Some fathers teach their children how to shoot threes or make hamburgers. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ father, Paul, taught him how to build a fence around their home in Mountain View, California.
The process taught him how to be detail-oriented, a mindset he instilled at Apple, Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in 2011.
Paul told his son, “You’ve got to make the back of the fence that nobody’s going to see look just as good as the front of the fence,” Isaacson recounted. “Even though no one will see it, you will know and it will show that you have dedicated yourself to making something perfect.”
As Jobs told Isaacson, “He liked to do things right.”
At Apple, Jobs made sure every detail was of the highest quality, Isaacson wrote in his biography of Steve Jobs. He insisted that the inside of the microchips looked beautiful and that each screw “has an expensive coating”.
Jobs said that maintaining this standard of beauty helped him “sleep well at night,” he told Playboy magazine in 1985.
“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful dresser, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back even though it’s facing the wall,” he said, echoing his father.
Jobs isn’t the only person whose father shaped their lives and careers. Here are five more people who have succeeded by following their fathers’ advice:
Mark Cuban: Your time is very valuable
For much of Mark Cuban’s childhood, his father, Norton, worked 60 hours a week for a car upholstery company outside of Pittsburgh, Cuban told CNBC Make It in February. Sometimes Cuban went to work with him and helped him sweep floors.
The lesson was implicit: This is what you should do when you work for someone else, Cuban said.
“That time was not spent learning what my father did, but learning that his work had no future,” Cuban said. “His time was never his own … he wanted me to make my own way.”
The experience made Cuban want to be an entrepreneur so he could make and live on his own schedule, he said in a MasterClass earlier this year.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: Whatever you do, give it as much effort as you can
Whether he’s wrestling, playing or playing college football, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson keeps one piece of advice from his father at the center of his mind. “Put in every damn ounce of effort you can; to give the best performance you can give,” Johnson wrote in a 2017 Instagram post.
“Back when I was a punk kid, my dad would take me to the gym on the weekends and kick my ass [out of] me in the weight room and on the wrestling mats,” Johnson wrote. “He would say, ‘You didn’t get up early to come here and give half an effort. Leave it all in the gym.’
Sarah Blakely: Failure should be encouraged
Growing up, billionaire Spanx founder Sara Blakely’s father often asked her a question at the dinner table, she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in 2013: “What did you fail at this week?”
“My dad, growing up, encouraged me and my brother to fail,” Blakely said. “The gift he gave me is that failure is [when you are] not trying against the result. It’s really allowed me to be a lot more free to try things and spread my wings in life.”
The board saw Blakely through the ups and downs of her early career. She wanted to be a lawyer, but “basically bombed the LSAT twice,” she said. She tried out to be Goofy at Disney World but was too short for the role and was offered the role of a chipmunk instead, she added.
Instead, Blakely began selling fax machines door-to-door — and eventually started prototyping her own shapewear, she said.
Mark Randolph: 9 Rules for Success
After graduating from college, Netflix co-founder Mark Randolph received a “handwritten list of instructions” from his father, he wrote in a 2019 LinkedIn post.
- Make at least 10% more than you want.
- Never, ever present opinions as fact to anyone about things you don’t know. Takes a lot of care and discipline.
- Be polite and considerate at all times – up and down.
- Don’t knock, don’t complain—stick to constructive, serious criticism.
- Don’t be afraid to make decisions when you have the facts to base them on.
- Quantify when possible.
- Be open-minded but skeptical.
- Be quick.
Randolph hung the original copy next to his bathroom mirror and passed the advice on to his children, he wrote.
He added another rule, which he wrote in a separate blog post: “If you apprentice with the smartest people who will take you seriously, you’ll learn every step of the way.”
Tony Hawk: Save and invest your money wisely
As a teenage pro-skateboarder, Tony Hawk outdid his high school teachers. His earnings, made up of prize money and sponsorships, financed frivolous purchases.
“I would go to Sharper Image and go crazy and buy, like, the new little camera or the tanning bed,” he told Make It in 2018.
It was Hawke’s father, Frank, who convinced the then 17-year-old to use some of his money to buy a house, he added.
“My dad was the one who encouraged me to let it go [my money] in terms of investing in a house,” Hawke said. “It was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done because it definitely saved me money [and] made it grow in the end.”
Do you want to be a successful, confident communicator? Take CNBC’s new online course Become an effective communicator: master public speaking. We’ll teach you how to speak clearly and confidently, calm your nerves, what to say and what not to say, and body language techniques to make a great first impression. Sign up today and use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory 30% discount until July 10, 2024.
plus, sign up for the CNBC Make It newsletter get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.
