Have you ever been driving down the road and noticed something—a car abandoned in a field, an old farmhouse falling apart, or a dilapidated office building—and started imagining what it would be like to revitalize or recreate that thing into something useful again?
Within a few minutes you have a loose plan in your head of the process and an image of the completed product. You picture yourself cruising down backroads in that restored car, sipping coffee on the porch of the revamped farmhouse, or proudly giving tours of your newly renovated office.
If you’re not a Tina Turner fan, the title of this article might have thrown you off. But here’s the connection: some things in life are inseparable from who we are. Love, for example, is a universal desire—it’s natural to want to love and be loved. Boy meets girl, chemistry happens, the hope of a long and happy life together begins.
But what does love have to do with vision?
The Visionary Spark
Most of us have had at least a fleeting moment where we saw potential in something that others overlooked. Maybe it’s a rough idea that never goes beyond that initial thought. Or maybe it grows into something more—a casual consideration, then serious contemplation, and finally a full-fledged pursuit.
As the level of involvement and commitment increases, the number of people who continue to pursue the project decreases. Why? Because pursuing a vision is hard. It’s derailed by challenges like lack of skills, fear of failure, financial strain, or personal circumstances. (I’ve faced all of these myself—trust me!)
But here’s where the connection to love comes in.
Love and Vision: The Parallels
When you meet someone you’re interested in, your level of attraction determines how far you’ll go to pursue them. Is this a fleeting crush, or are you imagining a life together? Is this person someone I can see myself committing to, through good and bad, and sacrificing myself for them? If not, maybe a few dates and I keep looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right.
Similarly, when you have a vision—a dream or goal—you must decide: is this just an idea, or something worth committing to? Am I willing to commit to the process of seeing it come to fruition, through the up’s and down’s, without giving up hope and abandoning ship?
And the biggest question of all, before you embark on your grand vision or the love of your life… can you handle the worst case outcome? Because there is always the potential for failure.
Setting Up for Sustainability
It's fascinating how we tend to approach love and relationships much more casually than we do pursuing a dream or a goal.
Starting a business? Everyone asks about your plan.
Getting married? Hardly anyone asks the same thing, even though marriage also involves long-term commitment.
How you approach your vision or dream will be very similar to how you approach the
person you are smitten with. What other people see as impossible, you will see as opportunities to prove yourself.
Her dad on the porch with a shotgun might scare other guys away. You choose to walk through the gate with fear and trepidation, but she matters so much to you that you can’t be dissuaded.
Banks might laugh at you when you ask for money. Colleges might scoff at your LSAT or MCAT scores, but you know that you are supposed to serve people through law or medicine, so you keep taking classes and working underpaying jobs until you’re finally accepted.
Or maybe you’ve been sketching out idea after idea for so long that you wonder if any of them will ever make it to market.
You may go through a rough time with your mate and you aren’t sure that the relationship will survive, but you resolve to do whatever it takes to make it work and refuse to give up.
The bigger your dream or vision or idea, the greater the challenges that you will face.
Successful relationships are rarely cake walks, they require effort and compromise.
Successful businesses, successful careers, and meaningful lives don’t just happen. They’re hard, really hard at times. The deeper the dream resonates, the clearer the vision, the more likely you are to pursue it without losing heart.
To love another person means valuing them, recognizing worth in them. Seeing a vision or dream through to success requires recognizing its value to you.
When it comes to pursuing your vision, planning makes a difference (and so does considering the impact that your decisions may have on the people around you). A clear or even partial plan can increase your chances of success. But beyond strategy, what matters most is how much you value what you’re pursuing.
The more deeply you love a person, the more likely you are to weather storms together. The more deeply you value your vision, the more likely you’ll see it through despite setbacks.
My Story: From Challenges to Coaching
Please don’t think I’m writing this from an ivory tower. It’s taken me over two hours to peck this article out with one finger from one hand.
You see when I talk about vision and pursuing dreams and failure, I’m talking about my own life. I’ve failed in school, in jobs, in relationships, in business. I’ve been broke, faced serious health problems, and battled anxiety and depression. But I’ve never quit because I have been convinced that I bring value to the table and can inspire people to take risks, even when they’re scared.
Calculated risk taking is a skill that visionaries and entrepreneurs and high level leaders hone their entire lives. Sometimes we win and people say we’re lucky. Sometimes we lose and people laugh at our misfortune. Sometimes we fail miserably and people use us as verbal punching bags.
I left a stable job to start my first business when I was 34. I had no experience, no money, no support, and no plan. I didn’t know what I was doing, and it wasn’t the wise thing to do. Seven months later, I started having seizures and was diagnosed with a grade three malignant brain tumor. You want to talk about reasons to quit and give up? The hospital told my wife that applying for disability was the best option. I was temporarily paralyzed and had to relearn how to work my left arm and leg all over again.
The Takeaway: Pursue Your Vision with Passion
You may have circumstances that are far worse than mine were, or you may be in a much better position. Whatever your station, if you have something inside of you that moves you, that never goes away, that you have been convinced that it needs to be done, you won’t quit. Regardless of the challenges that you face, you will continue to trudge through the muck on your hands and knees until it is accomplished.
And no one around you will see the importance of it the same way you do, but your passion will draw like-minded people to come along beside you and they will help you as it grows into the thing you envisioned. There will be times when you feel so alone, and other times filled with elation and camaraderie. Some days you'll want to quit, others you'll want to cry, and others when you'll just be numb.
You see, I get it. I can describe it because I’ve experienced it. And now I coach those that choose to heed the call of visionary, or entrepreneur, or leader. I’m still going through it, still seeing opportunities under every rock and distilling down those that make sense for my current situation. My role isn’t to provide a silver bullet but to ask the right questions, help you find clarity, and give you the space to create the results you’re capable of achieving.
So, what’s love—or vision—got to do with it? Everything. Because when you value something deeply, you’ll do whatever it takes to make it a reality.
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