13. When Jobs began school, his parents and teachers soon discovered that he was a "problem child. "It showed in his rebelliousness, in his boredom with the curriculum, in his unwillingness to fit into ordinary classroom regimens. He resisted learning in the traditional cookie-cutter ways.

8. Complicating the generational divide, Scott's grandfather, William S. Nicholson, a World War II veteran and a retired stock broker, has watched what he described as America's once mighty economic engine losing its pre-eminence in a global economy. The grandfather has encouraged his unemployed grandson to go abroad - to " Go West, " so to speak.

7. "You maneuvered and you did not worry what the maneuvering would lead to , " the father said. "You knew it would lead to something good. "

6. He was braced for the conversation with his father in particular. While Scott Nicholson viewed the Hanover job as likely to stunt his career , David Nicholson, 57, accustomed to better times and easier mobility, viewed it as an opportunity. Once in the door, the father has insisted to his son, opportunities will present themselves - as they did in the father's rise over 35 years to general manager of a manufacturing company.

5. "The conversation I'm going to have with my parents now that I've turned down this job is more of a concern to me than turning down the job," he said.

4. Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.

3. Over the last five months, only one job materialized. After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire him as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job.

2. The daily routine seldom varied. Mr. Nicholson, 24 , a graduate of Colgate University, winner of a dean's award for academic excellence, spent his mornings searching corporate Web sites for suitable job openings. When he found one, he mailed off a resume and cover letter - four or five a week, week after week.

1.GRAFTON, Mass. —After breakfast, his parents left for their jobs, and Scott Nicholson, alone in the house in this comfortable suburb west of Boston, went to his laptop in the living room. He had placed it on a small table that his mother had used for a vase of flowers until her unemployed son found himself reluctantly stuck at home.

60. As I read this biography of Jobs, I wanted to see how a man dealt with his own brokenness and defects. I wanted to see what the good and the bad looked like in organizational leadership. I wanted to learn what's possible when someone - whatever the reason—reaches for their notion

59. "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life," he said. "Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."