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Remember when we were little and we would “pretend”?
In our fantasy at play we could be anything or anyone we wanted to.
We were moms to our dolls, teachers to our friends, ninjas to our siblings, and princesses … just because.
Our imagination was vivid and we welcomed it to take us wherever it did.
What happened?
Okay, so we grew up but is that a reason to stop the fantasy?
I remember when my son was about 7, he and his friends used to love to play spy games. They had all kinds of spy gear and would hide behind couches and planters. They’d communicate through walkie talkies about what was going on in the house and document it all on “spy pads” (way before kids’ cell phones). To them they were invisible and on a mission. Their imagination turned our home into the perfect scene for curiosity. My cookie-baking could cause quite a stir!
During a trip to the grocery store my son and his friend came along, walkie talkies in hand. They “hid” at the end of the aisles as I approached their section sharing what they thought might be my next “move”. They were having such fun until the store manager told them they were creeping out patrons and that they should join me at my buggie. Seriously? They were very well-behaved 7-year-olds with walkie talkies. How much danger could they pose?
“Fantasy” is not considered adult behaviour. We might allow ourselves to “brainstorm” but we put a lid on letting our minds travel.
And if for a moment someone does allow their thoughts to take them into another dimension, they dare share them.
There will be far more people who criticize, squash, obstruct, ridicule even sabotage ideas than support them.
So we suppress our creativity and label ourselves “responsible” and “realistic”.
Aha – sometimes we’re too “adult” for our own good.
Walt Disney called it “imagineering”. While we celebrate him as a household name in animation and story-telling, it wasn’t that way in the beginning. In his early days of cartooning, he struggled to pay his rent and be appropriately compensated for his brilliantly creative work. When Walt tried to get MGM studios to distribute Mickey Mouse in 1927 he was told that the idea would never work. There are equally challenging stories about the three little pigs, Bambi, Fantasia and a host of Disney’s other creations.
Fortunately for us he never stopped Imagineering and pressed forward when he knew he had something valuable to share.
The most important part about fantasizing or dreaming or Imagineering, is that you don’t have to know how you’re going to achieve your dream.
In fact, if you did, it wouldn’t be a dream, it would just be a plan.
You create the “what” and let the universe take care of the “how”.
As Bob Proctor always says, “If you can see it in your mind you can hold it in your hand.”
Where will your mind take you today?