One Question Friday: How Do You Keep Your Imagination Alive?

I think that everybody is using their imagination everyday, but you just don't recognize it, because when you're a kid, your imagination is about fun and possibilities and magical fantasy lands, and when you're an adult, your imagination is actually manifest as stress.

Instead of making a list, which is like a text format, I use the brain the way the brain actually works ... A brain is a more visual system ... When I think about what I want to do—my tasks, my goals, stuff like that—I don't make lists; I make scenes, like scenes in a movie.

People are like, 'Hey, you do a lot of public speaking. What's a tip to get better?' And this is what I always say: I say, don't think about what you need to say; first, start by imagining the reaction at the end.

We are constantly imagining negative scenarios happening. This is very common in adults. And how do you feel when you imagine these things? You feel anxious, you feel stressed, you feel depressed. These are all code words for the same thing: fear, and fear only takes place in the imagination.

The problem is imagination is a muscle that we haven't used consciously since we were kids ... How often are we actually intentionally trying to improve our imagination? It is a muscle that's just been weakening and atrophying since we were, like, 5-years-old.