My experience has been to say "yes" to everything in early career when you are not in demand. Then slowly transition to saying "no" as your career develops. The transition point from "yes" to "no" is when you develop more unique and valuable skill sets.
When all you have to offer is energy, excitement, and smarts - "yes" opens doors, creates relationships, and gives you opportunities to learn. That's how you grow, not only in career, but in relationships.
After you can bring more differentiated value to an opportunity, you're going to be in more demand and need to filter the best use of your time and energy.
The Steve Job's part is absolutely correct when you are sitting in Steve Jobs' position. As a thought experiment, probably every Fortune 500 CEO would want to have a 1-2 hr meeting with Jobs circa 2008. That would be 500-1000 hours of meetings where arguably they would derive more value than he would. So while it would be insane for most to pass up on these meetings, he obviously would need to.
Don't confuse the "yes" vs "no" periods of your life.
When all you have to offer is energy, excitement, and smarts - "yes" opens doors, creates relationships, and gives you opportunities to learn. That's how you grow, not only in career, but in relationships.
After you can bring more differentiated value to an opportunity, you're going to be in more demand and need to filter the best use of your time and energy.
The Steve Job's part is absolutely correct when you are sitting in Steve Jobs' position. As a thought experiment, probably every Fortune 500 CEO would want to have a 1-2 hr meeting with Jobs circa 2008. That would be 500-1000 hours of meetings where arguably they would derive more value than he would. So while it would be insane for most to pass up on these meetings, he obviously would need to.
Don't confuse the "yes" vs "no" periods of your life.