What makes Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Different?

Jobs and Gates when they were young

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the 2 tycoon that have revolutionize the computer industry and change the world. There were so many debates made by people saying that which one is better. And if you were the Mac hardcore user, you will think that Jobs is better. While on the other hand, if you were hardcore Windows especially programmer or a corporate IT guy, you might vote for Bill Gates. After all, what I learn in Directive Communication - there is no such thing as Fair because it is very subjective. (I am also biased because I think Steve is way supercool!)

But what I am going to discuss today is not about who is better (or cooler). Both of them were the best in a different way, but what makes them different? Both really did well in evolving computer industry, and both of them did it in a different way. What makes them different?

Syed Mokhtar Albukhary

I have a high Growth Emotional Need. It is typical me to buy so many books because I might think that I can benefits from the content. However, I hardly finish reading book because of so many reasons (or excuses). Yesterday, I bought a book - a biography of Malaysian tycoon, the only bumiputera that makes into the list of top 10 riches man in Malaysia (according to Forbes) for more than a decades. He ranked no. 6 in Malaysia and no. 344 of riches man in the world from the latest Forbes list. This book really interest me and for the first time I managed to read the whole book, cover-to-cover in less than 18 hours.

This book really reveal how Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar started the trading business after skipped his SPM examination because the family could not afford to pay for the examination fees. He is really a genius in doing business and there are some strategies that he used which most of people wont. He did not become rich overnight. He really did it step-by-step from a sole-proprietorship. He has his own principle of doing business since the beginning of his venture.

"It was based on the idea that every business needs two key figures who must work together to succeed: one to run the business, another to manage the finances."

Visionary Leadership - the Red Brain

Recently I have a talk with one of my good friend. He is from Indonesia. We talk about the development of our country and how Jakarta is different with Kuala Lumpur in terms of the traffic, facilities etc.

Some of our key-point of discussion is about leadership. Malaysian leadership have a vision which I totally agreed upon. The biggest example of this is the Wawasan 2020 (or Vision 2020). Wawasan 2020 was actually announced by our fourth Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in 1991 - during the 6th Malaysian Plan. Wawasan 2020 is a 30 years plan, a plan that Tun introduce at the time he is not sure whether he will still be alive when it is achieved.

What makes a person a visionary?
Tun Dr. Mahathir is a red brain person. It is obvious in many ways.
- Red brain is very good at establishing long term planning. In other words, they are visionary.
- Tun is very blunt when addressing specific issue. This is because Tun focus on the objectivity of the issue. Not personal and not because he is insensitive.
- Tun is a very structured person. This is very obvious when you read his blog. Everything is very structured and he puts the clarity in every points he make.

Creating a Cool Working Environment

Have you ever feel during your first day in a new company that you are so motivated. You see all good things and you started to say to yourself you will contribute to this company. You will use all of your expertise to ensure your contribution will bring this company to the next level. You wanted to do all the good things to the company.

2 years later - you started to see that you hands and legs are tight. You have so many ideas to make sure the company can grow, but somehow, the environment just don't allow you to do so. The boss doesn't allow you to do certain things which you are super confident that the things will bring so much benefit to the company. The policy does not allow you to do it. Your friends seems does not understand what you are trying to do. Or if they do understand, they themselves can't do anything. So you go with the flow! At one point they give you clear direction, but when you wanted to do something align with the direction, it seems that everything is not possible.

Have this ever happened? 

I've been working with 4 different companies. And guess what? All the companies operate the same way! Why is this so? 

Focus will determine what you'll see

I am so touched that recently there are so many people that really wants to see me succeed. It does not happened once, or twice. But it were in series. One after another. How could this happened?

Reticular Activating System (RAS) - the antenna inside our brain (by the way, this is metaphor) that makes us pay attention to the things that we focus. And if we put more of our focus, then only we can see such things happened around us.

The principle of Law of Attraction makes tells us that if what we focus on will expand! This is exactly what it is. Once we started to focus on good things, more of it will occur and because of our RAS is activated to focus on it, our mind will see it!

You have your facebook aren't you? Have you noticed that people that makes negative comments most of the time will continue to make a series of negative comments. Vice versa.

Working With Different Colored Brain

In my life, as an employee I have some difficulties to work with people. Especially my superior. Once in a while, I have a good idea. For example, working in a company where training is part of our bread and butter, I do think that to upgrade the HRDF status of the company is important. We were at class C at that time. What stopping us to upgrade to class B was the TTT. Being a subsidiary of a University, we don't have trainer that parked under our payroll, which is one of the requirement of class B and of course to upgrade to class A we need to have 2 trainers.

Since we don't have any trainers inside the company (we outsource from our parent company most of the time), I proposed to my CEO to send me to the TTT course. I begin to explain why we need this to him. The result - he don't agreed. It is a five days course and there bound to be some problem if I leave the company for 5 days (and I realized how important I am to the company).

Frustrated, I just went back into my room and start talking to other colleagues. They were all agreed with me but somehow the boss just couldn't see.

Your focus will determine what you see

I remembered my first car was bought in 2002 by my dad. It was a Proton Saga Iswara. I remembered how excited i was then. As I drove the car and my dad sitting next to me, suddenly while we saw so many similar cars on the road. We were thinking, is this the most selling car on Malaysia? They were not there before but after purchasing the car only we noticed this phenomena.

What actually happened? It is the Reticular activating system in our brain. It functions like an antenna to detects whatever we focus on. In this case since we just bought this new car, the antenna is activated and suddenly we see it anywhere.

The Fundamental of Directive Communication

Today is the Eid Celebration. Hari Raya Aidiladha - or Hari Raya Qurban. Qurban means sacrifice. Today I have sacrifice my time with my family to celebrate the Eid, instead I signed-up for an interesting course: Train the Trainer - Colored Brain Communication Facilitator Certification

What did I learn today?

The Foundation of Directive Communication.

How Your Environment Affects You
In communication, how you act will determine how people re-act on you. Have you ever been in a situation where you talk nicely to a nice people. How will he/she reply the conversation?
Of course in a nice manner. On the other hand, have you ever talk to someone in a negative manner. What type of reply did you get? Negative, of course. This simple illustration explains how you act to your environment determine what are the response you get.
> If you don't like how people treat you - Change Strategy. Change The Way You Communicate!

The Concept of Hero and a Villain
If you love to watch movies, in any movie there will be a hero. So, what do hero basically do? The hero always is the one who saves the day. But if you go one step further, what makes him saves the day and being called as a hero?

Gratitude: The fastest way to manifest!

If you are familiar with the Law of Attraction, you must be familiar with the word manifestation. Manifestation is the process where you say, think and feel which this action will allow you to focus on something that you want.

On many occasion, people manifest once in a while, when they taught back about the law of attraction, or remember that they need to focus on what they want, only they manifest. And the process still work but they move slowly.

How to be good at manifestation?

3-Steps Towards Rich - Lesson From Instagram

US$1 billion dollar deal on Instagram has lately become a popular topic to talk about. People are saying that they have the so called 'luck' that Mark interested in their product. But, what people doesn't know is the apps itself has been through several processes even before the application exist. Rather than saying that it was purely their 'luck', there are always something that we can learn from them. Roger James Hamilton wrote in his facebook and I would like to share this article with you:

18 months, 3 simple, not-so-simple steps to $1 billion...

Today, Instagram sold to Facebook for $1 billion. A week ago, when TIME asked Instagram founder, Kevin Systrom, if he would sell the company, he said “It’s not really on the top of our minds right now.”

Kevin is 27 years old and started Instagram 18 months ago with Mike Krieger, in October 2010. The company has grown with just 4 staff, and today has just 9 in the team. With the $1 billion deal that was announced today, was Kevin just plain lucky, or was there some simple steps that he (and others who have had the same luck) have in common?

Here’s three steps he followed. They may not guarantee you exactly the same success - but they will increase your own good fortune:

How To Earn More Money

Jim Rohn on Money Training

The late Jim Rohn is one of the most influential trainer in the world. In this video he talks about why people are being paid by certain amount of money.

Why?

Because of the value that you bring - to the marketplace.

If you wanted to increase your earning, you need to become more valuable to the market place.

Well, how do you do that? The secret that revealed by Mr. Rohn...

"LEARN TO WORK HARDER ON YOURSELF, THAN YOU DO ON YOUR JOB!"