There are many examples that are prove Steve Jobs had a talent of convincing and pursuing people for a task. The term Reality Distortion Field, was coined by Bud Tribble. The term was taken from a Star Trek episode, where Aliens use it to create their own world.
Steve Jobs was not at all awful, on paper he may seem to be awful, but it was the way of speaking that could make him feel awesome infact inspiring here is a Reality Distortion Field example to prove it.
Macintosh Many a times people call Steve Jobs awful, but this is his secret to success, in simple words, Steve Jobs saying a employee, to reduce the boot time of mac by 10 seconds, when the employee says he can’t shave of a millisecond. But Steve Jobs asking to shave the time at any cost may make him feel like he is awful, but in this beautiful example Reality Distortion Field didn’t really make him feel awful, rather it was inspiring and motivational. Steve Jobs in 1984 was working on Macintosh computers. Engineers working on Macintosh were asked to reduce 10 seconds from boot time. Disagreeing with it, engineers refused to be able to reduce even a millisecond from it. Steve Jobs, using Reality Distortion Field addressed engineers to say, ‘would you reduce it’s time if someone’s life depended on it.’ His point was thousands of people would daily waste 10 seconds more booting the Computer. The sum time amounting to many lives. Few weeks later the same team, came up with rewritten code and reduce the time by 20 seconds. Now That’s Amazing The Term Reality Distortion Field is often used to talk about Steve Jobs’ presentation skills. Most of the people describe it as a fancy name for Pretending or lying, while I call it a real gold. It doesn’t really mean pretending it can be better called mind game. When you without saying something make people fell in a particular way it is called Reality Distortion Field. The most common story about Reality Distortion Field include following: Google When Steve was working at NextStep. He had a meet Jonathan Rosenberg, who was at Google and many other’s come up to see his newly designed software. Jonathan in the book How Google Works gives this Reality Distortion Field example, where during presentation they knew many things were wrong but couldn’t express how they were wrong. After meeting confused as they went back to car parking they realised Steve waiting for them, to express more thoughts. Finally they had to agree with him, even though no one approved it.That was the beauty of Reality Distortion Field. iPod The thing is he didn’t say a word about importance of the work, he always presented it as a cause. When he launched iPod he didn’t say 1GB storage, he said 1000 songs in your pocket. Now that feels good. Standing in front of his employees, Jobs told them, “we want developers to write small, efficient code, not Microsoft code.” His logic was that would optimize all over the place. The limit would become Apple’s advantage by forcing developers to do more with less headroom. The staff seemed to like the logic — Jobs’ reality distortion field at work — but Shelton wasn’t convinced. “I was the only person who wasn’t accepting it because I knew how operating systems grow, how software grows.” Jobs thought developers would make their apps smaller, “but it wasn’t going to go that way,” Shelton says. Software code only ever balloons in size. Here’s the Thing. You have to put stuff in perspective. You have to give people a cause or a motive for which they work. And that’s it that perspective will change the whole thing. Steve Jobs RealityDistortionField, has a wide range of public use. Not just SteveJobs, but many other examples can be found of Reality Distortion Field. They would help you understand it better. Olympics This example is easy example to explain Reality Distortion Field, even though it does not relate Steve Jobs, I found it worth mentioning Ever ask Olympic Athletes if they are nervous for there game, there reply more or less means the same. Olympic Athletes say we are not nervous we are excited. What are symptoms for nervousness, your heart beat increases, you start to sweat. What are symptoms of excitement… Just the same sweat, heart beat etc. and that’s the whole point. The point is all example of Reality Distortion Field are just a change of perspective. Unlike manipulation where you present something wrong, or technically you lie, but in reality distortion field is when you present a point that is not lie, but that is not really true also. Take my favorite example, when Microsoft launched there Zune PDA, they marketed some ‘X’ GB storage. When Apple had launched there iPod they said 1000 songs in your pocket. The point is that it may or may not hold a thousand songs. But the perspective that they presented allowed them to sell to like hot pancakes. They just but the things into different perspective. This is the beauty of Reality Distortion Field, in manipulation you lie in order to gain edge over others. In Reality Distortion Field, you get even greater edge, and you don’t lie, and this can be seen in all it’s examples. You just present a different perspective. A perspective that makes other person feel good. Andy Cunningham Another Great example of Reality Distortion Field follows: Andy Cunningham a marketing expert was working with a photo shoot of Steve Jobs. In a hotel in New York, he arranged tables and chairs for Steve’s Photoshoot. It was a Fortune magazine shoot, Steve Jobs wanted Michael Jackson being played in background so that he could feel good and get energised for the shoot. So to make Steve behave they had to play “Billie Jean” soon Steve would start to behave. As the soon as the song would get over, he would start to loose control over himself and Andy had to rewind the 1980’s cassette and play it again for Steve Jobs to start working normally The thing is that it does ensure that another person doesn’t get to know about it. In manipulation if a person has moderate knowledge also, you can be could in the act. But in case of Reality Distortion Field that is not the case. Reality Distortion Field played a really important role in life of Steve Jobs, and it doesn’t seem that this talent is difficult to imply. All incidences were of day to day life, rather than being some really world war or serious level of incidences. He in none of above case used it do demoralize anybody. Rather he got unwilling things done from Others or in the case of photo shoot with himself also. We should do the same with our selves
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