People don’t call themselves visionaries, other people call them visionary. I’m just Ted Turner.
TED TURNER
Are you a visionary?
How do you know?
Visionary – adjective
(especially of a person) thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom.
The word, visionary, gets used frequently, because, by definition, many human beings have imagination and wisdom and focus that on planning the future. It is more common than would be imagined.
Visionaries are distinguished in society for not only envisioning the future, but actually acting on those visions with intent and expectation of manifesting them into reality, such that everyone else will be able to experience and appreciate those visions come to fruition in whatever form they may take.
As with any broad collection of humanity, such a definition would have countless subcategories, as does the Nobel Prize. These categories enable us to put visionaries into collected groups for all to learn from, appreciate and hone their own personal perspectives to becoming ever more akin to those visionaries whom they admire most.
Being a visionary can require considerably more than the broad dictionary definition above. People called Nostradamus a visionary, and I cannot tell you if any of his visions came to fruition, but as someone who makes bold predictions about the future, perhaps he warrants the title, and perhaps not.
I believe the title is warranted when the visionary acts upon that vision and produces it in whatever form that may take. For Ted Turner to create a 24 hour news platform that was global was unquestionably visionary for the time. It was revolutionary. We find visionaries in all walks of life…each has a gift of seeing things that a majority of their peers are not seeing, and are able, through their resources, to manifest that vision into reality.
Being a Visionary of the highest calibre requires a long string of prerequisites. By definition, this must start with a full awareness of what already is and what already has been. You can have a great idea about something, and quickly discover that someone else was there before you. Once your vision has been qualified as yet to be realized, your next step is finding a large dose of courage.
The courage is required because the next segment of your life will demand it with regularity. Once you have activated the proverbial switch that says: ACTIVATE MY VISION, your life will become a blend of heaven and hell. It will be heaven because you are on the path to bringing your great vision to life. It will be hell for exactly the same reason! Pack a travel bag, and be sure to include ingenuity, passion, determination, diligence, tenacity, intelligence, wisdom, fortitude, persistence, will power and make sure to have a background in the construction of contracts, and the legal rights that are ensconced within. Oh! And learn how to play Chess. If you do not understand gray logic, then you are missing a key component that will come to your aid. Bonus points if you earn a black belt in any martial art along the way. This will teach you quiet determination unlike any other discipline.
Most importantly, pack humility.
For others may call you visionary, or lunatic… and all the words in-between.
Your role is to ignore all titles and grandiosity that comes with them. Instead, your role is to manifest your vision. Full stop. End of story. If others think you are visionary, great! If they don’t, also great! It matters, not. What matters is that you know you believe in what you are doing and that you have a clear (mostly) path to accomplishing it.
Happy Saturday!
