Pop culture is a useful place to glean messages and insight—truth is truth regardless the source. “I Woke up Like This” a lyrical parody by Beyoncé, is a trending thought when dealing with the individual truth of personal presentation to the world. While I am not not suggesting you look up the lyrics, I do suggest you allow me to present some truths about personal leadership and the importance of vision in the absence of a desirable tangible reality—in other words; what is in your head is your created reality without your conscious consent. You are a visionary.
The Difference Between Sight and Vision
Alarm goes off. You roll out of bed. Drag yourself into the bathroom to do you your business. You pass by the mirror and you see a person who has a puffy face, wild hair, somewhat cross-eyed, wrinkled clothes and all around disheveled appearance. You see you, yet you do not identify with the reflection as being the absolute ending or your truth. Vision. Rather, you see in your mind the person you will create over the next hour—your truth of what you identify with at the core of who you are.
You have heard it before, there is a difference between sight and vision. The same way every morning you see yourself, your partner, your children look a hot mess upon waking is the same way you see your life situation. You create a reality daily. You create the package you envision daily. You see where you are now—the equivalent to how you look upon waking, you must now stand in the mirror of your life’s reality and not connect with what you see, but create what is seen in the truth of your divine imagination.
The Distinction Between Image and Imagine
Image is the root of imagine and imagination. It is a picture. It is the product. Imagine is the activity of pictures you have stored in your mind. Imagination is the place of creation. Imagination is the root and origination of the image you give to the world—the details of how you live out your life. What happens is our image and our imagination tend to be in competition rather than cooperation. The two should compliment each other, the two are cohorts, meant to exist in harmony and not discord. The place the war is lived out is in the activity of imagining.
Imagine is a verb. It is the doer and doing of the processes of creation and innovation. Image is a noun, and therefore is stationary, built up or torn down by what we allow ourselves to imagine. A picture of this in a simple action is a haircut, or hair color or a change of clothes. You create the change by what you imagine—you can manipulate any image in your life to become something else; quickly. The image that is being lived out is really a canvas waiting for the brush strokes of required actions of what is imagined to create masterpieces that are seen in the secrets of your imagination.
The Determination Between ‘Buy In’ or ‘Bow Out’
You woke up like this. You came to yourself. You accepted this. That human being staring back at you—is this you? OR is the person who will be walking out of the door in an hour—you? See the correlation, the connection, the same way you refuse to buy into that early morning image is the same way you must refuse the topical image of every changeable situation in your environment. You ‘fix up’ your presentation to the world, and you must do the same to every disheveled, unkempt, and unruly reflection staring back at you. The power of the bow-out; gracefully declining the images through ignoring them and creating the scenes of your imagination. The power of the bow-out; declaring, “no” to all misrepresentations of the truth of your potential. Unlimited potential. Powerfully creative potential.
You Woke Up Like This
The person walking out of the door, fully presentable, is not a figment of your imagination but rather a creation of your vision. You are a seer. You see deep into the realms of possibility and extract truths—powerful truth by which you build the empire of your lived experience. Whether you can admit it or not—you woke up like this. You came alive like this. You were born for this. You created this. You are a visionary.
Growing Bright Ideas 