How to give our bodies a vision in the only language that bodies can understand in order to enact it: The language of senses and feelings.

“But if once Imagination
Is set free from Reason’s hand
She assumes a thousand figures
For they’re all at her command”.

—C.L. Marsh – Imagination. Servant or Master – The Monist Vol 28 No 1 (January 1918)

THE STORY:

We all need to change the bad habit of over-resorting to our intellect, knowledge, and reason to guide us, in isolation or at the expense of the rest of our brain, body, and all other human intelligences. Those who focus excessively – or worse, exclusively – on scientific data, even “well established”, as many sustainability professionals do today, are failing at changing the world.

When we drive a car, it is certainly fundamental to monitor the indicators on the dashboard, use the pedals and steering wheel. But when we are driving, we must especially look at the road ahead, the changing surroundings, and the horizon – viewing the dashboard only a small fraction of the time. If all we focus on is the dashboard’s dials and the steering wheel, we will surely and quickly crash.

Most of the time, we also drive a vehicle to go somewhere. Our destination – or rather the inner vision that we have of it – is constantly in our mind.

Without wide and true vision, our ‘well established and peer reviewed science’ will not get us far. When we hold a crisp, clear picture of our destination in our mind, our mind is de facto instructing all our body parts during each step of the way to “there”. It is our body that manifests the mind’s vision. It is the body that makes the dream a physical reality, by moving in a certain way. It’s not so much that there is no image in our minds. There probably is one, even several, leading by default. It is that we do not consciously know what image it is. So we cannot be sure that it is leading us where we really need to go. Right now, our collective default images are leading us to global warming and mass extinction of living organism. So, we know we must change them.

The true sustainability leader is a pioneer. They are reinventing the world because the world as we know it today needs to be different. It needs to be better.

A true pioneer understands that setting the vision and goals first requires desire and imagination. Knowledge and reason can only be servants to that ultimate, essentially emotion-driven goal. Einstein had understood that: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.” (On Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms – Essays of the 1930’s and 40’s).

A true pioneer also understands that the latest scientific data, as reliable as they may be, belong to the past. A true scientist is constantly “re-searching.” They are open to discovering new information in the present that may change or even totally replace what was known up until now. In truth, nothing repeats exactly as in the past. Every single moment of experience is unique.

The true pioneer takes the past respectfully but lightly, lives in the present with all their senses open, and brings the future into the present by imagining it, making it happen while sharing it with the rest of the world.

Adopt this credo: Imagination, or vision, is the only leading intelligence. All the others serve it.

THE PROBLEM:

Unfortunately, most leaders today do not know how to set an effective vision, even if they have been told of its importance multiple times and know it is an essential piece of good leadership and organizational performance. These leaders who set their sights on science alone, or on empty, complex, intellectual jargon, or on tag lines with ungrounded fancy words, fail to inspire or lead the way to effective change.

What world do we want?

Saying that we want “a better world”, “justice”, “inclusion”, or “peace” is not enough. We must define “better world” with captivating precision, naming all the imaginative details that connect our senses to it. We must be able to see, smell, touch, taste, feel and breathe the better world in our mind’s eye, nose, ears, hands, and taste buds. We must be and express the better world with simple words, as a child would, in order to feel its possibility in our flesh and continue feeling our way into its manifestation.

THE SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION:

A vision is visual! Martin Luther King – a most inspired and inspiring leader – showed the visionary way with his vibrant Dream address (August 1963), in which we can see, as if we were there, the red hills of Georgia, the snowcapped Rockies, the sons of former slaves and of former slave owners sitting down together at the same table, and black and white little boys and girls holding hands like brothers and sisters.

Because of his imaginative vision, I can, and I do see what MLK sees.

Today, I also see a world with a myriad of trees in every shade of green and brown, lazy, and impetuous rivers in tones of blue or grey or silver, happy buzzing bees and flickering butterflies, undulating snakes, and howling wolves. I see white, purple, yellow and red flowers of all shapes and sizes, and I taste deliciously sweet fruits from woven baskets in busy farmers’ markets. I see groups of children of all colors playing with splashing water in the sunlight. I hear their joyous voices. I see smiling faces and friends’ open arms, with backdrops of fiery sunsets and white sands. I see clean shining buildings interspersed with greenery. I ride aboard a sleek, light, silent aircraft gliding over a continuous lush emerald canopy …

Can you see this world? Can you feel it?

What scenes are in YOUR vision, sustainability leader? Share them all with us below! I will send the most vivid entries to those at the United Nations who write the sustainable development goals so that these goals be redefined, embodied, and enacted at last!