As you almost certainly know by now, Apple Co-Founder & CEO Steve Jobs passed away this week, at the relatively young age of 56 – a life cut short by cancer.

He did a lot in his lifetime – A LOT – at least on the professional front. I don’t know enough about his personal life to comment there.

From what I’ve read about him over the years and in the past few days, he could be pretty rough on people, so I have a bit of a question in my mind about some of his methods. But then, no one’s perfect. I sure am not.

What some said, however, was that although Steve was often ruthless in his criticism, at the same time his passion for excellence often inspired people to do their best.

It’s fair to say that Steve Jobs definitely did “Make it Count” in his professional life. Indeed, here I sit typing this blog post on my iPhone!

Last night I watched this wonderful video of his commencement address to the graduating class of Stanford University in 2005, a year after he had first been diagnosed with and treated for pancreatic cancer.

It gives a decent glimpse into the man rather than “the businessman”. He offers some personal stories and some great wisdom. I encourage you to spend the +/- 15 minutes to watch it.

One of the things I liked most about what he said is, “…your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

This is something I’m just coming back from myself, so I can really relate to the cost of not living MY OWN life according to what matters most to ME.

Make it count.

Peter.

Hi everyone,

I’m back in Canada now; back on “the other side of the world”.

This morning I started with some exercise, along with a bit of time to enjoy the beautiful sights and smells of spring’s “new life” in the parks near my home.  Here are a few photos of what I enjoyed:

The thing I love most about this time of year is the sense of renewal, of new life, new possibilities.  There’s a certain excitement in the air that is nice to feel. 

This reminds me of the need to constantly create renewal in our own lives.  It’s healthy for us. 

Here’s wishing you all the enjoyment that comes with renewal and new beginnings.

Late last night a wave of disappointment hit me, and I woke up with it this morning again.

I’ve been working like crazy on a bunch of deliverables:
1. Wrapping up the teaching period here at INSEAD business school in Singapore
2. Preparing for upcoming client engagements
3. Overseeing forthcoming modifications to CommonOutlook.com’s website; and
4. Creating a new product we’ll be launching in June as part of our commitment to make a bigger difference in the world.

…along with a myriad of other things, and a mix of feelings as I prepare to wrap up a wonderful experience here in Singapore.

It all came to a head last night when, after missing an important deadline on Monday (and believing I could recover and still finish the key deliverables by Tuesday night Singapore time), I realized it was not going to happen.

That, combined with a number of VERY late nights and early mornings, and I hit the wall. 

I woke up this morning tired.  Heavy.  Feeling rotten.  And, I had a 2-hour conference call booked with key members of my team back in Toronto, staring at 7:30am  my time (which is of course taking a chunk out of their evening).  Hmm.

The call was pretty flat. 

Sure, we got through our agenda and we accomplished things, but it was a struggle.  You know what I’m talking about.  You’ve all been there, right?

At the end of the call, it just didn’t feel right. 

So I decided to share with the team what was going on for me.  I had given them a bit of a heads up at the start of the call when we were “checking in” with each other that I was quite tired and my energy was low, but that I’d do my best.  But I needed to say more.  I was not willing to leave my team like this – especially since I am heading for Australia tomorrow morning early (gotta be at the airport at 5am – ouch!) for what I’m now calling a 10-day ”partially working holiday”.  By the way, it’s not my usual practice to work during a holiday, but I’ll do it this time and it will be ok.  And, it’s definitely still worth going.  We’ll be visiting dear friends who have a 2nd child whom we have not met, and they have not met our little girl.  It will be terrific, quality time with quality people. 

So I spoke up. 

I told them about the disappointment I was feeling in myself, while at the same time feeling excitement about the new product as it was coming together and looking really good, combined with gratitude for all of their efforts and all of their good work.  I told them about the physical energy drain.  I told them about how I didn’t want to leave them feeling rotten, because they were doing great things. 

It helped a lot.  And, as you can imagine, what did my team members come back with?  Great stuff.  Appreciation.  Words of caring and wisdom.  Generosity. 

I told them I was not going to allow myself to hang out with that feeling for long, because life is just too short.  They encouraged the same thing.

So, right after the call, I looked at some photos of my dear sweet little 14-month-old daughter playing on the jungle gym and going down the slide (on her own!) this past weekend.  I then emailed these photos to the people I was on the call with – because they’re not just colleagues, they’re friends now.  They sent lovely replies.

Then I got the idea to write this blog post.  And guess what: it’s helping too.  In fact, I will declare right now as I finish this post that I am letting go of the disappointment and moving on. 

Thanks for listening.

I just had the good fortune of having this idea introduced to me by a close friend, and I watched it with my wife.

It’s 16 mins 55 seconds long, and I believe it will be one of the best 16 minutes 55 seconds you’ve spent in a while.

By the way, you’ll see that the title of the talk is “A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success”.  I believe it is, AND, I also believe it is a much more astute, robust, and real view of these concepts.

Have a look:

It’s a little after 4:30am in Singapore as I write this.

I’ve been awake for a while, processing various thoughts now that I’ve got a bit of space to think after a very intense 2 weeks. 

One of the things I’m thinking about is one of the key negotiations I had with a key team-member over the past two weeks.  As I reflected on it, I found myself saying, “I should write a blog post about this”. 

I even pulled out my laptop and fired it up to start writing.

And then I realized.  I was saying the words I SHOULD. 

DING DING DING DING!  Mental alarm bells went off.

So I paused. 

Then I said to myself: “Peter, this is the trap you’ve been pulling yourself out of for almost a year now.  Here’s one more subtle way to keep getting out of it”.  So I stopped what I was doing.  “BRAVO!”  I said to myself.  I caught it mid-stream and changed the direction.

Then an idea hit me: I could write a blog post about catching the “should” in action!

The best part: there wasn’t a SHOULD behind this idea.  It was a “I want to”.  I was drawn toward it.  And now I’ve written it.  TA DAAAA!!!  The best part: I HAD FUN WRITING IT!  I had passion for the subject and I enjoyed the process.

May we all dump as many shoulds as possible from our lives. 
“Shoulds” act as chains, weights; dragging us down and destroying our passion and energy. 

By the way, I am NOT recommending that you suddenly reneg on all your obligations and commitments.  I’m saying I think it’s a good idea to find a way to relate to those obligations and commitments from a place of passion and inspiration. And if you can’t change your mindset about it, you might want to reevaluate why you’re doing it at all.