“My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain.”

— Nikola Tesla

Haanel wrote about Tesla in Week Seven of The Master Key System.

10. The inventor visualizes his idea in exactly the same manner. For instance, Nikola Tesla, he with the giant intellect, one of the greatest inventors of all ages, the man who has brought forth the most amazing realities, always visualizes his inventions before attempting to work them out. He does not rush to embody them in form and then spend his time in correcting defects. Having first built up the idea in his imagination, he holds it there as a mental picture, to be reconstructed and improved by his thought. “In this way,” he writes in the Electrical Experimenter, “I am enabled to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching any- thing. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible im- provement I can think of, and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete the prod- uct of my brain. Invariably my devise works as I conceived it should; in twenty years there has not been a single exception.”

How is this mental accuracy — this mental clarity — obtained?

Haanel wrote,

13. Clearness and accuracy are obtained only by repeatedly having the image in mind. Each repeated action renders the image more clear and accurate than the preceding, and in proportion to the clearness and accuracy of the image will the outward manifestation be. You must build it firmly and securely in your mental world—the world within—before it can take form in the world without, and you can build nothing of value even in the mental world unless you have the proper material. When you have the material you can build anything you wish, but make sure of your material. You cannot make broadcloth from shoddy.

For more information on thinking and thinking properly, please see the Master Key Coaching Teleseminars.