Guy Kawasaki on Steve Jobs, Surfing and the Power of Thinking Remarkable
“If your lips are moving, you’re selling. You’re selling somebody on a going out on a date with you. You’re selling your kids on cleaning up their room. Life is selling. We’re all in sales. You are always selling.”- Guy Kawasaki
Built Not Born (Episode X-Ray): Insights from Guy Kawasaki, Apple’s former Cheif Evangelist, on How to Live a Remarkable Life.
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Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley icon, renowned entrepreneur, and the chief evangelist of Canva. Guy is the creator of the “Remarkable People” podcast.
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Working alongside the legendary Steve Jobs, Guy was the Chief Evangelist of Apple and one of Apple’s original employees. Guy played a pivotal role in the marketing of the Macintosh computer.
Guy is the author of Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and fourteen other books.
Guy and I discuss his latest book “Think Remarkable”, how surfing conditions play a role when he schedules meetings, how to develop a growth mindset, the book that changed the way Guy looks at the world and what it was like working with Steve Jobs.
8.5 Remarkable Ideas from Guy Kawasaki:
1) Define “Remarkable”?
- “I define being remarkable as making a difference in the world. That is, you make the world a better place. My podcast is called “Remarkable People”, not rich people, not famous people, “Remarkable People.”” — Guy Kawasaki
2) Why did you write “Think Remarkable”?
- “After five years, I have 200+ episodes. That’s 250 hours of listening. And we transcribe every episode because I’m deaf. Now we have 4, 000 pages of transcripts and you know no one in their right mind is going to listen to 250 hours of a podcast or read 4,000 pages of transcripts. So we had to fix that. We had to take it down to about 170 pages. You could probably read this book in six hours if you had to. I had such exposure to so much information and inspiration. I kind of felt like I had a moral duty to get it out in a format that more people could access it.”- Guy Kawasaki
3) Your books are known to be short with multiple headings and bullet points. Why that format?
- “My book is 170 pages and has 88 tactics explained in it. Each tactic gets roughly two pages, which I believe is probably the attention span of most people today. My book has headings on every single page. And within these headings, there are bullet points because I want people to very quickly grasp what you have to do. I don’t want people wasting time reading 250 pages to get one idea. I want them to read two pages to get that idea.” — Guy Kawasaki
4) You mention Carol Dweck’s work on “Mindset” multiple times in the book. What did you learn from her?
- “Carol Dweck is the author of this book called Mindset, and this is an early 2000 book. I consider her the mother of the growth mindset, and it was the realization that you can have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. The growth mindset means that you believe you can learn new things, you can acquire new skills. The fixed mindset means that you don’t think you can or you don’t need to learn any more.” — Guy Kawasaki
5) Give us examples of a Growth Mindset from your life?
- “I took up ice hockey at the age of 44, having never skated in my life. And let’s just say that’s about 40 years too late. And then at 60, I took up surfing and that’s about 55 years too late.” — Guy Kawasaki
6) You Suck? Don’t Quit. Just Pay the Price:
- “Sucking when you start is not the universe telling you to give up. Sucking is just the universe telling you that you got to pay the price. You got to pay the price.” — Guy Kawasaki
7) Everyone Is In Sales:
- “You are selling when you apply for a job. You’re selling when you apply for school. You are selling when you check in at SFO and you’re telling the person checking you in, ‘Can I get an aisle?’ or ‘Can I get upgraded to the first class?’ If your lips are moving, you’re selling. You’re selling somebody on a going out on a date with you. You’re selling somebody. I’m not leaving you. You’re selling. Selling your kids on cleaning up their room. Life is selling. We’re all in sales…You are always selling.”- Guy Kawasaki
8) What Did You Learn from Steve Jobs?
- “I certainly learned (from Steve Jobs) that design counts. Macintosh, all of Apple, is testimony that design counts. Second thing I learned is that if you get people to believe in your dream, they will be your customer. They will buy if you get people to believe in a graphical user interface, get to believe that the power should be accessible, that it shouldn’t be dependent on a centralized IT department. You get people to believe in that, they’ll buy your computer.” — Guy Kawasaki
- “A negative thing that I learned is, Steve was an asshole. He was a mission driven asshole, but he was an asshole nonetheless. And I would not be where I am were it not for Steve Jobs. I owe him. I think that it was an honor and a privilege to work for him, but let’s just call a spade a spade. He was an asshole. And I don’t think that is necessary nor sufficient to be a successful entrepreneur.” — Guy Kawasaki
8.5) Get In The Water
- “An interest is not going to turn into a passion unless you actually do it. You may be interested in surfing, you can watch all the YouTube videos you want about surfing, but you got to get your ass in the water. Lots of people saying, ‘I want to be an entrepreneur’. ‘I’m thinking about this’, ‘I’m thinking about that’ and five years later they’re still thinking about it. I mean at some point real men ship. Real women ship. They get in the water.” — Guy Kawasaki
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Connect with Guy Kawasaki:
- Website: Guy Kawasaki
- Podcast: Remarkable People Podcast
- Book: Think Remarkable
- Course: How to Be Remarkable
“Life is Built, Not Born.”
Joe Ciccarone
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