Imagination Rules The World

Did you know this quote comes from Napoleon? Or this quote, "Imagination is more important that knowledge", from Einstein?

It is true that you become what you imagine yourself to be. Imagination is one of the the most wondrous parts of the human mind. Think of life without imagination. All great inventions - the light bulb, the sewing needle, the steam engine, great architecture, computers, cell phones, all began in someone's imagination. Michelangelo was presented with a block of marble and envisioned David. He was given a ceiling in the Vatican and envisioned the Sistine Chapel. The power of the imagination is truly awesome.

There is a designer, an architect, a weaver within each of us that takes the fabric of the mind, thoughts, images, feelings and beliefs and molds them into the pattern of life. We think in mental pictures. Right now, think of your mother. You can picture her perfectly in your minds eye. If you're planning to get married, you have your wedding day perfectly pictured in your mind. The images appeared in your mind as if from nowhere, and yet, we can call them up instantly.

You are always imagining - whether destructively or constructively. Worry is imagination at it's most negative. Imagining the worst possible outcome is putting this awesome power to work in non productive ways. It takes discipline to move away from the worry and into the wonder of the imagination. Using what Catherine Ponder calls the "Picturing Power of the Mind" is exciting and powerful. Dynamic Transitioners are tuning into this awesome power in Points 2 and 3 - Consider the Possibilities - the power of BLUE SKY; and See Yourself Succeeding, the power of VISIONING. I ask that you begin to pay attention to this inner picturing life.

Whether you know it our not, you are using it constantly. You CAN control these images. You just brought up the image of your mother and a wedding day with no problem. You can apply this to imagining a bigger business, a larger house, the perfect relationship, running the race, having healthy children. Begin today to imagine health, wealth, love, happiness for yourself and all those around you. Return to these mental pictures at intervals during the day. Make this a deep impression on your mind. This sustained mental picture becomes manifest.

Begin now the transition from worry to wonder.

Transition to Adulthood

Here's an interesting article readers will enjoy on transitioning into adulthood - or should I say, the resistance to transitioning into adulthood.

Of course, Dynamic Transitioners know that there are two types of transitions - those we KNOW are inevitable and those that come upon us unannounced.

Transitioning into adulthood is inevitable. Preparation is key. Parents, how are you helping your teenagers transition into young adulthood?

What if there are no adults?

The transition to adulthood used to be one of the main goals of the young. Adulthood was seen to be a status worth achieving and was understood to be a set of responsibilities worth fulfilling. At least, that's the way it used to be. Now, an entire generation seems to be finding itself locked in the grip of eternal youth, unwilling or unable to grow up.
Concern about this phenomenon has been building for some time. Baby-boomer parents are perplexed when their adult-age children move back home, fail to find a job, and appear to be in no hurry to marry. Though the current generation of young adults includes some spectacular exceptions who have quickly moved into the fullness of adult responsibility, the generation as a whole seems to be waiting for something – but who knows what? – to happen.Frederica Mathewes-Green sees the same phenomenon. In her brilliant essay published in the August/September 2005 edition of First Things, Mathewes-Green describes this new reality with striking clarity.She begins with the movies. Describing herself as a fan of the old black-and-white classics from the 1930s and 1940s, Mathewes-Green remembers how young actors customarily played the part of mature adults. Actresses like Claudette Colbert and Jean Harlowe were "poised and elegant" onscreen.

She notes, "Today even people much older don't have that kind of presence." She then compares Cary Grant with Hugh Grant. The first Grant was "poised and debonair" while the more recent Grant "portrayed a boyish, floppy-haired ditherer till he was forty." She cites reviewer Michael Atkinson, who dubbed today's immature male actors as "toddler-men." As Atkinson describes the distinction, "The conscious contrast between baby-faced, teen-voiced toddler-men movie actors and the Golden Age's grownups is unavoidable."As Mathewes-Green explains, "Characters in these older movies appear to be an age nobody ever gets to be today. This isn't an observation about the actors themselves (who may have behaved in very juvenile ways privately); rather, it is about the way audiences expected grownups to act." Fast-forwarding to today's Hollywood culture, she observes: "Nobody has that old-style confident authority anymore. We've forgotten how to act like grownups."Frederica Mathewes-Green is surely correct in seeing this contrast. Gladly, she not only depicts the reality as we now face it – she goes on to explain how we have arrived at such a state of institutionalized immaturity.As she sees it, "The Baby Boomers fought adulthood every step of the way." In other words, Mathewes-Green points to the parents of this current generation of young adults as the locus of the problem. Speaking of her own generation, she remembers: "We turned blue jeans and T-shirts into the generational uniform. We stopped remembering the names of world political leaders and started remembering the names of movie stars' ex-boyfriends.

We stopped participating in fraternal service organizations and started playing video games. We Boomers identified so strongly with being 'the younger generation' that now, paunchy and gray, we're bewildered. We have no idea how to be the older generation. We'll just have to go on being a cranky, creaky appendix to the younger one."Mathewes-Green's analysis pushes back even further than the baby boomers. She blames the parents of the baby boomers for trying to protect that generation from the realities of a cruel world and a hard life. Having fought and survived the great trial of World War II, they wanted to protect their own young children. "They wanted their little ones never to experience the things they had," Mathewes-Green explains, "never to see such awful sights. Above all, they wanted to protect their children's innocence."Mathewes-Green is a writer of great ability. Her picturesque imagery makes her point with poetic force. She describes the days "when large families lived together in very small houses" and when "paralyzed or senile family members were cared for at home."

When the realities of life were not hidden away, institutionalized, and sanitized, children grew up understanding that life itself is a trial and that adulthood requires a willingness to grow up, take responsibility, fend for oneself, and fight for one's own.In summary, Mathewes-Green believes that the parents of the 1950s "confused vulnerability with moral innocence. They failed to understand that children who were always encouraged to be childish would jump at the chance and turn childishness into a lifelong project. These parents were unprepared to respond when their children acquired the bodies of young adults and behaved with selfishness, defiance, and hedonism."In her historical analysis, the parents of the baby boomers attempted to separate childhood and adulthood into two completely separate compartments of life.

Childhood would be marked by innocence and adulthood by responsibility. As Mathewes-Green warns: "Be careful what you wish for." Missing from this picture is a period of urgent transition that would turn the child into an adult. What we face now is a generation of children in the bodies of adults.Understanding the reality of the problem is a first step towards recovery. Nevertheless, mere description is insufficient as an answer to this crisis.In days gone by, children learned how to be adults by living, working, and playing at the parents' side. The onset of age twelve or thirteen meant that time was running out on childhood. Traditional ceremonies like the Jewish Bar Mitzvah announced that adulthood was dawning. This point would be clearly understood by the young boy undergoing the Bar Mitzvah. "By the time his body was fully formed, he would be expected to do a full day's work. He could expect to enter the ranks of full-fledged grownups soon after and marry in his late teens. Childhood was a swift passageway to adulthood, and adulthood was a much-desired state of authority and respect."Today's patterns of schooling do not, in the main, appear to produce a similar result. Instead, the educational process continues to coddle, reassure, and affirm young people without regard to their assumption of adult responsibilities.

This approach, Mathewes-Green explains, prepares children "for a life that doesn't exist."When a generation is continuously told that its options are limitless, its abilities are boundless, and its happiness is central, why should we be surprised that reality comes as such a difficult concept?Mathewes-Green points to the delay of marriage as the most interesting indicator of what is happening. As she notes, the average first marriage now unites a bride age 25 with a groom age 27. "I'm intrigued by how patently unnatural that is," Mathewes-Green observes. "God designed our bodies to desire to mate much earlier, and through most of history cultures have accommodated that desire by enabling people to wed by their late teens or early twenties.

People would postpone marriage until their late twenties only in cases of economic disaster or famine – times when people had to save up in order to marry."Is the current generation of young adults too immature to marry? Mathewes-Green insists that if this is the case, it is only because the older generation has been telling them they are too immature to marry. Does early marriage lead to disaster? Mathewes-Green is ready to prescribe a dose of reality. "Fifty years ago, when the average bride was twenty, the divorce rate was half what it is now, because the culture encouraged and sustained marriage."Look carefully at how she describes the personal impact produced by this pattern of delayed marriage: "During those lingering years of unmarried adulthood, young people may not be getting married, but they're still falling in love. They fall in love, and break up, and undergo terrible pain, but find that with time they get over it. This is true even if they remain chaste. By the time these young people marry, they may have had many opportunities to learn how to walk away from a promise. They've been training for divorce."Rarely does one article contain so much common sense, moral wisdom, and promise.

The way to recovery surely must start with a rediscovery of what adulthood means and a reaffirmation of why it is so important – both for the society and for individuals. Adulthood must be tied to actual, meaningful, and mature responsibilities – most importantly, marriage.There is reason for hope. Many in this new generation demonstrate a willingness to buck the trend. They are the new pioneers of adulthood, and they will be uniquely qualified to influence their own peers and to reshape our own culture. Taking marriage seriously as a life-long commitment, they will be more inclined to raise children who will understand what it will take to live as adults in our time of confusion. They will understand that eternal youth is not a blessing, but a curse.

This article originally appeared on August 19, 2005.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com. Original Source: www.albertmohler.com.

What does work mean to you?

What are your attitudes about work - the workplace, co-workers, the money you earn, the service you provide?

A few years ago American workers were doing nothing but complaining about the conditions of their workplace - and lo and behold, their jobs went overseas! Nothing more to complain about if you don't have a job. I've worked with a few clients who were early "victims" of outsourcing....the transition into something else was not easy.

Dynamic Transitioners know that I am a big believer in "It begins with the individual". A lesson learned from those facing transition because of outsourcing is that the individual absolutely cannot affect what goes on outside their sphere of influence. The individual can only control and maintain their attitude and actions.

It takes discipline to maintain good attitudes and reactions. It starts with your outlook. Many times, that outlook is all wrong. If you are resenting everything at the workplace you may be poisoning yourself with that bitterness. People on the bottom of the ladder are happy to explain how others have kept them down.

It takes mental effort to be free from a negative rut. If you are not satisfied with your present situation, what are you doing to prepare yourself for better circumstances? Are you willing to spend your leisure time attending classes and lectures, reading, studying? The reason most people move ahead is because they plan for it. They have a goal in mind and they strive for that goal. They ARE willing to spend the time necessary to move ahead, instead of spending their free time tearing down others and blaming others for their lot in life.

You may be your own worst enemy with your negative ideas. It is important to pay attention to that inner dialog and begin to reprogram it. You can succeed. You do have what it takes. Today is a good day to start turning the tide at work. Stop running others down and do something TODAY to improve yourself. A little goes along way.

"Nothing Succeeds Like Success"

"A clear vision, backed by definite plans, gives you a tremendous feeling of confidence and personal power." Brian Tracy

If you don't know who Brian Tracy is, you owe it to yourself to find out. I am a huge fan of sales and motivational speakers and Brian Tracy is one of the best.

The ability to "see clearly" as you look at your professional and personal goals takes practice. I combine Blackbelt Coaching with Dynamic Transitioning to help facilitate my clients see clearly. As a Blackbelt Coach I personally design a specialized regimen for each client to help develop and maintain their vision.

Attaining your vision requires many things. Today I'd like to put forward some thoughts on Confidence.

Confidence is the faith in one's innate abilities and talents and deep convictions. You must have self confidence to suceed. Have you looked around your workplace and wondered why some people advance to highly paid positoins while others, who have equal or better training, are not promoted? There many be many reasons for this but one thing is certain. Those who advance really believe in themselves and in their abilities. They sincerely do have those deep convictions.

Developing self confidence goes hand in hand with Point #3 - See Yourself Succeeding. You must see yourself in the winning positon in your vision. This is critical in developing and maintaining the clear vision Brian Tracy speaks about.

Here's a quick exercise for you to help practice self confidence. Starting tomorrow morning, begin paying attention to your "inner dialog" as you go about your day - you know, that voice that constantly comments on how you're doing? It just comes. And this constant dialog is often not very favorable to you.

The next day, I want you to write your own inner dialog. Fill your thoughts with words that release your self confidence. I CAN do this. I am well prepared and ready. This situation is going to go well for all concerned. Square your shoulders, take a deep breath and make positive statements about yourself and your situation.

People will try to discourage you. It's a given. This is the time to prove to yourself and others that you have what it take to follow through on your convictions. As you do, the tide turns, and your confidence is multiplied. There is a terrific saying, "Nothing succeeds like success." The good news is that the confidence of others in you also multiplies.