“I’m fixing a hole, where rain gets in and stops my mind from wondering….where it will go” – The Beatles
Is your mind wandering or consciously being directed to where you want it to go? You might think these are silly questions, but my experience is that those who actively direct their imaginations tend to achieve more than those who don’t. What an amazing gift we have with the ability to mentally conceive or foresee a positive outcome.
The ability to envision a goal with clarity varies from person to person and we all have it to some degree. When it is allocated to strategic thinking time vs routine transactional time, it unlocks innovation. Even those who struggle with circumstances or things like ADHD find ways to engage their strategic imaginations.
Let’s begin with a couple of definitions:
IMAGINATION – noun the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not
actually present to the senses.
ENVISION – verb (used with object) to picture mentally, especially some future event or events: to envision
a bright future.
I’ve heard it said that we can never go anywhere physically that we have not already been mentally. So the
question becomes, how do some of the most successful people use their imaginations and what tips can we
take away from them?
Here are some examples:
If I were to ask you to count the number of windows on the last house you grew up in, how would you answer? Chances are you will, in the theater of the mind, walk through that house and begin to depict each window. First the front of the house and don’t forget the little one on top in the middle. Then the sides and walk around the back to see the kitchen or the porch. Don’t miss any of them now.
OK, now that we have entered the theater of the mind, lets share some tips that other successful people have used.
Jeff Smith CEO of Voltage Leadership Consulting – Some of my readers are familiar with Jeff. He is probably in the top 10% of executive coaches in the USA and has travelled globally. We worked together for years in healthcare and in our consulting roles. We are both runners. While my range is approximately 10k (or maybe up to 7 miles), Jeff has run multiple marathons. I asked him about the mental part of marathon running and what happens when he hits the wall. What does he think about to dump heat and refresh his mind?
Breathe in cool blue and breathe out red hot – As you are moving your feet, notice the cool blue air around you. Breathe it in and notice how it makes your lungs feel. See the cool blue air being deeply inhaled. As you exhale, see the hot red breathe escaping your body. Notice the way the heat seems to escape. So, I tried it and ahh.
What often separates high performers from everyone else? (their mind-set)
Jack Nicklaus – For those of you that don’t know who Jack Nicklaus is, he is the greatest golfer to ever play the game. Jack still holds the record for the most major golf tournaments won in a career.
Nicklaus is famous for the way in which he describes his routine before hitting any shot he plays. He termed his routine, “going to the movies.” He would say “Before every shot I go to the movies inside my head. Here is what I see. First, I see the ball, white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then, I see the ball going there, its path and its trajectory and even its behavior on landing. The next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous image into reality. These home movies are the key to my concentration and positive approach.”
Nicklaus 1 iron at the 17th hole at Pebble Beach winning the 1972 US Open
Vivid, descriptive, clear, committed, powerful
This begs the questions; what are you seeing? What “movies” are you playing in your head when it comes to
your family, your work, or your contribution to society? Are you clear? Is it a positive vision? And are you willing
to commit to it?
Matthew McConoughey entered the theater of the mind powerfully in the movie A Time to Kill .
A Time to Kill stars Samuel Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, an African-American man accused of murder after killing two white racists who brutally attacked his 10-year-old daughter. The setting was in a fictitious town in Mississippi. Recent acquittals of four white men for racially motivated crimes prompted Hailey to take justice into his own hands.
Throughout the trial, Hailey’s defense attorney, Jake Brigance, played by McConaughey, faces opposition and intimidation. This included a cross burning on his lawn and an attempt to bomb his home.
In his closing argument, Brigance instructs the jurors to close their eyes while he tells them about a little girl. He describes, in heart-wrenching detail, the attack on Hailey’s daughter. By the end, he is close to tears. “Can you see her?” he asks the jury. “I want you to picture that little girl.” Then he tells them: “Now imagine she’s white.”
Many successful organizations also use the theater of the mind. IBM famously uses the work “Think” to welcome visitors to their Poughkeepsie NY location and for their ad campaign. Walt Disney took it to a whole new level.
The Disney organization has been famous for years for its use of Imagineering. “Imagineering is letting your imagination soar, and then engineering it down to earth.”
Here are some tips to turn lose your inner Imagineer:
1. Identify an insurmountable problem.
2. Instead of stressing, unleash your imagination to let it come up with possibilities.
3. Mix, connect, combine, and let things fall together in your imagination.
4. Imagine things from new perspectives and allow your imagination to soar.
5. Allow the ideas to collide and give it down time to incubate in your imagination.
6. When you get an insight, capture the idea, and then get to work on it.
7. Use the output of your imagination to build something new.
8. Now imagine ways that your new idea can benefit people and how you can make it accessible to them.
So, what’s on your mind right now? Is it where you want to be? If not, please consider allocating some strategic
thinking time to just letting your wheels turn. You could be on the verge of a breakthrough. Imagine that!
