Your Time in the Wilderness

I’m reading the recently released biography, “Becoming Steve Jobs.” I got only as far of page 12 of the Prologue when something caught my attention and triggered the idea for this blog. The authors mentioned the period between 1985, when he was forced out by Apple’s board of directors after a power struggle and his return as CEO in 1997. Here’s what they said about that period in Steve Jobs’ life:

“I keep coming back to the time that many have described as his ‘wilderness’ years, the dozen years between his first tenure at Apple and his return.”

These were muddled, complicated times, and not the stuff of easy headlines. But those years are in fact the critical ones of his career. That’s when he learned most everything that made his later success possible, and that’s when he started to temper and channel his behavior. To overlook those years is to fall into the trap of only celebrating success. We can learn as much, if not more, from failure, from promising paths that turn into dead ends. The vision, understanding, patience and wisdom that informed Steve’s last decade were forged in the trials of these intervening years.”

“Steve could be intransigent, and nothing was ever learned easily or superficially, but learn he did. Driven and curious even when things were tough, he was a learning machine during these years, and he took to heart all that he gleaned.”

If you’ve ever been fired, laid off or resigned under duress and been out of work for an extended period of time, you have something in common with the legendary Steve Jobs.

You’ve likely experienced some of the same emotions he did: anger, resentment, lack of purpose, shame, and if you’re like me, you could be a real pain in the ass to be around when you were wandering in your wilderness.

At some point in our lives most of us spend time in our own personal wilderness.

How we experience that time can transform us, just as it did Steve Jobs. Here are two thoughts to ponder:

• The wilderness is a great place for self-reflection and building emotional self-awareness; the event that drove us into the wilderness can’t be called a failure unless we fail to learn from it.
• What we learn in the wilderness affects our becoming. That is to say, how we respond to all we experience in the wilderness can change the trajectory of our life. Time in the wilderness that is well spent informs who we will become; it redirects us and starts us on a new journey that can be transforming.

What the authors of “Becoming Steve Jobs” called his wilderness years, others have referred to as the dark night of the soul.

What ever you choose to call it, you’re likely to experience such a period in your life if you haven’t already. It will test you dearly and with it comes an opportunity for personal growth.