As most of us know, on Oct. 5, 2011, we lost Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Amid all the reports of his life and death, one of his phrases stood out to me: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” The phrase ended his June 12, 2005, commencement address to the graduates of Stanford.

In the address he told three personal stories that all led to one conclusion. He asked the graduates to live their own lives. He pointed out that they can probably earn a living doing it. It seems so simple, doesn’t it?

I am reminded of a systems thinking workshop led by Peter Senge and Daniel Kim that my wife, Carole, and I attended years ago. We were discussing how difficult it is to stay the course after developing a really challenging and worthy vision. Senge suggested the research concluded that we tend to think we are either incapable or unworthy of achieving our visions. Hence, we scale them back or give up completely when we see the signs of resistance which will, of course, arise whenever a living system tries to change or be changed.

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