Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

As I sat at a Dr`s office, he had a motivational poster with the following quote on it "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."... As I analyzed my situation it resembled what I was trying to accomplish in life. 1st,  it started out as a dream (to have my own business), and then as my business evolved it was a beauty to see my business come alive. My question to all of you is: What does the word VISION means to you.

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Good topic Nuevolution,

IMHO, vision comes from imagination. The imagination is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man. The imagination faculty of the mind gives impluse and desire its shape, form and action. It has been said that man can create anything which he can imagine. I agree.

For an excellent and thorough discussion of imagination, read Chapter VI of Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Have a great weekend.

R@

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Richard Arnold · Key Concept Writers · Business Communication: The "Key" To Success· Law of Attraction Blog · Life Ain`t Brain Surgery Blog

hmm...

Vision. Projecting the imagination beyond idle notions that the same creativity we see today will remain the status quo. For example, the visions of youth full grown, turn the wheels of kindness again to a new expression of children, taught to imagine and explore with all the animated technology of a new frontier.

hmm?

Vision is passion welded to an idea.

I see vision as the ability to "see" or "picture" something as as you want and understand it best to be before you take action. Knowing your vision sets the requirements for everything that follows to make your vision a reality.

The more clear your vision is, the better your chances are to succeed. For instance it has been noted that the infamous inventor, and engineer, Nikola Tesla had such a clear vision of his notions that he often designed a single prototype which often worked the first time it was put to use.  

 

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~Eric
JE Design Group, LLC
If all you do is what you`ve done, then all you`ll get is what you`ve got.
www.jedesigngroup.com

What`s really interesting about this question, and shows up in almost all the posts, is that everyone links "vision" to "imagination," yet nobody has any idea what`s imagination. Right? It`s one of those really odd words that we all know pretty much exactly what we mean, but is there a definition?

Children go through two, not one, particular and common phases. Most parents are familiar with the "why" phase, where no matter what answer you give, the child always tacks on a "why."


But what people don`t often pay attention to, is that there`s a "line" between what`s physically possible, having some sort of reasonable answer, and the point where the "why" flies off into space. That`s the "What if?" phase.


At that point, parents should step in and say, "Now you`re just being silly." There has to be a teaching point to differentiate what`s possible in the physical sense, from what`s impossible in our version of reality. If not, then we end up with diarrhea of the imagination, and the mistaken belief that, literally, anything is possible.

Imagination is our ability (unique, as far as we know) to hold and manipulate two entirely different versions of reality in conscious attention, nearly simultaneously. The two indicators that the child`s brain has developed enough to start working with imagination is the ability to lie, and the ability to tell a joke. In both cases, the child holds one reality in mind, while speaking about an alternate reality.

So the big question is: What is the imagination showing us? It`s obvious that whatever it is, it doesn`t yet exist. How is that possible? "Where" does whatever it is we`re imagining exist?

Following some of the thinking along the lines of Idealism, I would first argue that Ideas are actual entities. They exist as bodies of raw information in a plane of existence---somewhere. If you postulate that, then imagination is actually a "gateway" between this physical reality and the realm of probabilities---probable universes.

An imagination is crucial to survival as a human being. We don`t have instincts, excepting for some very few. We have no intrinsic or inherant knowledge of how to survive. We have only reason and logic, and the bizarre ability to form symbols of things that don`t have any physical existence.

Direclty associated with imagination are the words "creativity" and "inspiration." We can say that what we imagine is simply random noise, thrown up into the mind for no apparent reason, based on nothing. That`s the million monkeys typing for eternity idea, eventually recreating the works of Shakespeare. How do we then separate the random noise from the useful information?

Isn`t it vastly more probable that the imagination is allowing us to literally see something? If you agree, then "vision" is simply a clarity of focus into the realm of probable reality.

Corporate-speak and jargon tend to associate "vision" with good things, inspired brainstorming, new ideas, innovation, and blah blah blah. But a "vision" can just as easily be delusional, a hallucination, a nightmare, or a clairvoyant prescience of some sort. And that brings up another interesting question: If a hallucination is totally accurate, how do you know it isn`t real?

One other aspect of this is that the imagination can be trained. It isn`t possible to live as a human being, having zero imagination. So how do we train our ability to envision things....this imagination? We obviously can`t train our eyeballs to see better, or nobody would need glasses (despite the eye exercises we hear about).

What`s a "vision?" It`s a clarity of focus on a deliberate intent to create something.

I`ll try answering. Call me a risktaker. I know I`ll grow from the experience.

I hope I would answer, "If the sky was made of candy, I`d be hungry all the time." And smile. I hope that I would only stop a child`s creativity if they needed to be disciplined toward a certain task. On a semantic stage of language use, I know I can`t compete with certain masters of the art. So I must resort to one pointed idea of expression. I agree there must be "deliberate intent" that clarifies our plans to take action, otherwise imagination only serves to fuel the vision until the point where once again we are challenged to put it to use. To me, a simple dream may spark an idea, an idea may spark dialogue, expressive dialogue may spark action, but our actions are what determines the reality of vision. And clarity or the definitions of intent serve to allign what is doable with the maturity of right thinking. We are encouraged to seek more than one opinion before we commit, and we know there is wisdom from many minds. When there`s an aha moment, as I envision(or project probabilities into the unknown question of possibility), I will keep the worth and add to it in hopes the original concept will come to life as concrete plans. The question of how we train our imaginations is simple. When we wish to have hope, we surround ourselves with people of hope. So too, when we wish to have more trained imagination, we can meditate or we can surround ouselves with people of constructive imagination. And as long as discipline compliments a strong nurturing of a child`s ability to imagine beyond the here and now, I believe that we have the greatest resource for creativity and vision, which is found in the overabundance of youthful imagination. How we as adults choose to brainstorm with focused intent on creating a better future, defines our worth to the project at hand, be it educating our children into productivity or launching a business with a different approach to the norm. We risk the silence of what might have been when we question the right to dream-drv.

Hope I said something that stimulates rather than detracts. 

There`s a big difference between what`s doable and what`s imaginable. Just so, there`s what`s possible and what`s imaginable.

To allow a child to believe that it`s possible for the sky to be made of candy is to damage the child`s use of imagination. In no way, regardless of effort by one or a group, will it ever be possible within the framework of our existing reality to have a sky made of candy. It`s sophistry (not semantics) in that it`s a grammatical and sensible sentence, using only words, but disassociating those words from any form of reality.

We can encourage a child to ask "What if" but we have to put borders around the question. There`s a difference between education and indulgence. Parent`s must teach their children, and also differentiate between having fun with language and actually trying to accomplish something with language.

As adults we can wander off into fantasy, developing a story about how the sky might be made of candy. But for a child, there must be a clear statement that this is fantasy, a fairy tale, and will never happen in actual reality. Otherwise, the child grows up incapable of forming visions.

Going the opposite direction, holding that only what`s personally possible based on experience, we have "empiricism." That stunts the imagination, rather than develops it. To say that "you`ll never get a business going because nobody in our family has ever had a successful vision" is to fail. It`s to say that according to the laws of physics, human capacity, history, and existence, this one person cannot and will never be able to form a business. That`s obviously ridiculous.

Because we`ve managed to stunt the imagination of huge numbers of our children in recent years, people believe that allowing ANY form of imagination is a value. No, it isn`t. Instead, we need a better theory of imagination.

An excellent commercial (Public service announcement) describes the effect of having no imagination. It`s the child coming home from school to be greeted by his his pet dog. The dog, wagging its tail, runs to him with a stick, hoping to play catch. The child takes the stick, examines it, realizes it`s fallen from a tree, and throws it in the garbage can. Then he goes into the house and the dog looks at him wondering what the hell happened.

The opposition of imagination is "literal." I`d argue that the inability to think metaphorically is a key symptom of narcissism, which is the inability to form borders around the Self.

Not everything is possible. In this universe, pigs will never fly with wings. We can draw pictures of flying pigs, speak the sentence, even make a story about a world in which pigs fly, but that world will not be Earth. The physics and biology of bone structure, wings, feathers, genetics, and gravity, to name only a few variables, guarantee that pigs will never fly.

We can throw them, raise them, float them, or engineer them to have wings that won`t work. But it isn`t the same as having pigs that actually fly of their own volition using wings. To say that "anything is possible" and include winged pigs flying like birds is to purposefully damage the mind.

Imagination is an amazing tool, but like anything it can be used destructively. It also can be shut down, thereby removing a critical tool for survival.

Craig L, you made some interesting points... I give you credit for going into detail and explaining to us what the word vision means to you.
I think you were interpreting the word vision from an abstract point of view and not from reality. We are all grown up here and we all know that pigs don`t fly... Besides thats a "quote" It is a way of telling someone that they will never accomplish something... I think you went too deep into the word and forgot the principality of the word vision..

And.... yes everything is possible in this world if you put your self to it. We are not talking about flying, breathing underwater, or having super powers. We are talking about your vision, How did you get motivated, how were you inspired to take the extra step, to get over the paralysis of starting your own business?

What was your vision? do you still see that vision? if not, what distracted you from accomplishing your vision?

Imagination, and Vision are two different things. Imagining is day dreaming but never accomplishing anything, we can imagine being rich, imagine we were driving a ferrari... But that is as far as it goes, our imagination is one thing. Visioning what you have to do to be rich, or driving a ferrari are very different.
The word vision is more like a "drive"  to do something, it`s an inspiration.
What do you think?


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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Well, as they say, we`ll have to disagree on this one. :-) I hold that not anything is possible in this world.

As for my vision, it`s to write out a complete, organized, and hopefully easy to read philosophy for a technological world. It`s to consolidate the previous philosophies, and upgrade the examples they use from a "machine" model to an "information" model, using PCs, networking, applications, and the Internet.

I`ve never lost that vision, despite it being a bit overwhelming. I`d like to change the world a bit, and get people back to actually knowing what they`re talking about when they use words. There`s a term Ayn Rand coined, "secondhand concept."

What it means is to use a word or expression because we`ve heard someone else use it and "kinda sorta" know what it means. But if we`re questionned on the actual meaning, we realize we don`t know. Corporate jargon thrives on this sort of language use, and the word "vision" is an example.

A vision is either a delusion or hallucination, or it`s the result of your optic nerves functioning. But "a vision" in this context, refers to a metaphorical use of the term....to mean something. What? Nobody knows. Everyone is supposed to have their own vision, or be searching for a vision, or automatically understand what`s a vision.

A metaphorical vision cannot exist without it coming through the imagination. But unless anyone stops to figure out what the heck is "imagination" they`ll never have a vision. Hence, my post. :-)