The last step is to determine what type of values you have prioritized. Do you live these values or do you aspire to these values? If you live them, that is great. If you aspire to them you now have a guide.
4: Imagination is Creation
Imagination may be described in two ways: a space not limited by our sense or reason that we can unquestioningly embrace or a capacity for ground-breaking thinking and creative expression.
Children make-believe all the time and imagine all kinds of possibilities. We should reach back to that time of endless possibilities and grab the wishes we passionately longed for and make them happen in our lives. The fun part of imagination is that there are no rules but the ones you create. If you can imagine a green sky with blue trees and red grass, then so be it.
“I paint things as I think them, not as I see them”
Pablo Picasso
I don’t remember ever having an imaginary friend like a six-foot tall, invisible rabbit, in the movie classic “Harvey” starring Jimmy Stewart, but I had an active imagination. My father was in the Air force and at one time did in flight refueling. I imagined what it would be like to be in the air doing his job. Or what it was like to fly the airplane itself. My mother, when I was in elementary school, subscribed to a monthly National Geographic program that sent slides for a manual viewfinder. Every month my sister and I were transported to far away places like Egypt, London, China or Africa. I learned a lot and imagined what adventures I would have in these exotic locales. Later, when I fell in love with comic books, I became Superman or Mr. Fantastic or Daredevil and yes I dreamed I could fly.
“Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.”
Norman Podhoretz
Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio believed in human powered flight – they imagined a man could fly. On Dec. 17, 1903, with Orville at the controls, the Flyer, a flying machine of spruce, ash and muslin, lifted off from Kitty Hawk and flew 120 ft. The seed of that dream has grown into air travel today that more than likely is beyond the Wright brothers’ wildest dreams.
“The man who has no imagination has no wings”.
Muhammad Ali
Can you imagine a box outside of a bank that will give you money? In 1939, Luther George Simjian started patenting an earlier and not-so-successful version of an ATM machine called Bankmatic. Don Wetzel, however was the inventor of the modern automated teller machines. Can you imagine what it would be like today without the convenience of an ATM?
We are all blessed with a spark of creation. We have the ability to imagine our future, create outcomes that we want and imagine some more!!
“Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surplus, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.”
Joseph Addeson
Try this exercise: Imagine something that you passionately desire. Examine that outcome using all your senses.
How do you describe it?
What sensation do you get when you touch it?
How does it sound?
How does it smell or taste?
Is it clear in you mind?
Do you still want it?
If so, then go for it!!
You can use this exercise or make up one on your own. Remember, imagination knows no boundaries.
5: Navigate through failure
Failure is good. There are four elements that will help you understand how to navigate through failure.
1)You have taken a risk or attempted a task
2)You know that approach does not work
3)You gain a different perspective
4)You have the opportunity to start again
The first element – You have taken a risk or attempted a task means you are active. You knew what you wanted and attempted to get it. Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States of America, in his Citizenship in a Republic speech at the Sorbonne, Paris characterizes this best when he told his audience:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who, at worst, if he fails at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
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