MY STORY WITH IMAGINATION
From a young age, I was interested in success and money. I always wanted to be rich, rich, rich. Luckily over the years I have learned that money is just a tool to create a better world for all of us to live in. Money really is just an idea backed by confidence and nothing more. Confidence that someone will give you something in exchange for your money. That’s it.
I started my first business when I was 19 years old. I “bought” a franchise of College Pro Painters. As you can see it was not such a good idea and I left at the end of the summer owing them $28,000 or more and a bunch of credit card debt. I ended up filing bankruptcy shortly after. 
AN EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS AND IMAGINATION
Since then I started over 19 other businesses and have had mostly failures. Some never got off the ground, some never made it more than a month, some ended poorly in lawsuits, some I just gave up on, and a few were successful.
Where does Imagination play into all this? Well I’ll give you an example. One time I was hired as a project manager for a commercial moving company. About 7 months into the job the owner told me he was selling the company. The next words out of my mouth came almost without my control. “Well, I’ll buy it.”
So I committed, then I had to figure out how to pay the man. I had no real assets, no credit to speak of, and I worked for him for a salary of $40k per year. So, rather than saying, “Well I just don’t have the money,” I thought “There has to be a way.” A quick Google search told me I could use this thing called owner financing. So I went to the gentleman, pitched the idea, and he agreed. I was immediately in $145k debt, and my own boss. Now some factors played in that did not allow me to be successful in that business.
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I did not do good due diligence
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I was a raging alcoholic
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I let my Imagination die after I completed the purchase and did not use it to grow the business.
DRUGS, ALCOHOL, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF IMAGINATION
Drugs and alcohol are the KILLERS of Imagination. Anyone who tells you they are more creative when they are high is lying to you. This is absolutely not true. Creativity and Imagination are like muscles - they grow as you use them. They mature like you do. As you learn they grow with you.
Imagination is simply the ability to see something not yet created. Action makes it a reality. Had I took the problems I was having in that business and imagined a new way to market, or a way to beef up what we were doing I would still have the business and it would be making 10’s of millions of dollars a year. Instead, one bump in the road caused me to drink myself into a stupor day after day and give up. 8 people lost their jobs because of it and I lost a big court battle and made an absolute fool of myself.
Now in my new business, after selling my last successful business for $250k paid out in monthly installments over 2 years I am putting my Imagination to the test. Every road block I come into is a hurdle to get over, not a stop. I never stop. I always imagine a better future and push towards it.
My Imagination in business and in writing kids books is amazing. It flourishes - especially early in the morning. That is when I write all my kids books, content, etc. In fact I am writing this at 7:34AM, which is about 1.5 hours later than I really like (no excuses though, keep writing).
Imagination is more important than anyone gives it credit for. Society will squash your imagination, schools will stop it all together, corporate thought patterns will keep you from using it. You must build your Imagination, and you must be able to build and protect the imagination of kids if we have a chance at not blowing this whole planet to smithereens. I know these are giant claims, but Grant Cardone would say to make those kinds of claims and then back them with massive action.
Check out our massive action on this topic here. Support us in bringing Imagination to the world.
