Steve Steve taught me a good lesson: never get married to your convictions of yesterday. If you were presented with something new that says you were wrong, admit it and go forward instead of saying why you are right. That is a key life lesson that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple AAPL, says he learned from the inimitable Steve Jobs before the founder of the Cupertino, Calif. based company died in 2011.
Cook made a statement in an interview with GQ, published April 3, in which the current Apple leader offered some insight into the company's latest tech dalliance - with augmented and virtual reality.
The idea that Jobs advocated of not being tied to any one idea is an important piece of plainspoken wisdom and echoes the views held by other sages, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, the putative leader of the Romantic and Transcendental movement in American literature in the 19th century.
Emerson wrote in his famous essay Self-Reliance, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. Apple's inventions started with 1976 s Apple I and 1977 s Apple II, and continued through the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch and AirPods, and have been seen as seminal in consumer-focused gadgetry, according to GQ documents in its interview.
Jobs was known as a person who viewed failure as an opportunity for improvement, especially if you were eager to acknowledge weakness and figure out ways to fix it.
Cook hasn't wilted in the role, despite taking over a popular enterprise, despite taking over from a leader who boasted a passionate following. Apple is the first company to be valued at $3 trillion early last year, it is currently valued at around $2 trillion and its share price has increased over the past five years of more than 230%, which is up 48%.
April is National Financial Literacy Month, a good time to embrace the lessons Cook absorbed from Jobs, especially as investors navigate a financial landscape that is rapidly changing from one of superlow rates to a higher interest rate regime. The strategies that worked in the past may not be suited for what lies ahead, and investors need to avoid dogmatism.
It is important to be nimble and make adjustments on the fly, as it may be the key to success for leaders and investors.
Steve Jobs is the CEO of MarketWatch from the archives in October 2011.