The Imagination Muscle

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One of the best exercises for the imagination is the “What if” game. Through daily practice you train yourself to ask “What if X?” in response to the stimuli—usually visual—that come your way in an ordinary day.

For some, the imagination is a luxury in the modern age; something which is by turns elusive, difficult to employ and better left to others. But what is it to imagine exactly? How do we go about it, and why is it so important that we imagine for ourselves? Managing director of Condé Nast Britain, Albert Read joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch to talk about his new book, The Imagination Muscle. Spanning pre-historic times through to the twenty-first century, The Imagination Muscle explores the genesis of ideas - from Thomas Edison's serial embracing of failure to Jane Jacobs' vision of how we should build cities together; from Steve Jobs' approach to office design to the Japanese concept of Ma. Touching on art, music, film, literature, science and entrepreneurship, this book examines how the imagination has evolved - in shape, power and pace - through the millennia. What if it is really a man in disguise and he’s on the down low because a contract has been put out on him? The Imagination Muscle: Where Good Ideas Come From (And How To Have More Of Them) is out tomorrow (23rd March).So you had this mixture of ideas. And really, I think the lesson from this and from Picasso, is draw your sources from all sorts of different places and bring them together and read what no-one else is reading. Because that will make your mind an original mind, a fresh mind, and it'll keep you stimulated and keep you happy, and keep you alive.” Beautiful, moving, profoundly imaginative in itself - this book is as entertaining as it is relevant and practical' ALAIN DE BOTTON If you’re diligent about this exercise, your imagination muscle will churn all the time, often without conscious thought. Then the issue won’t be, Where do I find my next idea? but, How do I choose from all the great ideas my imagination has already provided? Albert oversees titles and businesses including British Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Tatler. In The Imagination Muscle, he shows how the imagination is not merely reserved for artists and creatives, but is a muscle to be trained and developed. He told Chris: “I work in the business of ideas. Conde Nast is a company that thrives on ideas. And we got to keep ideas coming… If you're selling bananas, you want to know where the bananas come from, and so, with us, we need to know where the ideas are coming from. For some, the imagination is a luxury in the modern age; something which is at once elusive, difficult to employ and, we assume, better left to others.

Albert told Chris: “I think that's the lesson we all have to learn is we should all widen our perspectives, read things that we wouldn't necessarily normally read. Read differently, don't read one book and then another book. Read different books at the same time. So there are lots of ideas from history which I think need to be revived and brought to the fore.” Albert Read reveals how we can harness the imagination in our day-to-day lives and why, in the new Age of Technology, it is more pressing than ever that we do so. Discover where to find ideas, how to foster skill in observation and connection, and how to be more attentive to the fluxes of our own minds.My imagination walked to the broken wall and looked into the opening. I saw immediately what she’d caressed. It was a crude drawing of a fish. As I stared, I heard a commotion behind me. It was a crowd of Roman soldiers, running toward me. Touching on art, music, film, literature, science and entrepreneurship, this book examines how the imagination has evolved - in shape, power and pace - through the millennia. This would have been simply another dark and strange coincidence, the sort of thing that shows up for a two-minute report on the local news—with live remote from the scene—and maybe gets a follow-up the next day. Eventually the story would go away, fading from the city’s collective memory.