Do you have to see it to believe it, or do you have to believe it to see it?

That's a question I have often asked when I talk about the importance of creating an inspiring vision. And thanks to a fascinating speaker I saw at the recent TED conference in California, I have a new perspective on that question.

As it turns out, seeing and imagining are not all that different. Mary Lou Jepson, a leader in the tech industry who has had to deal with life-altering brain treatments, spoke about how the science of brain imaging is advancing and what it can tell us about ourselves.

She described recent experiments where a person's brain was scanned while they looked at a picture. Then the scan was repeated as they were asked to think of the image in the picture. The patterns of activity in the brain were almost identical.

I was captivated by this idea, but not really surprised. I have always felt that having a working vision is really just another way of seeing. It may take place in the future but it is just as "real" as what is captured by your eyes right now. Anyone who has been driven by a vision that truly inspires them knows this feeling. It has to feel real before it is real.

That's what leadership and vision are all about. Creating an ideal practice doesn't just happen. It has to start with your vision of what an ideal practice is, and the clarity of that vision has to be strong enough to drive your actions. So it makes sense to me that this internal envisioning excites the same areas of the brain as actual seeing. They are both real in their own way.

Jepson went on to say that we are not far from a time when our dreams can be scanned and uploaded for others to see. We may not be quite there yet, but we certainly can transform our visionary dreams to reality. Seeing is believing. And vice versa.


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