Vivid thinking is almost always guaranteed to lead to certain success in whatever you do.

SOME principles are so simple that we often overlook their significance. For instance, success is lack of failure; each failure is due to some mistake; each mistake in action originates in some mistake in thinking. To change from failure to success, it is necessary to develop those processes of thought which prevent mistakes, and which lead to success.

You have often been told that success comes to the man who "uses his brain"- that is, to the man who thinks. But mere thinking will not prevent him from making mistakes; neither will purposeful thinking, nor well thought out plans.

Thinking in vivid images is the only process which always prevents mistakes.

Even great experts make mistakes when they fail to think in vivid images.

Your mind is a living consciousness, but you often permit the greater part of its content to die. The content is usually a colony of corpses of images which were once alive. That is the difference between ideas and vivid images. Ideas are the dead corpses of images which were once living and vivid.

In his mind, the successful inventive genius forms vivid images of every part of the machine which he is constructing. Before it is made, he mentally sees each part separately, and all parts assembled and working together. After examining a new machine he is able at any time to re-image a picture of the machine. He re-sees the image when the physical object is no longer present. That is thinking in vivid images.

You look at the same machine; but, after leaving it, you are able "only to think about it." That is thinking in ideas.

Vividness is a quality of mind which makes geniuses, and it can be developed. When you read "the iron is hot," you think of the idea of heat. When you accidentally put your finger tip on the red hot iron, your mind thinks in vivid images of special heat, because an image is the immediate result of sense impressions.

A vivid image is formed by sense impressions.

So, you can develop vividness in thinking by use of your special senses-by use of all of them.

There are more than five special senses. There are twelve. They are color, sound, smell, taste, balance, motion, direction, heat, cold, weight, tactility, and pressure. Images formed by using only a few senses may lead to mistakes. Vivid images formed by using all the senses are infallible.

Success begins by testing every factor of your plan by vivid sense images. That means testing what you plan to do by mental pictures formed by use of all of the senses. If you are testing a thing, use the special senses themselves. If you are testing plans or propositions, use the sense images.

But why do vivid images test with more certainty than do ideas'? Because thought-without vivid imaging -is never complete. If you merely think about a yard, a foot, or an inch, you do not image it exactly. Test yourself. Can you, without a measure, draw a line which is exactly a yard long? Can you do it every time you try to do it? If not, you do not image a yard. The image of a yard is more definite, more concrete, and more exact, than is the idea or thought about a yard. The thought about a pound is no more like the image of a pound, than the three letters "c-a-t" are like your cat!

Success begins by preventing mistakes in thinking.

You can prevent such mistakes by idealizing common sense. Common sense alone is not enough. Common sense is the unified use of certain senses-unified so many times by so many people that such use has become common. Idealized common sense is different. It includes all the sense images which should be included in the vivid images. Mistakes can be prevented only by testing every factor of your plan by vivid images!

The first step in the process of success is vivid imaging-with especial emphasis on the vividness of the images. This is very important because every idea or thought or judgment is based upon mental images. If the images of your thoughts are not vivid, make them so by adding more special sense qualities. In other words, train and develop your special senses.

It is important that you do so, for the success of every step of your thought and action depends upon vivid imaging. I am not basing this assertion upon a pet theory, but upon the phenomenal successes of those who have used vivid imaging, and the sad failures which have come to some of the biggest men in the world when they failed to think in vivid images.

I write almost nothing about reasoning and judging, and I omit these subjects purposely. If your imaging is vivid, you cannot make a mistake in reasoning or in judging. Yet, what thousands of failures have resulted from mistakes in selection-of plans, processes, propositions, and people- due to lack of vivid imaging. The saneness and safety of all thought processes depends on the completeness of the vivid images which form your thought. Vivid imaging is the thought process which always wins success.

Since vivid imaging builds new structure in the brain, extraordinary results are attained when one is trained, by vividly imaging the process of doing that which one wishes to learn to do.

And vivid imaging prevents mistakes in thinking.

The vivid imaging process of thought prevents failures by preventing them at the beginning-by preventing mistakes in your thinking. Selection by likeness alone leads to mistakes and brings failure. Vivid images compel your mind to see differences.

The use vivid imaging to perceive differences quickly secures the same results which are secured by long drawn out efforts of "efficiency experts."

Many an efficiency expert has done work or accomplished results much more remarkable than this little change, but to do this work and be certain of the results, the efficiency expert spends days in watching workers and collecting data. Then, he often spends weeks in working out details, estimating distances, and time, and calculating kinds of movement.

Dreams are usually vivid, and when dreaming, the mind can picture the experiences of years in a few seconds. It is this vivid imagery which brings success quickly.

Every great industry which has ever been made successful, every railroad ever built, every invention ever conceived-resulted from vivid imaging. On the one hand, worlds of ideas-affirmed and visioned- lead only to failure. On the other, every man, who has succeeded greatly, first vividly imaged and idealized that which he intended to do.

Vivid imaging compels you to recognize differences.

Men who become great successes, make decisions because of differences, not because of likenesses!

Think vividly, perceive differences, and succeed!

Although you train yourself to do your work well,

And plan your work with a purpose, And think of the future, and the profit- Still you are nothing but an economic machine!

And when you wear out, you'll be discarded!

But, idealise yourself and your work, and you become a creative personality, and your value to others will increase-throughout eternity!

-BROWN LANDONE