Lesson Six - Imagination / Using Your Creative Abilities

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When Thomas A. Edison invented the incandescent electric light bulb he merely brought together two old, well known principles and associated them in a new combination.

 

Mr. Edison and practically all others who were informed on the subject of electricity, knew that a light could be produced by heating a small wire with electricity, but the difficult problem was to do this without burning the wire in two.

 

In his experimental research Mr. Edison tried out every conceivable sort of wire, hoping to find some substance that would withstand the tremendous heat to which it had to be subjected before a light could be produced.

 

His invention was half completed, but it was of no practical value until he could find the missing link that would supply the other half.

 

After thousands of tests and many combinations of old ideas,
using his imagination, Edison finally found this missing link.

 

In his study of physics he had learned, as all other students of this subject learn, that there can be no combustion without the presence of oxygen.

 

He knew that the difficulty with his electric light apparatus was the lack of a method through which to control the heat.

 

When it occurred to him that there could be no combustion where there was no oxygen he placed the little wire of his electric light apparatus inside of a glass globe, shut out all the oxygen, and lo and behold! the mighty incandescent light was a reality.

 

When the sun goes down tonight you step to the wall, press a button and bring  back the light again, a performance that would have mystified the people of a few generations ago, and yet there is no mystery back of your act.

 

Thanks to the use of Edison's imagination, humans have simply brought together two principles both of which were in existence since the beginning of time.

 

No one who knew him intimately ever accredited Andrew Carnegie with unusual ability, or the power of genius, except in one respect, and that was his ability to select men who could and would co-operate in a spirit of harmony, in carrying out his wishes.

 

But what additional ability did he need in the accumulation of his millions of dollars?

 

Any man who understands the principle of organized effort, as Carnegie understood it, and knows enough about men to be able to select just those types that are needed in the performance of a given task, could duplicate all that Carnegie accomplished.

 

Carnegie was a man of imagination. He first created a definite purpose and then surrounded himself with men who had 'the training and the vision and the capacity necessary for the transformation of that purpose into reality.

 

Carnegie did not always create his own plans for the attainment of his definite purpose. He made it his business to know what he wanted, then found the men who could create plans through which to procure it. And that was not only imagination, it was genius of the highest order. But it should be made clear that men of Mr. Carnegie's type are not the only ones who can make profitable use of imagination.

 

This great power is as available to the beginner in business

as it is to the man who has "arrived."

 

One morning Charles M. Schwab's private car was backed on the side-track at his Bethlehem Steel plant. As he alighted from his car he was met by a young man stenographer who announced that he had come to make sure that any letters or telegrams Mr. Schwab might wish to write would be taken care of promptly.

 

No one told this young man to be on hand, but he had enough imagination to see that his being there would not hurt his chances of advancement.

 

From that day on, this young man was "marked" for promotion. Mr. Schwab singled him out for promotion because he had done that which any of the dozen or so other stenographers in the employ of the Bethlehem Steel Company might have done, but didn't.

 

Today this same man is the president of one of the largest drug store concerns in the world and has all of this world's goods and wares that he wants and much more than he needs.

 

A few years ago I received a letter from a young man who had just finished Business College, and who wanted to secure employment in my office. With his letter he sent a crisp ten-dollar bill that had never been folded.

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The letter read as follows; 

- I have just finished a commercial course in a first-class business college and I want a position in your office because I realize how much it would be worth to a young man, just starting out on his business career, to have the privilege of working under the direction of a man like you. If the enclosed ten-dollar bill is sufficient to pay for the time you would spend in giving me my first week's instructions I want you to accept it. I will work the first month without pay and you may set my wages after that at whatever I prove to be worth. I want this job more than I ever wanted anything in my life and I am willing to make any reasonable sacrifice to get it. - 

 

This young man got his chance in my office. His imagination gained for him the opportunity that he wanted, and before his first month had expired the president of a life insurance company who heard of this incident offered the young man a private secretary-ship at a substantial salary. He is today an official of one of the largest life insurance companies in the world.

 

Some years ago a young man wrote to Thomas A. Edison for a position. For some reason Mr. Edison did not reply.

 

By no means discouraged on this account the young man made up his mind that he would not only get a reply from Mr. Edison, but what was more important still, he would actually secure the position he sought.

 

He lived a long distance from West Orange, New Jersey, where the Edison industries are located, and he did not have the money with which to pay his railroad fare. But he did have imagination.

 

He went to West Orange in a freight car, got his interview, told his story in person and got the job he sought.

 

This same man has since retired from active business, having made all the money he needs. His name, in case you wish to confirm my statements, is Edwin C. Barnes.

 

By using his imagination, Mr. Barnes saw the advantage of close association with a man like Thomas A. Edison. He saw that such an association would give him the opportunity to study Mr. Edison, and at the same time it would bring him in contact with Mr. Edison's friends, who are among the most influential people of the world.

 

These are but a few cases in connection with which I have personally observed how men have climbed to high places in the world and accumulated wealth in abundance by making practical use of their imagination.

 

Theodore Roosevelt engraved his name on the tablets of time by one single act during his tenure of office as President of the United States, and after all else that he did while in that office will have been forgotten this one transaction will record him in history as a man of imagination.

 

He started the steam shovels to work on the Panama Canal.

 

Every President, from Washington on up to Roosevelt, could have started the canal and it would have been completed, but it seemed such a colossal undertaking that it required not only imagination but daring courage as well.

 

Roosevelt had both, and the people of the United States have the canal.

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At the age of forty - the age at which the average man begins to think he is too old to start anything new - James J. Hill was still sitting at the telegraph key, at a salary of $30.00 per month. He had no capital. He had no influential friends with capital, but he did have that which is more powerful than either - imagination.

 

In 1870's, his mind's eye he saw a great railway system that would penetrate the undeveloped northwest and unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

 

So vivid was his imagination that he made others see the advantages of such a railway system, and from there on the story is familiar enough to every school-boy.

 

I would emphasize the part of the story that most people never mention that

Hill's Great Northern Railway system became a reality in his own imagination first. 

 

The railroad was built with steel rails and wooden cross ties, just as other railroads are built, and these things were paid for with capital that was secured in very much the same manner that capital for all railroads is secured, but if you want the real story of James J. Hill's success you must go back to that little country railway station where he worked at $30.00 a month and there pick up the little threads that he wove into a mighty railroad, with materials no more visible than the thoughts which he organized in his imagination.

 

What a mighty power is imagination, the workshop of the soul, in which thoughts are woven into railroads, skyscrapers, timber mills, factories and all manner of material wealth.

 

I hold it true that thoughts are things;

They're endowed with bodies, breath and wings; 

And that we send them forth to fill

The world with good results or ill.

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That which we call our secret thought

Speeds forth to earth's remotest spot,

Leaving its blessings or its woes,

Like tracks behind it as it goes.

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We build our future, thought by thought,

For good or ill, yet know it not,

Yet so the universe was wrought.

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Thought is another name for fate;

Choose, then, thy destiny and wait,

For love brings love and hate brings hate.

 

If your imagination is the mirror of your soul, then you have a perfect right to stand before that mirror and see yourself as you wish to be. You have the right to see reflected in that magic mirror the mansion you intend to own, the factory you intend to manage, the bank of which you intend to be president, the station in life you intend to occupy.

 

Your imagination belongs to you! Use it!

The more you use it the more efficiently it will serve you.

 

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At the east end of the great Brooklyn Bridge, in New York City, an old man conducts a cobbler shop.

 

When the engineers began driving stakes and marking the foundation place for that great steel structure this man shook his head and said "It can't be done!"

 

Now he looks out from his dingy little shoe-repair shop, shakes his head and asks himself: "How did they do it?"

 

He saw the bridge grow before his very eyes and still he lacks the imagination to analyze that which he saw.

 

The engineer who planned the bridge saw it a reality long before a single shovel of dirt had been removed for the foundation stones. The bridge became a reality in his imagination because he had trained that imagination to weave new combinations out of old ideas.

 

Through recent experiments in the department of electricity one of our great educational institutions of America has discovered how to put flowers to sleep and wake them up again, with electric "sunlight."

 

This discovery makes possible the growth of vegetables and flowers without the aid of sunshine.

 

City dwellers will be raising a crop of vegetables on his back porch, with the aid of a few boxes of dirt and a few electric lights, with some new vegetable maturing every month of the year.

 

This new discovery, plus a little imagination, plus Luther Burbank's discoveries in the field of horticulture, and lo and behold! the city dweller will not only grow vegetables all the year around, within the confines of his back porch, but he will grow bigger vegetables than any which the modern gardener grows in the open sunlight.

 

In one of the cities on the coast of California all of the land that was suitable for building lots had been developed and put into use.

 

On one side of the city there were some steep hills that could not be used for building purposes, and on the other side the land was unsuitable for buildings because it was so low that the back-water covered it once a day.

 

A man of imagination came to this city. Men of imagination usually have keen minds, and this man was no exception.

 

The first day of his arrival he saw the possibilities for making money out of real estate.

1. He secured an option on those hills that were unsuitable for use because of their steepness.

2. He also secured an option on the ground that was unsuitable for use because of the back-water that covered it daily.

He secured these options at a very low price because the ground was supposed to be without substantial value.

 

With the use of a few tons of explosives he turned those steep hills into loose dirt.

 

With the aid of a few tractors and some road scrapers he leveled the ground down and turned it into beautiful building lots, and with the aid of a few mules and carts he dumped the surplus dirt on the low ground and raised it above the water level, thereby turning it into beautiful building lots.

 

He made a substantial fortune, for what?

For moving some dirt from where it was not needed to where it was needed!

For mixing some useless dirt with imagination!

 

The people of that little city gave this man credit for being a genius; and he was - the same sort of genius that any one of them could have been had he used their imagination as this man used his.

 

In the field of chemistry it is possible to mix two or more chemical ingredients in such proportions that the mere act of mixing gives each of the ingredients a tremendous amount of energy that it did not before possess.

 

It is also possible to mix certain chemical ingredients in such proportions that all the ingredients of the combination take on an entirely different nature, as in the case of H2O, which is a mixture of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, creating water.

 

Chemistry is not the only field in which a combination of various physical materials can be so assembled that each takes on a greater value, or the result is a product entirely foreign in nature to that of its component parts.

 

The man who blew up those useless hills of dirt & stone then removed the surplus from where it was not needed over to the low-land where it was needed, gave that dirt and stone a value that it did not have before.

 

A ton of pig-iron is worth but little. Add to that pig-iron carbon, silicon, manganese, sulphur and phosphorus, in the right proportions, and you have transformed it into steel, which is of much greater value.

 

Add still other substances, in the right proportion, including some skilled labor, and that same ton of steel is transformed into watch-springs worth a small fortune.

 

But, in all these transformation processes the one ingredient that
is worth most is the one that has no material form - imagination!

 

Here lie great piles of loose brick, lumber, nails and glass. In its present form it is worse than useless for it is a nuisance and an eye-sore. To most people this is just junk and debris. But mix it with the architect's imagination and add some skilled labor and lo and behold! it becomes a beautiful mansion worth a king's ransom.

 

On one of the great highways between New York and Philadelphia stood an old ramshackle, time-worn barn, worth less than fifty dollars.

 

With the aid of a little lumber and some cement, plus imagination, this old barn has been turned into a beautiful automobile supply station that earns a small fortune for the man who supplied the imagination.

 

Across the street from my office is a little printshop that earns coffee and rolls for its owner and his helper, but no more.

 

Less than a dozen blocks away stands one of the most modern printing plants in the world, whose owner spends most of his time traveling and has far more wealth than he will ever use.

 

Two printers were in business together. The one who owns the big print-shop had the good judgment to ally himself with a man who mixed imagination with printing. This man of imagination is a writer of advertisements and he keeps the printing plant with which he is associated supplied with more business than it can handle by analyzing its clients' business, creating attractive advertising features and supplying the necessary printed material with which to make these features of service.

 

This plant receives top-notch prices for its printing because the imagination mixed with that printing produces a product that most printers cannot supply.

 

 

As you read these lines please keep in mind all that was stated in the beginning of this lesson; especially the fact that the greatest and most profitable thing you can do with your imagination is the act of rearranging old ideas in new combinations.

 

If you properly use your imagination it will help you convert your failures and mistakes into assets of priceless value; it will lead you to discovery of a truth known only to those who use their imagination; namely, that the greatest reverses and misfortunes of life often open the door to golden opportunities.

 

One of the finest and most highly paid engravers in the United States was formerly a mail-carrier.

 

One day he was fortunate enough to be on a street car that met with an accident and had one of his legs cut off. The street railway company paid him $5,000.00 for his leg.

 

With this money he paid his way through school and became an engraver. The product of his hands, plus his imagination, is worth much more than he could earn with his legs, as a mail-carrier. He discovered that he had imagination when it became necessary to re-direct his efforts, as a result of the street car accident.

 

You will never know what is your capacity for achievement until you

learn how to mix your efforts with imagination.

 

The products of your hands, minus imagination, will yield you but a small return, but those selfsame hands, when properly guided by imagination, can be made to earn you all the material wealth you can use.

 

There are two ways in which you can profit by imagination.

1. You can develop this faculty in your own mind, or

2. You can ally yourself with those who have already developed it.

 

Andrew Carnegie did both.

 

He not only made use of his own fertile imagination, but he gathered around him a group of other men who also possessed this essential quality, for his definite purpose in life called for specialists whose imagination ran in numerous directions.

 

In that group of men that constituted Mr. Carnegie's "master mind" were men whose imaginations were confined to the field of chemistry. He had other men in the group whose imaginations were confined to finances. He had still others whose imaginations were confined to salesmanship, one of whom was Charles M. Schwab, who is said to have been the most able salesman on Mr. Carnegie's staff.

 

If you feel that your own imagination is inadequate you should form an alliance with someone whose imagination is sufficiently developed to supply your deficiency.

 

There are various forms of alliance. For example,

• there is the alliance of marriage and

• the alliance of a business partnership and

• the alliance of friendship and

• the alliance of employer and employee.

 

Not all men have the capacity to serve their own best interests as employers, and those who haven't this capacity may profit by allying themselves with men of imagination who have such capacity.

 

It is said that Mr. Carnegie made more millionaires for his employees than any other employer in the steel business. Among these was Charles M. Schwab, who displayed evidence of the soundest sort of imagination by his good judgment in allying himself with Mr. Carnegie.

 

It is no disgrace to serve in the capacity of employee. To the contrary, it often proves to be the most profitable side of an alliance since not all men are fitted to assume the responsibility of directing other men.

 

Perhaps there is no field of endeavor in which imagination plays such an important part as it does in salesmanship.

 

The master salesman sees the merits of the goods he sells or the service he is rendering, in his own imagination, and if he fails to do so he will not make many sales.

 

A few years ago a sale was made which is said to have been the most far-reaching and important sale of its kind ever made. The object of the sale was not merchandise, but the freedom of a man who was confined in the Ohio penitentiary and the development of a prison reform system that promises a sweeping change in the method of dealing with unfortunate men and women who have become entangled in the meshes of the law.

 

That you may observe just how imagination plays the leading part in salesmanship I will analyze this sale for you. A few years ago I was invited to speak before the inmates of the Ohio penitentiary. When I stepped upon the platform I saw in the audience before me a man whom I had known as a successful business man, more than ten years previously.

 

That man was B_, whose pardon I later secured, and the story of whose release has been spread upon the front page of practically every newspaper in the United States.

 

After I had completed my address I interviewed Mr. B_ and found out that he had been sentenced for forgery, for a period of twenty years.

 

After he had told me his story I said: "I will have you out of here in less than sixty days!"

 

With a forced smile he replied: "I admire your spirit but question your judgment. Why, do you know that at least twenty influential men have tried every means at their command to get me released, without success? It can't be done!"

 

I suppose it was that last remark - It can't be done - that challenged me to show him that it could be done.

 

I returned to New York City and requested my wife to pack her trunks and get ready for an indefinite stay in the city of Columbus, where the Ohio penitentiary is located. I had a definite purpose in mind! That purpose was to get B_ out of the Ohio penitentiary. Not only did I have in mind securing his release, but I intended to do it in such a way that his release would erase from his breast the scarlet letter of "convict" and at the same time reflect credit upon all who helped to bring about his release.

 

Not once did I doubt that I would bring about his release,

for no salesman can make a sale if he doubts that he can do it.

 

My wife and I returned to Columbus and took up permanent headquarters. The next day I called on the governor of Ohio and stated the object of my visit in about these words: "Governor: I have come to ask you to release B_ from the Ohio penitentiary. I have sound reason for asking his release and I hope you will give him his freedom at once, but I have come prepared to stay until he is released, no matter how long that may be."

 

"During his imprisonment B__ has inaugurated a system of correspondence instruction in the Ohio penitentiary, as you of course already know. He has influenced 1729 of the 2518 prisoners of the Ohio penitentiary to take up courses of instruction. He has managed to beg sufficient textbooks and lesson materials with which to keep these men at work on their lessons, and has done this without a penny of expense to the state of Ohio. The warden and the chaplain of the penitentiary tell me that he has carefully observed the prison rules. Surely a man who can influence 1729 men to turn their efforts towards their efforts toward self-betterment cannot be a very bad sort of fellow."

 

"I have come to ask you to release B_ because I wish to place him at the head of a prison school that will give the 160,000 inmates of the other penitentiaries of the United States a chance to profit by his influence. I am prepared to assume full responsibility for his conduct after his release."

 

"That is my case, but, before you give me your answer, I want you to know that I am not unmindful of the fact that your enemies will probably criticize you if you release him; in fact if you release him it may cost you many votes if you run for office again."

 

With his fist clinched and his broad jaw set firmly Governor Vic Donahey of Ohio said:

"If that is what you want with B_ I will release him if it costs me five thousand votes. However, before I sign the pardon I want you to see the Clemency Board and secure its favorable recommendation. I want you also to secure the favorable recommendation of the warden and the chaplain of the Ohio penitentiary. You know a governor is amenable to the Court of Public Opinion, and these gentlemen are the representatives of that Court."

 

The sale had been made! The whole transaction had required less than five minutes.

 

The next day, I returned to the governor's office, accompanied by the chaplain of the Ohio penitentiary, and notified the governor that the Clemency Board, the Warden and the Chaplain all joined in recommending the release.

 

Three days later the pardon was signed and B_ walked through the big iron gates, a free man.

 

I have cited the details to show you that there was nothing difficult about the transaction. The groundwork for the release had all been prepared before I came upon the scene. B_ had done that, by his good conduct and the service he had rendered those 1729 prisoners.

 

When he created the world's first prison correspondence school system he created the key that unlocked the prison doors for himself.

 

Why, then, had the others who asked for his release failed to secure it? They failed because they used no imagination!

 

Perhaps they asked the governor for B_'s release on the ground that his parents were prominent people, or on the ground that he was a college graduate and not a bad sort of fellow.

 

They failed to supply the governor of Ohio with a sufficient motive to justify him in granting a pardon, for had this not been so he would undoubtedly have released B_ long before I came upon the scene and asked for his release.

 

Before I went to see the governor I went over all the facts and in my own imagination. I saw myself in the governor's place and made up my mind what sort of a presentation would appeal most strongly to me if I were in reality in his place.

 

When I asked for B_'s release I did so in the name of the 160,000 unfortunate men and women inmates of the prisons of the United States who would enjoy the benefits of the correspondence school system that he had created.

 

I said nothing about his prominent parents. I said nothing about my friendship with him during former years. I said nothing about his being a deserving fellow. All these matters might have been used as sound reasons for his release, but they seemed insignificant when compared with the bigger and sounder reason that his release would be of help to 160,000 other people who would feel the influence of his correspondence school system after his release.

 

When the governor of Ohio came to a decision. I doubt not, that B_ was of secondary importance as far as his decision was concerned. The governor no doubt saw a possible benefit, not to B_ alone, but to 160,000 other men and women who needed the influence that B_ could supply, if released.

 

And that was imagination! It was also salesmanship!

 

In speaking of the incident after it was over, one of the men who had worked diligently for more than a year in trying to secure B_'s freedom, asked: "How did you do it?" And I replied: "It was the easiest task I ever performed, because most of the work had been done before I took hold of it. In fact I didn't do it B_ did it himself."

 

This man looked at me in bewilderment. He did not see that which I am here trying to make clear; namely, that practically all difficult tasks are easily performed if one approaches them from the right angle.

 

There were two important factors entering B_'s release.

1. The first was the fact that he had supplied the material for a good case before I took it in charge; and

2. The second was the fact that before I called on the governor of Ohio I so completely convinced myself that I had a right to ask for B_'s release that I had no difficulty in presenting my case effectively.

 

Go back to what was stated in the beginning of this lesson, on the subject of telepathy, and apply it to this case.

 

The governor could tell, long before I had stated my mission, that I knew I had a good case.

 

If my brain did not telegraph this thought to his brain, then the look of self-confidence in my eyes and the positive tone of my voice made obvious my belief in the merits of my case.

 

I disclaim all credit for the small part I played in the case, for I did nothing except use my imagination as an assembly room in which to piece together the factors out of which the sale was made. I did nothing except that which any salesman of imagination could have done.

 

It requires considerable courage to prompt one to use the personal pronoun as freely as it has been used in relating the facts connected with this case, but justification lies in the value of application of the principle of imagination to a case with which nearly everybody is familiar.

 

I cannot recall an incident in my entire life in connection with which the soundness of the fifteen factors that enter into this Course was more clearly manifested than it was in securing the release of B_.

 

It is but another link in a long chain of evidence that proves to my entire satisfaction the power of imagination as a factor in salesmanship.

 

There are endless millions of approaches to every problem, but there is only one best approach. Find this one best approach and your problem is easily solved.

 

No matter how much merit your goods may have, there are millions of wrong ways in which to offer them.

 

Your imagination will assist you in finding the right way.

 

In your search for the right way in which to offer your merchandise or your services, remember this peculiar trait of mankind:

 

Men will grant favors that you request for the benefit of a third person

when they would not grant them if requested for your benefit.

 

Compare this statement with the fact that I asked the governor of Ohio to release B_, not as a favor to me, and not as a favor to B_, but, for the benefit of 160,000 unfortunate inmates of the prisons of America.

 

Salesmen of imagination always offer their wares in such terminology that the advantages of those wares to the prospective purchaser are obvious.

 

It is seldom that any man makes a purchase of merchandise or renders another a favor just to accommodate the salesman.

 

It is a prominent trait of human nature that prompts us all to do that which advances our own interests. This is a cold, indisputable fact. 

 

To be perfectly plain, men are selfish!

 

To understand the truth is to understand how to present your case, whether you are asking for the release of a man from prison or offering for sale some commodity.

 

In your own imagination so plan your presentation of your case that the strongest and most impelling advantages to the buyer are made plain. This is imagination!

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Lesson Six - Imagination / Using Your Creative Abilities

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