I’ve been thinking about the power of visualization lately, so I turned the pages of one of my favorite books on the subject – Visualization, Directing the Movies of Your Mind, by Adelaide Bry.
Stumbled on this book years ago in a funny way. The business school I studied at made the students attend a Saturday seminar each semester. For some reason, on one Saturday, the school invited a speaker to talk about how to create what you wanted in life through visualization. He referenced this book.
Reading some of the pages again reminded me why I enjoy the book. There are some great stories of kids increasing their reading scores through visualization. And the author tells us that directing movies in your mind is an exercise that improves the right side of your brain. I adore her analogy of the brain; the right side... it knows and here’s why.
"Imagine a long freight train moving down a railroad track as seen by two people from very different vantage points. One person is standing on the ground, about three feet from the track, and is looking directly ahead of him at the train as it passes. Out of the corners of his eye he can glimpse that part of the train that has already passed as well as that part which will pass momentarily. Mostly what he sees is what is passing in front of him from moment to moment... This is the way the left, or logical, side of the brain functions.
Imagine, now, another person watching that same train at the same time. This person is high up in the air, perhaps in a balloon. From her vantage point above the train she perceives it entirely differently from the person on the ground. Instead of seeing it one car at a time, she sees it all at once. This intuitive, all-at-once, holistic view is the way the right side of the brain functions."
Ambidextrous business people are able to switch between both vantage points, seeing the details and the big picture.