Sundaymail Editor
Open your eyes and your mind to new pictures, fresh ideas and new action. Do not be satisfied with a life of listless and unimaginative repetition of the all too familiar. Be a daring thinker, bold visionary and strategic actor. Do not just gobble poisoned morbid pictures of hell, horror, and Armageddon. Dream and start working differently to create a new and exciting future.
It is when it is darkest that projected images are sharpest. This is the time for unprecedented opportunity. It is the seasons to dream big and see possibilities. It is when things are toughest that your resolve to create an exciting future should be keenest. Park not in the past — it is a vacant and dangerous lot.
The past is past, with all its glories and remains as a mere trophy. The present is passing fast and your greatest leverage is in the future. Greatness is a journey towards and quest for the future. If you are blind to the games of the future that are being played, you become the game. If you do not see the future, it is easy to be complacent and abuse present opportunity. Without a vision, an inspiring image of the future, you cannot be intentional or focused. Vision inspired and focuses your mind in the midst of chaos. There is no obstacle, challenge or adversity that is so strong that it can overwhelm a thinking mind and resolute heart.
See clearly
Vision is more than impressive statement or charter that is hung in your office. Vision is the shared picture that you see and are drawn towards. That picture becomes a strong and captivating influence that directs your attention and energy. See and be obsessed with pictures of your preferred future not abused past. You are wasting time, energy and resources when you lead without having a clear image of the future. If you are not going anywhere, see that you do not recruit passengers to go with you or sing in your choir.
To change anything, your mind’s seeing must correspond with the preferred future in your mind. It is impossible to see a positive, inspiring picture in your mind and then fail to be motivated. How? Motivational hurdles can be directly traced to your mental state. What you see is what shows in your conversation and manifests in your action. Doom pictures result in doom dialogue. Until the picture that you hold and share changes very little else may change. The image of the future that you carry within you influences the future that you create. Futures do not just happen, they are created by determined souls.
The future does not live in a museum, and it is not recreated by the past. Do not criticise those who have a dream for the future when you have none. Unless you have a dream and you are working on it diligently it is futile being a mere critic and an armchair commentator. A critic with no alternative is a mere pest. If you have a choice between being a doer and a critic choose to be a doer, and translate thought into action.
Think and change
The way you think is important and sets a bar that determines your actions. Mr. R. Buckminster Fuller said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change some-thing, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Too much energy wasted when spent fighting the existing reality. Kicking stones does not turn them into footballs. Stop fighting existing reality and start creating new platforms, new frames and new models. The future does not belong to those who believe they are entitled to greatness, past glory, and the right holding traditional complaints. There is no glory in dressing up old complaints in new clothes and presenting them as new insights. Greatness is in having a solution mindset. Unless you are willing to take responsibility you will forever be blaming others for your circumstances. The future belongs to those who have a dream, a plan and a mind to work and make a difference.
The future belongs to the people who prepare for it today. Preparing for the future is not pro-test about it. You mistrust the future, makes you a victim of the past and an unsettled historian. Dialogue differently with yourself and others. The future is created by the conversations that you hold around the images of the future. Hold new conversations of the future and not the complaints about the present. Create new models that make the present look so pale and drab.
The future is arrogant and does not speak kindly always to the past or understand its pedestrians excuses. Keep hope alive because that is your handle on the future. The future is not dead, it is always waiting for you to show up. You will either meet it prepared or surprised. The future is there and it is looking back at us in awe, sometimes wondering how much we have the propensity to choose fiction over fact, squandering time in unworthy pursuits and blind actions.
In 1961, The Dutch Futurist, Fred Polak said: “The rise and fall of images of the future pre-cedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as the society’s image is positive and nourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive.”
Pictures speak
Your life is visually directed and if you like “manipulated.” A picture tells the story of a thousand words, and affects ten times ten thousand lives. A picture becomes powerful when it is planted firmly in mind and heart. When pictures change, experiences shift. To change your life, change the pictures of the future that you are holding. Pictures of despair, defeat and despondency only help to create that corresponding reality.
Every time you see something great and standing you know that someone made a sacrifice and took some bold decisions. Appreciate the past and its sacrifices but do not park there. Pick and inspiring picture, a dream — big, bold and exciting that magnetises you to the future.
Imagination is creating and holding pictures that matter to you. Those who create powerful and positive pictures are more important than those who merely complain. Those who do are more important than those who just watch what is happening and wonder why it is happening. Reality was born out of the pictures and dreams of the past. If you can not dream and imagine a new pictures of the future, get off the highway. The future is created by the pictures you hold and believe. Change the images that you hold in your mind from negative to positive. Deliberately dump the negative and pick a new pictures of possibility. You have power to chose the images that dominate your thoughts.
Picture leadership
Transformational leadership is visionary and has clarity and resolve. Without a shared pictures to guide the way, leadership loses meaning and only works to preserve the past. The past cannot be preserved by fearing the future. The supreme role of any leadership is having defined reality and faced it, to find, define and secure the future. Leadership is not just about curating and preserving the past. It is about creating new realities and exciting futures. Leaders are at their best when as artists they paint bold and exciting pictures of the future. They are most respected when they act with integrity towards those pictures and take consistent action.
Vision without action is merely a dream. Dreams that are not acted upon become nightmares. Action without vision just passes time and is aimless activity. Action without vision makes you a senseless hyperactive hero. Action with vision has the potential to create greatness. Heroism without purpose is wasted passion. Gear up and take action.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and a virtual, hybrid and in-person workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
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