What an amazing speech. RIP Steve Jobs

Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs
SlashDot ^ | 6/14/2005 | Steve Jobs

Posted on Tuesday, June 14, 2005 6:18:09 PM by Swordmaker

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. 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, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "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. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." - ºoº Walt Disney ºoº

Hitting That Big Old Wall

How to Keep Going When You Feel Like Stopping
-- By Julie Isphording, Olympic Marathoner

Just about everyone has heard of the "Wall," as in "hitting the wall." And lots of us - in running and in life - have run straight into it. Head on.

A wall is the point in a race (or in life) where you're used up. You're officially done. You feel as if you are draining away into a little puddle on the ground. Your legs don't respond to the word "go." You vow never to do this again.

Although I hope you never have a wall get between you and a goal, here are some tricks I've learned from running that can help you get over your own wall when it's in the way:

Keep going regardless
Promise yourself that, no matter what, you will press on, even if you are walking, crawling, or puttering. In the Boston Marathon in 1993, I was running so slowly to the finish that I felt like I was actually going backwards. Stay on your feet. Eyes straight ahead. Move.

Don't think
Just go. Do not dwell on how overwhelmingly awful you feel. Focus on the cheering crowds, your friends and family waiting at the finish, the cool water, the trees... anything.

Try bribery
Tell yourself, "Self, when I get done with this, I'm going to buy you a new car, a new house, whatever you want."

Word-watch
Watch the negative words and thoughts. Think instead about all the successes you have had. How about all those hills you conquered? All those long workouts you endured? You are a great person. Relish those thoughts.

Negotiate with yourself
Give yourself permission to simply go to the next water stop, or to the next milestone, or even just the end of the day. Keep repeating that strategy until you see the finish line. Just one more mile before you say one more mile!

If it was easy, everyone could do it. You are the one who will make it. And don't forget the finish line pose!

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." - ºoº Walt Disney ºoº

LTM - 7. Strengthen Your Personal Initiative

7. Strengthen Your Personal Initiative

Your personal initiative is the spark that initiates your productive actions.

Without personal initiative, you cannot be successful.

Napoleon Hill talked about personal initiative at length in his 9th Principle

of Success. He said, ―Success is something you must achieve without

someone telling you what to do or why you should do it.‖

Success comes to those who are proactive. Instead of drifting through life

doing only what is required, successful people do the extra things that

give direction to their goals and bring more meaning to their lives. No

one told Fred Smith to start FedEx; he started it using his own personal

initiative. No one told Sergey Brin and Larry Page why they should start

Google; they did it using their own personal initiative. No one pushed me

every day to do the things that were required of me to achieve my goals;

it was the consistent use of my personal initiative that allowed me to

achieve them.

No matter what your goal is—becoming a remarkable parent, one of your

company’s most valued employees, an outstanding athlete, a topproducing

salesperson, or the owner of your own business—if you are

going to be successful, you must use your personal initiative to do the

LITTLE THINGS required of you to succeed. It won’t happen any other

way.

Personal initiative is more than a fundamental requirement to achieving

your goals; it’s about taking time to do the LITTLE THINGS that make your

life and the lives of others, both at work and at home, more enjoyable.

It’s doing the simple things like picking up your dirty clothes, washing

the windows, or emptying the overflowing trashcan. It’s taking three

minutes to clean the coffee mugs in the sink at the office. It’s taking time

to express your genuine gratitude to someone who did something for you.

It’s offering to help a friend in need.

In a sense, your personal initiative is noticing and being aware of the

things that need to be done without being asked.

I firmly believe that the only way you will have personal initiative to do

big things is to strengthen it by first doing the LITTLE THINGS. Every big

success is made up a great number of little successes, each requiring

personal initiative. Many are so insignificant that you will be the only

person who notices. But, in the end, isn’t that what matters? After all, it

is you who has the deep yearning in your heart to achieve a goal; you’re

the one responsible for taking action and making decisions; and, you’re

the one who can change course if required.

The use of personal initiative has more benefits than meet the eye.

 Become respected. People who use their personal initiative are

well regarded and have greater influence.

 Build self-esteem. No other method for building self-esteem is

more effective than using your personal initiative to do the LITTLE

THINGS you know you should do.

 Advance your career. People who consistently use their

personal initiative to advance their careers are those who are at

the top of the pay scale in their profession.

LTM Challenge

This is your opportunity to step up your game and distinguish yourself

from the growing number of apathetic people. This is your chance to use

your unique talents and skills to achieve the things that are important to

you. Don’t let the lethargic environment around you keep you from

stretching yourself to be your very best.

Start by doing the things that require personal initiative. As you build

your confidence in doing these LITTLE Things, stretch yourself to do the

bigger things. Continue this process and allow each success to build

upon the prior one.

Now is the time to put your life in gear

and go conquer your dreams.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Thrifty Decor Chick

Thrifty Decor Chick - Pretty awesome looking tile floor (faux).

Steve Jobs

So very very sad......he was so young.

Steve Jobs, Apple Founder, Dies

Steve Jobs, the visionary in the black turtleneck who co-founded Apple in a
Silicon Valley garage, built it into the world's leading tech company and led a
mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone,
died Wednesday. He was 56.

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." - ºoº Walt Disney ºoº

Apple Unveils Updated iPod Nano, Touch

By Chloe Albanesius
October 4, 2011 01:59pm EST

Apple on Tuesday announced two updates to its iPod line, including a nano with swipe features and a revamped iPod touch.

The new iPod touch will incorporate iOS 5, which Apple's Phil Schiller said is a "tremendous upgrade" for the device. That includes access to iMessage, Apple's version of BlackBerry Messenger.

Apple's iMessage "brings the functionality of iPhone messaging to your iPod touch, so you can easily send text messages, photos, videos and contact information to an individual or group on other iOS 5 devices," Apple said.

The new iPod touch also works with iCloud, which will be released on October 12 along with iOS 5. When content changes on one device, all your other devices are updated automatically and wirelessly.

The new iPod touch is available now in black and white. The 8GB will sell for $199, the 32GB will retail for $299, and you can buy the 64GB for $399.

The new nano includes a redesigned interface with larger icons and multi-touch capabilities. There are also 16 new digital clock faces, and Schiller promised updated fitness features. "Right out of the box, you can go for a run and upload all of the data about your run into Nike Plus Web site," he said. "With the new iPod nano we have updated some watch faces so that people can use them with the new wave of watch band cases."

The 8GB nano will be $129, while the 16GB will retail for $149. Both are available today in seven colors, including silver, graphite, blue, green, orange, pink, and (PRODUCT) RED.

Cook said today that the iPod now has 78 percent market share and has revolutionized the industry. Apple has sold 300 million iPods in the last decade, and 45 million from July 2010 to June 2011, he said. Apple's iTunes now has 20 million songs, and users have downloaded 16 billion.

Today's announcements come on the eve of the iPod's 10th birthday, and Apple held today's event in the Town Hall room on its campus, where the music player made its original debut. In recent weeks, there have been various news stories predicting the death of the iPod, particularly the the iPod Classic, in favor of a solely touch-based iPod lineup.

But Apple said today that its holiday lineup will still include the iPod shuffle for $49 and a 160GB iPod classic for $249.

Back when it made its debut in 2001, PCMag said it was the "world's coolest—and dare we say best—MP3 player." Since that first iPod, Apple has unveiled the Mini, the shuffle, the nano, and iPod touch, also rolling the music player into its iPhone smartphone when that device debuted in 2007.

According to recent analysis by Fortune magazine, iPod sales hit their peak during the 2008 holiday season—from around 22.7 million iPods sold at the end of that year to an expected 8.39 million iPods sold within the third quarter of 2011. But given Apple's shift to the iPhone and iPad, both of which bundle the iPod software and been selling steadily, the dip is not that shocking.

For more from today's Apple event, see the slideshow below.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." - ºoº Walt Disney ºoº

iPods

Are the iPods Apple's Forgotten Children?

Now that Apple has become the company of the iPhone and iPad, has it forgotten about the product line that started it all?

By Will Greenwald
October 4, 2011 04:26pm EST

The biggest news to come out of Apple today was the iPhone 4S, but that doesn't mean it was the only news. Apple announced the new iPod touch and iPod nano as well, and like the iPhone 4S, the new fifth-generation iPod touch and seventh-generation iPod nano look very similar to the previous versions.

Let's be blunt: unlike the processing power upgrade of the iPhone 4S, the new iPod touch and iPod nano are nearly identical to the older versions. Same capacities, same features, same OS (the new iPod touch ships with iOS 5, while the old iPod touch will get iOS 5 in a free update available October 12), same chassis, nearly same prices. If it wasn't for the white version of the iPod touch, it would be easy to say that Apple wasn't offering upgrades, but discounts. The iPhone 4S gets a shiny new processor and lots of new graphical power, but the iPod touch and iPod nano are getting little more than new color schemes, fitness features, and clock faces.

That brings us to the iPod itself. The first device series. The iPod classic. While the iPod nano is arguably going into its seventh generation, the iPod classic is still in its sixth. While Apple refreshes its other iPod and iOS devices roughly once a year, the iPod classic is the same device it was when it came out in 2008. Physical hard drive, 160GB of space, click wheel, color screen, $250 price tag.

It's clear the iPod classic is still selling, otherwise Apple would have stopped supporting it. However, it's gone nearly untouched. It's clear Apple has no plans to refresh the iPod classic, make it solid state, or give it any new features. It's also becoming uncomfortably clear that Apple is learning towards treating the iPod touch and iPod nano the same way.

The iPhone does everything the iPod classic, iPod touch, and iPod nano does, and more. The smartphone functionality makes it a better device than the others in every way, and its success as the top smartphone proves that. Similarly, the iPad does much more than Apple's iPods and offers apps and functions even the iPhone can't match. Apple's iOS propelled Apple to dominance in the smartphone and tablet mobile device fields, and with solid state memory so inexpensive now, the iPhone and iPad have simply muscled out much need for the iPod classic. Even the iPod touch and nano are becoming also-rans, with Apple's repeated attempts to retool the nano and half-hearted attempts to pitch the iPod touch as an iPhone without a phone part clearly demonstrating that.

Even if you don't have an iPhone, odds are your cell phone will do everything an iPod classic can. Android smartphones are capable of playing movies and music and browsing the Web, and even most feature phones can play MP3s and movies. Yes, the iPod classic offers the most storage, but hard drives are much less hardy than flash memory, and nearly all smartphones are smaller and lighter than the iPod classic. The lower storage capacity is a more than fair trade off.

Apple will keep selling iPods, but it seems unlikely that it will work on them anymore. Apple iPods have become legacy devices, still available for people who haven't moved on to tablets and smartphones but not offering anything new. They're a technological dead end, and unless Apple comes out with an amazing new feature for a small, non-cell-phone-network device to have that makes it compelling, it doesn't look like the iPod classic, iPod touch, or iPod nano are going to go anywhere. The iPods were great, but it's the age of the iPhone and iPad.

For more, see Why the Zune Couldn't Touch the iPod Touch. For more from today's Apple event, see the slideshow below.

"All of your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." - ºoº Walt Disney ºoº

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Caramel Apple Muffins

Photograph by Ed Judice

Caramel Apple Muffins - Image Collection

Inspired by a fall favorite, this fool-the-eye treat makes clever use of an apple muffin and cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients

your favorite apple muffins*
8 ounces softened cream cheese
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

orange and brown paste food coloring
chopped nuts
craft stick

Instructions

Bake a batch of your favorite apple muffins* in reusable or paper liners and let them cool.
Use an electric mixer to blend 8 ounces softened cream cheese, 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract until smooth. Add paste food coloring: 1 small dollop of orange and 2 small dollops of brown. Blend until evenly incorporated. If needed, add more color until the desired shade of caramel is reached.
Frost each muffin and coat or edge it with chopped nuts. Slide a craft stick into the center of each. Makes 12 muffins.

Sent from my iMickey! 8(; - )
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Pumpkin Praline Muffins

Sweetened with molasses and spiced like pie, these full-bodied muffins are topped with a light butter crumb. For a real treat, serve them spread with whipped cream cheese

Ingredients

PRALINE TOPPING
3 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup flour
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans
MUFFIN BATTER
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup unsulfured molasses
1/3 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Combine all the topping ingredients in a small bowl and use your fingers to rub them into a crumbly topping. Set it aside. Heat the oven to 400° F and grease the bottoms only of 12 standard muffin cups.
Next, make the batter: In a large bowl, whisk together both flours and the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, molasses, oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the dry ingredients just until the batter is blended.
Divide the batter among the muffin cups and sprinkle on the praline topping. Then bake the muffins for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 to 10 minutes before removing them. Makes 1 dozen.

Sent from my iMickey! 8(; - )
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LTM - #6 Choose Your Friends Wisely

6. Choose Your Friends Wisely

When I was a kid growing up, my mom gave me all sorts of advice.

Today I can still hear her saying, “Todd, choose your friends carefully.

Don’t get mixed up with the wrong group.” Mom knew children were

easily influenced by their peers and that if I ran with the wrong crowd

they’d have a negative influence on my life.

Mom’s lesson holds true for children, teens, college students, and adults.

It is well documented that our fundamental beliefs and attitudes are

greatly influenced by the people we allow into our lives. If we associate

with people who gossip, we are likely to gossip. If we are around people

who swear and use inappropriate language, we’re likely to exhibit the

same behavior.

After 25 years of research, Dr. David McClelland of Harvard University

concluded that the choice of a negative ―reference group‖ was in itself

enough to condemn a person to failure and underachievement in life.

Your associations are some of the most powerful factors in determining

who you become and what you accomplish in your life. As an example, if

you hang out with pessimistic people who are critical of you, their

negative comments will likely impact how you view your abilities and

your self-image.

Almost 20 years ago I heard Jim Rohn say, “You will become the

combined average of the five people you hang around the most. You will

have their combined attitude, health, and income.”

At first I questioned whether this could be true. Today, I know it is

undeniably accurate. Recognizing this truth, how do we use it to our

advantage? It’s simple. If we want to advance our lives personally and

professionally, we must associate with people who will have a positive

influence on our lives.

Do you play sports? How about board and card games? Do you notice

how you step up your game when you play with better players? When we

associate with others who have a greater skill set or have achieved more,

we are challenged. It brings out the best in us and inspires us to do better.

Observing and modeling someone’s positive example will help us reach

new heights.

We’re not just talking sports and games here. This applies to everything

we do. Surrounding ourselves with optimistic and uplifting people has a

direct effect on our demeanor, confidence level, and performance.

LTM Challenge

Take ten minutes right now to think about the people who you spend time

with on a regular basis-—at home, in the workplace, and in a social

context. Who are they? Which ones radiate a positive influence? Which

ones transmit a negative influence?

 If some of your friends exert a negative influence, begin to slowly

reduce the amount of time you spend in those relationships.

 If your family members say negative and discouraging things to

you, schedule time to have a conversation. Help them understand

how their statements are damaging, and ask them to focus on

encouraging you rather than tearing you down.

 If your workplace is filled with negative people, find a new place

to work. Life is too short to spend it in a negative environment.

Whether you are consciously aware of it or not,

everyone you associate with on a regular basis

is influencing your life.

The question is whether they are a good or bad influence.

Adventures of The Mouse House Crew

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs 2005

Hitting That Big Old Wall

Hitting That Big Old Wall

LTM - 7. Strengthen Your Personal Initiative

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Thrifty Decor Chick

Steve Jobs

Apple Unveils Updated iPod Nano, Touch

Apple Unveils Updated iPod Nano, Touch

iPods

Are the iPods Apple's Forgotten Children?

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Caramel Apple Muffins

Caramel Apple Muffins

Pumpkin Praline Muffins

Pumpkin Praline Muffins

LTM - #6 Choose Your Friends Wisely

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