Inspired Leap - You are far more brilliant than you think you are!

What does beauty have to do with creating the life of your dreams? That's the question that arose when I saw the Eleanor Roosevelt quote "the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." I now realize there is a wealth of wisdom contained in her statement. When combined with George Bernard Shaw's call to create your life, you have a powerful call to action to go after your heart's desires.

Envision 2007 & Beyond: What Will You Create For Your Business, Career, and Life?: Short Version, February 25, 2007, 4:00pm at the World Wellness Weekend (part of the yourlocalcity.com presentation)(Visit World Wellness to find out more.)
Envision 2007 & Beyond: What Will You Create For Your Business, Career, and Life?: NEW TELE-SEMINAR VERSION, March 7, 2007, 8:00pm Central, 9:00pm Eastern, and 6:00pm Pacific. (Visit Inspired Leap to SIGN UP NOW.)
An Intuitive Experience at Lake Austin Spa Resort: March 29, 2007, 9:00 am – 3:00pm, with spa treatment immediately following. If you want to make 2007 your best year, take the time NOW to go within to discern the right focus and the ideal next steps. (Visit Inspired Leap to SIGN UP NOW.)
Work Less: Accomplish More: April 26, 2007, 9:00am to 3:30pm at The Crossings in Austin, TX (Visit Inspired Leap to sign up.) This is the first of three workshops in a new Break Through Series out at The Crossings retreat center. I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be collaborating with a powerful, creative woman, Misha Thomas, on these workshops and a four-day retreat in Sedona in October, 2007. Go to the Inspired Leap website to find out more.
Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: eWomen Network Luncheon presentation on May 23, 2007.

In the beginning of his book, Cross-Train Your Brain, author Stephen D. Eiffert—a speaker, trainer, and consultant—states that "a child loses up to 75% of his or her creativity between the ages of five and seven." [pp. 1-2] And if that isn't bad enough, by the time we're adults we've lost even more of this hard-to-define, but oh-so-important thing called creativity:

When I first read this, it seemed shocking; however, it now makes perfect sense to me. By the time we're a 40-year-old adult, most of us are so focused on the day-to-day reality of what is in front of us that we cannot begin to immerse ourselves into an imaginary scene with something we want.

The movie, Hook, gives us a taste of what is required to re-discover our creative selves and has some excellent scenes that will remind you of the powers you've lost and need to re-gain. It's about the adult Peter Pan being forced to go back to thinking and imagining like a child in order to rescue his own children from Captain Hook.

In one scene, Peter (played by Robin Williams) is at a meal with the Lost Boys (the group of boys he led before he chose to grow up). The boys imagine a huge feast in front of them and use some of this food to throw at Peter, but Peter just can't see it. He's too used to focusing on reality or on what's tangible. He's hungry and gets cranky when they keep insisting the food is there. The boys challenge and encourage Peter Pan. After relaxing and focusing on imagining, he's able to tap into the kid inside and see the feast. A food fight and a delicious meal ensue.

The meal scene is a brilliant example of the creative process. First you must visualize and truly "see" what you want in your mind's eye, do this playfully with emotion (imagine a food fight), relax (know that it's coming) and then the scene must come to you. Obviously it doesn't work for us quite as quickly as in a movie, but the process is just the same.

In Mind Your Brain, an audio and DVD course, author Doug Bench offers a powerful example of this uniquely human (as far as we know) ability to manifest what we want. Think about two athletic events that have been occurring for years: horse racing and track & field. Bench points out that in the last 85 years, the winning times for horse racing events have improved only about 3%, despite significant improvements in the training, tracks, food, and care for horses. Humans, on the other hand, have managed to drop their world record winning times by an average of up to 40%! Forty percent improvement versus only three percent improvement—what accounts for the dramatic difference?

Bench believes (and I agree with him) that it is our ability to visualize and imagine ourselves beating the world record or passing the competition. As far as we know, horses aren't able to do this. However, we can literally propel ourselves into the winners circle and beyond others' imagined limits because we have the power of visualization.

The workshop, Envision 2007: What Will You Create For Your Business, Career, and Life?, came out of my own need to retrain and remind my brain to use its ability to imagine, daydream, and visualize. I don't know about you, but despite knowing what's good for me, I will continue with my old habits until prodded to move. Rather than be prodded by difficulties in life, I'd rather prod myself via workshops-mine or others. In fact, I'm also participating in a friend's excellent tele-class, The Power of the Pen, for that very reason.

Kathy Garland's class is straightforward, deceptively simple, and extremely powerful. By committing to write my declarations (Garland coaches you to make sure they're as powerful as possible) daily, and checking in every other week on a conference call, I can honestly say I have not missed a day of writing. Trust me when I say this is a big achievement for me! I even remembered to take my journal with me on a recent trip to Seattle.

The more you understand the power of the energy and vibration of your thoughts and beliefs to literally create and shape your life, the more critical it becomes to consciously imagine, daydream, visualize, or write down what you want.

Because I'm so focused on the power of visualization, I am noticing things and reading information differently than before. The quote for this month by Eleanor Roosevelt is an example of this. While I've seen and heard her words before, Roosevelt's statement really hit me this month when I turned my calendar to the image and quote for February. I was struck by Roosevelt's use of the word "beauty." Why did she choose that particular word? I would have thought that her statement might have been "the future belongs to those who believe in the power of their dreams, or perhaps the value of their dreams. Why "beauty?"

I went to my dictionary to look up the definition to see if I could find any clues. On reading one of the definitions of the word, the answer became clear:

Powerful and valuable dreams become reality when we give form, texture, shape, and color to our visualizations. Studies also show that any emotion attached to a thought, vision, or belief supercharges it. It's as if you send your dream out to the universe with a huge neon, flashing sign attached that says, "Manifest me first!" Whether it's a positive daydream or a worrying, "what could happen" daydream, your nonconscious mind and the energetic universe respond the same way. They simply begin to act on what you put in motion.

Roosevelt's quote now makes sense. The future does belong to those who have the discipline and willingness to use their once-formidable talents of imagination to infuse their dreams and visions with beauty. How does beauty apply to your dreams? What makes them beautiful? Have you given enough thought to the color, form or texture of your dreams? How about the behavior or attitude that will result from them?

How much more powerful would you be if you took the time to train your mind to regain the visualization abilities you had as a child? Remember the statement that Stephen Eiffert made: forty-year-old adults have less than two percent of this ability remaining. So take a deep breath and imagine for a moment what you could create for yourself if you regained even ten or twenty percent of this ability. What kind of success have you been denying yourself by not developing and using your powerful—yet playful—ability to create?

Last month I talked about the importance of paying attention to your feelings and to what goes on around you in order to access all of your inner wisdom. This month, I ask you to combine your powers of observation with your child-like ability to daydream in order to imagine—in full color and in all dimensions—whatever your heart desires. Infuse your short-term goals (even the "exceed the sales forecast by +10%" goals) and big, bold dreams with beauty to get your nonconscious mind and the power of the Universe to propel you toward success.

May you find the courage and the time to re-develop the crucial skill of imagining or playing make-believe. Imagine that—like the adult Peter Pan—the life of someone you love (perhaps yourself) depends on it. Remember—your dreams are worth it!

If your company needs help with inspiring employees to reach new heights in productivity, creativity, morale, and integrity, please contact us at inspiredleap.com or 512-236-0090. If you need some more inspiration or more regular nudging to practice these steps, check out our website to see what's new to inspire you (a visit to The Quiet Room may be just what you need!).