By Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD 
I come from a family of Apple fanatics. Starting early with a family Macintosh and continuing through countless iPods, iPhones and iPads, we have been dedicated to Apple’s simplicity and consistent quality. So we were saddened to hear of the passing of Apple founder Steve Jobs on October 5th.
What made Steve Jobs such a stellar CEO that, upon hisdeath, Apple users around the world felt compelled to create impromptu shrines and design agencies produced tribute ads? And what can optometrists as CEOs of our practices learn from his life and work?
Quality
Jobs was considered a perfectionist and was passionate about providing the best possible experience for his customers. “Be a yardstick of quality,” Jobs said. If you feel this way about your optometric practice, your patients will take notice. Strive to make everything about the patient experience–from their first online contact to the glasses they leave with–perfect. Make that experience better, easier and more engaging than your competitors do. At my office, we strive to maintain consistency in even the little things, like the pens people use to sign the receipts.
Creativity
During both the challenging and boom years at Apple, Jobs knew that they had to keep finding ways to excel. He refused to accept the “race to the bottom” mentality. He said, “The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” The lesson for us: Do not let your practice get mired in too many low-paying vision plans. Keep searching for the niche or angle that sets your practice apart, whatever that may be. In my practice, we provide vision therapy and orthokeratology, services that are otherwiselimited in my area.
Flexibility
But on the path to finding those unique aspects, do not cling to the things that are not working. As Jobs put it, “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Sometimes this is tough to do. For example, we spent almost $2,000 on Yelp ads and received literally no patients. We canceled that plan and moved on.
Belief in What You Do
Like Steve Jobs, we are fortunate to have work that is meaningful. Optometrists take pride in that we work so hard to train staff and buy new equipment, all to help people see better and see longer. And that is important. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me,” Jobs said. “Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.”
While running an optometry practice is different from running a high-tech company like Apple, you can strive to embody the same ideals that Steve Jobs did. If you arepassionately dedicated to providing high-quality eyecare experiences, and are not afraid to make mistakes to improve upon them, you can createpatients who are as loyal to your practice as my family is to Apple.
You can find many more Steve Jobs quotes in this excellent Wall Street Journal list.
What lessons from Steve Jobs can you imagine yourself applying to your own practice?
Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD,of Bright Eyes Family Vision Care in Tampa, Fla., is a graduate of Illinois College of Optometry. He is a member of the American Optometric Association, and is currently immediate past president of the Hillsborough Society of Optometry, as well as chair of the Children’s Vision Committee of the Florida Optometric Association. To contact him: Doc@BrightEyesTampa.com.
