lives by creating products that made it easier for us to share more special moments with each other even while miles apart; how he changed business by creating products that made people doing what they love, able to do so more productively, collaboratively, excellently and with a greater sense of fun. When I first saw that “Here’s to to the Crazy Ones” Ad I knew I’d found a mentor to follow. He made me feel ok about being one of the crazy ones, an individual who believed that her ideas will change things.

Macintosh Color Classic -My First Apple Computer Experience

As a cub reporter at the Jamaica Observer in 1994, I wrote my first 3 award winning stories, front page leads, a series on the status of women, and a weekly column of satire that got me a couple of threats – on a Macintosh Color Classic computer with front loading floppy discs.

When I started my first tech company I bought an iBook with money from one of our first clients. On that I wrote my first business plan, did work for clients like JMMB and Digicel. It was my workhorse until it died and I promptly bought another one and kept the old one. It was too hard to part with it.

I’ve worked on nothing but Apple computers…from G4 towers, iMacs to currently my MacBook Pro, that I wrote this blog post on and on which I’m about to write a new business plan for my company – ConnectiMass. A company that I believe will change things here in Jamaica and the Caribbean, especially as we take things up a few notches to drive tech entrepreneurship. My experiences, the pivotal life moments I’ve shared with my Mac, because of my Mac. iSmile.

iSAD ? Yes, A little.

When he stepped down from being Ceo the last week in August, I panicked and started to brace myself to face reality that just maybe he was on his way out of our lives. He was going to die soon. Unfortunately today is that day. While I am gutted, I take how he lived his life as inspiration to:

–  Continue to Be Passionate and Be excellent at what I love to do. Bridging the gap between the information have and have nots, between the opportunity have and have nots via online media, tech events and coming soon tech startup incubation-training and seed funding.

– Challenge the Status Quo here in Jamaica, the Caribbean and the World.

– Be Fearless in experimenting with my ideas-learning from mistakes and failures and using them as springboards to other successes.

–  Never, ever Settle.

–  Always Think Big.

–  Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

– Think Different.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011. A Life Brilliantly Lived.

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