What Steve Jobs forced the executives.
LIFE is short. And your time is limited. #Episode 15
I wish all my newsletter readers a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!
In Japan, as many of you have noticed from some media, we had two tragic accidents— a massive earthquake on New Year’s Day, and a Japan Airlines plane caught fire due to a collision between a JAL plane and a Japan Coast Guard plane at Haneda International Airport on January 2nd.
I offer my deepest condolences to those who lost their lives and hope that those affected by the disaster will be able to return to their daily lives as soon as possible.
As the first newsletter this year, I’d like to share what I learned from a panel talk we held on December 21st (Thu), 2023, at Musashino Valley, a startup studio and co-working space in Tokyo, where I’m one of the shareholders.
The members are Kenji Kajiwara (Kajiken) at Chikaku, who used to work at Apple Japan; Yui Ohtsuki at FinT, who is one of the representative Gen Z female entrepreneurs in Japan, Youichi Ito, the author of the best-selling book “Talk in a minute” and the dean of the Entrepreneurship Department of Musashino University, and myself.
This panel talk was conducted at the reunion of the Silicon Valley tour I have been working on since August 2011, although the organizers and I were in different positions.
What I learned is “to focus.” It’s simple but challenging because we “fear” discarding the possibilities.
The story told by Kajiken was looking back at his Apple days.
When Steve Jobs was alive, he conducted the TOP 100 meetings with the 100 executives whose first names he remembered.
The meeting was held for three days, and their MacBooks, iPhones, and other devices were not allowed to be brought in so that they could focus on the discussion.
Steve first ordered them to list the TOP 10 agenda they thought was important.
Then, he forced them to throw away seven agendas and only keep THREE things. This is the hard part.
I remember the same kind of thing from reading thick books every day after I shut down the DreamVision business in 2008. Some of you may remember my previous post on Substack about my failure.
I was reading Peter F. Drucker, Clayton Christensen, Henry Mintzberg, etc. The book I liked most was “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” by Drucker.
I don’t remember whether it is from the book, but what I remember is “subordinate rank.”
He said anyone can set priorities, but deciding on the subordinate or what should be discarded from your list is difficult because you don’t want to miss opportunities.
Until I was 35 years old, even if the talent given by my parents was limited, I thought I had “unlimited time” in my life.
But when I turned 35, I realized that the same time would once again come into my life as it had from age 20 to today, that I would be 50 years old. Then, I felt like I had been hit in the back of the head with a hammer…
When I said that I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that, etc., I realized that my life would end before I accomplished anything, and it sent a chill down my spine.
The 15 years came into my life way faster than I expected…
What have I accomplished in the past 25 years…? I’m 60 years old now.
LIFE is short. Your time is limited.
