You might be familiar with how Steve Jobs was an amazing advocate for Apple products: so much so that people said that he had a “reality distortion field” that allowed him to paint such a convincing picture of what is real (and what is not). You only need to look at the trajectory of Apple’s stock price to understand the power of that, especially when he was alive.
I was on a 4 day virtual conference last week. It was pretty brutal to be honest: sitting in front of the computer from 8am - 4pm is not my idea of fun. That said, it was the final conference of my 9 month long coaching program, and it was just amazing. To be clear, it was amazing on many levels. One was the level of content that the faculty conveyed to us over the course of the 4 days. But what really came up for me was the sense of power and possibility that it invoked for me. I felt like anything was within reach for me (with regards to my goals).
It was at the end of the conference that this question came for me, “how do I remember this feeling, these insights long after these 4 days have passed?”
And so what’s that got to do with Steve Job’s “reality distortion field”?
We often experience “mountain-top” moments from time to time, but these are usually tied to a specific event/location/time. These feelings/insights don’t travel well across time, unless something is done to remind oneself about them as we return to the hurly-burly of daily living.
So the question really is: “what can I do to retain the power/insight from my conference/retreat/[fill in the blank]?”
I am inclined to conclude that it comes back to a regular practice of reminding onself. A “reality distortion field” of sorts. I suppose there are many ways to go about this, ranging from meditation, visualisation and other many good tools.
But it can be done. We need a regular “reality distortion field”. And I encourage each of you to find a regular practice (notice the word regular popping up very regularly in my posts), that allows you to keep that experience close to your heart, for as long as you can.