Walk along Ocean Drive in Fort Lauderdale and you will see several signs that announce a Margaritaville Beach Resort is coming soon.
The building is under construction, with bare concrete blocks rising up from the sandy beach giving shape to the eventual enclave that is set to open in July 2015. Surrounding the property is a fence decorated with artistically rendered illustrations of what the finished resort will look like, complete with cartoon versions of a parrot, a pool, and a palm tree.
Those signs do more for generating interest in that property than just about anything else could. The reason? Anyone who happens to see those renderings now has a fixed image in their mind about the property, which in turn will spark all manners of action-oriented fantasies including telling others about it, coming for a visit, and even investing in the resort.
Show Us the Future to Manifest the Future
So much of success in business and life comes from having the ability to capture the imagination. By putting up illustrations of the finished product months before it’s completed, the company behind that resort is leveraging a powerful creative problem solving mechanism that lives within each of us: the ability to imagine something that doesn’t yet exist, which in turn can set in motion all sorts of actions that lead to finding solutions to big problems.
Hollywood has utilized this tactic for decades with its previews of coming attractions tacked on to current films and television programs, often months in advance of their actual release dates. These digital coming soon signs trigger audience excitement and anticipation that can be capitalized on in any number of ways including merchandising and selling ad space, not to mention keeping hungry viewers stacked deep in their entertainment pipeline.
When we can see what the outcome or result we’re striving for might look like before it happens, the odds of us actually manifesting said outcome go up exponentially. Dr. Maxwell Maltz studied the power of imagination on people throughout his career in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, only to discover the following:
“Human beings always act and feel and perform in accordance with what they imagine to be true about themselves and their environment.”
Exercise the Imagination to Solve Pressing Problems
It would logically follow, then, that devoting some time to crafting a coming soon sign that showcases a solution to a problem you are currently facing in your life, career, or business could yield massive returns on solving that problem down the road. By catching a glimpse of what the future could look like with that problem no longer being an issue, the chances of what you see in your mind’s eye coming to fruition increase significantly.
Successful creative problem solving is often nothing more than a well-designed exercise in imagination. Try this the next time you find yourself or your team up against a log jam: imagine and then create a coming soon sign complete with illustrations or visuals of what your life and your environment could look like with the problem eradicated. Be as specific as possible, and make sure to have some fun with it.
You might even go so far as to add a parrot, a pool and a palm tree to your sign. After all — you never know what could end up being the linchpin to moving past the problem once and for all.
