"What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating."
This was Steve Jobs response after he contemplated being fired from Apple (AAPL)the company he started.
If you read carefully the words Jobs spoke, the devastation was related to purpose in his life. Never underestimate the importance of purpose; both professionally or personally.
It wasn't just that he got fired, most of us get that sometime in our working careers, it was that he was cut off from the air he breathed. That's what a focus becomes when we fervently apply ourselves to something like Steve Jobs did and does.
The thing I want to bring up here, is even when it was cut off, Jobs went after something else, and succeeded there; basically creating his own "air" again.
Anybody in business leadership or management has to absolutely have something to focus on. It seems obvious, but it really isn't. Many in business struggle so much for the very reason they aren't focuses and zeroed in like a laser on what they are attempting to accomplish.
If we do lose something for reasons we can't see, we will be devastated and be in a form of shock, because what we were living for professionally has been taken away from us. Jobs, and many others though, have shown that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and all circumstances are reversible.
What we need to understand in these circumstances is the reaction of devastation is something normal and even healthy, and it comes about from losing a major purpose and focus in our lives.
The way to grow out of that is of course to gradually walk out of the devastation by looking to another purpose and giving ourselves to that. The sense of loss will remain, even when the pain recedes, until we reestablish a purpose that we can give our focus and life to again.
Other Steve Jobs Resources:
You've got to find what you love
Steve Jobs, Business Personality
Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation
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