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After 19 years as a powerhouse NBA center and 11 years co-hosting AN Emmy award-winning sports commentary segment, 50-year-old Shaquille O’Neal is just getting started.

After 19 years as a powerhouse NBA center and 11 years co-hosting AN Emmy award-winning sports commentary segment, 50-year-old Shaquille O’Neal is just getting started. | SUCCESS

Shaq Insists He's Not a Celebrity

Shaq&#8217;s Next Act: &#8220;I&#8217;m Just a Regular Person&#8221;

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Shaq's Next Act: "I'm Just a Regular Person" | SUCCESS

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Michael J. Mooney is a journalist who writes for D Magazine, GQ, ESPN: The Magazine, Outside, SUCCESS and Popular Mechanics. He is co-director of the annual Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. His stories have appeared in multiple editions of The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Crime Reporting. He lives in Dallas with his fiancée, Tara, and their retired racing greyhound.

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Michael Mooney

Professional Growth

Professional Growth Archives

Professional Growth | SUCCESS | What Achievers Read

There’s a scene near the beginning of the film Steve Jobs, in which the titular character, played by Michael Fassbender, is about to go on stage and introduce the world to the Macintosh. It’s a moment he hopes will usher in the point-and-click future of personal computing and change the arc of history forever. But before he takes the stage, Jobs is fixated—absolutely obsessed—with a single, tiny, seemingly extraneous detail.



It’s something that will account for mere seconds in the hour-long presentation he’s about to deliver. He wants to make sure that when he’s on stage, this new computer he’s unveiling will be able to say “Hello.”



Jobs <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/15-traits-of-a-terrible-leader/">berates his employees</a>. He threatens some. He humiliates others. He tells them that if the computer can’t greet him, he’ll cancel the entire presentation. He seems like a petulant child.&nbsp;



The movie, based on author Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed biography, is generally regarded as the most accurate, rounded depiction of Jobs in cinema. (There have been two other films about his life: 1999’s Pirates of Silicon Valley and 2013’s Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher.) But whether the real-life backstage interaction went like that or not, the moment depicts something integral—and very true—about <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-i-learned-working-for-steve-jobs/">Steve Jobs</a>. He wants the computer to say “Hello” because that’s the way he’s imagined it. This is his <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/vision-the-essential-leadership-ingredient/">vision</a>.



Jobs was known to exhibit, on occasion, a notoriously caustic demeanor. It’s also not completely clear from the outside what exactly he did. After all, he wasn’t an engineer. He didn’t write code. He convinced Steve Wozniak to do seemingly all of the technical work as their careers were budding. But in the span of 35 years—from the 1970s through the first decade of this century—he became an American icon, one of the most important innovators in human history. In that time, he famously co-founded Apple in his parents’ garage, got himself kicked out of the company less than 10 years later, then returned to rescue Apple from the brink of extinction another decade after that. Before he died in October 2011, following a relapsed pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, he reshaped the company into the world’s most valuable. Along the way, he also helped start the digital animation company Pixar.



Naz Beheshti, an executive wellness coach and founder of <a href="https://prananaz.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Prananaz</a>, started her career as Jobs’ executive assistant during the development of the iPod. She calls him a “visionary” who enticed the people around him into believing in his dreams. “His team sometimes doubted,” Beheshti says, “but his confidence, passion, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/9-ways-to-improve-your-perseverance-skills/">perseverance and focus</a> made the impossible possible.” That’s what he did. He imagined. And he imagined more intensely, with more passion, than anyone else.



Eventually, by the end of that scene in Steve Jobs, after so much furious dialogue, one of the employees Jobs was cruelest to figures out a way to get the Macintosh to say, “Hello” at the presentation. The moment serves to demonstrate not only the impatience and perfectionism of Jobs, but also the engine propelling all that he did: the <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/5-creative-benefits-of-daydreaming/">power of his imagination</a>.



A decade removed from his death, here are five lessons we can still glean from the imagination of Steve Jobs.



<h1 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-1-imagine-something-more-than-money">Lesson 1: Imagine something more than money.</h1>



Sure, Jobs was a natural salesperson. He understood, almost intuitively, what the American public would be willing to buy. Before he started Apple with Wozniak, as a teenager Jobs sold illegal “blue boxes”—machines that could mimic telephone tones and allow users free long-distance calls—that Wozniak built. Later in life, Jobs would say that if not for those blue boxes, “there wouldn’t have been an Apple.”



But even then, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/i-stopped-chasing-money-heres-what-happened/">money wasn’t the point</a>. More than anything, the two men enjoyed using electronics to outsmart the established businesses that dominated the telephone industry. In fact, at various times in his life, Jobs lived in considerable poverty. In his viral <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2005 commencement speech at Stanford University</a>, Jobs told the audience that after he dropped out of Reed College, he slept on the dorm-room floors of his friends, recycled Coke bottles for money, and ate free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. At one point he lived in a commune in Oregon. At another he lived in the shed in his parents’ backyard. He told people that he and Wozniak invented the Apple not to get rich, but because they wanted a practical personal computer.



<h1 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-2-people-don-t-know-what-they-want-until-you-show-it-to-them">Lesson 2: People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.</h1>



It seems logical that, because you <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/6-steps-to-discover-your-true-self/">know yourself</a> better than anyone else, you’d also know better than anyone else what you might like. But that just isn’t the way our brains work. Most of us possess a remarkably poor ability to imagine something that doesn’t exist in the world but would change our lives dramatically.&nbsp;



No focus group would have asked for rounded corners on the windows of a personal computer operating system, something that has become a hallmark of Apple products for 40 years—so much so that most of us don’t even notice them anymore. No survey could have conjured the sleek design and satisfying interface of an iPhone screen or the intuitive search functions of an iPod. In the early 2000s, at the height of Napster and music piracy, an entire industry of musicians and record executives—and millions of illicit consumers—failed to imagine a way to download songs safely, easily and legally. Then came iTunes.



“Our job,” Jobs once said, “is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”



<h1 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-3-simplicity-is-sophistication">Lesson 3: Simplicity is sophistication.</h1>



Apple’s first marketing brochure in 1977 extolled the virtues and elegance of making something simple. “Simplicity,” the brochure headline read, “is the ultimate sophistication.” This has been the underlying axiom of the company—and the tenet driving so much of Apple’s design—ever since.



Even today, the products retain many of the simple concepts Jobs valued in the early days. Point and click. Drag and drop. No visible screws. Clutter-free visuals at every level, even the walls of the retail stores.



Of course, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-happens-when-you-have-clarity-on-what-you-want/">simplicity isn’t as simple as it sounds</a>. To make a thing truly simple, truly intuitive, you must understand each part of that thing on a deep level. “In order to eliminate screws, buttons, or excess navigational screens,” Isaacson wrote, “it was necessary to understand profoundly the role each element played.”



But the idea of simplicity didn’t just apply to the products or the user experience. The company itself needed to focus, to eliminate conceptual clutter. When he returned to Apple in 1997, Jobs famously slashed the number of computers the company was making, insisting that they should instead focus on a few products, and making them both extraordinary and extraordinarily simple.&nbsp;



<h1 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-4-sell-it-yourself">Lesson 4: Sell it yourself.</h1>



In the early 1990s, during the period when Jobs was away from Apple, he gave a short lecture to a small gathering of graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then opened the floor to questions. In a rarely seen video from that day, the insightful students bombard him with inquiries about every <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asuccess.com%3A+career&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS942US944&amp;oq=site%3Asuccess.com%3A+career&amp;aqs=chrome.0.69i59l4j69i58.2645j0j4&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8">stage of his career</a> up to that point—and Jobs is surprisingly frank about both his successes and his failures.



One of the lessons he’d learned over the years, he explained, was that an innovative company has to sell the innovations directly. That had been one of Apple’s mistakes: A salesperson at a retail big-box store probably wouldn’t understand all the technical and stylistic advantages of an early Macintosh.



“If a new product comes out, you’re lucky if you can find somebody at the computer store that even knows how to demo it,” Jobs told the MIT students. “So the more innovative the product is, the more revolutionary it is and not just an incremental improvement, the more you’re stuck.”



This was nearly 10 years before the first Apple retail store opened in suburban Virginia. Now there are more than 500 locations around the world.



<h1 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-5-it-s-not-for-no-reason">Lesson 5: It’s not for no reason.</h1>



Jobs imagined something bigger than any product. Something more than the businesses that would become his legacy. He imagined a different way of living. Critics and commentators tend to focus on his flaws, on his interpersonal interactions, on his harsh <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/a-managers-guide-to-dismantling-a-fear-based-company-culture-from-the-inside-out/">approach to management</a>. And those parts of his life certainly make for compelling drama. But the truth is what Jobs imagined was so clear to him that he seemed to have little patience for anyone who didn’t buy into his vision of a simpler world.



He knew it was important that an entity like Microsoft not monopolize the entire computer industry. He knew it was important that technology not pose intimidating challenges to the everyday consumer. He knew it was important to inspire people to, as Apple’s 1997 commercials implored, “think different.” Those ads—the first campaign after Jobs returned to the company—included images of Albert Einstein and Bob Dylan and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad Ali and Mahatma Gandhi and Amelia Earhart and Pablo Picasso. Creators, thinkers, iconoclasts.



From the beginning of his career until his death, Jobs asked us all to dream. He asked us to create, to rebel, to change the world. More than anything else, he asked us to imagine. 



 This article originally appeared in the November/December 2021 Issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photo © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Lesson No. 3: Simplicity is sophistication.

Lesson No. 3: Simplicity is sophistication. | SUCCESS

10 Years After His Death, Steve Jobs Still Inspires Our Imaginations

Steve Jobs' Enduring Legacy: Inspiring Imaginations 10 Years On

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Mark Cuban models how we should confront the most disruptive year we've ever seen—by moving on.

Mark Cuban models how we should confront the most disruptive year we've ever seen—by moving on. | SUCCESS

Forget 2020: Mark Cuban’s Secrets to Focusing on the Future

Forget 2020: Mark Cuban’s Secrets to Focusing on the Future | SUCCESS

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'Deep work' can help you do what you do best in a world full of distractions. Here are tips for making the time and space to think deeply.

'Deep work' can help you do what you do best in a world full of distractions. Here are tips for making the time and space to think deeply. | SUCCESS

How to Create the Perfect Conditions for Deep Focus

How to Create the Perfect Conditions for Deep Focus | SUCCESS

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Elon Musk has established a reputation as someone unafraid to make controversial statements. Because he’s accomplished so much in the worlds of business and science—and because he’s frequently in front of cameras and microphones—plenty of people have studied his public statements, parsing for lessons about innovative insights or corporate leadership or financial acumen. Sometimes he’s brash, harsh or awkward. Sometimes he’s insensitive or inflammatory. Much less discussed, though, is Musk’s particular, dry sense of humor—and how he’s used different kinds of jokes over the years to both engage the public and build his various companies.



Here are a few ways Musk has employed his distinctive brand of wry wit.



<h3>Subvert expectations.</h3>



At a 2016 launch event, Musk unveiled to the world the highly anticipated $35,000 Tesla Model 3, the first Tesla that an average middleclass American family might be able to afford. After rattling off performance stats for the enthusiastic audience—like the fact that the Model 3 can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under six seconds—he asked the crowd if they wanted to see the car. There were loud roars.



Musk put his hands together and apologized: “We don’t have it for you tonight,” he said with a straight face. The audience let out a collective sigh. Then Musk announced with a grin, “I’m just kidding!” and brought out the car.



The cheers were even louder than before.



<h3>Deploy copious sarcasm.</h3>



After making more than $100 million from the sale of PayPal and deciding to start a private space company, a lot of people asked Musk why he’d pour his wealth into what seemed like such an impossibly expensive endeavor. He answered the question on the TED stage in 2014.



“Did you hear the joke about the guy who made a small fortune in the space industry?” Musk quipped. “‘He started with a large one,’ is the punchline. So I tell people I was trying to figure out the fastest way to turn a large fortune into a small one.”



<h3>Feel free to be punny.</h3>



Musk was stuck in Los Angeles traffic one morning and sent out a series of tweets complaining about it. He said he wished he could create a business that dug giant tunnels through the earth, to avoid traffic jams completely. He jokingly declared that he would name such a business “The Boring Company.” They’d dig, and it’d be called boring—get it? But what started as a joke eventually became what Musk has called a “hobby company.” The Boring Company dug a mile-long hole near its headquarters in Southern California and already has a contract to dig an extended tunnel under Las Vegas. All that from a simple pun.



<h3>Let the joke be the message.</h3>



During a 2017 interview with writer Neil Strauss from Rolling Stone, Musk had a framed poster up on his office wall. Designed a like one of those inspirational posters that used to be ubiquitous in corporate environments, this piece of art probably epitomizes Musk’s sense of humor better than anything else. The image is a shooting star, but underneath it reads: “When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it’s really a meteor hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you’re pretty much hosed, no matter what you wish for. Unless it’s death by meteorite.”



Strauss noted that the poster wasn’t merely a dark joke. “It’s also a reminder of Musk’s master plan: to create habitats for humanity on other planets and moons.”



<h3>Don’t underestimate understatement.</h3>



When Tesla finally released its Model X to the public, it was famously more than two years later than originally promised. This meant that not only had early purchasers been clamoring about the money they’d already turned over to the company, but investors and analysts worried that Tesla might not be viable as a business, that it might in fact be some elaborate sham. When asked in interviews or presentations about the long delays, Musk would reply glibly.



“Well,” he’d say, “I do have an issue with punctuality.”



As Tesla was expanding at the end of the last decade, Musk was asked about what the company was going to do to meet the massive new demand they expected for parts and service. With an utterly emotionless expression, he explained: “Well I guess we’re going to hire a lot of people in service and get lots of parts.”



<h3>Paint a picture with words.</h3>



While explaining why SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company, would want to land the most expensive parts of the rockets precisely and safely back on Earth for re-use—as opposed to splashing into the ocean and splintering into bits—Musk has often resorted to the same metaphor. He’s said that portion of the rocket costs somewhere around $30-35 million. “I tell my team to imagine there was a pallet of cash that was vomiting through the atmosphere and it was going to burn up and smash into tiny pieces,” Musk has said. “Would you save it? Probably yes. That sounds like a good idea.”



<h3>Say it with space props.</h3>



When SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, capable of carrying a large amount of cargo into space, the company needed something to demonstrate the carrying capabilities. Musk decided to load his personal red Tesla Roadster, replete with a dummy driver in a space suit. In the glove compartment, Musk put a copy of his favorite novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. On the car’s dashboard was a sign that referenced to one of the book’s most famous lines. The sign read simply “DON’T PANIC!”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">Read next: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/visionary-lessons-from-elon-musk/">Visionary Lessons From Elon Musk</a></blockquote>



Photo by @sboudhabhay1/Twenty20.com

Elon Musk has used different kinds of jokes over the years to both engage the public and build his various companies. You can make humor a leadership trait, too.

Elon Musk has used different kinds of jokes over the years to both engage the public and build his various companies. You can make humor a leadership trait, too. | SUCCESS

How to Tell a Joke Like Elon Musk

How to Tell a Joke Like Elon Musk | SUCCESS

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The career of our foremost modern visionary offers plenty of lessons. Who better to learn from in this time of uncertainty than Elon Musk?

The career of our foremost modern visionary offers plenty of lessons. Who better to learn from in this time of uncertainty than Elon Musk? | SUCCESS

Visionary Lessons From Elon Musk

Visionary Lessons From Elon Musk | SUCCESS

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Scooter Braun was 14, but he remembers that day as if it were yesterday. He can point to several lessons he learned throughout his life—like when his parents took him to work at a soup kitchen during the holidays to remind him that his gifts in life were to be used to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/if-you-want-to-win-help-others-win-first">help other people</a>—but this day was, he says, “a very pivotal moment in my life.”

Related:&nbsp;<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/9-golden-lessons-for-success-from-scooter-braun">9 Golden Lessons for Success From Scooter Braun</a>

Braun was playing basketball in his driveway when his dad came outside. The day before, Scooter had gotten into trouble for telling “a small white lie,” so he was grounded, not allowed to hang out with his friends. When he talks about what happened next, he re-enacts the back-and-forth dialogue.

“Hey, I want to talk to you,” the elder Braun said. “I want to let you know something. I’ve been thinking a lot about last night.”

Here we go, Scooter remembers thinking.

“I want you to know you’re a liar,” his father said.

“What?”

His dad was—and still is—<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/why-youre-never-too-old-to-have-heroes">one of his biggest heroes</a>. The words stunned him.

&nbsp;

<h3 class="rtecenter">“You’re 14. You’re on your way to being a young man,” he said. “But right now you’re a liar and you’ve got to decide if you want that.”</h3>

&nbsp;

“You’re a liar,” his father repeated, “but I want you to know something I haven’t told you truthfully. I always taught you that if you lie, if you don’t treat people right, you’re not going to be successful in life, you’re going to be a failure. But I want you to know something: You’re a liar and <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/12-simple-habits-that-set-ultra-successful-people-apart">you’re going to be very successful</a>. Out of all my kids, I don’t worry about you. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/do-these-30-things-if-you-want-to-be-unstoppable">Nothing is going to stop you</a>, but you’re going to know you’re a liar and I’m going to know you’re a liar.”

The father told his son that he wasn’t mad at him. “You’re 14. You’re on your way to being a young man,” he said. “But right now you’re a liar and you’ve got to decide if you want that.”

Then his father walked away.

The younger Braun sat down. He says he was devastated. He thought about it, and a few hours later, he went to talk to his dad.

“No,” the father said. “I want you to think about what I said. I’ll come talk with you again.”

But the young Scooter was persistent, even then. He tried again.

Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/scooter-braun-stands-up">Scooter Braun Stands Up</a>

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“OK,” his dad said. “What’s up?”

“I appreciate you telling me I’m a liar, but I’m not a liar.”

“Yes, you are,” his father said.

“Fine,” Scooter said. “But I’ll tell you this right now, I’m not going to be a liar. I’m going to be someone who <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/9-tips-to-help-you-strengthen-your-integrity">lives with integrity</a>. And it might be harder, but I’m going to be successful and I’m not going to be a liar.”

His father smiled.

“Good choice.”

Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/videos/youtube/this-is-how-self-belief-drives-mind-blowing-success">This Is How Self-Belief Drives Mind-Blowing Success</a>

The talent manager learned an important lesson at a young age.

The talent manager learned an important lesson at a young age. | SUCCESS

When Scooter Braun’s Dad Called Him a Liar

When Scooter Braun’s Dad Called Him a Liar | SUCCESS

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Most famous for the pop stars he manages, the music mogul is ready to be an influential leader in his own right.

Most famous for the pop stars he manages, the music mogul is ready to be an influential leader in his own right. | SUCCESS

Scooter Braun Stands Up

Scooter Braun Stands Up | SUCCESS

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Personal Development

Personal Development Archives

Personal Development | SUCCESS | What Achievers Read

How does someone remain so consistent in a career that has spanned more than three decades?

How does someone remain so consistent in a career that has spanned more than three decades? | SUCCESS

The Interesting Thing About Wolf Blitzer

The Interesting Thing About Wolf Blitzer | SUCCESS

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<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/simon-sinek-the-secret-to-leadership-and-millennials-is-simply-purpose">Simon Sinek</a> has published two best-selling books about leadership and business. Both <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591842808/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=sm0fe-20&amp;linkId=b32dda99035e25cd5c33b4e093baa603" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Start With Why</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591845327/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=sm0fe-20&amp;linkId=a8352eb216251dd30d10bb64973dd1e9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Leaders Eat Last</a> sold millions of copies, in multiple languages. He also wrote a small hardcover “book of inspiration” called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591847850?ie=UTF8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Together is Better</a>, and he has a new paperback, Why the Why, out later this year. When I interviewed him, I asked him about his process.

Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/simon-sinek-the-secret-to-leadership-and-millennials-is-simply-purpose">Simon Sinek: The Secret to Leadership and Millennials Is Simply Purpose </a>

“It was easier when I was less busy,” he tells me. “There’s a lot of writers who treat writing like a full-time job. They work from 9 to 5. Or they have targets, like they’ll write 2,500 words a day no matter what. I don’t have that kind of discipline.”

He told me that if he doesn’t like what he’s writing, he has to stop.

“My writing style is best described as ‘days of guilt and self-loathing punctuated by moments of sheer brilliance,’” he says. “The problem is I don’t know when those moments will strike. So I walk around with a notebook in my pocket at all times. And when I’m in writing mode, when I have a book to write, I’ll not go out with my friends for fear that <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/3-genius-tactics-to-drive-your-next-creative-breakthrough">something will strike</a>. Then I sit at home and watch TV because nothing strikes. And I’ll be like, ‘I should have gone out.’ Then I’ll go out. I’ll give myself a break. And then something will strike and I’m sitting at the table scribbling on table cloths.”

He told me that he wished he had a system, that his approach is chaotic: “I <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/3-easy-and-scientifically-proven-ways-to-access-your-inner-creative-genius">write like an artist</a>, not a writer. It’s stressful.”

In both his writing and his lectures, Sinek pulls examples from a wide variety of sources. Within a paragraph or two, he might cite Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Jobs and the guy who served him coffee at a hotel in Las Vegas. I asked him if he makes these connections in the moment, or when he’s actually sitting at the keyboard, typing. He paused for a second, and then began explaining how different parts of our brain function.

“The neo-cortex, which is our rational and analytical brain, has access to about 2 feet of information around us,” Sinek explains. “This is information we access when we <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/think-slow-and-other-tricks-for-better-problem-solving">think through a problem</a> or we make a list of the pros and cons or we have a brainstorm and make use of our expertise, right?”

I nod.

“Our limbic brain, which is our subconscious brain, has access to the equivalent of about 11 acres of information. Which is <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/how-to-speak-well-and-listen-better">every conversation</a>, every book. It’s all filed away somewhere, but you can’t access it consciously. So when a question is asked or a problem is posed, you’ll think it through, but then your limbic brain continues to ruminate—think isn’t the right word. It continues to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/top-of-mind-5-ways-to-get-ideas-flowing">toy with the idea</a>. It’ll make connections that you’re not aware of until the connections are made. And that’s why you’ll have epiphanies in the shower, in bed, when you go for a run, on your drive to work, all those times when you’re quote-unquote ‘not thinking’ and your mind is wandering.”

But, he says, your subconscious won’t engage if the problem hasn’t been posed or the question hasn’t been asked. So the value of the <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/top-of-mind-5-ways-to-get-ideas-flowing">brainstorming session</a> isn’t solving the problem right then, it’s to ask the question. The answer is more likely to come later.

“I appreciate that,” he says. “I keep a dry-erase marker in my shower. When I have a thought in the shower, I’ll quickly get out and write it on the tile. Because as quickly as you have it, you lose it.”

When he was writing Leaders Eat Last, it got intense.

“It looked like A Beautiful Mind if you walked into my bathroom,” he says. “Every single tile was filled with crazy ideas. Some of them were disconnected. Some of them were just thoughts I thought were really, really interesting. I would never erase any of them. I would just stand there every night, brushing my teeth, and I’d be just staring at one of them. And then I’d make a connection and start writing on one of the tiles. Some of them made it into the book and some of them didn’t. There was madness in my bathroom, but that’s how it works for me.”

Related:&nbsp;<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/videos/youtube/video-simon-sineks-success-cover-shoot">Video: Simon Sinek's SUCCESS Cover Shoot</a>

&nbsp;

This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://store.successcom.wpenginepowered.com/by-media/magazines/success-magazine-august-2017-simon-sinek.html">August 2017 issue of SUCCESS magazine</a>.

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<div id="_idContainer001">Cellphones were just the beginning. It was cars and clothes and the expressions people used. He’d always considered himself stylish before. Now everything had changed. There were celebrities and sports teams he’d never heard of. He didn’t even recognize some of the streets in his old neighborhood—places he’d been picturing in his head all this time. Whole blocks were different. A grimy tire store had morphed into a fancy restaurant. What had been a mysterious, freshly dug hole in the ground many years ago was now a busy train station. Television was different. So was music. And don’t even get him started on the Internet.</div><div id="_idContainer002">When Thomas McGowan first got out, he felt like God had given him his life back. “It was glorious,” he’d later say. This was 2008. He stepped out of the courthouse at 49 years old, a free man, his lawyers at his side, their arms raised to the heavens. As the air hit his face, as he began to take those steps, he couldn’t stop smiling. Deep down, he worried that this might all be a dream—that he’d wake up back in prison, lost and forgotten. But even if it were a dream, he wanted to enjoy every second of it.In 1985 McGowan was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. A 19-year-old woman in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas, was raped and beaten in her home. The man had held a knife to her throat as her boyfriend knocked on the door and called her phone looking for her. After the rape, the man grabbed a beer from the woman’s refrigerator and drank it. When he left, she called her sister and spent the rest of the day at the hospital with police officers, going over the details of the brutal crime. She’d seen the man’s face. She’d heard his voice. She could identify the car she’d seen in front of her house that day.McGowan lived in Richardson and drove a car similar to the one the woman had seen at her house. He was 26 at the time. He had been arrested once for stealing cassette players when he was a teenager. His only other trouble with the law involved an arrest for driving without a license.The victim didn’t identify a suspect in a lineup at the police station. More than a week later, she was shown a photo lineup that included images of seven men, McGowan among them. Some of the photos were in black and white, and some were in color. Some were Richardson police mug shots. She picked his.<a href="https://www.innocenceproject.org/about-innocence-project" target="_blank" title="About | InnocenceProject.org">The Innocence Project</a>, a nonprofit dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing, worked with McGowan while he was incarcerated. The group, which also works to change public policy to prevent future injustices, has called this photo lineup “highly unusual.” Most police forces now take steps to avoid leading witnesses, including using a “double-blind” procedure in which the administering officer doesn’t know who the suspect is. But at the time, a judge ruled that the lineup had been conducted properly. Interviewed weeks after the crime, McGowan couldn’t account for where he was when the rape took place—although he repeatedly said he didn’t do it. His case went to trial, and he was convicted of rape and burglary. Given two consecutive life sentences, he thought he’d die in prison.For years he toiled, left behind by society. The nights were long, and his mind reeled in the darkness.“I thought I was trapped in a nightmare,” says McGowan, looking back.For more than two decades, he told everyone that he was innocent. McGowan prayed that he’d get out and see his ailing mother before she died. He prayed that his life wouldn’t end in this dank cell, that this was not all the world had in store for him. In 2007 he wrote to the Innocence Project about his case.Months passed before he heard back. Lawyers from New York were looking into his situation. The old evidence was retested, and the victim submitted a new DNA sample. Within days the results were in: McGowan was innocent. On April 16, 2008, he stood before then-District Judge Susan Hawk, who ordered his release.“Words cannot express how sorry I am for the last 23 years,” the judge told him. “I believe you can walk out of here a free man.”So he did just that, grinning until his face hurt. He was greeted by his family—including his mother, who was still alive. And every part of life seemed fantastic. Even these futuristic contraptions he’d never used were fascinating—not frustrating.“Knowing that there was everything on this little phone, it was the weirdest thing,” McGowan says. “I used to see stuff like that on Star Trek, and now, all of a sudden, it’s there in your hand, and you can talk into it.”Sometimes, though, when he’d stare at the bright screen, trying to send a text message or remember which button answered calls, it felt overwhelming. He also saw a lot of people he’d known earlier in life, and they seemed so much older. Most of them had kids, and some had grandkids. But McGowan still felt like he was in his 20s, fresh and new to this crazy world. There are no tutorials on how to live as a free man after being shut away so many years for a crime you didn’t commit.In prison his life had been defined by routine. Every day, for nearly 23 years, McGowan went to bed by 10 p.m. So even when he was driving around after his release, he still wanted to head home by 10.“That’s just what my body was doing,” he says.And for years he’d learned to keep to himself, to stay on guard. So once he got out, he struggled to have long conversations or relate to people. Relationships—from family to friends to new women in his life—all proved more difficult than he’d imagined. After a while on the outside, he didn’t feel like being social. “I just wanted my own space,” he says. “Other people were going out, and I just wanted to be at home watching TV.”It felt so strange and complicated. Certainly he was still glad to be free, but he also had an array of other emotions popping up. There was resentment that those years had been taken from him. There was anger. There was sadness and regret and fear that he might not make the best of the opportunity he was given. Even when he wanted to explain those conflicting feelings, he felt like nobody could possibly understand.Things seemed great for Johnnie Lindsey when he first got out, too. The first couple of weeks felt like something from a sweet movie montage. He stayed with an aunt, and nearly every morning his son would come by in his silver Mazda Protégé and the two would go out to breakfast. Lindsey’s son took him to the doctor, to the dentist, to the Department of Motor Vehicles. He took him shopping for clothes and for a cellphone, and he gave him a quick tutorial on texting.Lindsey spent 26 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. His son was an infant when he went away and a 27-year-old man when he was exonerated in September 2008. For years, Lindsey had prayed that he would be released from prison, that the right judge or lawyer would finally stumble across his case. There were many times when he might’ve been released on parole if he had confessed and shown contrition. But he never did.At one point in prison, Lindsey developed colon cancer. It went untreated for weeks. One afternoon, he passed out in the prison infirmary, thinking he was about to meet God. Instead, he woke up 46 hours later in a hospital. And he decided his life had been spared for a reason. He started a new round of letter-writing, and soon one of his letters landed in front of a judge who referred the case to a public defender who also worked with The Innocence Project. As with McGowan, a DNA test exonerated him.He remembers people warning him that freedom might come with unexpected struggles. Most of the time he was fine: He appeared on The View and the first episode of the reality show Dallas DNA. He could <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/how-to-get-over-your-fear-of-speaking-up-in-public-or-not" target="_blank" title="How to Get Over Your Fear of Speaking Up—in Public or Not | SUCCESS.com">speak to large groups</a> of law students or reporters without a problem. And he certainly didn’t want to seem ungrateful. But on rare occasions—maybe once a month—he couldn’t bear to get out of bed in the morning. He wouldn’t leave the house. He wanted it dark and quiet, and he couldn’t talk to anyone. In those moments, it seemed like everything was too complicated, too tedious. Life seemed impossible.Social interaction was particularly difficult, he says. And it was even harder with the people he really cared about. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing or disappoint anyone. In prison you become less human. You speak less. You listen and watch more. You’re never truly comfortable or relaxed. And you can’t turn those habits off like a light switch. Lindsey worried he might mess up his second chance.Within a year, both men found the same support group. Dallas County leads the nation in exonerations of more than 30 people. The support group consisted of 12 men, with eight to 10 usually showing up for meetings. Initially, they found it hard to speak. A facilitator with clinical and academic experience helped to keep them talking. The program was set up so the men would ultimately coach each other, but first they had to learn to trust. Only someone who’d spent many years in prison and then was later exonerated could understand. Gradually they began to open up.“We all share this same type of pain,” McGowan says. “If you’re locked up for something you didn’t do, every night you think about it. You’re away from the outside world, trapped in this place. It really messes with you.”They talked about their problems. The men in the group realized that they were all dealing with similar issues. Nearly everything came down to money, relationships and the ability to communicate with trust. Looking back, McGowan realizes he had missed years of relationship practice—years of fights, of makeups, of learning how to deal with people the way adults in good relationships do.“Real relationships, when you really care about that person, that’s hard,” he says. “You really have to find yourself first.”The group would bring in specialists to talk about different issues the men might be facing: how to get a driver’s license or open a bank account. A lot of the lessons were about interpersonal relationships and <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/5-ways-to-organize-your-job-search" target="_blank" title="5 Ways to Organize Your Job Search | SUCCESS.com">finding and keeping jobs</a>. And there were lawyers who volunteered to help some of the men obtain the money they were owed by the state. State law entitles every exonerated inmate to $80,000 for every year he’s wrongly incarcerated, plus $25,000 for every year on probation or a sex offender list. Lindsey and McGowan each recovered somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million for their time in prison, which comes with its own problems. Men in the group talked about how they’d all discovered long-lost cousins looking for loans or investments. McGowan can admit now that there was a moment when he came close to buying a house for a woman he was dating.“There were some big red flags that I just didn’t see at the time,” he says.His group gave him a place to pass on some of those lessons to men released after he was. Seeing that the other men struggled with the same issues helped Lindsey and McGowan to open up. They could ask questions and talk out the problems they might be facing. Sometimes the issues were complicated, like how to be a father to a child after more than two decades apart. Sometimes it was simpler, like explaining how to use the touch-screen on a smartphone or describing Wikipedia.Eventually the men formed an organization aimed at supporting the exonerated, smoothing the transition to the outside world and lobbying to change the way certain investigations are done. McGowan, for example, has testified about the dangerous ramifications of faulty photo lineups. The men call the group The Exonerated Brothers of Texas. McGowan is the organization’s secretary. Lindsey is the treasurer.These days, both men are <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/6-tips-to-be-a-more-confident-speaker" target="_blank" title="6 Tips to Be a More Confident Speaker | SUCCESS.com">confident, polished speakers</a>. They often give public talks. They’re also both stylish dressers, rarely leaving their respective houses without a crisply pressed collared shirt and a touch of &nbsp;jewelry.McGowan in particular has come a long way in life. He had been so angry for so long. But a year after he was released, he sat down to meet the woman who had accused him all those years ago and the detective who worked the case. There were tears and apologies and true moments of healing and learning. The three of them spoke together at a conference, and at one point, the detective was helping McGowan with his luggage.“Some of the guys in the group were telling me they could never do that,” he says. “I just said to myself, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/td-jakes-the-power-to-let-go" target="_blank" title="T.D. Jakes: The Power to Let Go | SUCCESS.com">Man, you’ve got to forgive</a><a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/td-jakes-the-power-to-let-go" target="_blank" title="T.D. Jakes: The Power to Let Go | SUCCESS.com">.</a> God brought me face to face with my accuser. What can I be mad at by that point? I was feeling like I’d been blessed just to be out.”Lindsey and McGowan enjoy sending text messages. There can still be a few issues with phones, though. Once in a while, McGowan pocket-dials the woman who had accused him of rape. There are so many surreal moments now that would have seemed unthinkable to him for so long. But life can be strange sometimes.The men from the group still get together every so often, too. It’s not in the support-group structure anymore, though. Now they put a date on the calendar to meet up. They usually go to someone’s lake house for the night. They eat and talk and sit around showing one another family photos.There are plenty of times when McGowan still feels stressed. He feels less out of place than he used to—and he feels less like a rambunctious 20-something. He’d like to find someone to marry. He’d like to start a family of his own. But it’s so complicated.When he feels that way now, he gets in his Mercedes and goes for a drive. It doesn’t matter where. He sticks to the surface roads, stays off the highways. He puts on some music—he varies the rock and classic R&amp;B with hip-hop—and just cruises. He watches the other people in their cars, everyone going somewhere, doing something. Nothing makes him feel free like driving. He drives slow, taking the time to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/how-beauty-inspired-awe-can-boost-your-mood" target="_blank" title="How Beauty-Inspired Awe Can Boost Your Mood | SUCCESS.com">appreciate the beauty of life</a> around him.“There’s no need to rush,” McGowan says. “I have all the time in the world.”<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/mission-impossible" target="_self" title="Mission Impossible | SUCCESS.com">If you think you’ve hit a wall and can’t come from back from it, think again. Dive into more stories of overcoming obstacles that will inspire and motivate you.</a></div>

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