YOU CAN BE the iPhone, but how? No Steve Jobs didn’t invent the smartphone and the iPhone is not the only one, there are now others just as good, or better, so I’m not here to argue the competition. But it was Jobs who made it and himself, an icon.
I’ve been thinking about this and talking about it with several people… how do you become the iPhone?
What I mean is, how do you become one of the greatest, most useful creations of the 21st Century that no one knew they needed, but now everybody wants? There was no cultural clamoring for the smartphone, we all could have still lived our lives without one, it didn’t save the world, but Jobs helped make it something which now the world can’t live without.
Anyone who owns one knows this to be true, and 90 percent of all phones sold today are smartphones. I own an iPhone and have now for several years, and from the device itself to the Apple commercials, there’s just no way I can’t feel good about it. It’s clipped to my waist everywhere I go, and in the palm of my hand so often I really have a third appendage coming from my arms. But why not, because literally in the palm of my hand I hold a connection to the entire world. If I want to do it, learn about it, research it, or connect with it, I can, and if I can’t at that moment, well there’s an app for that. It’s in a word…unbelievable.
Here’s my point, (and I know it took a long time to get here, but it needed set-up), how do you become an iPhone? How do you become something no one realized they needed, but now nearly everyone can’t live without. How can you become the person who makes others feel so good about themselves they can’t bear to live without you. They can’t leave their house without you, can barely get up in the morning or go to bed without you by their side, they can barely have a conversation without thinking about you, and outside of breathing, they use you as a resource to accomplish so many activities in their lives its ridiculous. You have become indispensable, but they don’t care, because they feel so good when you are around. They almost don’t care how much it costs to own you, because having you around makes them feel better about themselves.
How do you become that person? How do you become the idea that can change the world, and find a way to keep improving on yourself, keep getting better, keep other people clamoring for more and waiting for bated breath for the next creation of a better you.
Find a way to make you as iPhone in the eyes of other people and you are about as attractive as they come. To be that resourceful, and meaningful and cool at the same time… imagine the possibilities if you can create that.
Maybe this is silly, or maybe it’s the perfect blog or a weekend morning, but I’ve been thinking about it and one day I don’t know why it can’t happen. Don’t know why you, or I can’t become the person who brings so much meaning, resources and inspiration to other people that they didn’t realize they needed you before, but now they just can’t live without you.
How cool could that be? It has to start from the inside out. A simple idea of a better you which you work on feverishly, through countless hours of study, research, trial and error and jaw-dropping determination and perseverance to become someone the world can’t do without and to whom others will beat a path to your door, because you make their world a better place, because you make them feel better about themselves.
It can be done. Humans created these smartphones. Steve Jobs and the crew at Apple took the idea to a higher place, creating something so surprisingly coveted, we never knew we needed it, but yet now it literally helps the world turn on its axis every day.
You and I can do it too. At last check we are all humans, with minds, hearts and ideas, which if we harness them all together can quite literally change the world.
You as iPhone. I as iPhone. The world can’t wait.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Mark