Postcards
Power Point: Appreciate adversity
January 29, 2009: 5:24 PM ET"Adversity builds character."
-- Charlotte Sellers, my mother, who died a year ago today, told me this constantly when I was growing up. I try not to use Postcards as a platform to get too personal, but if you'll permit today--to pay a tribute to her--I'd appreciate that. She was 87 and forceful and generous and beautiful until the end. My closest friend.
Marrying my father in 1944, she thought that she couldn't have children—and after "the miracle," as they always called me, arrived, they spent the first year dealing with my illnesses and doubting that I would survive. Well, I did. And I do think that adversity--in infancy for me and within a loving marriage for my parents--made us all stronger and wiser than we otherwise might have been. My dad, Dr. Walter Sellers, soon to be 88, is doing well generally but having a rough day today. So this Postcard is for him as much as it is for my mother and me.
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Power Point: Understand Jobs' job
"I think that people overstate that [Steve] Jobs designs every single product and every single piece of software. What [Jobs] has done is put the DNA in the company."
-- Daniel Ernst, analyst for Hudson Square Research, to CNNMoney.com in reaction to today's news that Jobs's alarming weight loss is likely due to a hormone imbalance. Actually, Apple's (AAPL) CEO explained his job to Fortune this way in March, 2008: "My MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 5, 2009 3:46 PM ETPosted in: Apple, CEOs, illness, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Postcards, Power Point, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, technology
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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