Painted Picture

Chances are you’ve built a nice office for yourself. It’s a comfortable space filled with everything you need to get your job done, whether it’s your laptop or pictures of your family when you need a bit of motivation.

It’s the perfect spot to sit down and start mapping out the future of your company and your personal life.

And that’s why I absolutely forbid my clients from working on their Painted Pictures in there.

I tell them to get out of the office and go someplace inspirational. I’ve had clients work by the ocean, in the forest—heck, I wrote my Vivid Vision (formerly Painted Picture) from the hammock in my backyard.

Sure, these places ooze inspiration, but they also lack a lot of the distractions that can be fatal to the Vivid Vision process. Your office is brimming with distractions—emails, phone calls, people popping their heads in the door.

To visualizing your future properly, you need to focus. These interruptions can shatter your flow and drag the process out indefinitely.

Trying to conduct these visualization exercises in places like your office or a boardroom surrounds you with the minutia of the office environment. The hum of a copier, the murmur of phone conversations, even the white noise of the air exchange—these sounds can lock your brain into rigid, business-first thought patterns that will stifle the creativity it takes to really imagine a bright, exciting future.

A lot of my clients are decidedly left-brained. They’ve been successful their whole lives using rational, pragmatic thinking; just the kind of thinking that can sap all the energy and usefulness out of this exercise.

The idea is to dream about ‘where’ you can go without concerning yourself with ‘how’ you’ll get there. It’s easy to get caught up in asking ‘how’ when you are surrounded by sales charts and spreadsheets. Freeing yourself from the office frees your mind from the boundaries of business metrics. You’re able to fantasize without letting reality rain on your parade.

I also discourage you from using your computer when cobbling your Vivid Vision together. First of all, a blank word processor page is far from inspiring. Secondly, the distraction of email, the Internet, Minesweeper or other cyber-diversions is counterproductive.

Instead, use a sketchpad and a good, quality pen. There is something truly inspiring about putting pen to paper. It really is a lost art. And once you get over the hand cramps, you’ll find the tactile feel of the pen irresistible, and the blank sheet will be more like a blank canvas that you’ll quickly fill up with ideas and visions for your future. Then, once you’ve sketched a rough Vivid Vision, you can use your computer to put it all together.

Most of us complain that we spend too much time in the office anyway. So here is the perfect excuse to get out of it. Enjoy the sunshine, breath in the fresh air and visualize your perfect future.

I’ve worked with a lot of young, ambitious entrepreneurs in my time as a business coach and mentor. They are a diverse group, from tech savvy Silicon Valley insiders to master sommeliers. They’ve wanted a lot of different things, from more press to a better corporate culture. But underneath it all, they’ve all really wanted the same thing: to make more money.

It’s a universal desire, and one that I can help them achieve. But to get there, they have to prepare for fast growth. And they’ll never get there without a detailed vision of their future.

This is why I am such a proponent of creating a Vivid Vision (formerly Painted Picture). It’s a detailed, three to four page document that lays out a clear, logical vision of what your company will look like in three years.

When completed, it’s meant to be woven into your company’s culture, guiding your employees decision making and giving all involved clear goals to strive for.

Usually, creating Vivid Visions is a very involved process that can take as long as six months to get right. There’s a lot of back and forth between my clients and me. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to spend with each of you as you put together your own, but I can offer these tips that will help you get started down the right path in creating the very best Vivid Vision possible.

It’s important not to get caught up in the ‘how’ of things. Instead, dream big and worry about the ‘how’ later

You’ll need to be free of the day-to-day worries of running your business. You need freedom to visualize your future

Get out of your office and go somewhere inspiring where you can let your mind wander (I wrote the Vivid Vision for my business from the hammock in my backyard)

Turn off your computer. No matter how much willpower you have, the temptation of email or web surfing will be a distraction

Get out of your comfort zone, think out side the box—choose whatever cliché works for you. Just be creative, even outlandish. You’ll be amazed at what you can come up with. It’s a sure fire way to create a fun, dynamic vision you and your employees will love to strive for.

I’ve helped with dozens of Vivid Visions in my career, and the ones that really stand out in my mind share a few common traits. They forgo all the mind-numbing corporate double speak and restrictive, creativity-killing metrics and get right to the heart of the exercise:

“What is really possible for my company?”

Check out these advice where I talk in more detail about certain aspects of the Vivid Vision/Painted Picture process. You can also find a copy of my own Vivid Vision online at BackPocketCOO.com, To some, it is just a four page document. But to you, it very well may be the most important four pages you ever write.  email me at Cameron@BackPocketCOO.com for coaching around doing your own.