What Chicanos Can Learn From Steve Jobs in a New Era
By DeeDee Garcia Blase, Huffington Post Latino Voices
December 21, 2012, is a thing of the past now.
We survived the end of the world even though some predicted it would end, but in my view, 12-21-2012, marks the beginning of a new era. Some of us have already caught the winds of change and the aura of a heightened awakening.
As we become more alert to our surroundings, we might ask ourselves if we want to continue to do things the old way in a time when those ideas seem to have expired and are flat out boring. I think many of us feel that things have become stale and ineffective, and we yearn for invigoration. How many more years will it take in order for Chicanos to wake up and snap out of the blind sheepmentality?
The old way of doing things is no longer working for us anymore. Chicanos have become too passive and have not asserted ourselves to changing things that have a direct impact on our community. How can we snap out of it, only to reinvent ourselves, adapt with changing times, andleapfrog things 10 years in advance? Why does it seem that more of us react to things instead working on proactive ideas?
I believe one way to get out of the rut is to look and learn from other visionaries like Steve Jobs. Jobs was no fool – he said: “One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.” He studied the history of other visionaries like Einstein and Alexander Graham Bell as his journey in life took him on turns, valley dips and the peaks of hills.
It was his passion and assertiveness that changed the entire globe. It was his ability to master intuitiveness because he did not allow the noise and clamor of the others to take him off focus. He was a natural-born hippie that allowed him to be comfortable in his own skin as he worked autonomously with regard to key decisions he had to make. Jobs had a gift and the ability to focus, and because he believed – he often got what he wanted.
Many people did not know that Steve Jobs was emotional. He was extremely passionate and would sometimes burst into tears on matters that affected the companies he created. It is all right to be passionate. It is all right to be emotional. Jobs viewed himself an artist – and he was because an artist is a person who creates. Jobs helped to create tools that help humanity. The ripple in the pond he gave us continues to permeate even after his death.
In reading the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson, I was happy to learn that Jobs did not easily receive ideas from just anyone. He scrutinized the ideas. In my view, he wanted to be convinced. He had to be convinced. He wanted folks who were selling him an idea to guarantee why their ideas would work. He wanted to see if people had foresight and knew what the hell they were really talking about. He never seemed to just easily accept what others told him because he wanted to be resolved and had to believe in those ideas…
This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
DeeDee Garcia Blase is the founder of the National Tequila Party Movement.
[Photo by DonkeyHotey]