When Apple Computer fell on difficult days a while back, Apple’s young chairman, Steven Jobs, traveled from the Silicon Valley to New York City. His purpose was to convince the Pepsi Company’s president John Sculley to move west and run his struggling company.
As the two men overlooked the Manhattan skyline from Sculley’s penthouse office, the Pepsi executive started to decline Jobs’ offer.
“Financially,” Sculley said, “you’d have to give me a million-dollar salary, a million-dollar bonus, and a million dollar severance.”
Flabbergasted, Jobs gulped and agreed – if Sculley would move to California. But Sculley would commit only to being a consultant from New York. At that, Jobs issued a challenge to Sculley: “Do you want to spend your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?”
In his autobiography “Odyssey,” Sculley admits Job’s challenge “knocked the wind out of me.” He said he’d become so caught up with his future at Pepsi, his pension, and whether his family could adapt to life in California that an opportunity to “change the world” nearly passed him by. Instead, he put his life in perspective and went to Apple.
Many people don’t recognize a chance to change the world. Part of the Christian message is letting people know what a difference the gospel makes.