To Change the Future, Imagine and Make It
Acclaimed author and professor Azar Nafizi, in her tribute to American fiction The Republic of Imagination, writes, “So much of who we are, no matter where we live, depends upon how we imagine ourselves to be.” Given the complex state of the world mixed the opportunites some of my clients have, I’ve been returning to the importance of activating our civil imaginations and our creative intelligence in life, work, and culture.
Creative intelligence, as I define it, is the capacity to generate both novel and useful insights and then discern and act upon the best of them. Creative intelligence is something each human being possesses on a spectrum – and creative intelligence is activated collectively with others.
Let me offer some perspective on how powerful – and not passive – our activated imagination and creative intelligence can be to bring about the change we desire.
Sunset on Humanity
A while back, as a friend and I hiked near dusk, my friend shared that he had been reading Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. He often reads it at 3 a.m. when he can’t sleep. As the sun set, he said, “I’ve lost faith in humanity.”
Hearing this saddened me. I understand that feeling. Over the past year, you might have felt hopeless about changing fundamental aspects of your work, business, health, or life—and even more so about society. Maybe someone has betrayed, cheated, or deceived you.
News headlines can distort your view of reality, making you think the world is full of either dupes or dupers. Can people change? Can we, as a species, change for the better? Losing faith in humanity feels like giving up on the drive to live and the courage to create. I told my friend about John Steinbeck’s 1961 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Here’s an excerpt:
“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion, and love,” Steinbeck said. “In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and emulation.”
Steinbeck witnessed and lived through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, a Holocaust that killed 11 million, and World War II ending with atomic bombs that killed 200,000. And still, he hoped, imagined, wrote, and acted. Steinbeck’s speech puts things in perspective when the world seems dark and despair deep. Without faith in humanity, we can’t believe in our ability to improve—whether it’s our work, character, or our world.
If you’re alive and have a pulse, something in you likely aches to make things better. Imagination calls to that yearning.
What’s Next? Deliberate Daydreaming
Whenever I wonder about the future for myself, Tracking Wonder Consultancy, and us as a whole, I turn to the power of imaginative intelligence. Activate imagination help us set and achieve quarterly goals. If I only use my analytical mind, I limit the possibilities for myself and those I serve.
Effective CEOs, managers, and entrepreneurs I study and work with allow for this level of what we call Deliberate Daydreaming. Neurologically, when you step away from task completion and you allow space for open daydreaming and mind-wandering, your brain’s default mode network (DMN) can become activated. Without some direction, the DMN can lead to fret and regret rumination. But given meaningful and creative direction, the DMN is what psychologist and my colleague at Psychology Today Scott Barry Kaufmann calls the Imagination Network. It’s the source of fresh insights as our work at Tracking Wonder continuously bears out.
We know that bringing imagination to goal-setting is more effective and leads to your setting authentic goals.
I often step away from my desk and screens to sit outdoors and look at a horizon. I might sit and deliberately daydream for 15 minutes or 30 minutes, notebook in hand. Something about the vista pulls a human soul toward the future while anchored in the present. I discuss this process at length in Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity. You can test a variation, too.
- Shape weekly time in your calendar to be outdoors for 15-30 minutes.
- Find a place in a nearby yard or park or other spot preferably where there is green (i.e., signs of nature) and, even better, blue (i.e., fresh moving water such as a pond, stream, or lake). If there is a space where you can look off into the distance, then such a horizon can expand your creative thinking. If not, then gazing up at the sky can have a comparable effect.
- Invite yourself to imagine with Radical Openness, Curiosity, and Hope.
- Ask yourself a few questions about what could be next for you, your work, and for the greater change you want to see: What do you imagine yourself doing more of? With whom? What difference are you making? What small changes are you making in your daily habits, study, and action to step closer to that imagined horizon?
- Close your eyes and observe the images that come to mind. Write down what emerges whether what you write is in fragments, stream-of-consciousness, or fully formed insights. Explore and mind-wander on the page.
- Then look around and listen to the natural stimulation about you. Record a few sensory descriptions whether made by nature’s geniuses or by human beings.
- Your mind can naturally draw comparisons and analogies between what you are sensing with your eyes and ears in the present and with what you are imagining for the future. This process of the analogous mind activates your creative intelligence.
- Record them.
- Then, the next day, write one-page stories about one of these imagined futures.
This process is just the beginning of an ongoing practice. Deliberate Daydreaming is a practice I train individuals, groups, and teams in in order to activate their creative intelligence on behalf of innovative change.
The Power of Imagination
Your imagination can create a better future for you, your work, and others. Sir Ken Robinson, whose TED Talk on creativity is one of the most watched TED Talks, defined creativity as “imagination applied.” Human imagination fuels innovations and dreams of better ways to live, work, lead, and create. It inspires us to sacrifice for better futures for strangers and generations we’ll never know.
Imagination can expand our concerns beyond self-interest. There are many worlds to imagine, create, and live in beyond the news and to-do lists. In The Republic of Imagination, Azar Nafizi suggests that imaginative knowledge shapes our decisions and worldviews. If my imagination is limited and self-centered, I’ll likely make decisions for my self-interest. If my imagination includes a stage of diverse characters with varied needs, I’ll be more likely to make decisions for the greater good.
To activate your civil imagination, there’s something essential you can do: read fiction.
Effective leaders often read fiction, not just biographies. At the Edinburgh Book Festival, crime novelist Val McDermid noted that the leaders who handled the COVID-19 pandemic best read fiction. “What fiction gives you is the gift of imagination and the gift of empathy,” she said. “You see a life outside your own bubble. If you read endless biographies, you miss understanding the lives of ordinary people. My advice to any politician: read a novel to understand the world better and imagine a changed world better.”
Reading fiction can disrupt our personal bubbles. In the chapter Curiosity: The Rebel Facet of the book Tracking Wonder, I lay out some of the emergent science that corroborates Val McDermid’s claims. Emily Anhalt, a professor at Sarah Lawrence, wrote that myths helped the Greeks reject tyranny and identify good leadership qualities. Reading The Odyssey reminds today’s leaders to lead with principle, not power.
You can start with short stories by George Saunders, Maile Meloy, Lorrie Moore, or Haruki Murakami. Then move on to novels by Marilynne Robinson, Isabel Allende, Celeste Ng, or Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.
This week, spend time with your imagination to make possibilities a reality.
If something here resonates, drop me a note in the comments. I try to reply to everyone.
For more: Take our free Wonder@Work Assessment. You’ll get instant results and experiments to test out. To gain weekly tips and inspiration to stay open to possibility in your work and life, you can join over 10,000 people worldwide and subscribe to the weekly Wonder Dispatch. It’s worth it.
And Spread the Wonder: Share this piece with people you care about who could stand encouragement to activate their creative intelligence. If you do so, you can find me often at LinkedIn and on Instagram. Tag me there. Thanks.
I’ll see you soon in a future piece here at The Wonder Blog.
Be well, and thanks for running with me,
Jeffrey
