We interrupt our 5 Part Modeling Masters Series on the Canadian Dragon’s to bring you an exclusive bonus post on Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs is the winner of our latest poll “If you could meet one famous entrepreneur, dead or alive, who would it be and why?” – You voted and we listened! I hope you enjoy the post.

If anyone can speak from the heart about the trials and tribulations of an entrepreneur, it’s Steve Jobs. “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Today, the CEO of Apple and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios is worth an estimated $3.4 billion as a successful innovator in both the computer and entertainment industries. “To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.”

But rewind to his college years and Jobs, like many budding entrepreneurs, was struggling. As the story goes, he dropped out of college and had no money to support himself. He slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, collected soda bottles for the 5 cent return deposit to buy food and walked seven miles every Sunday night to enjoy a hot meal at the Hare Krishna temple. But if there was one skill that the entrepreneur excelled at, it was innovation. “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Innovation is what landed Macintosh personal computers, the OS X operating system, the iPod, iTunes and the iPhone on the top of the list as revolutionary products. It is Jobs’ belief that if you give people something of value, they will buy it, regardless of its cost. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.”

Although many consider Jobs an egomaniac, the entrepreneur is the first to credit his employees for Apple’s and Pixar’s successes. “My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.”

Jobs always had a knack for computers and technology, even back as a junior high school student when he would attend lectures after school at Hewlett-Packard Company. It led to a summer job and his first introduction with Steve Wozniak. It was during the technology peak of the Silicon Valley that Jobs began realizing success as an entrepreneur. After a stint at Atari, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple and created the first small computer with a graphical user interface for commercial use. “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 at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.”

It is no secret that Jobs’ personality is aggressive and temperamental, but he excels at the art of persuasion, an important ingredient for a successful entrepreneur. Jobs is always at the ready to offer entrepreneurs just starting out some valuable, motivating advice. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. I was lucky – I found what I love to do early in life. Sometimes that first step is the hardest one.”

Adam Toren