Week 35
“Cultivating Creative Vision”
Over the course of 52 lessons in our Year of Growing Rich series it stands to reason that some lessons seem to jump out at you as that “aha” or a feeling like you’ve just discovered the treasure.
I think this is one of those lessons. The lesson in just gaining a greater understanding of these 3 words is a powerful one in itself.
⦁ CULTIVATING is a PROCESS that requires TIME. It’s a season of growing something…take the time to look up these 3 words in a dictionary and see if you get any BONUS understanding of their meaning.
⦁ CREATIVE (I know you think you know what it means, but look it up anyway)
⦁ VISION (ditto) requires FAITH, the hope for something imagined, the evidence of something not yet seen (physically).
Hill describes the power of your imagination in these two forms:
1. SYNTHETIC imagination, and
2. CREATIVE imagination
What’s the difference?
In my book BECOMING UNCOMMON, I name VISION as the number one most common quality found in UNCOMMON individuals and organizations.
Vision is primarily the ability to look out into the future and see you or your group doing something incredible.
It’s what allowed Walt Disney to see something in 1951 that no one else at the time could see…DISNEYLAND!
When Walt tried to show his vision to others by taking them to this little spot in Anaheim and verbally painting the picture for them all they could see was ORANGE GROVES, the “existing condition” at the time (synthetic or fixed vision), while Walt could IMAGINE the entire MAGIC KINGDOM (creative vision) down to some of the most intricate details.
Four years later, the EVIDENCE of Walt’s vision became so powerful that everyone could see it without much imagination at all. In the beginning of something GREAT, imagination is a key ingredient. But don’t count on everyone SHARING YOUR VISION, especially early on.
“Your five physical senses give you contact with the physical world and make available to you its nature and usages.
But your SIXTH SENSE, which operates through the subconscious section of your mind, gives you contact with
the invisible forces of the universe. It makes available to you KNOWLEDGE YOU COULD NOT OTHERWISE ACQUIRE.”
—Napoleon Hill
SYNTHETIC imagination then is based on a series of KNOWN IDEAS, concepts, plans, or facts that you can ARRANGE IN A CREATIVE OR NEW WAY.
CREATIVE imagination is the power of discovery or how new facts, ideas, or visions come to us. Here’s the bigger question,
HOW DO YOU USE YOUR IMAGINATION?
Many individuals can imagine the worst possible things happening to them or their lives. Worry is a form of CREATIVE IMAGINATION going in the wrong direction. I know individuals who have just as vivid an imagination as Walt, but they use it for IMAGINING THE WORST THINGS possible, instead of the best.
One of my favorite messages on CREATIVE THINKING is from Albert Einstein.
In essence, how “Creative Thinking involves IMAGINATION,” and how he supports his claim that imagination is more powerful than knowledge…
For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, IMAGINATION allows us to go beyond those KNOWN boundaries to what we might actually BECOME or ACHIEVE. And that is an amazing power available to us all.
“The SIXTH SENSE of CREATIVE VISION becomes more dependable through regular systematic use—just as the five physical senses do. Greatly successful people all have some system for conditioning their minds; some do so WITHOUT RECOGNIZING WHAT THEY ARE DOING.”
—Napoleon Hill, A Year of Growing Rich
Put YOUR CREATIVE VISION to work for you on something BIG.
Concentrate on a DEFINITE PURPOSE and make your DREAMS and VISIONS become a reality by
“Cultivating Creative Vision”
