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The question

What lesson has mattered most in your life?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Steve Jobs

Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don't blame them. Its really tough and it consumes your life.

Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗

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Tony Judt Historian and essayist
I think the only life experience that I have to offer out of this is something we all know in the abstract but don't experience in practice very much. That is that you can survive an awful lot of bad stuff, so long as your mind is intact. I'm afraid that's the only life experience I have to offer.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR, 29 March 2010 source ↗

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Question Who makes your work possible behind the scenes? Craft & work
You're missing it. This is not a one-man show. What's reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there's a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they're not losers. What they didn't have was a good set of coaches, a good plan.
Recorded Andy Reinhardt, Business Week Q&A in the Apple boardroom, extended online-only version, 25 May 1998 source ↗
Question What does the first hour of your day look like? Daily life
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.
Recorded Stanford University 114th Commencement, Stanford News (Stanford University), 12 June 2005 source ↗
Question How would you want people to remember you? Death & what remains
I think the work speaks for itself. I don't think that people have special responsibilities just because they've done something that other people like or don't like. I think the work speaks for itself. I think people could choose to do things if they want to but we're all going to be dead soon, that's my point of view. Somebody once told me, they said "Live each day as if it would be your last and one day you'll certainly be right." I do that. You never know when you're going to go but you are going to go pretty soon. If you're going to leave anything behind its going to be your kids, a few friends and your work. So that's what I tend to worry about.
Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗
Question If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? Failure & regret
But the market was changing. The industry was changing. The scale was changing. And in the end we knew we would be either the last company to make it or the first to not make it. We were right on the edge. We thought we would be the last one that made it, but we were wrong. We were the first one that didn't. We put an end to the companies that tried to do that. We certainly made our fair share of mistakes, but in the end I think we should have taken a bit longer to realize the world was changing and just gone on to be a software company right off the bat.
Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗

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