3 Great Lessons from Hazret Steve Jobs

In this so called modern era marks of Hazret Steve Jobs can not be avoided unless one is living in some pre-historic and non discovered region of the earth. Most strikingly although world wide web (www) was not discovered by him but it was developed on a computer known as Next produced by the company with same name and owned by Steve Jobs. Later his venture led to invention of wi-fi. Taking these two products down from shelves would immediately change this era from modern age to the middle ages.

I was reading a wonderful book about him entitled, ‘Steve Jobs -The man who thought different’ by Karen Blumenthal recently. Although whole book is wonderful but three lessons extracted by the author about Steve Jobs were amazing. I could not resist myself from sharing them here.

The first one is about focus. In fact Steve Job’s point of view in this regard coincides with that of Ibn Khaldun stated about 700 years ago. Ibn Khaldun wrote in his book Muqadimmah that time has come (!) when there is a great pollution of information. A lot of information is becoming available to every one. People are using it without knowing how to analyze or produce it. Steve Job also said similar thing while describing focus. He stated, ‘People think focus means saying yes to the thing you have got to focus on - (however) focus means saying No to the one hundred other good ideas there are. You have to pick carefully’. He stressed upon rejection of non-related issues resulting in focusing to the required one. It is simple to understand as rejecting the non required and distracting issues would help one to concentrate and handle the one he/she should have been doing. 

Being easy said, it is not easy enough to implement. This is explained well by the second lesson explained in the said book i.e. ‘simple can be harder than complex’. This explains a lot of things why humans intend to make complex analysis, decisions and products. It is easy to do so because this involves a lot of constraints and dimensions and any related failure can be blamed on one of them or one of the unknown complex reasons. However once your analysis, decision and product is simple, it becomes more difficult to find a reason for failure or an issue to blame. Creating simple thing is difficult and so is defending it. For simple products if they don’t serve the purpose they are not of any other use! Thats why simple devices thought by Steve Jobs when served their purposes were hot cakes.

Lastly Steve Jobs believed that if someone does not keep planning for future he wouldn’t have any! It is also restated by some other experts as ‘failure to prepare is preparing for the failure’. One always need to plan for future and most of us may do it quite well. However the success comes to only those who dare to risk failures in their quest to implement those plans.

Lastly may I dare to disagree with Hazret Steve Jobs famous saying ‘dots are connected backward only’. This is true but there are other ways also to connect the dots for success. This issue I’ll be explaining hopefully in my next blog soon.

Exposure and Wb Formula

Taking it from the end of last blog where I quoted a professor of mine Prof. Coskun Yurteri stating, ‘America is all about exposure’ I can elaborate further and say ‘life is all about exposure’! In our acquaintances we can easily find people who had exposure to experiences of life or different conditions. When compared one can easily notice the difference in behaviour and perspectives of those who had the exposure and who did not get such a chance.

We also notice that many people with higher level of education (merely degrees) behave and act in much worse manner than those who although do not have education but have exposure and knowledge. Exposure in its own state is a very powerful tool towards creation of a successfull personality and when and if it is combined with knowledge, a person of very fine texture comes in to being like my good friend Mr. Fahim A. Balkhi.

There are three types of exposures, Intentional, Un-intentional and Reactionary. Intentional exposure is active exposure where someone shows his/her willingness and effort. It can be attributed with ease to people who travel around the globe  for sake of seeking the knowledge or having new experiences. Unintentional exposure is the passive type of exposure where one does not make any effort but is left to certain exposure for good or bad. No one would like to have bad exposures intentionally but for the later type bad exposures are risks. 

None of the exposure goes in vain. As well documented by life of a legend of our time Steve Jobs the founder of Apple, nothing went un-connected. Exposures become really useful if one strives to gain knowledge from them and uses the experiences gained as building blocks for future use. Being exposed to certain situation, place or reality is much less important than the analysis of that specific experience. The analysis of any situation would lead to the gain of knowledge. The most simple tool for this is called Wb by me. Wb stands for ‘whats the benefit?’. It is easy to remember as World Bank (WB) also works on same principle!

Wb requires that anyone going through a certain good or bad experience or exposure should withdraw the conclusion based upon ‘whats the benefit (for him/her)?’ from that specific event. People are exposed to many situations but this exposure serves as building blocks for future only if situations are analyzed, the issue of Wb is addressed and some type of record is kept about it. Non-recorded experiences is lost experience! While analyzing any bad or failure exposure one may record the failure and the reasons behind it but more importantly should concentrate on question of ‘how it could have been avoided or situation improved’. 

The last type of exposure is Reactionary which can be intentional or unintentional i.e. active or passive. It may switch between both types from time to time. The common examples of this type of exposure is someones involvement in a certain issue after some event i.e. as a reaction. Most striking example of reactionary exposure is of Mr. Arnoud van Doorn after he noticed world wide protests against the film he supported against Islam few years back. His reactionary exposure led him to discover very different aspects and changed his whole life.

Few Lessons Learnt from Gaziantep

 Taking the inter city bus from Konya around mid night I was traveling towards the city of Gaziantep. This city is located near Syrian border with many camps for displaced people located around it. The city is so well known in the surrounding region that people are asking for ‘Made in Gaziantep’ materials instead of naming the country, Turkey.  The bus was as usual comfortable with all in seat entertainment and refreshments. However being night most people preferred to sleep and so did I.

I arrived in Gaziantep early on the morning around 06:30 am. Decided to take tea and something to eat. This time I had to make it to hotel myself so there were two options, I take the taxi or use the local transport system. Local transport system in most of the cities in the country is comparable to any European standard but knowing which route to take and which stop to use was a problem. Therefore I decided to ask the young guy serving tea. When I asked him he explained to me the public transport system. I then asked if I use taxi, his reply was ‘brother isn’t it pity that you pay 15 dollars to taxi when you can go by bus in just 1 dollar’. This was the first lesson I learnt in Gaziantep. However this guy in his good intention forgot that I don’t know the city well and there is a worth of time (some times) exceeding the costs.

I was not convinced so simply left for the doors on opposite side of his café so that he doesn’t see me taking the taxi all against his advice. From the other side I took the taxi for the hotel. The taxi driver after formal introduction started telling me about economy. His deep analysis was really astonishing like…’yes we are exporting a lot but most of raw material we import’. He also talked about political situation. The lesson I learnt was, it did not matter if you are taxi driver or a professor, it is all about personal development based upon your very own preferences.

On second day of my visit to city I met Mr. Ozhan, an old friend of mine. He is a regional business man but knowing the world better than many analysts. We talked about the huge amounts of credit loans the city’s municipality was planning to take or already taken. His reply was, this is a good indicator for economy. I was surprised a lot so asked him for clarification. He said, ‘look 10 years ago leave the municipality even the central government was afraid of taking any internal or external loan. Now they are taking bold steps and taking loans for heavy investments’. The reason he put forward was the right type of management and leadership country or local governments have got which made people confident to take risks and see an ability in them to pay back. Then when I asked why some of the European countries are in trouble, his straight answer was, ‘the people over there do not work, I work from 6:00 am till 20:00. I said but this much work is also not good. His reply was another lesson never to forget. He said, ‘it is the system, not the people who work. System makes people work. Why the USA is so strong? Because the system over there makes every one work!’.

Its all about Preference & Effort

Few days back a very nice friend of mine shared her feelings with me. She belongs to a well off family with no financial problems but she started feeling that something was missing. This something is in general related to soul search. Being living in Konya the city of Rumi there were many places to fill this gap. She asked for my opinion about joining some soul search gatherings. 

Believing that true knowledge comes from only two resources, one from the person who is very near to the one who has all the knowledge and other from the person who has developed himself/herself through gaining knowledge from those who knew or who wrote. Books are important but teacher is more important.  Like prescription is important but the doctor writing that prescription is more important.

I took her to one of the best teachers on the subject, Prof. Erkan Turkmen who wrote his famous book, Essence of Rumi's Masnevi. We talked for some time and then he said that there are two choices available, one to learn Persian and read Masnevi and the other is to attend bi-weekly gatherings to discuss Masnevi. But both have costs related to them.

My friend like most of people said to me later that soul search should not have costs attached to it. I in fact agreed because it is something like guiding someone to the creator with the knowledge given by the creator. Later that evening I had to change my mind and I came to the conclusion that its all about Preferences & Effort.

We who study science, engineering or medical put all our efforts in terms of time, money and potential to excel. The reason is, we consider such achievements good for our life. But when it comes to soul search we don't want to put any effort.. because that is some thing down in our preferences list. Similarly when we need to consult a psychologist we are ready to pay her a good amount just for listening to us most of time but in cases where someone is going to tell us and may guide us to the right ways towards happiness and soul search we hesitate!

Once again I say, life is all about Preference & Efforts just as a good teacher of mine Prof. Coskun Yurteri says, America is all about Exposure (topic of next blog hopefully).

Calling the Creator

A very fine senior and life long teaching institute Prof. Akyurek once told us a story. By some way he came to know 2 young ladies who were transferred to a remote district of Van city located in South of Turkey. They were to serve as teachers at a local school. He himself being well known in the area introduced them to the deputy governor of the region. The deputy governor told the young ladies to contact him in case of any need especially considering that they did not belong to that specific area. One evening the deputy governor received a call from one of the ladies saying ‘respected deputy governor we have a problem with our water taps, can you get them fixed’!

Any reader may conclude immediately that a request of this scale should never ever been made to the executive level of deputy mayor. We in our worldly affairs are very careful to ask some one in accordance with our need and position of the counterpart. If the problem is of minor level we proceed to those in power in accordance with the need.

The great expert on human civilization Ibn Khaldun wrote in his book clearly that worldly affairs are cared to minimum by the  creator of this system. He further elaborated that after giving all the sense and power to humans the creator has given them choices to make. However the results are prefixed in accordance with the choices made. If some one chooses not to study for example he or she can not be expected to pursue an academic career with rare exceptional cases. 

Most of people living in developing world consider the creator responsible for their every task smaller or bigger. This goes against all the logics. As president of a country is not responsible for every day matters but instead is considered responsible for creating and implementing vision for a country the creator is also responsible for some mega projects only. He has full authority over all issues but has empowered humans also to a degree so that they can take care of their lives to a sensible level. There is a certain system which we cannot understand and that is huge difference between people born under different circumstances. Many may have clear advantages over others like their economical status or family situation. These disadvantages do not hinder a person to improve his/her situation although he/she may not move up the ladder with ease but he can certainly improve his life through his choices. It should not be forgotten that choices made and hard work spent to pursue them makes the real difference. Calling the creator for every bit of problem or daily life course is not the solution.

Rise & Fall of Nations

Especially people who belong to nations that ruled the world once, the changed situation might be quite frustrating. Nations which were or are given chance to mange the world affairs have one common trait. It is their ability to manage the affairs in a way better than others. Many from countries against current world manager may say that it is not always 'better'. Those from Muslim civilization are frustrated due to their existing conditions. They are frustrated due to two reasons i.e they can't accept how they (rulers of the world a century ago) are now humiliated at all fronts and secondly as per their belief they were chosen to manage the world by the creator (as per their belief) but current situation is far from that promise. 

For those either muslim nations or other frustrated ones I generally state a very simple example. Lets say that you have established a beautiful production facility for some products, what would be your preference for its managers? Would you prefer those who are not able and lack capability to manage the facility? Never! So you'll select the capable.

Considering the creator who created flawless universe would never leave his creation to fools or incapable ones. Therefore we see in past from time to time different nations managed the affairs of this world. This happened because they were considered capable of running this facility by its creator. Therefore instead of cursing the nations ruling the world or managing it others should try to prove themselves capable for the task. 

Lastly always follow what Khalil Gibran wrote,  Pity the Nation.

Pity The Nation…
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation

Environment, Genetic Code and Happiness

Dear all I am so sorry for delay in new post. My previous blog was about the lesson a clock in Zurich taught me.  While still in Zurich I heard about sad demise of a close friend of mine then I was planning to write about two topics i.e. Dead End and Song of life. For the later some material is till missing.

In the mean time on Friday the last, I had a chance to take dinner with a great teacher of mine Prof. Coskun Yurteri and also his teacher Prof. Selcuk Soypak. During the dinner Mr. Yurteri mentioned about a book stating that in order to understand nature one must observe behaviour of all living beings especially animals. He has also observed that animals while passing each other do say hello and also give regard to to territories of each other. Secondly he mentioned that as animals live in wild nature they always have fear of death or trouble especially during night time. However when they wake up every morning they are happy mainly because the fearful night has passed and actually they reset themselves for each day.

This implied that although environmental factors are important some genetical codes can not be altered or in other words should not be altered. In Eastern cultures it was very common to see especially the older generation people to thank the creator every morning they wakeup.  In fact people were reseting them every morning. The famous book The Secret written few years aback also highlighted this very same issue. It stated that when in morning one touches ground with the feet he/she should thank God. This triggers the wave of happiness and thankfulness. 

Reseting oneself every morning is very important for the success. It helps people to go in to mode of happiness and gratefulness from the mode of stress and the fear. Therefore leave every day's problems there when night falls and restart your life each morning. However don't loose the ground you made till that time and if you need to consider the old problems, consider them from a new angle each morning!