I watched the Steve Jobs movie (starring Ashton Kutcher and released in the US last year but not yet shown here) recently. Wow, what a guy. To seriously believe you’re going to change the world (which he managed to do in the tech sector) means you have to be solely and seriously focused on one thing: success. You simply do not have enough time in your life to do anything but work on your goal of changing the world and eating fruit. It’s fascinating.

There are many things to agree with and learn from in the movie (and the 2011 authorised biography by Walter Isaacson), as well as steer clear of and ignore. One thing I found most interesting was a scene where an employee was trying to explain to Steve that type fonts were “not a priority” and that other things were “more important.” He was fired immediately, with Steve shouting “Why are you still here?”

It must have been such a tense environment when Jobs was around. You’d constantly be worried about whether you were going to be fired when in his company. I’m not one for scaring people or making them feel uncomfortable, but I really agree with his statement regarding employment: “I’m not here to be nice to people, I’m here to make people better at what they do.” Genius.

The principle of everything being a priority applies when you start and run a food or drink business. You cannot sell a product with no brand. You cannot sell a brand without a vessel. You cannot sell a vessel with no ingredients. You cannot hold back with jumping on social media, you cannot wait another week to ring a buyer and you certainly cannot dilly-dally around. Everything must happen at once.

Do lots of everything to ensure your business army walks in line together, shoulder-to-shoulder, eye-to-eye. When you reach that feeling of ubiquity, it’s utterly brilliant.

You may run your own business and nod at this column; you may be an important piece of a large corporate puzzle scratching your head; but believe me, we each of us have an epic role to play in the vision of our chosen businesses/paths and it’s up to us all to smash it out of the ball park. Now ask yourself: “Why am I still here?”

Keep your chin up.

Topics