[Music] imagination is everything i can't remember who wrote those three words in that order but it seems he's summed up at all imagination is everything our lives will reflect the way we use our imagination the child imagines himself walking like the adults he sees above him as soon as he can walk he wants to run as we reach successive plateaus in life we begin to imagine ourselves reaching the next one and thus our imaginations lead us on from one idea to another through every day and every year of our lives but if we're not careful
our imaginations can lead us into mazes of confused complications from which we may find it difficult to extricate ourselves so it's a good idea as we use our imagination to always strive for simplicity to avoid the complicated remember the three main departments of living family how we spend our days work and leisure and income if we're wise we'll work toward keeping each as uncomplicated as possible as interesting and as rewarding as possible but at the same time simple and straightforward are we living the lives we want to live or are we living stereotype lives based
on phony values usually they're a combination of both a kind of compromise which says surely other people must have some idea of what constitutes the good life after all there are so many of them but when we look closer we see that they're living shadow lives as mumford calls them in competition ice skating you've seen a couple match each other's movements almost perfectly it's called shadow skating i believe they try to match each other's movements so perfectly that each might be the other shadow in any sort of neighborhood you will tend to find people living
much the same way their homes landscaping furnishings and lives are typified if by anything at all by an almost total lack of imagination imagination like anything else needs fuel for production you can't have something from nothing thomas edison said i'm a sponge i want to know the answer to everything with his great lifetime inventory of information he could assemble an incredible array of new combinations and permutations electric light is a combination of elements and so is any good idea or any bad idea for that matter most of us make the mistake of not asking why
why do i live here in this house rather than in some other house why this life instead of another life why this work instead of other work why these rewards instead of others now this doesn't mean we'll change anything necessarily but at least we'll be living lives that have been examined and found to be to our personal liking we'll know that we're not living the lives we're living simply because they reflect and are pretty much composite copies of the lives we see about us they should be to my way of thinking deep mean currents in
our lives our family lives our work and our leisure and our rewards in the form of income our family lives should be good and richly satisfied what is our input here how are we using our imaginations to bring meaning charm and love to our family relationships it's an ongoing process that should become richer and more meaningful with the passing of time as we grow older we should come to love each other more instead of it being the other way around imagination can bring this about making allowances for unmanageable neuroses or even psychosis that may crop
up i've often thought of producing appointment calendars with weekly reminders that we should think of something interesting to do for those we love to let them know we don't take them for granted a dinner out a weekend trip flowers a card a phone call a gift may be nothing more than a big hug in the words i love you very much the five most important words in the language when arranged in that order or planning a really interesting vacation six or eight months in advance instead of waiting until the last minute and finding yourself with
nothing very interesting to do how about your home is it what you want h.l menken once commented that the average home is a house of horrors and doesn't reflect poor taste so much as it reflects no taste at all people tend to order their steaks medium and their homes and lives the same way medium rhymes with tedium the family is the most important part of the life of most of us what good is accomplishment if there's no one with whom to share it what good is anything if there's no one with whom to share it
and since the family is first in importance it represents a fertile field for the imagination not just for the woman in the family but for the man and hopefully the kids as well family creative thinking sessions are a lot of fun and a never-ending source of good ideas check every idea for basic simplicity avoid complication whenever possible next imagination as it applies to the way we spend our days our work and our leisure let's take them in order no matter what it is we want if it's within the realm of reality we can get it
through imagination applied to our work nothing now being done by man is being done the way it can and will be everything will be done much better not can be will be whether it's the result of our applied imagination or not people who resist change in their work are impediments to progress yet the first words the new person on the job usually hears are now this is the way it's done around here a business leader made the comment that if we're doing anything this year the way it was done last year we're obsolete now that's
an extreme generalization but deserves careful attention in most things it's true now while getting new ideas in business is usually the best way to guarantee unpopularity it's still the only way to renewal and growth people resist new ideas from the top to the bottom of an organization especially if it's an older organization championing a new idea is a lonely business but if you believe it's a good idea if your research causes you to believe it will be a significant benefit and the costs and disruption necessary to test the idea are not completely out of line
with its ultimate benefits then fight it through do it as diplomatically as you can make as few enemies as possible but fight it through if you believe in it the object of management is not to be loved by the people in the organization it's to make things happen most profitably for all concerned particularly the customer people historically have stood in the way of virtually every good idea and especially if it isn't theirs your good ideas can lead to your dismissal from an organization but ideas are more important than a job with good ideas you'd have
independence there's always a way to succeed a friend of mine found he couldn't get his ideas through the board of directors he resigned and beginning at about the age of 60 he built a 300 million dollar a year business on his rejected ideas walt disney used to ask 10 people what they thought of a new idea if they were unanimous in their rejection of it he would begin working on it immediately our world today consists of thousands of things people once thought were impossible how many good ideas have you followed through to completion in your
work during the past year a business is very beginning in success we're based on innovative imagination will become a model of stodgy convention with a few years of good profits you know arnold palmer's success is a truly great golfer was based on his ability to never try to play it too safely too cozy he was never full hardy but he would try the more testing shot when others would have played it safe he lost some tournaments as a result but he won a great many and achieved world fame and respect too there's much to be
said for the conservation of assets but it should be remembered that they tend to slow you down and put more emphasis on saving what you've got than on building for the future of course there's a happy balance between conservation and innovation that should never be lost cited ask yourself what business am i in what is its purpose how does it contribute to the well-being of mankind and how can i make it better not how can we produce more necessarily we have almost overproduced ourselves into a world junk pile and trying to produce more and more
many businesses have lost sight of real quality quantity became the god with a small increment of profit on mountain ranges of units gadgets shiny junk that fell apart when the purchaser got it home knobs that broke or fell off buttons that came off toys that couldn't stand the strain of being unwrapped towering mountain ranges of shiny worthless junk none of it worth our time let alone our money there's a rapidly growing avant-garde that will one day represent the majority of the population that is determined to buy quality and they'll go to any country to get
it we can satisfy this growing discriminating market now and in the years ahead many of our fastest growing companies are proving it but it means going back to the old verity quality first quantity second both can be achieved through human imagination the most incredible agency ever to appear on earth it all comes back to what we want and more importantly what we want to be as persons a good profit and a steady growth is all that we need in business we don't have to shoot off the top of the page but the chances of truly
spectacular growth are better by equality through imagination than through quantity for quantity's sake it makes no difference whether it's a yo-yo or an automobile over the long haul quality will win out if the size must be reduced to maintain price and improve quality we should make it smaller there's always a way through imagination you know each of us has a gold mine between his ears if he fails to mine the gold well that's his business but it's there all that we could want and much more now as to input we should never stop building our
store of information we can never get an idea without raw material which is information and application if there's real talent there too so much the better but talent has a way of developing with hard application daily application perspiration long hours of study and deep thought become a sponge for information that applies to what you do read everything you can find on the subject build a fine library of books that are filled with the ideas of others on your specialty whatever it may be you know my wife is a great cook she must have 30 cookbooks
people who say they're great cooks without ever reading the ideas of others are kidding themselves i know a writer who refuses to read the works of other writers is never amounted to much great painters have always learned more from other painters than they did from nature and they still do somerset mom laboriously copied the style of writers he admired i mean he would sit and copy page after page of the actual words they wrote so that he could learn how they wrote he then wrote the stories he wanted to write with a marvelously finished skill
if we're in management we can learn from the masters in management roar hibler and riplogo's book on management and the new dow jones irwin book the enjoyment of management by john price are a couple of good ones to study you know when i first started in radio i listened carefully to the country's best and highest paid radio personalities they had learned their skills through many years of hard work i learned a great deal from them all i had to do was turn on my radio and listen frank sinatra learned his amazing breath control from tommy
dorsey and every great performer who ever lived has had a model or models he or she studied and admired and wanted to emulate how about you the person who thinks he doesn't have to study his craft art or profession is a pompous fool and his chances of ever amounting to much are very slim indeed a never-ending taking in the best thoughts of the best people in the field of our choice is the best assurance that we will never stagnate never stop producing paracelsus wrote thoughts are free and are subject to no rule on them rests
the freedom of man and they tower above the light of nature for thoughts give birth to a created force that is neither elemental or suberial thoughts create a new heaven a new firmament a new source of energy from which new arts flow when man undertakes to create something he establishes a new heaven as it were and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him for such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth he went on to write the child is still an uncertain being and he
receives his form according to the potentialities that you awaken in him if you awaken his ability to make shoes he'll be a shoemaker if you awaken the stone cutter in him he'll be a stone cutter and if you summon forth the scholar in it he will be a scholar and this can be so because all the potentialities are inherent in him what you awakening comes forth from him the rest remains unawakened absorbed in sleep we are born to be awake not to be asleep and then he wrote therefore men learn and learn question and question
and do not be ashamed of it for only thus can you earn a name that will resound in all countries and never be forgotten hope is one of the loftiest emotions we can experience for whenever we lack hope our fruits will also be lacking he who knows nothing loves nothing he who can do nothing understands nothing he who understands nothing is worthless he who understands also loves notices sees the more knowledge is inherent in the thing the greater the love everything lies in knowledge from it comes every fruit knowledge bestows faith for he who knows
god believes in him he who does not know him does not believe in him everyone believes in what he knows everyone believes in what he knows and there's your answer to the question why is there so little belief in anything today it's because we believe in what we know and most people don't try to really know anything do you know why i got those great quotations of paracelsus from the book the nature of man which i recommended in direct line one people who say they don't have time for reading research and study a better fine
time or throw in the towel there's no other way to make it over the long haul you can't make wine without grapes there must be input if there's to be output a time spent each day of study will produce a never-ending stream of interesting imaginative ideas we can apply to our work it will also confer upon us a very precious thing freedom complete independence we can live where we please earn the income we desire and have a wonderful life through the systematic development of our imaginations imagination is everything what applies to our work also applies
to our leisure our hobbies and vocations if we play golf for tennis it's much more enjoyable if we play well again a systematic never-ending study of the game or sport will keep our ability and enthusiasm growing over the years we don't have to become obsessed with it or be a professional but it's great to develop confidence in a real facility for the fun we enjoy boating fishing skiing flying tennis golf bridge whatever it is it's more fun if we're fairly good at it working at our hobbies gives us the rest we need from the problems
at work and at home it helps us live in balance with a minimum of friction you know scientists are in agreement that their biblical admonition is correct when it says he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that keep with his spirit is greater than he that taketh the city if we can catch the vision that life is lived from within out that it's not so much what happens around us or to us as what happens in us that counts we can set our own pace live our own lives meet
situations and people objectively without fear or resistances and we can become healthier and as prosperous and happy as we want to be anyone who knows anything about mechanics knows that friction is the enemy steel wheels on rails reduce friction almost to the vanishing point and an enormous almost unbelievable load can be moved great distances with surprisingly little power i had dinner in a restaurant in san antonio the other night at the top of that great tower that was built for the hemisphere and the owner of the restaurant told me that that entire thing turns with
a one and a half horsepower motor steel frictionless balls working on steel rails we can do the same by reducing friction from our lives the more friction the slower we must move with greater effort some men in medical research go so far as to say that man has within him a health maintaining force sufficient to keep him alive and healthy almost indefinitely if it were not for the destructive effect of uncontrolled emotions as james allen wrote the calm man having learned how to govern himself knows how to adapt himself to others and they in turn
reverence his strength and feel they can learn from him and rely upon him in all the departments of living developing calmness serenity is worth any effort it typifies the great person the true professional takes daily practice especially if we're not a naturally calm or phlegmatic kind of person the calm person moves ahead people just naturally look to him for leadership especially when things aren't going as they should but not enough has been said about the contributions calmness make to good health good health in man as it is in all living things is the natural state
the body has fail-safe mechanisms that automatically go to work whenever good health is threatened ill health comes more often from emotional stress than anyone even dares to guess friction is the culprit developing serenity a calm peaceful attitude toward others our work and our goals will work wonders in the response we'll get so we should calm down slow down and with a little discrimination as to what we allow to get through to us we can do much more and enjoy ourselves much more with much less friction and effort when we wake in the morning there are
a thousand distractions poised to get at us as we go through the day they clamor at us in sound and sight they're frantic frenetic they implore they import tune they threaten they could joel if we let them they'd keep us spinning like confused tops we need to put a sentry at the door to our consciousness and look at the credentials of that which would enter we can suffer from inner pollution too we should be choosy what we let enter our consciousness as choosy as we are about the furnishings in our homes a great educator once
said something to the fact that the most interesting people are the people with the most interesting pictures in their minds if you think of the things that clamour for your attentionist paintings waiting to hang on your walls you can become very selective a salesman was talking to a farmer who was very much interested in what he was selling they were standing in the shade of a tree near the house when the sound of the telephones ringing reached them the farmer made no attempt to leave finally the salesman mentioned that the phone was ringing and the
farmer commented that he'd had that thing installed for his convenience not for anyone else's and went on with the conversation there is a way to restore charm and interest to our lives and it seems to be to cut down on the number of things we let engage our attention and make certain that what does get through is good i had the good fortune to be raised near a harbor as a kid i used to spend hours down the docks watching the ships loading and unloading they bring in cargoes from the distant and romantic ports all
over the world and i used to stand there with a far away look in my eyes envying those sailors who were so fortunate they traveled over the distant horizon to places i could only imagine or read about in my geography books i hung around so much that some of the mates and skippers finally recognized me and actually invited me on board i guess you can imagine the heaven that was for me they'd take me from the engine room to the folks and find it the place i like best the navigation bridge the bridge had the
best view but more than that it was there that the ship was controlled and steered into all those distant places i dreamed of once i was even invited to lunch i didn't get over that for months it's strange how something like that can have such an overwhelming fascination for a youngster and exert such an influence over his life as soon as i was old enough i was on a ship and i sailed to quite a few of those distant deep water ports no matter how long the trip i never got tired of sailing and watching
the sea and all its different moods entering a distant port even if i'd been there before was always a brand new thrill over the years i've tried to figure out why i like ships so much and i believe i've come up with the answer ships operate during their entire lives the way we should but so few do maybe you've never thought much about it but at any given moment a ship is 100 successful that is it's either sailing to a predetermined port of call or it's in port getting ready to sail to another one a
ship owner is smart he knows a ship can only reach one port of call at a time you never see any doubt or confusion or trying to do more than one thing at a time you can climb up to the navigation bridge of a big far-sitting ship and ask the captain where he's going and he'll tell you instantly and in one sentence how many people do you know who can do the same thing it seems that most people want so many different things most of which they're not really sure of that they're like the guy
who jumped on their horse and rode off in all directions at once what they ought to do is recognize the truth and success of a ship pick one port that's important sail to it then rest and refit for a little while then sail to another important port in this way not too many years a man can set and reach his goals one by one until finally he's got a tremendous pile of accomplishments in which he can take pride he's got all the things he wants just because he had sense enough to realize he could only
do well one thing at a time there's one other point that fits in here and maybe it's the most important of all if a ship tied up to a dock for some reason had no place to go it would stay there until it fell apart from rust and disuse ships don't start their engines until they have some place to go and here again is the same with men this is why it's so important that each of us have a port of call we want to reach a goal a place to get to that we feel
will be better than the place in which we now find ourselves if we don't well we might never cast off we might never know the thrill of sailing a pre-charted course to a place we can't see for fully 99 of the journey but we know it's there and we know that if we keep sailing toward it we'll reach it you see ships have a way of reaching their ports if someone came up to you today and asked you what your next port of call is that is where you're going could you answer them in one
sentence like the captain could on the bridge of your ship if not maybe you better give it some thought as soon as i was able and had the time to devote to it i got a boat of my own i find it to be a wonderfully restful hobby with a good boat you own a home anywhere on earth since 76 of the earth's surface is covered by water there are a few places you can't go if you happen to love boats as i do with our little ship we have a home in florida the bahamas
the virgin islands the grenadine south america central america or mexico it can take us wherever we want to go with no packing and unpacking with our meals when we want them and good fishing and swimming along the way and as dana wrote back in 1830 in the american classic two years before the mast a ship is like a lady's watch always out of repair so you're never at a loss for something to do there are always a dozen things waiting to be done it makes for an interesting busy hobby with lots of fresh air and
sunshine it's especially good in the winter when you can't play golf up north the world william james and his principles of psychology define genius as little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way in his essay on habit he referred to habit as the flywheel of society it's what keeps us doing what we've been doing in the past it makes us fear change regardless of the present condition of our lives and the genius as defined by dr james seems to be that rare bird who knows that change is not only good but inevitable
he anticipates the inevitable he's perhaps what makes change inevitable he habitually looks at everything about him in an unhabitual way he takes nothing for granted he knows that whatever he sees that is made by man or served by man is imperfect is always in a state of evolving let me give you a good example a friend of mine was looking for a site for a large luxury motel he was in no hurry and spent months in a certain west coast city looking for the site that would probably best guarantee a good return on the considerable
amount of money he was going to invest and borrow he found the perfect site it was near a large university and at the confluence of five main roads one of which was a heavily traveled highway it was also within the city limits which would mean a large local trade for the restaurant there was only one hitch on the site was an old brick building an old manufacturing concern still in business but he called on the owners of the business and told them what he wanted to do since the city had over the years grown around
the old building he pointed out that it would be their benefit to sell him the property at a price many times the land's original value and build themselves a new more modern plant in a less congested area well they saw the sense of his plan and a way to pick up nearly half a million dollars for their property and close the deal he raised the old building and built his beautiful new hotel later he discovered that many people in the motel business had looked upon that site as ideal for their purposes but had written it
off because it was already occupied he saw it not with the old brick manufactory on it but instead with his beautiful new motel sitting there he had looked at that corner in an unhabitual way everybody benefited including the community by his genius i think each of us can greatly increase the value of his life by taking to heart dr james definition of genius by looking at things about us in our home and particularly in our work with new eyes with the eyes of creation we can form the habit of seeing things not as they are
but as they perhaps will be as they could be as our changing world will insist they be in the future our lives are full of old brick buildings that have stood there for too long we just don't see them anymore or if we do we just assume they'll always be there and maybe they always will if we don't do something about them in case the idea impressed you as much as it did me here's dr william james definition of genius again you might want to remember it genius is little more than the faculty of perceiving
in an unhabitual way speaking of dr william james he also had something to say about the interesting phenomenon known as second wind in his essay on vital reserves he points out that everyone knows what it is to start a piece of work mental or physical feeling stale and we know what it is to warm up to a job but before too long we feel the first signs of fatigue as dr james put it we have then walked played or worked enough so we desist we simply quit this sort of fatigue forms a kind of barrier
behind which the great majority of people live and work but if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward as james put it a surprising thing happens the fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point then gradually or suddenly it passes away and we're fresher than before we have evidently tapped a level of new energy a second wind masked until then by the fatigue obstacle we usually obey in fact we may find that we have third and fourth winds the phenomenon occurs in cases of mental activity as well as physical and in exceptional cases
we may find beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress stores of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own it's evident that we have stockpiled reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon but that may be called upon deeper and deeper straighter of power ready for use by anyone who probe so deeply i remember one sunday when i had to write 20 radio programs to be recorded on monday i got started at nine in the morning and by five in the afternoon i was bushed but i had ten more shows to write so
i kept at it suddenly i felt better and had more energy than at any previous time and by 1 30 the next morning when i finally completed program number 20 i felt great i felt i could keep going forever 16 and a half hours of steady mental work and typing and i was fresher than when i started great things are done by so-called high-energy people but i'm sure most of us don't know about or forget about the great reserves of energy which lie dormant in us each of us has a tremendous second wind mentally and
physically passing through the fatigue barrier to reach these deep reservoirs can make the difference between ordinary or unusual success between existing and really living it's good to know we have it
