COACHING THE COACHES,
PART 18
by Jon Rappoport
Copyright © 2011 by Jon Rappoport
Many people are involved in the selling of quick-fixes to the population. A pill for this, a pill for that, a pill for everything. A two-hour seminar, after which you’ll somehow become a real estate genius. Having problems with your children? In two minutes, an expert can show you how to restore order to your home. Unhappy with your life? Repeat a positive affirmation for a month and you’ll be cured.
These are all, of course, marketing ploys. And they often work—in the sense that the marketers are happy.
Such schemes operate at about the level of intelligence of the mythical King Midas, who was granted the power to turn to gold whatever he touched. It never occurred to Midas that his food and his friends and his family would become indigestible and dead.
Imagination, which has been the core subject of this series, has many aspects. For example, it elevates and expands a person’s vision of his possible future. In other words, this vision isn’t a one-time shot.
If you can inhabit imagination, your most inspiring idea about what to do with your life grows. It widens. It develops new branches. It creates more space.
This process brings to light levels of feeling that had remained in the shadows. These feelings match the expansiveness of the vision. Over time, the entire character of a person’s emotional life changes. Which, when you think about it, is what people want in the first place. They want to feel different. They want gloom to be replaced by optimism. They want doubt to give way to confidence. They want cynicism to transform into joy.
Imagination gives you the initial idea about a new future, the initial vision. Living in imagination expands that vision. Living in imagination raises the entire level of emotional existence as you pursue the attainment of the vision.
This whole process is really the challenge of life, and the coach can help his client meet it.
This is, indeed, on a personal level, a revolution.
I’ve seen brilliant people settle for a thousandth of what they actually want in life. They apply their intelligence to the art of “fitting in.” Finding a niche. Exploiting a minor possibility. They’re convinced it’s the smart thing to do.
What this strategy amounts to is making an assessment of “what society has to offer.”
“Let’s see, I can do A,B, C, D, or E. These are the options open to me. Let me choose carefully.”
It’s looking at What Exists as opposed to What Could Be Created.
And since most people don’t take seriously the idea that they can create anything, they look for a system they can build a career in. A system that’s already there.
Having once enlisted in the system, their best efforts, after that point, will involve improving the system, usually in some tiny way.
And there they are.
This doesn’t make them happy, but they think it’s the best they can do, under the circumstances.
And then, as the years roll by, feeling unhappy, they might opt for some quick-fix sales pitch that promises instant gratification.
These quick fixes take a snapshot of one little corner of imagination and sell it back to the prospective customer.
“Here’s your own imagination—buy it. It’ll make you rich.”
For a moment or two, as long as it takes to punch in an 800 number and give credit-card numbers to an operator, the customer is looking at his own imagination and feeling a surge of possibility. A brief tingle.
But of course, he doesn’t understand the dynamic of what’s happening.
What I’m saying in this series is: let’s start with imagination and name it and describe it, because it’s the wellspring and the fountain and the force and the power that transforms life and emotion. Let’s start there. Let’s not opt for substitutes. Let’s not merely reflect back a snapshot or a symbol of one’s own imagination and call it a product for sale or a service for sale.
Let’s begin with the real thing, in all its majesty and variety.
If we do that, we soon see that the process by which one creates a future he truly and profoundly wants is ongoing. It’s the substance of a whole life. It’s a great adventure.
And the more a person engages and deploys his own imagination, the larger the field of success, the greater the odds of success. Over time, those odds keep stacking up higher and higher, in the person’s favor. With enough work and enough follow-through and enough sensible planning and execution, the result is so gratifying the person looks back and wonders how he could have ever thought of his life any differently—because This Is It.
Jon Rappoport
A former candidate for a US Congressional seat in California, Jon has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years. He has written articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. The author of The Ownership of All Life, Jon has maintained a consulting practice for the past 15 years. He has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, and creativity to audiences around the world.