The Perfectly Imperfect Dichotomy of Apple
Monroe Mann
Published On: Aug 9, 2026
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Name: Monroe Mann Break Diving Level: Level 2 Number of Certified Dives: 17 From: United States In: United States
One paragraph jumped out at me today that explains precisely what you need to succeed in life:
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In a slide deck called Leadership Pallet, Apple states “fighting for excellence is about resisting the gravitational pull of mediocrity. It involves being dead tired, and still pushing yourself, and others, to get it right, every time.“ One engineer says the reason he left Apple after more than a decade is that during a routine medical appointment his doctor noted his high blood pressure and said “OK I need you to do two things for me. Lose weight and quit Apple“ The doctor explained that the stress would basically kill him.
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What jumped out at me is twofold, hence the dichotomy:
1. Apple’s incredible success is directly related to that Leadership Palette. It’s by working your butt off that you succeed. It’s essentially our creed: No rules. No excuses. No regrets.
2. That same Leadershop Palette can kill you if you’re not careful.
In other words, for us: we need to push ourselves to the brink of exhaustion… but no further. And we need to give ourselves breaks occasionally. But most of the time, we have to be working our butts off! We have to be working twice as hard as the competition. Or we won’t keep up. Indeed, we will be left behind.
This book, and also the biography of Elon Musk, shows me how many times all these companies were on the brink of failure. But they kept pushing themselves to the brink of exhaustion, working harder than anyone else despite the ridicule, loss of hope, and self doubt.
We can all do the same. But not to the point of quitting.
So we have to find a happy medium.
But be sure that we err on the side of pushing too hard rather than resting too much. The former might get us to success; the latter might let our lives pass us by.
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