Love this expression.
Unfortunately, it's possible that Jobs' applied this too far to his health--some think he delayed surgery to remove his tumor by 9 months so he could try alternative therapies first, which allowed the tumor to spread. (Skimmable balanced summary here.) Though the reality distortion field helps us break barriers, it can't break them all.
But when it comes to innovating and pursuing dreams, a reality distortion field is a great idea.
I've seen it work even in silly things, like the loyalty card we used to sell at my old work. Time and again a new generation of cashiers would say "Everyone has a card, we can't get a higher percentage!" but my boss would *inspire* them to try harder, and the percentage went up.
This technique did stop working at some point, though. Eventually you really do saturate your market, and the reality distortion field eventually hits reality. But until then, what might we be capable of?
National Novel Writing Month--writing 50 000 words in 30 days--is another example of showing people how they can do more than they thought personally probable. If you pace yourself Nano asks you to write 1666 words per day; but I always get behind and write way more than that at the end, to get ahead. In theory we could all write 100 000 words in the month (and many of the early finishers do... yes, the crazy people.)
We can do more than we think IF we had a good reason, because achieving-the-impossible generally requires sacrifice. For example, in Nano it translates into = no dishes cleaned, no cooking, no childcare, unhappy spouses, and no life. I'll bet it did for Jobs' developers too.
But if your goal or dream is worthy, and the sacrifices can be made, then I say go for it. Reality distort away!
