People expect a lot from the Zen student who talked about death more clearly than most. The map finds the Zen in his taste, his focus and his intuition. It does not find it in how he treated people, and Love is out of view.
He stands at Achievement, and he operates from it. Wanting to be genuinely good at what you do is the healthy side of this level, and few people have had it so completely. The shadow is the other side: worth that hangs on results, and a need to be seen as the best. Most of the heat on his map sits there, and in the Power shadow he reached for when the pressure came.
Mastery and a taste for the better way. He wanted to be genuinely good at what he did, and he saw possibilities where others saw obstacles.
Mostly from its shadow side: worth that hung on results and a need to be the best, with Power as the tool he reached for under pressure.
The Trophy Hunter. Active in 10 of 16 statements, the most on his map, with Power close behind at 9.
| Level | Healthy side | Shadow side | Shape | Reading | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owned | Not yet | N/A | Active | Released | N/A | |||
| Belonging | 6 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 0 | lightly held | |
| Power | 7 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 7 | 0 | lightly held | |
| Order | 8 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 0 | lightly held | |
| Achievement | 12 | 4 | 0 | 10 | 6 | 0 | strong but turbulent | |
| Community | 5 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 0 | lightly held | |
| Responsibility | 5 | 11 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 0 | lightly held | |
| Love | 0 | 16 | 0 | 5 | 11 | 0 | lightly held | |
| Bliss | 1 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 16 | largely disengaged | |
This map of Steve Jobs has been read from his public life rather than from answers he gave, so treat it as our best reading of the man the world watched. He stands at Achievement and operates from it. Order and Power sit beneath it, each carrying shadows, and Belonging, Community and Love are thin. His main shadow is the Trophy Hunter, with the Porcupine at Power close behind. Most people saw the products. The map shows the pressure behind them.
Belonging is thin ground, with no shadow. He knew where he came from and it steadied him. He was adopted, and he spoke often of his adoptive father, Paul Jobs, who taught him to finish the back of a cabinet as carefully as the front. His family mattered to him and he stayed his own person. He carried forward what came before him, and he marked important moments with ceremony. His product launches were rituals. He had a spiritual side: he studied Zen for most of his adult life, and the Zen priest Kobun Chino Otogawa officiated at his wedding. He trusted his gut ahead of his reasoning.
What he did not own is the rest: living where people know one another, dreams, coincidences, and a sense that those who have died are still present. Belonging was a thread in his life, not a home.
Power is strong and loud, with a large shadow. The healthy side is real. He said no clearly, and famously. He questioned authority all his life, acted decisively and would rather try and fail than never find out. People could tell he was not someone to push around, and he was loyal to the few he trusted.
The shadow is nine statements, nearly as many as his main one. When he was angry, people around him knew about it straight away. He played to win and usually did. Coming second felt like losing, and being made to look foolish was hard to take. He found it hard to let a wrong go, and he believed in returning it in kind. With him you were on his side or you were not. Nobody told him what to do. This is the Porcupine, and it is what he reached for when the pressure came.
What he did not own are the steadier parts of Power: letting a slight go, holding his ground without needing to win, and stepping in for someone weaker.
Order is lightly held, with a smaller shadow. He planned ahead, respected earned authority and questioned the rest, and said the awkward thing rather than let something false stand. He worked for years on projects that paid off late, NeXT and Pixar among them. Contributing to something larger than himself gave his life meaning, and he spoke of putting a dent in the universe. When he got something wrong he put it right and moved on.
The shadow is four statements, and all of them are about standards. Disorder bothered him until it was put right. There was a right way to do most things and he knew what it was. It bothered him a lot when other people cut corners, and excess made him uncomfortable. It is the taste behind the products, and it is the impatience behind the meetings. What he did not own are a word kept at a cost, moderate habits, and high standards for himself without pressing them on others.
This is where he stood, and almost everything healthy here is his. He wanted to be genuinely good at what he did. He saw possibilities where other people saw obstacles, thought several moves ahead and set himself real goals. He took calculated risks and owned the outcome. He changed his mind when the evidence changed, though it could take him a day to present it as his own idea. He learned more from what went wrong than from what went right. In his 2005 Stanford speech he said being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him.
The shadow is ten statements, the most on his map. He was impatient with people who worked slowly, hated missing an opportunity and went ahead with plans when the odds were against him. Failing in public was hard for him. He wanted to be visibly the best, and he rehearsed a keynote for days. He would rather do it himself than depend on someone else’s work. Apple’s insistence on building hardware and software together fits that. How much he had achieved was a large part of how he valued himself, and he was uncomfortable when he was not being productive. He believed most problems came down to people not thinking clearly.
This is the Trophy Hunter. It is his main shadow, and it is the level he operated from. The ground under it is thin, so there was little to catch him when the results did not come.
Community is thin, with almost no shadow. He could be very close to someone and stay himself: he was married to Laurene Powell for twenty years, until his death. His inner work supported his outer life. He said the hard thing when it needed saying, and he belonged to his groups without needing their approval. He felt responsible for the natural world. In May 2007 he published an open letter, A Greener Apple, which admitted that Apple’s secrecy about its environmental work had been a mistake and set a timetable for removing toxic chemicals.
The shadow is one statement: if something felt right, that mattered more to him than whether it was logical. What he did not own is most of the rest of the closeness side, such as valuing people nothing like himself, staying connected through a disagreement and giving generously.
Responsibility is thin, with a large shadow. He cared whether something worked more than which camp it belonged to. In 1997 he took $150 million from Microsoft, the company Apple had been fighting. He knew what he was good at and what he was not. He followed a rule when it served and set it aside when it did not, and he was willing to rebuild something from scratch. He looked for the pattern connecting things. In the Stanford speech he said the dots join up when you look backward.
The shadow is eight statements. He learned what interested him and skipped the rest, and he left Reed College after six months. His views sat outside the usual positions. He did his best work when he was in charge, and he believed most problems have a best answer worth finding. He found it frustrating when people could not see the wider picture, and he saw quickly where others had gone wrong. Once he had worked something out he stuck with it. What he did not own are looking at his own part first, accepting people as they were and holding his views lightly.
Love is out of view. The healthy side of this level is not on the public record, and the shadow is five statements. His warmth was mostly for people who treated him well, and his care largely stopped at the people in his own life. He still measured himself by what he had accomplished. When he had forgiven someone he sometimes held part of it against them, and it was hard for him to keep giving to someone who never acknowledged it. A map read from outside cannot see private kindness, and he did a good deal of his living in private.
Bliss is a quiet thread. He said he had become more at peace with dying, and he spoke about death with unusual clarity. In the Stanford speech he called it life’s best invention. The rest of this level, the meditative states, is not on the public record.
Steve Jobs stood at Achievement. He wanted to be genuinely good at what he did, saw possibilities others missed and learned from what went wrong. Order gave him taste and standards. Belonging was a thread, in his Zen practice and in his father’s lesson about the back of the cabinet.
It was also the Trophy Hunter, with the Porcupine right behind. How much he achieved was a large part of how he valued himself, and under pressure he reached for Power: anger, winning and nobody telling him what to do. Love is out of view. The map shows a man whose standards produced the products, and whose edges cut the people around him. A map read from outside cannot see what he felt at night.
A map should explain a life. Each of these five moments shows a level at work, with its healthy side, its shadow, or both.
On 18 March 1991 Steve Jobs married Laurene Powell at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. The Zen priest Kobun Chino Otogawa presided. About fifty guests came, among them his adoptive father and his sister, and the wedding cake was vegan and shaped like Half Dome.
Healthy side: Marking an important moment with ceremony, and keeping family close without losing himself.
When 18 March 1991, Yosemite.
On 6 August 1997 Jobs announced at Macworld in Boston that Microsoft would invest $150 million in Apple and keep making Office for the Mac. Bill Gates appeared on a huge screen behind him, and much of the crowd booed. Jobs had been fighting Microsoft for years.
Healthy side: Caring whether something works more than which camp it belongs to.
When 6 August 1997, Boston.
In June 2010 owners reported that the iPhone 4 lost signal when held a certain way. Jobs replied to one by email that they should avoid holding it that way. On 16 July he held a press conference, defended the design and offered every owner a free case.
Healthy side: Putting it right, and moving on.
Shadow side: Failing in public was hard. His first answer was that the phone was fine.
When June to July 2010, Cupertino.
Walter Isaacson’s biography reports that Jobs, angry about Google’s Android, said he would destroy it because it was a stolen product, and that he was willing to go thermonuclear war on it. It came after Apple took legal action against an Android phone maker.
Shadow side: The Porcupine. A wrong is returned in kind, and you are on his side or you are not.
When 2010, reported in his 2011 biography.
In October 2003 Jobs learned he had a rare, slow-growing pancreatic tumour. Isaacson reports that he spent about nine months on a vegan diet, acupuncture and herbal remedies instead of surgery, against the advice of his family and friends. He had the operation on 31 July 2004. Isaacson says he later regretted the delay. Doctors say it is not clear it changed the outcome.
Shadow side: Once he had worked something out, he stuck with it, and he trusted his own view over the experts.
When October 2003 to July 2004.
Steve gave the back of the cabinet the same care as the front, and it made the products. The map also shows what the need to be the best did to the room around him. Where in your own work does that need set the terms for everyone else?
Steve’s main shadow is the Trophy Hunter. Everyone has a main shadow, and it is rarely the one you would guess. The Awaken Survey places you on the same ten-level map, draws your own eight windows, and names the shadow creature that is yours.
256 statements · 20 to 25 minutes · free · every map is read personally by Peter