What do you know about Steve Jobs, the legendary co-founder of Apple, who created one of the
greatest gadgets of our time?
Turns out, he was a man of mystery, and in the most literal sense of the word.
Just think about it, he'd been driving a car around Silicon Valley without a license plate
for years on end!
That meant breaking the law, which requires all passenger vehicles to have tags.
Well, some believed that he did it just becuase he could.
Call it a rebellious spirit if you want.
Or maybe he wanted to protect his privacy by any means possible.
Someone even came up with the theory that it was the font on the plate that he didn’t
like.
After all, he was a perfectionist in every way, so maybe he really thought an ugly plate
would ruin his beautiful car.
Whatever the cause, he managed to bend the rules over and over again.
No wonder a bunch of theories about it emerged.
According to one of them, he had some kind of arrangement with the local police, who
granted him special rights to drive without a number on his Benz.
Another said that he just paid the $250 ticket every time an officer stopped him.
Some even said that it was all because of his fans, who stole his plates every time
he put them on.
As it turned out, the real explanation was far sneakier than that.
A few years back, California laws allowed people to drive with no plates for six months
after buying a new car.
So Jobs just made the most of this loophole.
First he got a car, used it for half a year, and when the grace period was over, he replaced
it with a new one.
The interesting thing is that all this time he stayed true to one brand and model, the
Mercedes SL55 AMG.
He even stuck to the same color, only purchasing silver ones.
I guess the leasing company was pretty happy to have such a regular customer.
Don’t try to pull off a trick like that on your own, though.
Since January 2019, car owners in California have to install temporary plates right away,
just like in the other states.
But driving anonymously wasn’t the only strange quirk Jobs had.
He also had some weird eating habits.
He was often on a diet with only one ore two specific types of food allowed.
For instance, he would eat nothing but apples for weeks.
One time he ate so many carrots, his skin turned a little bit orange.
Sometimes he could go without any food for a couple of days.
What's more, he believed that fruit diets and fasting somehow made his body cleaner.
He also didn’t think he ever got body odor, so he didn’t see the need to shower every
day, or use deodorant.
But legend has it that back in the 1970s, when Jobs still worked at Atari, his smell
horrified his colleagues so much he ended up doing night shifts.
What can I say, Steve Jobs did think differently, just like in an old Apple motto.
And that applies to other successful and wealthy people too.
Ingvar Kamprad, who created IKEA, had billions of dollars in his account.
But still, he lived just like any other person.
He had an old cheap Volvo, but preferred to travel by bus.
He did his shopping at flea markets, and always wrote on both sides of a sheet of paper.
But he had some extremes too.
Though he could afford absolutely anything, he skimmed salt and pepper packets from cafes,
and only had his hair cut when he traveled.
Apparently, in Sweden it’s too expensive!
Speaking of cheap: how about taking baths without using any water?
Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, loved air baths.
Every morning before work, he'd open the windows in his house to let the chill in.
And that’s how he’d spend about an hour, stark-naked.
He called it a ‘tonic bath’ and believed it improved his health.
Old Ben actually lived to be 84, so maybe he had a point.
Bill Gates has an unusual method of focusing on his ideas.
To help him think, he sits down in a rocking chair and quietly swings back and forth.
That’s how Microsoft’s co-founder comes up with a solution every time he finds himself
in a difficult situation.
He’s kept this tradition since he was in college, and it's been so effective that his
work partners have picked it up over time.
And speaking of license plates, Gates also used them in a pretty unconventional manner.
In his early years as a boss at Microsoft, he used to learn the numbers of all his employees'
plates, and not just to train his memory.
That’s how he checked when they arrived at the office or left for home..
Inventor Thomas Edison was also incredibly picky about his employees, but in another
way.
To work for him, a person needed to pass the salt test.
During an interview, Edison gave the candidate a bowl of soup.
If they added salt without tasting it first, he didn’t hire them.
He wanted his assistants to try out the facts before making assumptions.
Sounds weird, but logical at the same time, if you ask me.
Seems like rich people have all the means to make their work as comfortable and effective
as possible, right?
Author Jonathan Franzen manages perfectly without luxury hotel rooms or super expensive
supplies.
All he needs to concentrate on writing is a blindfold and earplugs.
At least that’s how he penned one of his best books “The Corrections”.
Sounds like a good way to beat procrastination too.
Howard Hughes was probably the most eccentric billionaire the world has ever seen.
He was a pilot, an inventor, and a filmmaker.
But his oddities are just as famous as his achievements.
He was terrified of germs so much he couldn’t even touch his silverware without wrapping
it in tissues first.
He was also a real recluse.
Once he spent over 4 months watching films, drinking milk and eating chocolate bars.
Sound like fun?
Wait for it.
He didn’t leave the room the whole time; he hadn’t had a bath, and had to urinate
in bottles.
Well then.
Not unlike Hughes, brilliant scientist Nikola Tesla, detested bacteria.
He wore gloves at almost all times, and didn’t shake hands with anyone.
And of course, he made sure all his drinks and food were thoroughly boiled.
At least this had a logical explanation: he claimed that this fear came after he put his
glass of water under the microscope and saw some “horrible creatures”.
He was also so obsessed with making time for his experiments that he got only 2 hours of
sleep per day.
Instead of zoning out for the whole night, he took short naps during the daytime.
Business magnate Warren Buffett also has a pretty time-consuming habit.
He reads 500 pages every day.
Just think about it: he devotes about 80% of his time to reading and reflecting on it.
He claims that’s a sure way to boost your knowledge.
And it’s not just something he does for fun, since the expertise he gained through
reading helped him make more informed decisions during his career.
And if you think he has so much time for books and reports since he’s already a billionaire
and in his 80s, that’s not exactly true.
When he started out as an investor, he read up to 1,000 pages per day.
If that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is.
Everyone has their own approach to self improvement and motivation.
Stephen King revealed that he can’t start writing without a slice of cheesecake.
Who’d have thought that the master of horror has, in fact, a sweet tooth!
Seems like it runs in the family, since his son, who happens to be a writer too, nibbles
on creme brulee before sitting down to work.
Do you have a fun habit yourself, something you do regularly to cheer up and get in the
right mood?
Share it down in the comments!
As for industrialist Henry Ford, his favorite snack was… roadside greens.
He was one of the richest people in history, but he didn’t spend his fortune on lavish
feasts and heavy food like his wealthy contemporaries.
He thought of the human body as a machine that needed the right fuel to work properly.
And for him, that was simple weeds he sometimes plucked himself.
He ate them fresh, stewed and boiled.
And when he had guests, he served them soybean sandwiches and burdock.
A hundred years have passed since then, but I’m sure a menu like this would shock most
people, even today.
Bottom Line: All these people think different -- then act on it.
And to a certain degree, they’ve all changed the world.
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