What Steve Jobs taught me about fitness
Like many Apple fans, my world was rocked when I heard the news that Steve Jobs had died. While I didn’t know the man personally, the tools that he created have played a huge part in creating and influencing the direction of my life.
Not long after his death his biography by Walter Isaacson hit the stores. Being such a big fan I got the book straight away and it consumed my life for the next seven days. In the book there’s a recurring story that Isaacson tells about when Steve was young.
Steve and his father were building a fence together. Steve’s father was a quiet, practical man who really believed that doing a quality job was extremely important. While they were building the fence his father talked to him about great work. He told Steve that when you create something truly amazing it’s not just about making what people can see look great, it’s about the parts that people can’t see as well. This was shown in the finished fence that he had built with his Dad, it was beautiful in every way.
This lesson seemed to stick with Steve for his whole life. Throughout the rest of the book there are many examples of how he put such a high priority on creating beauty in the whole Apple experience.
When I was reading about Steve’s fence experience it got me thinking about the physical self. We live in a time where so much of people’s energy goes into making the outer body look amazing. Billions of dollars are spent on beauty products, extreme diets and other fads which focus on making the outside body looking great. I get why this happens, we want to look good and we are constantly confronted with our external body’s reflection. But what if you could see the reflection of your inner body and you understood the difference between a healthy body and an unhealthy one? Do you think you would be happy with your inner body?
If we break down the body into the inner and outer, for most people they spend an unbalanced amount of time of making the outer look great while they don’t put much thought into how their actions influence their inner. If you identify with this maybe you should try to balance this out as you inner is just as important as the outer. Some would say that it’s even more important.
If you enjoy my pieces you can get them emailed to you when I put them on the internet. This way you won't have to come back to my website to check when a new piece is out. Don't worry I won't spam you. If you want to join up just put your details in here: