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This is part of a series of post on successful people and how they have integrated the 8 Cylinders of Success in their lives in their own words. Buy the book if you want to find and align your 8 Cylinder of Success.

1. Principles » Your Dashboard

What beliefs equate to success to me?

Great products. Quality. Excellence.

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”

2. Passions » Your Keys

What do I love doing and why?

Making great products. Creating things.

“It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do. We just want to make great products.”

“I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out. I’m only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I’ve got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that.”
— Playboy, September 1987

“I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

3. Problems » Your Fuel

What social, scientific, technical, and/or personal problem do I want to solve?

The consumer’s inability to articulate their own need. Make great people better. Appropriate resource allocation.

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.”

“My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.”

4. People » Your Motor

Whom do I want to serve?

The individual customer.

“Our DNA is as a consumer company — for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.”

5. Positioning » Your Lane

What do I want to be #1 in the world at?

Innovation. Design. Animation.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

“We believe it’s the biggest advance in animation since Walt Disney started it all with the release of Snow White 50 years ago.”
— On Toy Story, Fortune, Sept. 18, 1995

6. Pioneers » Your Pace Cars

Who are my models, mentors, and/or guides?

Dell. Microsoft. IBM. Walt Disney.

“Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.”

“It wasn’t that Microsoft was so brilliant or clever in copying the Mac, it’s that the Mac was a sitting duck for 10 years. That’s Apple’s problem: Their differentiation evaporated.”

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”

“I think Pixar has the opportunity to be the next Disney — not replace Disney — but be the next Disney.”
— BusinessWeek, Nov. 23, 1998

7. Picture » Your Road Map

What’s my vision for myself and my world?

Not desktops. Landmark stuff. Trust.

“The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That’s over. Apple lost. The desktop market has entered the dark ages, and it’s going to be in the dark ages for the next 10 years, or certainly for the rest of this decade.”– Wired magazine, February 1996

“It will go down in history as a turning point for the music industry. This is landmark stuff. I can’t overestimate it!”
— On the iTunes Music Store (iTMS), Fortune, May 12, 2003

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

8. Possibility » Your Destine-nation

What would be possible in the world with me that is not possible without me?

Universal impact. Change the world. Push the world forward.

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
— The line he used to lure John Sculley as Apple’s CEO, according to Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, by John Sculley and John Byrne

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Purpose » Your GPS

“To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years…“