Steve Jobs was known to possess and use what was described as a ‘reality distortion field’. It was a magical and charismatic power he had to take the current impossible situation of his development team and distort reality so it would become possible.
While it seemed magical due to the quantum of the accomplishments at Apple, our research at The Business Therapist® indicates any small business owner is capable of doing this and will be more successful when they do.
First let’s understand ‘reality’ as it pertains to a small business owner. What any person calls ‘reality’ is actually just their own perception of reality. It is very real to a business owner because it is founded on real life business experience. As the person who exists in their particular reality, it is very hard to even recognize that it is only their perception of the world they can see.
Typical small business owner ‘reality’ descriptions are:
- “It’s hard to find good people to work for us.”
- “My customers are very price sensitive.”
- “I am the only one at the business capable and responsible enough to complete certain tasks.”
The first step in determining if the above statements are universal truths (and therefore everyone’s reality) or just self-limiting beliefs disguised as a perception of reality for a particular business owner, is to just become aware of their existence.
The key ingredient in distorting this reality is simply being open to consider that other possible realities may exist.
Both the awareness of the belief and the openness to possibility is actually an effort to rewire your brain. If you happen to hold a belief like, “it’s hard to find good people” in your brain, it will naturally filter through the events that happen around you and see the circumstances that justify the belief. If a ‘good person to hire’ passes through your perception of the world you won’t see them if you hold the ‘can’t find good people’ belief.
Your brain filters through what you see and only keeps what supports the beliefs you hold. This is a natural defense mechanism from basic survival instincts.
The way to distort the reality of ‘it’s hard to find good people to work for us’ is to be open to consider a new and distorted reality, ‘we can find one good person to work for us’.
I think Steve Jobs knew this concept very well. Being in a leadership position, once he could hold new possibilities as his own perception of reality, he could influence others around him to identify where what originally looked impossible could magically become possible time and time again.
To quote the great line from the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber’, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
