Personal Self Help

Think And Grow Rich
Step Five Imagination

This distinction is a critical understanding. I, or others, may haven chosen to label and explain, in our own writings, these distinctions in different ways, but the labels do not matter.


Most people, who claim to use their imagination, are using the type Hill called 'synthetic imagination'. It is of little use, save for personal entertainment. The great humanistic psychologist, William James, had this to say about the same subject:

All things, from the invention of writing to the invention of the Internet came about because of the use of creative imagination.

Synthetic imagination merely, at best, can improve upon what already exists.

The bringing of new things into existence requires the use of creative imagination.

The creation of wealth can be obtained, with diligence, through the informed and practical use of synthetic imagination (e.g. creating a better mouse trap), but most wealth and most advancement in human technology comes about through the use of creative imagination.

Succinctly put, your imagination is the workshop in which you, mostly without conscious recognition, create the results that show up in your life.

What you hold as an image in your mind is what shows up in your life.

If what you are imagining is simply a rehash of what has already occurred or been created by others, then your results shall be limited to what has been, not what can be.

The sad, sad, sad thing that we inflict upon our children and ourselves is the dampening of imagination.

Is the common refrain. We neglect to tell them or reinforce their personal self help and, help them understand, that all great and wonderful things that exist in our world, had their genesis 'only in imagination'.

Step Four Specialized Knowledge

Step Six Organised Planning