Imagination to build a better world
How does imagination feed our vision for personal, societal, professional and corporate change?
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum describes a '“generous spirit” of imagination where we can put ourselves in another’s shoes, imagine what it’s like to be someone different from ourselves, to take on some of their emotions and their thoughts to reach for a greater and mutual understanding.
Imagination feeds our ability to challenge the way we’ve always done things; in our personal and professional lives and through our business ambitions. By following its questioning gaze, we understand better why life is ‘as it is’ and build the critical thinking and reasoning skills to identify and action how it can be changed for positive good.
Without imagination, without challenging the preset ways of being, we would never have progressed in key areas such as reducing and making more transparent the gender pay gap, legalising gay marriage, forging a people’s movement for action on climate change, seeking a voice for indigenous Australians, and growing a more inclusive nation, world. We would never have hosted Sydney WorldPride 2023.
I think of imagination as a pathway for positive change. It rejects the notion of ‘absolutes’, of one way of seeing our world and of being forever bound by tradition. Instead, imagination is about engaging with ideas; new ways of ‘seeing’, fresh debates, nuance.
Fed by a curiosity about everything, it empowers us to challenge the stereotypes and prejudices we have inherited from human behaviour throughout history, to unpack that world view and place it under an investigative microscope, to ask ‘why’, and than, reshape (with the insights gathered), our own world view.
Imagination is fluid, welcoming new possibilities and opportunities, and because of that open-ness to independent thought, it is often a reliable guide to a better world, a better business. Developed as a professional and life skill, imagination makes us more adaptable to change, better able to become forward thinkers, to stay ahead of the times, perhaps even, our competitors.
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I offer a bespoke imagination program tailor-made for each client.
This offering includes imagination coaching and sessions where I facilitate an imaginative journey. All to promote team building, develop professional skills, foster creativity and innovation and importantly, to access the joy and happiness that comes from the laughter imagination breeds.
Contact me via DM or email dawn@imaginationsession.com for a free half-hour discovery call. I would welcome the chat.
