The SECRET to Having a Vision That Drives You in 16 Minutes | Don't Wait to Be Inspired

We have a vision.

Have a vision.

Have a vision.

Have a vision.

Had a vision.

Have extraordinary imaginative vision.

We have a very clear vision.

Have a very clear vision.

Had a vision.

We are old, and sure, we're tired. It's been a long season. But mentally, we have a vision. We have a finish that we have to attain. And sometimes you have to do it when you're old and you're tired. And I think it's the test of your will to succeed when you have to deal with, you know, some of these negatives. And I'm pretty sure, you know, by the end of this playoffs, you'll see the old and the tired people were very, very young and strong mentally.

You know, most people— and here's the irony— is that most people don't have a compelling vision for their own future. They don't. They move through life setting goals. And goals have no power.

We're almost—

we're at this point, you know, goals had power in 1959 when Earl Nightingale came with this idea of goal setting, and everyone's like, wow, I'm a goal-oriented person. And that was great, it worked for like 20 years. Everyone set goals and they, and they got results. But then all of a sudden, you know, you set goals and sometimes you hit them, sometimes you don't. Most, most times you don't, okay? That's okay. But goals almost became like a synonym for like, oh, I'm going to set a goal, who gives a shit what really happens afterwards? And it almost is synonymous with failure now, goal setting. There's something above— and I believe in setting goals, but there's got to be something above your goals, and that's your vision for the future. And it's not just about— it doesn't have like an ending point. It's about the world being a certain way, and that's inspiring to you. When you, when you truly have a vision for your future that inspires you, you're going to jump up out of bed in the morning and feel great about going at life versus being miserable and going to a job you hate or living a life that doesn't empower you and just, you know, every day moving through just almost like an automaton, not really you know, having the zest and the greatness of life. And I'm guilty, I've been there myself when I felt like I didn't really have a compelling vision for my own future and I felt like I was wallowing. But at least I'm conscious of that. Once you become conscious of that, you can consciously create a vision for your future. It doesn't happen in one minute or an hour. You write it down, you work on it until, and when you finally hit on it, you know how you know you got it? When you read it back to yourself, your vision statement, and it moves you and you feel inspired. Okay. And you know, so few people have that. And, and what happens is every human being is thirsty for a vision. Everyone is. And so few people have one. So what do they do? They gravitate towards someone who has a vision for the future because they want to be a part of a vision. Part of being a great entrepreneur is having that vision, being able to create the vision and then sell that vision to other people to get them to want to be inspired, to buy into it, to put in their time, their hard work, their elbow grease to help you achieve your vision. If you're a small firm, then you spread the wealth around, and it's a, it's a win-win for everybody.

You got to have a vision, a vision for what it is you really truly want, not what you think you want or what you should have. I mean, what are most people's New Year's resolutions? I'm going to stop eating sugar, you know, I'm going to stop smoking, I'm going to lose 10 pounds. The problem with that is it's not very inspiring for most people, you know. It's not telling you what you're gonna get, it's only what you're not gonna do, and it's kind of hard to have you move forward with that. A vision is about what you're here to create. A vision that really works is one that excites you. If you say, "Well, my resolution, my goal, my outcome for this month, this week, this year is to lose X number of pounds," that's okay, but it's not very compelling. It has to be a compelling vision. It's got to have something that has the power to pull you, not something you have to push yourself to do. Those are two different kinds of motivation. Push requires willpower, and willpower never lasts. What will last is pull. Having something so exciting, so attractive, so— something you desire so much that you have a hard time going to sleep at night and you get so up early in the morning to rock it and take it to the next level. That's what you're looking to create. And that isn't easy to get, but one of the reasons we do seminars and events and we say, "Why do that? Why not just read a book or something?" is because when you get in an environment where you're with people that are being put in a peak state, like when you're going to— A sporting event, if you watch a sporting event at home, it might have a certain level of excitement, but when you're in a stadium with 50,000 people, suddenly it has a whole different level of intensity, and we feel that. And the bottom line of our follow-through comes down to our emotional intensity. In a different state of mind, you're gonna come up with a much better and a more exciting vision than if you're sitting on the couch going, "Okay, what are my new resolutions for this year?" And you're doing it the morning after the new year has started, and you're a little inebriated. And the football game's on in the background, probably not going to have the power of focus there, probably not going to have the power of the energy to create something that's going to pull you for this year, and you got to do that. So it's got to be a vision that's compelling, something that you know it's going to be a gift to make sure that it happens.

And this is what I plan to do in boxing. It's good for livelihood, but mainly, uh, money don't really mean nothing because I proved that when I gave up the title, not knowing if I'm coming back or not for 4 years. And they let me back on my terms. I didn't deny nothing I believed. I'm still the same everything. So if even today, if my title hadn't been given back to me, if I got such in poverty where I had to go find a job, I would have did that. But I was— I made a good living speaking in colleges, 'cause the war got unpopular, and so many black militants were trying to do all they could, and I was a naturally right in the middle of all of it and represented it, and that kept me alive. But if I couldn't fight, I would still not be fighting. So number one comes freedom first for my people, equality. And this is what I plan to do after I'm through fighting, working with nothing but the people, the little people in the alleys, the wineheads, the downtrodden people, going out among them and helping them with my image.

You better have a vision for what you want. You better have very clear in your mind what you want for your life. What you want for your family, what you want for your business. So many of us never take the time. We don't see the value in truly shaping and molding pictures in our mind of what we want our life to look like. We think that's a waste of time. We think that's woo-woo. We think that's like the movie The Secret. Listen, seriously, there is something to vision because you are gonna face moments in your life when the doors will be closed. If a door is closed, does that mean you are not allowed to have what's on the other side? I don't believe so. Sometimes you're gonna have people and events feel like that they're chasing after you, barreling down on you. Does that mean what you want's not for you? I don't believe so. I believe you showed up here because whether it's clear or not for you yet, You have somewhat of a vision for what you'd like to have. And this is just a means to an end. You're here to learn about how to grow your business, how to put more money into your pockets and into your families and into your dreams. But more important than your business is I want you to set up a clear vision for what you want for you, for your life. Because if a person does not have their vision clear, and they constantly get blown around by the winds of life, they are constantly— they're grabbing for straws. They're just chasing something. Get very clear. What does your life look like 1 year from now, 5 years from now, 20 years from now?

The great companies had a vision that had a higher purpose beyond just money or profits or being number one in a market. And kind of the irony there is that by not making profits the number one priority of the company, or the higher purpose of the company, it actually enabled these companies to make— generate more profits in the long term. So sometimes when I speak at entrepreneur conferences, I get asked, "What's a good market to go into where I can make a lot of money?" And my response to them is, "Instead of thinking about where you can make a lot of money, think about what are you so passionate about doing that you'd be happy doing it for 10 years, even if you never made a dime, and that's what you should be doing." And kind of the ironic thing is the money will actually follow. So, you know, we've all heard of Craigslist. He didn't set out to make money. He was passionate about the community, and now it's one of the top traffic websites on the internet. I like to say, "Chase the vision, not the money." There was a movie that came out, I think a couple years ago, called "Notorious." I think it only lasted a week in the movie theater, but I saw it. And in it, Biggie Smalls, also known as Notorious B.I.G., is— well, Puff Daddy says to Biggie Smalls, "Don't chase the paper, chase the dream." I just want an excuse to put this picture up here. Anyway, so if you're an entrepreneur, say, think about what would you be so passionate about doing that you'd be happy doing it for 10 years even if you never made a dime from it. And if you have employees, think about what's the larger vision and greater purpose in their work beyond just money or profits or being number one in a market.

People who are successful have extraordinary imaginative vision, and Elon Musk calls it a more complicated term, which is arguing from first cause is not analogy. So here's what arguing from analogy or not having extraordinary imaginative vision— let's say you're in a horrible place. You were sleeping in your car. I was sleeping on a couch. Someone born in ghetto, someone born in poor part of India. If you argue from— I'm sorry, arguing from analogy means, well, everybody around me is doing bad. I'm doing bad. Therefore, I'm gonna always do bad. That's arguing from analogy, and that's not having imaginative vision. The people who make it are the people who do the opposite. They go, I'm gonna argue from first causes. I'm gonna say, has anybody ever written up— ridden, uh, risen up from the ashes out of the ghetto, or from the couch, or from the car? The answer is we all know that story. So if somebody else did it, then if you use extraordinary creative imagination, then why can't you do it too? And that's arguing from first causes. That's what allowed Elon Musk to make Tesla, spaceships, SolarCity. So for all of us, we get stuck when we argue from analogy. Well, you know, last time I started a business, it failed. Last time I trusted somebody, They betrayed me. Well, that's good. That's arguing from analogy. That's just saying because it happened before, it's gonna happen. It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you do it better. You double down on your brain. You learn from the mistakes of others and your mistakes, and the next thing, you create something new. And that's where wealth comes from. Not just wealth in your bank account— wealth of happiness, love, health, everything you want.

To me, we have a very clear vision of what it is that we are trying to get done. And I want to stay true to that. We absolutely— the biggest bet we have is our organic bet, always. And it's true even for Michael. And then on top of that, we will look at any opportunity that fits with where we want to get to. What is it that we can uniquely do? If anything that I ask myself each day is I don't want to be in every I want to be in things that are big addressable markets where Microsoft has a unique contribution to make, because I think that sense of purpose and identity is what makes companies successful, not just doing everything. And so to me, that's what will drive whatever we do organically and whatever we do inorganically.

You've got to be able to have a very clear vision of your business idea. Without it, you won't actually know where you're going. So in the year 2000, I set up Generation Telecom, and Generation Telecom was a business that supplied airtime to the rail users. I believed that I could set up and manage this business, and within 2 or 3 years, sell out to the major networks. Well, within 3 years, we successfully sold it to Vodafone, making millions of pounds. But without that vision at the outset, my business would not have gone the way that it did.

When you look at it, you know, it is really not common for somebody to leave banking and go and start something totally new, you know, especially in an area of events management. Because at the time that she left the bank, which was 10 years ago, nobody thought that something like events management will actually succeed. But I mean, it is good. That is what really what you call entrepreneurship and also a vision. You know, she had a vision and she is able to actualize her vision. It's just like myself. I remember one time I went to address a retreat of First Bank of Nigeria and I was telling First Bank of Nigeria, this is where Dangote is going to be in the next 5 years. I mean, you know, were not really that big at the time that I went there to address them. And I'm sure they couldn't really believe what I was saying then. But I remember at a point, the MD said that, well, they are really shocked at how we actually been able to make it and also actualize our vision. So I think with this thing that she has done, I personally believe it is just beginning of journey because she has a vision. And I'm sure if she continues to do it, this can turn into another mega business, you know, because like what I always say, look, um, for an entrepreneur, there are no boundaries. Not only are there no boundaries, uh, you can actually excel much more than your own expectation. And that's really what I expect of an entrepreneur to be, not to just say, okay, fine, I have a vision, and only achieve that, your vision. You You need to have a vision and a mission so that you can actually actualize it and also excel. I mean, I had somebody who came to interview me one time, and I told him that, yes, you know, 3, 4, 5 years ago, I never ever expected myself to be on the Forbes list. But right now, the vision that I have and also my own mission is actually I need to be on top of the line, not even where I am today. And that's really how, you know, a visionary person should be.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I'd love to know what your vision is for your business, as well as which of the clips that you saw here is gonna have the biggest impact on you. Leave it in the comments below. I'm gonna join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.