This is the POWER of IMAGINATION | Jim Kwik

I am your brain coach, Jim Kwik. So I wanna introduce a brand new thinking tool, but it's not brand new to you because you do it all the time. But a lot of the times we're not using it consciously. So I'm gonna put some labels to it so you could use it to enhance, again, your thinking and your results. And this is the power of your imagination. Imagination, right? Einstein said imagination is more powerful than knowledge. 'Cause knowledge is what is, but imagination, is what can be. And we think in words, but you also think in pictures. If I ask you to think about your car or think about your bedroom, you see things, right? You see your car, you see 4 tires, you see a sunroof, you see the color blue, but you don't see the words sunroof, 4 tires, and blue, right? When you're thinking about how you dream, You dream in what? In images, in pictures. You don't see closed caption text on the bottom of the mental movie in your mind when you're dreaming, right? So you think in pictures and images. In fact, a picture is worth what? A thousand words. So that's a lot of powerful ways to think. And even with your memory, a lot of people tend to be better at remembering what they see rather than what they hear, right? You go to somebody and you say, "I." I remember your face, but I forgot your name. You never go to somebody and say the opposite. You never go to someone and say, I remember your name, but I forgot your face. There's a Chinese proverb that goes, what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. What I hear, I forget. I heard the name, I forgot the name. What I see, I remember. I saw your face, I remember your face. And what you do, going back to practice and exercise, that knowledge is not power, knowledge times action equals power, that's when you truly understand. So imagery is a wonderful addition to add to our thinking, not just using words and language and questions, but thinking in pictures. Now, how do you apply this towards better thinking and a better life? Well, here's one way. Did you know that your mind can't tell the difference between something you vividly imagine and something that's real? And I'll say that again because this is a very important point. Your mind cannot tell the difference between something that you vividly imagine and something that's real. Let's go back to your dreams. Have you ever woken up from a dream that was so real, the images were so real that you were shaking or that you were perspiring or your heart was beating out of your chest? Because your mind can't tell the difference between something vividly imagined and something that's real. A lot of people use this for the reverse. They will imagine a result that they're fearful of. Like maybe it is public speaking and they're nervous about that talk they have to do and they're imagining it and they're imagining like them messing up. And whatever you're imagining on a regular basis, you're getting good at. Let me give you an example. At the University of Chicago, they took average people and broke them up into 3 groups, A, B, and C, and they had them do free throws to see how well they did. And then when they were done, they went to Group A and said, I want you to Practice an hour a day over the next 30 days. Group B, we want you to not practice at all. Don't touch a basketball for the next 30 days. Group C, we want you to practice for an hour a day, but do not go on the court, do not touch a basketball. We want you to practice in your mind. We want you to practice imagining successfully throwing free throws for an hour a day. They followed up with these 3 groups 30 days later. Group A, who practiced each day for 1 hour, improved 24%, because practice makes what? Progress, right? Group B, they took and they put them back on the court to see how well they did. Exactly the same. No practice, no progress. But Group C is what blew their mind. Group C, who never touched a ball, never went on the court, who just practiced successfully in their mind for an hour a day, improved 23%, just 1% less than the group that did the physical activity. That's the power of your mind. Recently, I was speaking at a longevity conference in Sardinia, Italy, one of these areas in the world where they have the most centenarians, people hitting age 100 and above. And I told this story and this study about Dr. Ellen Langer and the power of belief and the power of imagination. Dr. Ellen Langer out of Harvard did this experiment in 1979 where she was spending time with seniors and noticed that the environment that they were in was not the most thriving, flourishing environment to spend your later years. So what she did was she took 8 men out of that environment and put them into a monastery. But before she did so, she rated their, their health. Their cognitive abilities, their physical strength, their sense of sight, their sense of hearing, and they took pictures of these men. And before they put them into the monastery, they decorated the monastery as if it was 20 years earlier. So it wasn't decorated as 1979; it was decorated and made as if it was 1959. What does that mean? The television program was black and white, and television from 1959 programming. The time. was from 1959. They removed all of the mirrors out of the monastery so they couldn't see their own appearance. And what the men were told before they walked into the monastery was, you're gonna spend a week here, and for the next week, I want you to live as if it is 1959. Live as if it's 1959. And we're gonna be there for a week. And she follows up one week later, and it was like a big transformation. What was the transformation? Well, they rated all their diagnostics, and these men had better sense of hearing. Their hearing improved after living in that environment just for 1 week. Their sense of sight improved. Their vision improved. They were stronger physically after 1 week, where many of them were walking into the monastery with support or canes. They walked without them. They had better focus. They had better memory. Just pretending, imagining, and believing they were 20 years younger. Here's the caveat on this. They took a snapshot of these men before they went into the monastery and a snapshot photograph of them when they came out of the monastery. And they took a focus group and they showed them all the photos, and they asked the focus group one simple question: which is the younger photo? Which is the younger photo? And 100% of the focus group chose the latter photo. the more recent photo. They actually looked younger. That's the power of your mind. She wrote about this in a study called Counterclockwise. Counterclockwise. The power of your imagination, the power of your belief to change your physiology. Now, why am I bringing this up? We think in images all the time. It's not just the words, it's the pictures that we see inside of our mind, and those pictures have Power. What are you mentally rehearsing every single day? Are you visualizing your dreams? Are you visualizing your goals? Are you visualizing things going right? Because if you're doing the opposite, that takes you to the opposite place. Self-awareness is not just the questions that you're asking and your physiology and all these elements; it's the pictures in your mind. We think in images, and we can control. those images. Even athletes— we train a lot of athletes how to visualize their success, visualize their goals. What did Roger Bannister do in 1954? He broke the 4-minute mile. Throughout human history, no one can run a mile in less than 4 minutes. How did he do it? It wasn't just physical training. It was mental training. It was imagination training. It was these thought experiments where he would close his eyes Imagine himself crossing the finish line, looking at the clock, and the clock says 3 minutes, 59 seconds. Because he knows what you know, that success is an inside-out process, that take the invisible and make it visible, that it's not, I'll believe it when I see it, it's, I'll see it when I believe it. It starts here. That's the power of your own imagination. So what was interesting with this story is After he did it, what happened after that? Nobody could do it for all that time. One person does it, what happens after that? Other people started to run a sub-4-minute mile. Was there a big change in shoe technology or training methodology or nutritional support? No, there was a change in belief. One person did it, it gave permission to other people that they could do it too. It changed their imagination of what is possible. And that's really the lesson today, is to be aware of the images inside your mind and take control of those images and those pictures, because the mind doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something that's real. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to do thought experiments. Albert Einstein would do these thought experiments where he would be sitting in a chair at Princeton and imagine himself sitting on a beam of light heading towards a clock and ask himself this question: what would that clock look like if I was riding on a beam of light? My point in saying this is do your own thought experiments. I want you to visualize what you want most. See it, feel it, hear it, believe in it, and then work daily for it. That's the success formula. Now in the comments, what are you going to do? I want you to share one image. Many of you have like a vision board, a board of all the things, all the dreams that you want to create in your life. The perfect, you know, this relationship, this career, this much money in your bank, this amount of giving and contribution. This is your natural health and your wellness. So what I want you to do right now is in the comments, share your vision. What are you imagining? What can we cheer you on for? What would go on your mental vision board, if you will? What are you looking for for your health? your career, your mental state, if you will, how much money in the bank, what are the toys that you want, what are the contributions you want to make. Whatever you'd like to share, share it in the comments so we can be rooting for you, so we can have a shared vision for all of us. Because my vision is to build better, brighter brains. I see that every single morning when I wake up. I visualize that, the ripple effect that you and I and this whole community could have in the world by upgrading our brains so we could upgrade our life. I'm your brain coach, Jim Kwik. I can't wait to see you in our next lesson.