Creatively Alike

The late Steve Jobs & Jim Henson Thought Different from most people but also Thought Alike each other. They created what people loved instead of what they yelled at out of frustration. Jim Henson was one of the innovators shown in Apple's tribute ad to innovative thinkers, similar to the homage to famous people on the Sergeant Pepper's album cover by The Beatles. The name of the Beatles record label helped to inspire the tech gadget company's name.

Visionaries often share similar ideas & ideals.
Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011 after resigning exactly 6 weeks earlier from Apple Computers on August 24, 2011.
Jim Henson would have been 75 years old exactly one month after Jobs' resignation on September 24, 2011.
Both sold their entertainment to the Walt Disney Company.

Do what you love with a vision of what would be popular in the future instead of what everyone one else is doing now. This approach towards success produced innovative gadgets such as music players, phones & computing devices, television programming including Sesame Street or memorable commercials and family friendly movies.

People loved The Muppet Movies plus the numerous Pixar films instead of yelling at a product or creation out of frustration or that it either was difficult to understand or insulted their intelligence.

The downside is they both focused on their work to the point that they didn't want to bother others when dealing with health issues.

Think Different

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Apple's "Think Different" ad - 1998

It's better to be crazy by trying new things until figuring out what works, than insanely do the same thing repeatedly.

other comparisons

Both Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein had multiple sets of the same clothes to wear so they didn't have to waste time thinking of what to wear each day.

Working with dummies or puppets like Jim Henson does not indicate that one is not very smart. The inventor of an early prototype of an artificial heart was ventriloquist and voice of Tigger in the 1960s Winnie the Pooh movies, Paul Winchell. Ironically, the man who that further developed the idea, Robert Jarvic, is married to Marilyn vos Savant who is listed as having the world's highest IQ.

Similar approaches to life

"I think we're having fun. And we're always trying to do better."

Steve Jobs

"Creatively, I find I work best if I can work with someone - talking things over as ideas come up. I do this best with people I'm very comfortable with - there has to be an absolutely pressure-free situation for this to work well. … It's important to be able to say virtually anything - which may be totally silly or stupid or obscene - in a no-risk situation."

Jim Henson - It's Not Easy Being Green And Other Things to Consider

"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. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.

Steve Jobs - Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

"There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that."

Steve Jobs - MacWorld 2007

"I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday."

Steve Jobs - All Things Digital 2007
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