Common Characteristics of Visionaries

There are relatively few people that are universally regarded as visionaries.  These might include individuals such as Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, among others.  While universally acclaimed, they are often disregarded as super-talented genius, outliers that live outside of the range of normal human experience.  This essay seeks to discuss several of the main characteristics that these and other visionaries often possess.

Openness to Information

Visionaries possess an unusually large degree of openness to new information (this openness may or may not extent to people).  Some people, once they make up their mind, cannot be persuaded, nor do they continue to search for or take in new information.  Not so with visionaries, they are constantly searching for additional information, knowing that each new piece of information might yield an insight that helps solve a difficult problem or create the breakthrough needed for the next innovation.

Closely related to openness to information, visionaries typically exercise a low degree of deference to convention, historical precedent, or authorities within their domains.  While they seek to know as much as possible within their domains, they don’t defer to the judgments of the existing authorities within their domains.  By ignoring or purposeful violating norms with their respective disciplines, visionaries are able to experiment and try things that others overlook or aren’t willing to challenge.  As a result of their willingness to experiment and try things, they often are in the best position to make “breakthrough” discoveries or happy accidents.

Mental Sight

Because, at least in part, of their openness and lack of deference to authorities, visionaries possess the ability to see things with their mind (mind’s eye) often before others – sometimes long before others.  This might include certain observations that unlock the secret to understanding the natural world, trends that are still in their infancy stage (or that haven’t even begun yet), or the possibilities of new inventions, discoveries, products, or even new social or historical movements.

Visionaries are often marked by an unusual degree of sensitivity.  While this sensitivity can manifest itself as “quirkiness” or even in certain cases as mental illness (Van Gogh, Howard Hughes, John Nash), a high degree of sensitivity results in extra information being accessible to visionaries that others are not aware of.  Thus, the mark of a true visionary is that they can often see what others cannot.

Accurate Extrapolation

In some senses, visionaries seem to “see” the future.  With the exception of ancient and modern prophets (see other blog) who do, most visionaries don’t actually see the future.  What visionaries can do, however, is to build an accurate conceptual model of the future based on their keen understanding of the present.  And then (successful) visionaries bring that model into reality, creating the future.

Thus, the visionaries’ key ability is not their prophetic sight, but rather the gift to extrapolate (accurately) from the present into the future.   When accurate extrapolation is combined with the executive ability to carry out the vision, the visionary literally creates the future.  While there is some difference between the ability to accurately predict what is going to happen versus the ability to actual influence what will happen, possessing the former skill is helpful (and the first step) to developing the later skill.

Vivid Imagination

It should go without saying that the mark of a visionary is that he or she has a vision.  This is very much the end result of a strong and active imagination, one that the visionary has cultivated and nurtured very carefully.  Visionaries spend their lives following their dreams and seeking to bring them into reality.  In contrast, the masses turn off their imaginations as they mature, feeling that imagination is akin to child’s play.

Visionaries often reside in two worlds – the external world, the other being a rich internal world of ideas, pictures, and thought.  The reason why visionaries are so driven to carry out their dreams is because their dreams are so real and vivid (in their mind’s eye) to the visionary.  Thus, clarity of imagination leads to a compelling desire to carry out the vision.

Strong Conviction

Once a visionary has a worthwhile vision, the visionary must have strong conviction if the vision stands a chance at being brought into reality.  Certain visions are extraordinarily difficult to carry out and thus require an extraordinary strong belief in the vision and the visionary’s ability to carry it out.

Several specific traits support the development of conviction in a vision.  One such trait is the willingness to take (calculated) risks.  In order to form conviction, a visionary must be willing to lay it all on the line for a worthy cause.  Similarly, a certain amount of discontent with the status quo is necessary for one to be willing to lay things on the line.  In addition, an unconventional nature is somewhat helpful in that it tends to make one immune to negative social pressures that are experienced as naysayers constantly doubt the vision and the visionary.

Finally, visionaries often possess (but don’t usually discuss) a sense of personal destiny.  If you asked them (and they were honest), they’d admit that they always believed that they were destined to accomplish great things, even though they might not have known the details of how it was going to happen.  In some sense, this is necessary because the visionary needs to have a strong belief that they have the ability to carry out.

Persistence

One specific challenge unique to visionaries is best expressed by the warning label on a driver’s mirror, “objects in mirror are [further] than they appear.”  Because of the vividness of their visions, visionaries often underestimate the difficulty in bringing the vision into reality or the “distance” between the present and envisioned outcome (as the vision seems so close and obtainable to them).  The other challenge faced by visionaries is that they tend to have dreams that are larger and more difficult than average persons, and thus an extraordinary degree of persistence is required.

As a result, a high degree of persistence is absolutely critical to be a successful visionary.  Unabashed persistence allows the visionary to push through all difficulties, including the opposition of others, bad fortune, insufficient resources, or dead-ends.  In the end, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful visionary (who does not accomplish their worthy vision) often comes down to drive and persistence.