What Do You Use Your Imagination For?

We all have such huge imagination. But most of the time, we use our imagination to scare ourselves and stop us from doing better, moving forward, being creative, solving problems, being happy, success, and a lot more good things.

A few weeks ago, I met Martti and Larry. Two young, passionate changemakers. They co-founded Plato (which means plate), a business that aims to revolutionize the dining experience.

Larry is the brain behind Plato. Food has always been his passion. The idea behind Plato all started with him just hosting dinners at home. And soon enough, it evolved into a platform that gives chefs the freedom to experiment with food, unleash their creativity in their menus and to set the value for what they create. But most importantly, it's a platform that allows people, especially strangers, to come together and experience food and through that experience create connections and form friendships.

Or at the very least, just enjoy sharing a meal.

A friend of mine told me about their startup a couple of years ago, when they were just in beta stage. As someone who always love whipping up dishes, meeting new people and connecting with them, I fell in love with the idea they were serving on the table - which was to bring people together through good food. (And yes, that was my poor attempt at puns. I can only promise to try better next time). As Martti so eloquently puts it:

I have the receipt to show. I signed up for their mailing list back in July 2015.

Plato threw a Game of Thrones banquet to welcome the premiere of Season 7, where I personally met Martti and we got the chance to talk. We lightly talked about our journey - of doubting ourselves and of very rare days of having the hubris to believe in our abilities, and then moments of questioning our sanity and if we even knew what we were doing. We were nodding while we were recalling those moments…

Moments when we were so scared and just thinking of how eventually all of our work will just lead to a disaster and moments when we did not believe in the possibility of realizing what we envisioned, and of doubting what we can create.

I now see how good we are at using our imagination in letting ourselves down. The naysayer in us is the biggest monster we need to guard ourselves against. We ought to stop feeding it. Muster the courage to look it in the eye and it gets less scary, less powerful. That’s how you quiet down the naysayer in you.

And little by little, it gets easier to believe in your abilities, to leap, and to ship your ideas.