Vision boards, Oprah, The Secret

Long ago, I told a co-worker who had just bought some lottery tickets that, in order to win, she must TRULY believe that she WILL win.

Don't check your tickets, I told her. Checking shows doubt. Just call in to work, quit your job, tell everyone you know that you won the lottery and drive to lottery headquarters to pick up your winnings.

It was a joke. But it turns out that there are people who say pretty much the same thing who aren't kidding, or pretend that they aren't.

Somewhere, I heard someone mention "vision boards", I can't remember where.

Here's one visualizing breakfast cereal with fruit on it and a candle.

I thought of the low budget comedy The Color Wheel (2011), available on Fandor. One character has her "vision board", a piece of poster board with little pictures of the stuff she wanted pasted on it.

"They say that if you put your hopes and dreams on paper they're more likely to come true."

"WHO says?"

"Experts."

According to The Secret, the book promoted by possible future presidential candidate Oprah Winfrey, if you go around pretending that all your dreams have come true, the universe will reward you by causing them to actually come true for some reason. And you're supposed to make one of these vision boards to gaze at. It's a "powerful tool".

I walked in several years ago and my mother was watching this crap on Oprah.

"Have you gone crazy?" I asked.

She thought it would probably be helpful to have a clear idea of what your goals are. I couldn't convince her that they meant everything they said literally.

It turns out that the authors of The Secret are opposed to people doing anything at all to achieve their goals. That shows doubt. Just keep pretending and you'll trick the idiot Universe into giving you things.

A guy in Psychology Today said that experiments on college students showed that it's visualizing FAILURE that helps you succeed. Visualizing success just wrecks what little chance you ever had.

That's my advice for would-be filmmakers, for film students. Visualize failure and humiliation at every turn.

Visualize yourself as a young Francis Ford Coppola, offering to work as sound man on a Roger Corman movie even though he'd never done it before, botching the job and trying unsuccessfully to blame the cameraman. (He actually did this.)

Visualize yourself organizing a luxury music festival in the Bahamas, selling tickets for thousands of dollars each when you're obviously incapable of organizing anything.

Visualize yourself directing an industrial video, screwing it up so badly you get sued by your client and become a laughingstock when it goes viral.