How to perceive with your Mind’s Eye

Tue, Jan 5, 2010

“Wealth can only be perceived with the mind’s eye” is a quote I read in a book recently. This is very true, it takes visualization to perceive a situation as an opportunity. However, it doesn’t only apply to wealth, it actually applies to all opportunities. In order to create something, it first has to be perceived with the mind’s eye (i.e. visualized). So how does one perceive with the mind’s eye then?

The Origin and Destination

Perceiving with the mind’s eye is basically visualizing the destination while you are still at the origin. If that doesn’t make much sense, don’t worry. Let’s look at an example that most people will be able to relate to; photography.

When a photographer shoots an image, he has to take into account the fact that the camera ’sees’ differently than the human eye. Sometimes, the photographer even has to already imagine what he is going to do in post processing that will make the photo special. This is exactly what photographers (and filmmakers for that matter) do. They perceive an image in their mind of the final result, while looking at the origin.

The Origin

We had a dinner the other day with some friends and afterwards some of us were having whiskey and cigars. Since I don’t drink alcohol nor do I smoke, I had my hands free to grab a camera and shoot some pictures. Here is the image that I shot, the original.

Note that the high noise (if visible in this small version) is intentional. I won’t bother you with technical details, but I set the camera to a setting where I knew it would make excessive noise on the picture. Why would I do that; it makes the picture look horrible!? We’ll get to that later…

Perceiving the Destination

What I was perceiving in that situation was that the way the scene looked, would allow me to shoot an image that reminds me of an old Godfather image I once saw. A coarse and grainy photo, with a lot of contrast and little or no color. Here is a similar image to what I had perceived:

The setting in movies like the Godfather revolves around tuxedo’s, cigarettes or cigars and booze. Preferably whiskey. Since we were having whiskey and cigars and were all dressed up (including bow-ties), it was a great situation to shoot such a photo.

So that is roughly what I visualized in that scene. The old Godfather style photo. Which is also why I wanted extra noise in the picture, because it would make it look old.

Note that perceiving the destination doesn’t mean you exactly know each little bit of it. It means that you have a general idea of how the destination will look. As you create the destination, this visualization will become more clear by the minute!

Creating the Destination

Finally, when I got home, I went to work on the picture. Because even though I had visualized it, that didn’t mean the destination was magically going to form itself. No sir, it would take hard labor to get there. But having perceived the destination, it was much easier to plot my steps towards it.

After a while I was done with editing the photo, and I had achieved a photo that was very similar to what I had visualized. Here is the final result:

Obviously there are many dissimilarities between the picture of the Godfather and the one of my friend. The Godfather picture is the best I could find on the Internet that relates to where the inspiration for my photo came from. But trust me when I say that the final image lives and breathes the emotions that I wanted to put in (dark, tense atmosphere, Mafia feeling). It is therefore exactly as I perceived it with my mind’s eye.

Conclusion

Why is this helpful in other situations? Well, take for example real estate. Let’s say you run into someone who has a house for sale. But it is a seriously bad looking house, on a nice piece of land. You’d basically have to tear down the place and build it up all over again. This is going to cost you a fortune!

But you can also approach this differently and try to visualize a destination. You go and find the local rental prices, look up the destination plans for surrounding land, etc etc. You then begin to think about tearing down the house and replacing it with 8 fantastic condominiums. This is perceiving with your mind’s eye, that which is not yet there.

This can turn into a great cash flow for you and your family for years to come. Perceiving with your mind’s eye can be successfully applied in many, many situations!

Taking it a step further!

For further reading, I would recommend reading my article about the circle of Disney. This is for when you can perceive with your mind’s eye and want to take it a step further!