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"First comes thought," Napoleon Hill once wrote. "Then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination."

The power of imagination has been the source of beautiful buildings and destructive bombs; imagination has empowered mankind's greatest achievements and, conversely, nurtured its greatest chaos. Surely, human imagination can and does produce both good and bad.

I like to think of character development as the sustained imaginative thinking that produces the greater good for the individual and society.

Often, we exercise our imagination for personal satisfaction. Yet, when we see how the power of imagination can bring forth a greater societal good, personal imagination becomes the proverbial leaven in the loaf.

Each of us is the leaven in the loaf of American society's values. As parents, grandparents and teachers, we daily have the opportunity to imaginatively put into practice the corporate values of our society.

If respect, trustworthiness, moral courage, and personal responsibility, just to name a handful of America's societal values, are imaginatively put to the test in our daily interactions with family, friends, co-workers and strangers, then I believe we are using our life to sustain the values of a civil and humane society. Likewise, if intolerance, prejudice, disrespect and victimization are the tools with which we navigate our days, we shape an American society that stumbles, stalls and sputters.

My life has been encouraged by the imaginative display of character lessons from personal mentors. In the 1980s one of my mentors, Eknath Easwaran, a Berkeley professor and teacher of meditation, taught me that it is only in the sustained practice of a positive life value that an individual can transform the petty preoccupation of a life lived for itself alone. Easwaran's teachings influenced my own imaginative thinking that now understands it is a great privilege to imaginatively seize the opportunity to use our life for the greater good.

America's parents, grandparents and teachers can imaginatively influence the development of kids of character as they mentor the kids they love and care about.