Friday, August 5, 2011

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMAGINATION/VISION

I once heard Coach Bob Knight at a clinic say that the greatest thing a player can have is an imagination.  I've always extended that to coaches as well.  An imagination quite simply is a wonderful tool to help you solve problems.  Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.  It is frightening to think where we would be be without men and women with imagination -- it is solution oriented thinking.  Without the ability to see what we have never seen before, technology would not exist, we would not have walked on the moon or cure various illnesses.

An imagination in coaching is about handling problems such as:

...no or little staff
...facility issues
...budget problems
...personnel matters (team is to small, to slow, not deep, etc)
...team situations (lack of chemistry or ability to shoot)

It will be your imagination that will allow you to envision where you want to be -- and then your determination and persistence that will allow you to get there.

Here some thoughts on imagination:

"Imagination is everything.  It is the preview of life's coming attractions." -Albert Einstein

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers." -Orison Swett Marden

"All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose." -Brian Tracy

"I am imagination. I can see what the eyes cannot see. I can hear what the ears cannot hear. I can feel what the heart cannot feel." -Peter Nivio Zarlenga

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." -Michelangelo

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." -George S. Patton

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." -George Orwell

"Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life." -Simone Weil

"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young." -W. Somerset Maugham

"Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity." -L. Frank Baum

"Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything." -Henry Miller

"Imagination rules the world." -Napoleon Bonaparte

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." -Carl Sagan