If every smartphone user were to reach into their pocket right now and pull out their phone, approximately 45% of people would pull out an iPhone. iPhone is, of course, the ground-breaking invention initially created by Steve Jobs and his team at Apple. The co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc. was a brilliant innovator and famously forward-thinking. Naturally enough, after being raised in a Protestant family, he sought further answers as a young adult. After dropping out of college his freshman year, he traveled through India to seek enlightenment and study Buddhism.

While Jobs never breached the threshold of the full truth through Catholicism, he did adopt certain philosophical beliefs that mirrored aspects of Catholicism.

People would often contact Jobs regarding a ban he had placed on pornographic apps. To one, Jobs responded, “We believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off of the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android.” Another who disagreed with the ban happened to be a tech author. He asked Jobs if he thought Bob Dylan would have thought Apple products had “the faintest thing to do with revolution.” After all, revolution is about freedom. Jobs replied, “Yep. Freedom. Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a-changin’. And some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.”

Steve Jobs was a revolutionary who wasn’t going to simply let others steamroll his design. Recently on The Cale Clarke Show, Cale looked at 10 quotes from Jobs that we can learn from and apply to our lives.

1. “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.” Mediocrity is a dream killer. One of the daily tragedies of today’s workforce is the willingness to settle for satisfactory when greatness is attainable.
2. “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.” We don’t know the future, so it’s pointless to fret about the uncontrollable aspects of God’s plan. We should always seek to carry out His will, but it’s only looking back that we will understand the benefit of God’s plan for us.
3. “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” In many regards, that can be applied to God. Yes, He is deep, and there are complex aspects wrapped up in the Christian understanding of what God is, but at His core, God is simple. God is one. God is all-powerful. God is love.
4. “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” Part of sanctifying our work is doing the best that we can on any given task. We can say we’re sanctifying our work all we want, but if we don’t put in a lot of effort, that sanctification is lacking. We are offering poor or mediocre work to God.
5. “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” We are all mortal. We are all going to die, and we are going to spend an eternity in one of two places. Why do we place so much stock in our fears of failure, ridicule, or derision? We don’t want to die with regret.
6. “Everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” We often see trailblazers like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and think of them as another species. They’re above us, untouchable. But if we could only realize that we can influence people and bring about change, we could achieve just as much.
7. “I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to a thousand things.” It’s easy to take a look at the industry or world around you and adopt the trends of others. It’s much bolder to refuse the popular ideas and think about how to make things better, how to make ourselves better.
8. “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.” Cale compared this quote to something that Tom Brady once said. He said that when he’s on the field in a huddle with his teammates, those guys around him don’t care that he’s won 7 Super Bowls. They don’t care about his past accomplishments. They need him to go out and perform now. We don’t want to be one-hit wonders. We should continually look for opportunities to win, in everything we do.
9. “Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” Two saints who were known for emphasizing the little things were St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Josemaria Escriva. St. Therese is known for the way that she led a relatively quiet life in her convent, but she became a saint through the little daily mortifications and sanctifications. And St. Josemaria who was the founder of Opus Dei emphasized the little things because those were integral to living our faith out in the world! Do the little things right, and you will become leaders and guides.
10. “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” Being Catholic is not a walk in the park. People will call you crazy for having a big family, being pro-life, waiting until marriage, refusing certain substances, or any number of things. But that’s a good thing. We have countercultural beliefs and we may just be crazy enough to change the world.

Listen to the full discussion below:

Steve Jobs and the Catholic Faith

Tune in to The Cale Clarke Show weekdays at 5pm CT