What an Old Steve Jobs Video Can Teach You About Life

MartinRaymondo

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MartinRaymondo 〰️ 〰️

In the grainy background of a 1986 video of Steve Jobs, he revealed something that would forever change my life. 

He was dressed as you would expect from the 80s, in a tacky dress shirt and tie, sporting a long beard. 

It was a short video, and the interviewer asked generalized questions. 

Nothing too specific regarding Apple or its products. 

At one point in the video, Jobs held his left hand up and explained how life doesn’t have to be a certain way. 

He figured out at an early age that if you poke life like a sphere, something pops out on the other end. 

This, to me, was fascinating.

The Sphere

After watching that video a few times, I realized he was onto something. 

What I began to do from the moment I watched that video was look at situations as a sphere. 

A sphere that I could poke and something comes out the other end or a sphere that I could rotate in any direction. 

It’s no surprise to hear that humans always gravitate towards negative thoughts. 

You’re at work and get a call that someone close to you has landed in the hospital. 

You’ll always think of the worst, even though it could be something minor, like a cut on a finger that might need a few stitches. 

This is how our brains are designed from an evolutionary standpoint, and there’s not much we can do to change it. 

So what I started to do was when I had a situation, I would pretend that the issue was a sphere, and I could rotate it in different directions. 

Let’s say you walk into work tomorrow, and they notify you that you’re being laid off. 

It would be expected that you feel anxiety, depression, and anger as you’re not sure what the future will hold. 

Instead, you could own this problem in your hand and imagine it as a sphere. 

When you rotate it, you might realize that your job was something you hated and that this was the push you needed to change your life. 

Most people will go home that night with that kind of news and complain, call their friends and family and wonder what they’ll do without any money coming in. 

You can also turn that sphere and see that you could quickly get a job in the evenings working in the back of a restaurant, making money while you find something better. 

If you move this sphere again, you might realize that getting a job like that wouldn’t pay if you can collect employment insurance from your government. 

In that case, your best bet is to improve your skills, take a course or try to find a job that pays a reasonable amount of money. 

Suppose you don’t land a similar job, and your employment insurance is running out. 

In that case, you move the sphere again and take the job in the back of a restaurant until you find something more appropriate.

Final Thoughts

Treating your problems like a sphere in your hand is empowering. 

It gives you control over your situation and allows your thought process to be much improved. 

I no longer get stuck in a negative frame of mind, allowing me to deal with an issue as it arises rather than complain about it. 

A shift in perspective is always welcome, and who would’ve known that a grainy video from the 80s that I almost didn’t watch would have such a significant impact on my life?