A few weeks ago, my daughter had a difficult time when getting ready to go to the doctor. No amount of assuring her helped. Until the doctor told her she would not be poked with a needle. Immediately she calmed down and became herself again. That got me thinking… what was the issue?

Her imagination ran wild with all the negative possibilities ahead of her!

But don’t’ we do the same? I know I do!

• I put off writing that paper for school because I might receive negative feedback
• I work myself up with anxiety thinking I might have to have a difficult conversation
• I ignore opportunities to put in proposals at work because I ‘might’ not be accepted.

What about you? How does your imagination run wild sometimes? How can we stop that?

Well, I could write you a whole dissertation on how to use your imagination for moving forward, OR, you could join us in the Self-Image Mastery course starting on 7/20 and I’ll teach you all my tricks! 

“The power of our imagination makes us infinite.” John Muir

Leaders are responsible to share the vision with their people. To do this, one must use their imagination. John Maxwell says, “anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course.”

How do YOU use your imagination?

I’ve helped hundreds of coaching clients use their imagination to:

• Create the ideal team and job craft to maximize performance,
• Dream of their ideal customer service plan to serve in the highest way possible, and
• Intentionally plan for their legacy to remain after they are gone.

What about you? How do you use your imagination? Do you ever help support your people with the use of their imagination? Simple ways to do that include:

• Help them imagine various solutions to a problem
• Imagine a rough interaction or crucial conversation going how they want it to go before it happens
• Think about the next job they want with the company and how to develop their skills to get...

It’s easy to see how leaders might want to fix their people, especially to get them to produce more. However, it’s counterintuitive. The sub-conscious message you send when you do these behaviors is that your people need to be fixed.

Emerson said, “Where your focus goes, your energy flows.” That means what you focus on you get. If you focus on your people’s problems, issues, challenges, or shortcomings- you get more of them!

So what’s a leader to do?

Neville Goddard said, “The man who imagines others at their best and exercises forgiveness performs a miracle.”

• Flex your imagination muscle and try to see them as performing at the highest level
• What is ‘their best’? What does that look like?
• Forgiveness is a superpower and when you allow your people to be who they are and imagine them at their best, they will rise to your expectation.

At the very least, when you picture your people at their best, your attitude change. They...

"Our imagination is responsible for our misery."

Over the years, I’ve become a passionate student of the mind, brain, and thinking.

One thing I’ve learned and put into practice for myself and my coaching clients is how we use our imagination, specifically the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. The stories we hold determine our results!

The story you tell yourself about whether you are capable and ready for that new job determines whether you get the job.

The story you tell yourself about whether you are good at math, or techy, or a great housecleaner, determine your life.

The story a leader tells themselves about being lonely in their position or having other people around to help is a blessing, largely determines not only their behavior but their team’s effectiveness.

The only difference between the result you want and the one you have is the story you tell yourself.

Become acquainted with your stories! Get to know your inner mind more than reading books...

"When the will and the imagination are in conflict, the imagination invariably wins every day," Emile Coue

There are lots of ‘coaches’ our there today that yell and tell. They tote the use of will power and force through ‘hard work’ and ‘discipline’ and ‘sacrifice’. They yell, “Follow my system no matter how hard it is!”

But the research and science don’t prove that to be true. When you experience resistance, you get more of the thing you’re resisting. Worry is a great example.

If you try not to worry, you just worry about worrying!

What if you could change the ‘HAVE TO’ that your ‘coach’ yells at you about into a “WANT TO’ that you never have to force again? Acceptance, excitement, imagination, and motivation all yield more power to get you your results than working 100 hours a week and following someone else’s ‘system’.

Stop using will power and start using...

"Your present inadequate feeling and doing is automatic and spontaneous, because of the memories, real and imagined, you have built into your automatic mechanism. You will find it will work just as automatically upon positive thoughts and experiences as upon negative ones." Dr. Maxwell Maltz

I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders in my career and one thing many of them have in common is a feeling of insecurity, especially when they receive a new role. This insecurity leads them to 3 big issues:

• Feeling overwhelmed when solving problems,
• Indecisive when working on future vision/goals/dreams, and
• Procrastination when getting the work done.

As we work together, we find the beliefs, values, and feelings that drive their behavior. Every single time it’s some belief that was built in them from early life OR some type of imagination (i.e. worrying) that they’ve spent a significant amount of time on.

The good news is that you can spend the same amount of time thinking...

"You must have a clear mental picture of the correct thing before you can do it successfully." Alex Morrison (expert golf teacher)

Morrison, widely known as the most successful golf teacher during his time developed a system of using the imagination to get what you say you want out of your golf game.

Rather than focus on skill development, which I’m sure he did at some point, he explained that the best use of the golfer’s time was to develop a clear mental picture of the correct thing FIRST. When you think about how the club feels in your hands after an amazing swing, where the ball goes on the green, and how you feel after an amazing time on the course, you download a program into your mind about how to be successful.

If you focus your thinking on HOW to swing, HOW to get the ball down the lane, and HOW to finish under par, you won’t be as successful.

So, how does this apply to leadership?

You spend your time wither thinking about what you don’t want or what...

“If you can remember, worry, or tie your shoe, you can succeed.” Maxwell Maltz

The way we view ourselves guides our thinking, behavior, and success. If we see ourselves as confident and capable, we will be. If we see ourselves as less than or disempowered, we will be.

Maxwell Maltz, in his book Psycho-cybernetics, describes the success mechanism we all have access to our brain and mind. When we download programs for success into our subconscious brain, much like you would software into a computer, you head toward success. How does one do this?

• Learning, practicing, and experiencing new ways of thinking,
• Using your imagination for positive growth, and
• Acting in order to move forward, despite your circumstances.

If you can spend time thinking about all the things that can go wrong, you can spend time thinking about all the things that would go right!

If you’re not getting the results you want in any area of your life, it might be time to ask yourself this question:...