38. When appropriate, I like to ask leaders if there was ever a time when they felt truly broken, stripped of self-confidence, and finally willing to seriously listen to someone other than themselves? Often, they nod their heads. Yes, there was such a time, most say. And yes, they finally learned to listen.

43. "At the root of the reality distortion was Jobs's belief that the rules didn't apply to him, " Isaacson writes. " Rebelliousness and willfulness were ingrained in his character. He had the sense that he was special, a chosen one, an enlightened one. "

42. In a few words, Hertzfeld was saying that Steve Jobs often tried to talk things into existence. Plainly put: Jobs could lie, make unkeepable promises, and reframe facts. He knew few limits in trying to get people to see things his way. He not only convinced others but also himself. You could say that the man often drank his own Kool-Aid.

41. Those who worked around Steve Jobs spoke, and sometimes joked, about his reality distortion field, a term borrowed from the Star Trek TV series. Isaacson quotes long-term Jobs co-worker, Andy Hertzfeld, " (Jobs's) reality distortion field was a confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand (italics mine)."

40. Did Steve Jobs have such a defining moment? Was he ever truly humbled? The jury, Isaacson might say, is hung on that one.

39. One thinks of Joseph's days as a slave, Moses's years in the desert, Peter's hours
weeping in a dark valley. Defining moments, those.

38. When appropriate, I like to ask leaders if there was ever a time when they felt truly broken, stripped of self-confidence, and finally willing to seriously listen to someone other than themselves? Often, they nod their heads. Yes, there was such a time, most say. And yes, they finally learned to listen.

37. Sometime later the board of Apple, also facing great stress, invited Jobs back into the company. It's a convoluted, rather strange story, but the reinstatement turned out to be a new day for him and for Apple.

36. Isaacson comments: "The theory, shared by many, is that the tough love made him wiser and more mature. But it's not that simple. At the company he founded after being ousted from Apple, Jobs was able to indulge all of his instincts, both good and bad. He was unbounded. The result was a series of spectacular products that were dazzling market flops. This was the true learning experience."

35. When Steve founded a second company (NeXT), the products it introduced to the market, while innovative, were not entirely profitable. Jobs's place in business might have been scuttled. He was just inches from spending the rest of his life as a nobody. But this period of failure in Steve Jobs's life counted for something. "The best thing ever to happen to Steve is when we fired him, told him to get lost," an Apple board member said.

34. "The one question I'd truly love Steve to answer is 'Why are you sometimes so mean? '" one colleague told Isaacson. When Isaacson posed the question to Jobs, he said," This is who I am, and you can't expect me to be someone I'm not. " That was it. Case closed.