What Happened To Our Imaginations?
[WORDS By: Sadiq Ali]
Picture this day. The first day of school at your very first school. You have on brand-new everything. You’re smiling, happy, slightly nervous but your mom and/or dad is right there. Then you walk inside those big doors full of even bigger dreams. Your first teacher then asks the magic question: “what do you want to be when you grow up??”
No other single question in our collective consciousness is as ethereal, emotive, palpable and utterly terrifying as this. The range of emotions is almost exclusively based on whether you have attempted any what you thought of, or if you haven’t thought of this question since that day. Terror if you haven’t. Giddiness at the possibility; anxiety because you’re still working.
I submit to you that this is one of the greatest unanswered questions in our lives that we ALL have the ability to answer whenever we want. All it takes is a little thing that we have to literally unlearn from our time as children how to use: our imagination. Napoleon Hill calls it “the creative power of the soul” and teaches that it is the foundation for all self-improvement and ultimate success because before it happens, you must, must, must imagine it first.
How were we robbed of this key to life? Who did this to us? And most importantly, how do we reclaim it?
We hear over and over again (sometimes) well-meaning phrases like “get real” or “stop dreaming” coupled with lies like “dreams don’t pay the bills” or “get your head out of the clouds” and countless other thoughts, phrases and general mistruths about the nature of one of life’s greatest assets. Flashback again to the answers we gave to that question on the first day of school: doctor, lawyer, scientist are great of course, but what about the others?? I’m talking dragon slayer, Queen of the Earth, King of America, race car driver, stunt driver, stunt man, astronaut, chocolate factory owner, ninja (my son’s favorite), super famous dancer, actor or singer, demolition guy, cowboy, super hero, time traveler and soooo many others. These are just a few of chosen professions we would do if we only used our imaginations. And I don’t mean as kids. I mean now.
Now think back to that moment when you realized you couldn’t fly and how that made you feel. Think of what happened when you realized Dad was the tooth fairy. Good news, because that feeling doesn’t have to be the one you associate with your imagination disappearing, because it never has to. And you don’t have to explain how you use it to anyone. Just be. Then use that imagination to power your dreams. Understand that imagination is also the raw material for dreams. Without it, you wouldn’t be reading this because there would be no internet. No electricity to power our non-existent MacBooks or software written in a computer language that hadn’t been invented in the textbook no one wrote, etc, etc.
Use and work out your imagination muscle just like your biceps or thighs or calfs because you never want your kids and all the kids of generations to come to forget how to use it. Use your imagination because you want to dream again about the things you love and all the things that could be (when combined with our other favorite four-letter word: work! but that’s another blog). But most importantly use it to imagine that best version of you. The one who excels at everything because you practice seeing the angles. The you that loves imagining doing all the things you want to do, then does them. Remember everything we want in life starts with imagining it first.
What is a True Friend?
What is a True Friend
[WORDS By: Sadiq Ali]
We often times hear the word friend being thrown around and most usually on social networks. Because of the pervasiveness and ubiquitous nature of these networks, many people have, unfortunately, began to use the word ‘friend’ interchangeably with less impactful and traditionally more sterile terms like follower, subscriber or connection. These words couldn’t be further from the definition, in my humble opinion, of what a true should be to us.
It has been said that friends are the family we choose and this remains one of my favorites thoughts on the subject. If we can choose, are we making as deliberate a choice as we do with something a tad less important like, say, our shoes for the day? Or how about what/where we will eat lunch? Life-changing decisions I know. But what I’m really referring to is a specific set of characteristics of what a true friend is and what a true friend isn’t.
I’ll start by saying it loud and clear that a true friend isn’t one that constantly strokes your ego. And please keep in mind that being mindful and conscious of one’s feelings isn’t the same as never delivering any constructive feedback or tough love. Surrounding yourself with “yes men” or “yes women” is a sure fire way to guarantee mediocrity in great abundance in your life. A true friend also doesn’t support you when you are blatantly wrong, behaving recklessly or placing yourself or others in jeopardy. A true will probably back you up in the moment, just enough so you are not injured or hurt, but will surely tell you about yourself later.
On the other hand a true friend also won’t discourage you from trying something risky that has a potentially life altering reward on the other side, just because you have never done or even attempted this task or project before. They will instead offer encouragement, confidence reinforcing tidbits, and may even join in to help make sure you don’t back out. In other words they stretch you and force you to become better. All too often it is the people closest to us that inadvertently and unintentionally plant seeds of self-doubt that then grow into full grown oak trees of non-accomplishment, all in the good name of our feelings and protecting us from ourselves in a big, bad, scary world.
It’s all but cliché now, the saying that you are the composite of your 5 closest friends, yet I still happen to believe this is very true. So the question is who are your top 5 friends and how are they helping you be better (and vice versa)? Are they being great accountability partners for you when you say you really want something, but your actions haven’t quite aligned? Are they telling you that you can and not that you shouldn’t? Are they giving you feedback to get better or do they all think you’re perfect? If your current ‘friends’ don’t fit the bill in any of these areas, it might be time to get some new followers.
Why EVERYONE Should Keep a Diary
[WORDS By: Sadiq Ali]
Now before we go and get all technical and men especially, all funny acting because I said diary, please feel free to exchange “diary” with “journal”. Now onwards! But the psychological, practical and overall virtues of beginning and maintaining a journal are so numerous I don’t know why I didn’t start journaling sooner.
This quick piece is all about why you need to start one today, no matter what you call it. The ‘journal journey’ started for me almost one full year ago. I had just started a men’s group where we meet regularly and discuss all manner of topics, and especially, how we push each other to be better daily. The suggestion was raised during one of our early meetings and it just clicked for me and made perfect sense. There are some thoughts you never share with anyone else, and some you have never even shared with you. Where do you end up sharing these innermost thoughts? Chances are you simply don’t. As a result, the necessary clarity to move on, problem solving to act or simply healing from not so great situations just doesn’t happen. This leads to all sorts of internal issues, and especially for men, strengthens our commitment and resolve to non-communication. Really healthy huh?
But the awesome thing is that everyone can reap the benefits of nine year-old little girls everywhere and their diaries. And speaking of nine year old little girls, did you ever wonder why they are so in touch with their emotions?? It’s because they both write down every emotion experienced AND talk about them with their BFFs. Somewhere between then and now, we learned to do neither as adults, and as a result some of us are really messed up. So if we aren’t going to communicate with our significant other, therapist or BFF, then we had better talk to ourselves. This is where the journal comes into play.
I’ve written about many situations in my personal life, business dealings and a variety of other topics and each time walk away with a great sense of resolve and lucidity that I lacked before putting pen to paper. There are also a bunch of other added bonuses. For starters, you get to practice one of the diminishing dark arts: cursive handwriting! Recent studies have shown that your penmanship is definitely getting worse with the increased influx of all things keyboard and touch screen related. This means unless you work on it, it will continue to decline, until generations later no one even knows what cursive is! It could happen.
The other added bonus is that you get to leave an awesome piece of your personal self behind to your loved ones when you pass on. In my case, I will be bequeathing my set of journals to my first born child. He will have the opportunity to read his father’s innermost thoughts before anyone else. The thought to do this just occurred to me one day as I wish had known some of what my late father was thinking when he was my age. But, he was called back to the essence before I got a chance to ask him those questions and more.
Take advantage of the time you have, while you have thoughts and get it out. You might even find yourself writing a love letter to your wife sometimes. This is when you know you’re thinking clearly.
