Visionary: Billy Graham

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Few career building visionaries following God's call have had as much success in bringing their vision to life as American evangelist Billy Graham. In a career that has spanned more than five decades, Graham's Billy Graham Ministries has fulfilled its vision in life and broadcast the Good News of God to an estimated two billion people in six continents.

Graham formed his vision in life early after graduating in 1940 from the Florida Bible Institute with a degree in Theology. His career building efforts started with that simultaneously, as he became pastor of the United Gospel Tabernacle while still in school.

In 1949, Graham's career building efforts took a serious upturn when he became a series of revival missions in Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, William Randolph Hearst, news mogul, assisted Graham with media exposure, and Graham was soon a national figure. In 1954, his face graced the cover of TIME Magazine.

Graham's Christian personal vision plan spans more than just five decades. His career building goals have gone beyond the traditional reach of evangelistic ministry and revolutionized the way Christian ministries reach out. From Hour to Decision, Graham's weekly radio program, to several primetime television specials, Graham's many media arms establish the Word of God and encourage Christians worldwide. Five decades later, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has reached more than 2.3 billion people.
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Ask Yourself This: How Connected is God to Your Vision in Life?

Monday, April 28, 2008

Career building visionaries striving to bring their vision to life would do well to consider the spiritual implications of their vision. Many times, a well-meaning visionary develops his or her career building goals without thinking about how his or her faith comes into the equation, and I believe that is a very dangerous thing to do.

Bringing your vision to life is going to take passion from deep within the gut, and that kind of passion for your vision in life is so much more powerful when your vision in life is in sync with God's vision in life for you.

When a vision in life is in sync with God's plans for you, there is a different electricity in the air as you work on your career building goals. A Christian personal vision plan, for instance, comes from meeting with God regularly; when you have a relationship with God that allows Him to speak into every area of your life, and you take His suggestions seriously, you know that He's going to bless your career building efforts significantly.

Another benefit of connecting God to your vision in life is the great amount of insight He's going to give you in your field of expertise. Often, during the career building process, many people bringing their vision to life forge ahead without really delving into the nitty-gritty. God-given insight can help you avoid all these potential problems.

To learn more about how God can help you bring your vision to life, why not click here to read about how my book Bring Your Vision to Life can help bring your career building efforts to new heights?
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Friday Four: Four Reasons Why Passion is Important to Your Vision in Life

Friday, April 25, 2008

A vision in life needs passion if it is going to be brought to fruition by any career building visionary. If you are going to go through life day in and day out bringing your vision to life, it would be best to have passion for that life vision. You need to feel that vision in life in your gut. You need to love what you are doing, because when you love your vision in life, when you have passion for it, great things are guaranteed to come your way.

Here are four reasons why passion is important to your vision in life:

1. Passion is infectious. I've said time and time again that bringing your vision to life will need help from other people. If you have passion, it will be easier for others to empathize with you and understand where you are coming from.
2. Passion is a great motivator. Passion gives that extra jolt of energy for you to bring your vision to life. When you are passionate about your vision in life, that passion becomes ingrained in your psyche, and it's easier to get up in the mornings knowing where you're headed and what you're out to accomplish.
3. Passion gets you through the downside. Passion provides a great dose of inspiration when things do not quite go your way. There will always be bumps along the road when your career building efforts get momentarily derailed, but passion will help you get up again.
4. Passion will keep your vision fresh. When you have passion for your vision in life, it makes you constantly return to it and treat it well. You can return to your vision in life, you can look at it with new, fresh eyes, and passion will give you the push you need to make it happen.
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Visionary: Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Career building visionaries can learn a thing or two about dedication to one's vision from Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, a senator who was instrumental in the history of his country, the Philippines, and bringing it to the next phase of its development, even if he wasn't around to witness it himself.

Ninoy Aquino developed his vision in life - to see a prosperous Philippines - early. Born to a prosperous landed family, Aquino was an exemplary student whose tertiary education was interrupted by a journalist stint in Korea for the Manila Times, a popular Philippine newspaper. Aquino's career building goals soon started to revolve around public service, as he entered government service for then-president Ramon Magsaysay. Soon, he was a noted peacemaker who sped along the government's peace process.

The career building efforts of Aquino came to a head when he became, at 34, the youngest-elected senator in history. After several damaging "exposes" at the expense of his spouse, incumbent Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos singled Aquino out as his most dangerous political threat. In 1971, Marcos declared martial law, and Aquino, after temporary incarceration, fled the country in political exile.

When Aquino decided to return to the Philippines, many attempted to dissuade him. He was quoted as saying, "if it's my fate to die by an assassin's bullet, so be it." The return to the Philippines of the career building visionary was one watched closely by the international press. Upon his exit from the airplane flying him home, he was gunned down by an assassin's bullet.

Even if Aquino didn't see his vision to life through to completion, his widow, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, eventually became president of the Philippines after the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos through the vaunted People Power Revolution that has come to characterize the democratic process in the Philippines.
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Ask Yourself This: Are You Willing to Die for Your Vision?

Monday, April 21, 2008

It's the ultimate question: is there something for which you feel so passionately that you are willing to die for it?

Some career building visionaries give up on bringing their vision to life when they encounter some difficult moments the course of their work. A few are lucky because their Christian personal vision plans are motivated by faith and hope; others, unfortunately, aren't as driven because they have not internalized their vision in life.

What does it mean to internalize your vision in life?

To internalize your vision in life is to feel so passionately for your life vision that you'd be willing to die to see it happen. To internalize your vision is to see it and its fruition as something bigger than yourself, and to know that your work towards it, every career building goal, every step of the way, is worth the effort.

For many people, including Jesus Christ, there is no greater sign of love than for a person to lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13). If a person can willingly give up his life for another's, we can assume it is so because he considers his friend's life more valuable than his own.

Have you internalized your vision in life? Do you feel so strongly about your vision in life and bringing your vision to life that you'd be willing to die for it? If not, why not take a look at my book, Bringing Your Vision to Life?
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Friday Four: Four Reasons Why A Clear Vision is Important to World Change

Friday, April 18, 2008

If your career building goals are a little more lofty than, say, 'make a million dollars then retire,' you may need a little more than a good battle plan. You are going to have to go into the fray with a clear-cut vision. Here are four reasons why having a clear cut vision is absolutely necessary if you want to change the world.

1. Vision unites people. A vision in life that is clear and concise, one that aims to do something for the greater good of the majority, will unite people of different backgrounds and social classes. As a career building goal, make it your point to develop a vision of life and career objectives that speaks to a great number of people about the greater good.

2. Vision inspires and motivates people. If you are the career building type who believes that man is innately good, then a vision in life that aims to change the world will inspire people. A vision in life that is focused on social improvement will move people to action, which is the kind of career building effort that you want.

3. Vision focuses people. Proverbs 29:18 says "without vision, the people perish." When career building efforts are centered on a vision, people move with focus and direction. It is clear where they are headed, and they know how to get there.

4. Vision challenges the faith of people. When people work towards a vision in life, it challenges their faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the evidence of things not seen." When a vision in life is set, it gives people something tangible to work for, yet at the same time, it challenges them to "see" how they'll actually make the end result of their vision a tangible reality.

If you'd like to get started on a vision in life that will change the world, click here.
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Visionary: Mother Teresa

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Few career building visionaries have changed the world quite like Mother Teresa. A Roman Catholic nun born in Albania, Mother Teresa was revered as a humanitarian whose career building apex, the Missionaries of Charity, administered to the sick, orphaned, poor and dying originally in Calcutta, India, and spreading throughout the world.

In 1946, after years at the Sisters of Loreto convent in Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she believed to be the call of the Lord to serve outside of the convent. Her missionary work began in 1948 with her first career building efforts devoted to a school in Motijhil. Shortly afterward, she began to tend the needs of the poor, career building efforts that caught the attention of the Indian Prime Minister.

Teresa, who by this time was called Mother Teresa by those whom she served, received permission to start the congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. The vision in life of this organization was to care for "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

Mother Teresa opened many institutions for the destitute, including the Kalighat Home of the Pure Heart; the Shanti Nagar (City of Peace), a home for lepers, and the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, a haven for orphans and homeless youth.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her vision in life and career building humanitarian efforts. At the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity operated 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.
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Ask Yourself This: Will Your Vision Change the World?

Monday, April 14, 2008

One thing I've learned in my many years of helping others bring their visions to life is this: the visionaries who center their career building goals on something much greater than themselves end up being so much more satisfied with themselves and the daily career building efforts they make towards making their vision of life and career opportunities realities into which they can sink their teeth.

Not everyone can be a Martin Luther King or a Jesus Christ, someone whose career building legacy literally changes the courses of millions. However, the opportunities to make a difference in so many countless lives are, well, just as countless, and when it comes to building your career, a vision that changes the world, a Christian personal vision plan for many of us, a vision that stretches far and wide is certainly a vision worth bringing to life.

If a career building visionary like you focuses his or her time and effort in helping make the world a better place, there should be no reason why an agent of positive change like you should not be able to succeed. Positivity attracts positivity.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself about yourself. Think about what your answers mean in context of your bringing your vision to life:

1. Are your career building goals centered around reaching beyond your community or country?

2. Are your vision in life and career opportunities readily adaptable to the changing times?

3. Is it easy to share your vision in life with others, and do these others react to your vision in a manner that encourages you?

My book, Bringing Your Vision to Life, offers a wide range of suggestions for, as well as stories of, people who change the world every day. For more information, click here.
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Friday Four: Four Tips to Help You Communicate Your Vision

Friday, April 11, 2008

Building your career can be made significantly easier when you make a greater, more concerted effort to communicate better. Your vision in life deserves that kind of attention and dedication to detail, and when you are able to express yourself in a clear and confident manner, your career building goals are closer to getting achieved easier and better than you ever thought possible.

Here are four tips to help you communicate your vision in life clearer and more concisely than ever before:

1. Think about what you would like to say. Career building mistakes are often made when a person says something he didn't run through his head before it exited his mouth. Bring your vision to life by planning ahead and remembering the bottom line of your vision before you attempt to communicate it to someone else.

2. Stop talking... every so often. Building your career becomes smoother when you remember that people's attention spans only run so long. If you want to communicate better, pause every so often to give the other person a chance to say something. It's the polite thing to do, and every Christian personal vision plan allows for another person to say his or her piece on your vision in life.

3. Stay focused on one major point. If you start talking about your career building goals and vision in life right away, state your main point from the get-go. Doing this actually gives you a clearer direction for your conversation, and allows you the chance to explain your thoughts and point of view. At the end of your conversation, you can return to that point, or summarize any thoughts and decisions that may hae been made along the way.

4. Watch what you're saying but not saying. Many visionaries have had career building disasters with what comes out of their mouths, but you also have to be careful with what you're not saying with your body. Body language is a very important thing to control; you can come across hostile or aggressive with your gestures and facial expressions.

Any career building decision can be made better with communication skills, many of which are discussed in my book, Bringing Your Vision to Life. Give yourself the opportunity to bring your own vision to life with more information here.
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Visionary: Alexander Graham Bell

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

When it comes to communication and vision, career building visionaries can learn much from the passion of famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who is widely credited with the invention of the device that has since come to be known as the telephone. Bell devoted his vision in life and all career building goals to the development of a device that would ease communication, stemming from his early childhood experiences with a mother growing deaf.

Alexander Graham Bell was a sensitive child who showed immense range and creativity. A heart and talent for music, art, and poetry resulted in a wide range of skills, including piano playing and voice mimicry with comedic results. When Bell was 12, his mother began to lose her hearing, and he developed a finger language that allowed him to communicate to her the conversations around her.

Bell's career building moment - that eureka! moment - came when he developed a technique of speaking in clear, modulated tones that allowed his mother to hear him with relative clarity. He did this by speaking directly into his mother's forehead. This simple communicative strategy allowed him special insight into the world of acoustics and elocution. Bell's father helped develop his proficiency by teaching him how to identify symbols and their accompanying sounds.

Alexander Graham Bell's efforts as a visionary are noteworthy for two particular reasons. First, Bell's vision in life was shaped largely by experiences in his personal life that clearly drove him with a passion. The fact that his mother, and later on, his wife, Mabel Hubbard, were deaf made him even more determined to find a way to help them communicate. Second, his career building efforts were so clearly defined, his career building goals so cut in stone, that it was easy for him to focus. As we all know, the way we communicate now is made so much easier thanks to the way that Bell enabled us to communicate, and that makes all the difference.
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Ask Yourself This: How Important are Communications Skills to Your Vision?

Monday, April 7, 2008

Have you ever tried to communicate your vision to life to others and found it difficult to express what you have in mind? Rest assured you're not alone. Many a career building visionary has found communicating his vision in life difficult, and this boils down to the message you're trying to convey and the way you're communicating your message.

Building your career depends greatly on how well you communicate with others. We have been taught since early childhood how to speak, but we know that speaking and communicating are two separate things. Any vision in life should take into account being able to communicate effectively.

Exactly how important are communication skills to building your career and bringing your vision to life? Think essential. Think vital. Think non-negotiable.

Communication skills are important to the career building visionary because these skills will determine how effectively you will be able to bring your vision to life. Consider it a career building goal to learn how to communicate verbally and non-verbally. Your choice of language when talking to others, as well as your non-verbal cues, greatly affect how you will be perceived by others.

Interpersonal relationships are important, as is position. Communicating with a superior, for instance, is quite different from communicating with a colleague or subordinate. Cultural differences play a role, too. If your vision in life involves taking something to the global arena, it is vital that your career building goals respect the myriad unique traits of various cultures.

Career building visionaries will find the content in my book, Bringing Your Vision to Life, quite useful in terms of building confidence and the right communication skills. For more information, click here.
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Friday Four: Four Reasons Why Thinking About the Next Generation Is So Important

Friday, April 4, 2008

Career building goals aside, there are many good reasons to think about the next generation.

1. Building your career on the next generation affects the way you do business today. Having a vision in life that takes into account the welfare of the next generation affords the social entrepreneur a greater awareness of how important it is to be ethical in one's current business dealings. If your vision in life is geared on making things better for the next generation, you can bet your career building goals will be centered on values that you intend to pass on to the men and women who will help bring your vision of life and career objectives to glorious fruition.

2. Leaving a legacy becomes so much personal. Oftentimes, a vision in life becomes clearer when you focus on the end result. In the course of bringing your vision to life, if you can see the future generations as they are now, you can find so much more motivation in making your vision a reality. A Christian personal vision plan, for instance, takes into account winning souls for Jesus Christ; if your values are in sync with your vision in life, the passion and self-motivation becomes so much more personal, and thus, your vision becomes easier to achieve.

3. It gives you a greater sense of purpose. Career building is so much more relevant when the visionary working towards the vision in life does it for the sake of purpose. Anyone can work towards starting a company; not everyone can boast of starting a company designed specifically, for instance, to raise funds for a solution for cancer.

4. The next generation can help you today. Many say the enthusiasm and passion of youth is something unequalled by men of age and experience. Harness the potential of these future visionaries and bring your vision to life through their eyes and with their experience!

My book, Bring Your Vision to life, gives several ideas on developing a vision that takes the future of the next generation into passionate and full consideration. Click here for more details.
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Visionary: Anita Roddick

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Career building visionaries can learn a thing or two about planning ahead from Dame Anita Roddick, the founder of famed beauty product retailer The Body Shop. Roddick’s vision in life leaned towards ethical consumerism, where fair global trade and ingredients untested on animals became standard operating procedure. It was a business operation that would change the world.

Roddick's vision in life to shape the world's cosmetics industry was no spur-of-the-moment decision. Her career building goals were clear even at a young age, with the feisty Brit getting herself involved with environmental and social issues. Her vision in life involved activism and partnership with many organizations that supported her goals, including Greenpeace and The Big Issue. Roddick was so concerned with the future impact of her business endeavors that she even founded a charitable institution called Children on the Edge; the purpose of the organization was to help disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Roddick's career building moment came when she opened her first The Body Shop. By 1991, Roddick's The Body Shop had over 700 branches worldwide, and she was awarded the Award for Development Initiative by the World Vision Awards; 13 years later, The Body Shop had almost tripled that number and served more than 77 million consumers worldwide.

Central to the success of her vision in life was the desire to see the world a better place years down the road. To its credit, The Body Shop has changed the way fair markets operate, and impacted in immeasurable ways the economies of the third-world nations with which it does business. Further cementing her vision to change the world through environmental activism and fair and equitable global trade, Roddick began to channel her resources, worth almost US$104 million, to various institutions and charities.
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