When a lot of people are envisioning their future and that of their company, they often downplay their potential successes to avoid coming off as conceited or pompous.
I am not one of those people. Nor should you be. However, to be clear, I keep my ego in check when describing my Vivid Vision (formally Painted Picture) too.
When I put together my Vivid Vision, I see myself as very successful. My speaking calendar is full, my roster of clients has grown and includes really awesome start ups, as well as large companies. Companies beg me to sit on their boards, heck, even my home life is balanced and amazing.
If you know me personally, you know I am not a cocky, arrogant braggart—so why all the sudden bravado?
Because having big dreams means setting lofty goals. And lofty goals ensure success, even if you don’t quite achieve them. Before you laugh, let me explain.
If you picture yourself in a sparkling, modern new office, or see your image on the cover of Fast Company, you’ve set the bar pretty high. You’ll need to work hard to get there. You might even fall short, but undoubtedly the effort you put in trying to make these visions a reality will have you moving in a positive direction.
What’s the benefit of picture your company growing by a steady 10% a year? Or envisioning a future where you’ve hired 10 new employees? You can achieve these ‘goals’ with just a small bit of effort.
Some might call grand visions of success as egotistical. I call it confident optimism. If I had suggested three years ago that I would be where I am now (a thriving speaking businesses, an impressive stable of clients, phenomenal digital content sales) I would have come off as conceited to a lot of people.
I’ll admit this has been a hard sell to clients in the past. When I try to get them to write down some of these lofty goals in their Vivid Vision, be it appearing on a TV commercial or landing Fortune 50 clients, they balk. “People who read this will think I’m delusional,” they say.
“Let them!” I reply. History is littered with doubters who scoffed at big dreamers. It never stopped visionaries like Henry Ford or Sam Walton. In fact, I bet it motivated them.
Do you think Steve Jobs lets modesty temper the vision he sets out for Apple? He’s famous for sharing his far out visions, and then creating an environment where achieving them is the only option. Engineers or managers that think his ideas are unattainable simply don’t last.
So forget the humility, you need to pump yourself up in your own Vivid Vision. If you aren’t going to do it, who will? And again, you aren’t conceited, you’re simply describing the future state of yourself and your company, 3 years out…
Vision without execution is hallucination, once it’s written, here are some tools to make it happen (available digitally or as DVDs)…
If Google’s motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, Microsoft’s must be “Only Be Boring.” They’re two of the biggest companies in the world, compete in basically the same space but couldn’t be any different.
