The power released by deciding to become a visionary is needed in our schools, in our businesses, and in our families.

Let’s challenge the paradigms and the thinking that holds us back, and change the world, one visionary at a time!

Mr. Twenty Twenty
The Professional Visionary
http://www.exhostage.com

Excellent contribution on your part and excellent analysis.

Thanks for your kind words.

I touch on many of the subjects in other parts of the 100 Laws of Positioning, plus many of these are touched on in my 2 previous books.

Basically, I agree with EVERYTHING you said COMPLETELY.

Take care and stick around. More good stuff to come.

Stanley Bronstein
MrAchievement

I think there are four other characteristics that all “visionaries” I’ve known possess:

1.) Uncanny ability to fly just above ground level AND at 20,000 feet and still see both perspectives. The difference between a mere “dreamer” and a “visionary” is that a visionary has a plan (and sometimes it’s pretty loose at the beginning) on how they can accomplish their “vision.” Surely someone other than Steve Jobs had an idea about creating easy-to-use home desktop PCs — but Jobs had a plan for how to do it. That requires “blue sky thinking” AND an ability to think tactically. People have big ideas all the time, but most people can’t pull their heads out of the clouds long enough to say, “How will I do this?”

2.) Ability to segment big ideas into smaller pieces that can be implemented quickly. This is related to the first characteristic - a dreamer thinks so much about the end product, that they become almost a slave to it. They are prone to constantly expanding that vision because they don’t ever have to deal with the constraints of reality. And because of this, they have problems actually taking action. A true visionary knows that you can’t steer a boat across the Atlantic by pointing the bow at New York City … you have to break the trip up in to a series of small navigational adjustments. Big ideas are no different, especially since your environment or market may change before you get to your destination. The only way to adapt to this is to allow yourself to implement your vision in small steps that can be tweaked as things change. You still need a destination, but that can’t be everything.

3.) Tenacity and perseverance … and passion. Getting people to buy on to a vision or big idea requires a lot of work. Most people are conditioned to resistant change and most people are by nature skeptical of things that seem big or different. Also, a really big vision can take years to actually achieve — and arguably, many extension of that vision will develop during that time — so it never really is done. To get people on board you have to have almost fanatic enthusiasm for your vision, and to keep it moving forward, you have to spend lots of time reinforcing it with people. You can’t give up easily, be too short-minded or fall prey to negativism. You have to make your vision so exciting and energizing that everyone will want to join in on it, because they just can’t resist.

4.) Talent for improvisation. Nothing stays the same — and the bigger your vision, the more likely it will be that something external to your vision and plan will change before you hit your objective. Visionaries recognize this up-front and they don’t pursue perfection for perfections sake, because perfection assumes some sort of consistency in the world. They view external changes as opportunities, not as barriers. They are comfortable deviating from their original plan if something changes.