Jim Whitt, Contributing Editor

What Are You Doing Here?

My friend Bob Workman was reading a book while waiting for his plane to take off. The book – The Secret by Rhonda Byrne — is about the law of attraction. Bob had just finished a passage on the power of visualization and decided to put the principle to the test. The idea is to visualize what you want and that mental picture will become reality. Bob was sitting in the aisle seat and the center and window seats in his row were empty. So he decided that he would create the ideal travel companion in his mind’s eye. He visualized a drop-dead-gorgeous blonde (female, Bob was quick to point out) sitting next to him. Before I go any further I feel compelled to tell you this was strictly a clinical experiment on Bob’s part; he is happily married to his wife, Trena (at least until she reads this).

Bob closed his eyes and got serious about visualizing his imaginary friend. He glanced up from his daydream and noticed the plane was quickly filling up. It was just about time for takeoff and no one was showing up to fit the description of his vision. Finally, the only two seats left empty on the plane were the ones next to Bob. Again, Bob closed his eyes and continued visualizing with an even greater sense of urgency. He sneaked one last peek and what do you suppose appeared walking down the aisle? A drop-dead-gorgeous blonde. She stood directly in front of him, pointed to the window and said, “That’s my seat.” Bob smiled and replied matter-of-factly, “I know. I’ve been expecting you.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is amazing! But wait, there’s more to come. Bob said that after the young lady was seated he looked up to discover a young man standing next to him. He pointed to the empty space between Bob and the blonde and said, “That’s my seat.” Bob wasn’t expecting him. So, the only thing standing, or sitting in this case, between Bob and his perfectly envisioned travel companion was her husband. Bob said he learned a valuable lesson in visualization. You need to be very specific.

The laws of attraction and visualization are not newly discovered concepts. In 1956, Earl Nightingale made the first-ever personal-development audio recording entitled The Strangest Secret . Nightingale said the only thing that all of the wise men, teachers, philosophers and prophets throughout history have completely and unanimously agreed upon is this — we become what we think about . As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

I just read an article about the Black Hills of South Dakota by Christopher Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times that is a testament to the power of the human imagination. He started the piece writing about what comes to mind when most of us think about the Black Hills — Mount Rushmore. But then Reynolds goes on to tell — as Paul Harvey would say — the rest of the story.

In 1939, two years before Mount Rushmore would be completed, Chief Henry Standing Bear was looking for someone to carve a monument of Crazy Horse, the Sioux chief who orchestrated Custer’s Last Stand. Crazy Horse never signed a treaty, never left the Plains, never learned English and never lived on a reservation. He was a living lesson in the qualities of independence and perseverance. Chief Standing Bear contacted Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish immigrant, about sculpting the likeness of Crazy Horse. Ziolkowski proved to be a man after Crazy Horse’s heart. Instead of just carving the top 100 feet of Thunder Mountain as originally planned, he decided to transform the whole mountain into Crazy Horse on horseback — and he insisted on doing it without any federal assistance. So, to pay the bills he took private commissions and ran a dairy farm and a sawmill. Ziolkowski must have deplored idleness because he also fathered 10 children with Ruth, his second wife. Seven of the 10 continue to work on the Crazy Horse project, even though their father passed away nearly 25 years ago. But he left them with a favorite saying, “Never forget your dreams.” They must have believed him because, while the project is 60 years in the making, it’s not even close to being completed.

Ziolkowski’s story reminds me of a study conducted years ago that asked senior citizens, all over 90 years old, what they would do if they could “do it all over again.” Imagine the perspective of people who know their days could be numbered in single digits. When the results were compiled the consensus was they would take more risks, take more time to reflect and leave a contribution to society that would outlive them. Korczak Ziolkowski could be the poster boy for that study. Chief Standing Bear must have seen those qualities in the sculptor, realizing how necessary they would be for his Crazy Horse dream to become a reality. Ziolkowski had to sculpt, reflect, sculpt, reflect and sculpt and reflect for decades to see that dream take shape on a mountain. He risked everything to fund the project with no hope of any financial gain. But generations beyond his lifetime would see those same qualities cast in stone — in the image of Crazy Horse.

Ruth Ziolkowski is 81 years old but, with the help of her children, continues the project that her husband began more than a half century ago and yet still has no end in sight. Christopher Reynolds asked her about the burden of running the family business. Her answer is a question that all of us need to answer: “If you don’t have any faith, if you don’t have any imagination, if you don’t have a dream — what are you doing here?”

One of the chapters in my book, The Transformational Power of Purpose: Finding & Fulfilling Your Purpose in Life is entitled “What You See Is What You Get.” It was the trademark line of Geraldine, one of the character creations of comedian Flip Wilson. The line always got a lot of laughs but it’s true — what you see is what you get . I experienced the power of that principle while writing the first few chapters of another book, Riding for the Brand: The Power of Purposeful Leadership . I wrote about a rancher who goes to a cattlemen’s convention in San Antonio. There he hears a speaker who provokes him to think about his purpose in life. A few months after committing that to paper, I was booked to speak at the Cattle Industry Annual Convention, which was being held, ironically, in San Antonio. Little did I know when I started writing that book that its pages would become a script for my own personal reality show.

I spend a good part of my time as a consultant challenging organizations to look 30 years into the future. I ask them what it will look like and what they will have to do to succeed in the future they describe. Then I ask them to write an article describing how they became the model organization of that future. Why? Because what they see is what they get . They are writing the story of their future.

Sound crazy? Most people would call Korczak Ziolkowski crazy. Crazy to remake a mountain in the image of a long-dead warrior named Crazy Horse. But that mountain will serve as a reminder for us and for those in decades to come. It’s a memorial to the power of the human imagination.

So, what are you doing here? What do you think? What do you see? Be very specific, because what you see is what you get. Imagine that.

Please e-mail comments to Jim Whitt at jim@whittenterprises.com.

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