What vision is
A quick announcement - in case these posts are landing in your spam folder, please mark it as Not Spam a couple of times for Gmail to learn. In case they are landing in Promotions, move them to the Primary inbox. Thanks!
In one of my all time favourite movie scenes, Christian Bale, who plays race driver Ken Miles is sitting with his son on the race track and says:
“Look out there. Out there is a perfect lap. Do you see it?”
“I think so”
“Most people can’t. Most people don’t even know it’s out there but it is. It’s there.”
Most people don’t realise this, but this is exactly what vision is.
Vision, in its literal sense, is seeing. When we talk about entrepreneurs and their visions, we often talk about a grand idea. Often, that grand idea comes much later and is mostly used to sell the story. What comes earlier is seeing. Seeing through the fog and making an abstract road. And then keeping on refining that road and how to drive through it.
So what makes you see?
Experience is definitely a factor. Once you are in a domain, you often see the nuances of the domain converge together to form an abstract picture in your head. It’s tough to articulate, but it’s when
product managers start seeing how the final product is likely to shape out based on the MVP
artists start seeing the painting based on the sketch
writers start seeing the final draft based on the initial skeleton
mountaineers see the path to climb looking at the mountain
A lot of that comes from pattern matching - having seen instances of saplings turn to trees earlier. But pure pattern matching disregards context. Whereas this type of vision comes with a strong contextual root.
Can you see without the sketch?
It’s possible but it’s hard. The canvas is too blank and the painting can take many forms. Once you have a sketch, you bound the space of paintings while still keeping enough room for exploration.
I presume this is also a strong function of personality. Given similar experiences, one person might be able ‘to see’ better than the other. If I use (a very crude) MBTI test, I think ‘N’ personality types are better at this than ‘S’.
Seeing itself doesn’t mean that the job is done. You still have to make that vision into a reality. (And often the feedback from reality can give a shape different than what you thought). But at least you have a rough map to start on. And sometimes, that’s inspiration enough to conquer mountains.
This week’s read - a research paper on what makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial? Especially fun are Vinod Khosla’s side notes.
If you have comments on this topic, reply to this email and I’d love to chat. If not, use the button below ;)
Nice article! Short & sweet. I really enjoyed reading through that research paper, VK's side notes were hilarious. We all have observed those types amongst our friends and colleagues. Sometimes called as "0 to 1 attitude". But this will help articulate it well. Need to share with my friends and colleagues!