While sitting by the outside fire smoking your pipe, have you ever pondered what life would be like if people dreamed but never did anything about it?
Our VP of technical affairs and I sat across the aisle from each other on a plane discussing opportunities. They are like dreams. They are there, but don't mean anything if you don't capture them. In that sense, we both agreed that a sense of urgency surrounding opportunities is critical for us. For every day that we dream about an opportunity but don't act on it, the opportunity slowly slips from our grip. Our position grows weaker while our competitors' positions grow stronger. And revenue and margin opportunity flows not through our ledger but through someone else's.
Acting on the opportunity can be expensive (equipment purchases, new talent, selling costs). Not acting reduces the risk of failure to nil. Failure on that opportunity. But what about for the business?
While meeting with a friend for breakfast this morning, I pondered about the life of Jesus. He held a vision that if he died on a cross he could provide freedom. It was a huge risk. Literally, his life was on the line. The vision was there. What if he never implemented the vision? Would there be hope in our world today?
Consider Stephen Fairley's questions:
Are you an entrepreneurial dreamer? Are you the kind of successful entrepreneur who seems to have an almost innate ability to dream bigger than your experience, history or environment allows? Do you have the desire, the passion and the power to keep on going even in the face of insurmountable odds?
A dream, an opportunity, or a vision is only worth anything if the holder can implement it. If it isn't implemented, it is like stock in a failed dot-com: worthless. Only the brave, only the persistent, only the Realizor assume the risk and act on the dream. They stick their necks out, risking that failure might result in the chopping block (usually in the court of public opinion), but knowing if they never act, they will never realize the dream.
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