My dad grew up on a farm in Kansas.  His granddad was a farmer, his dad was a farmer, and all his neighbors were farmers.  At a young age my dad got a vision.

My dad left the farm, and left all that his generations before him knew:  farming.  He went to work for IBM (where he would work for 37 years).  This vision though never left him.

The first time I saw the vision it was tacked up on the wall atop his workbench.  It was a cover of a magazine with a biplane on it.

At this point there was nothing but a vision.  A tacked up cover of a magazine on his workbench – but, that is where all great leadership takes off.  Someone has to “see it,” someone has to have the courage to, “speak it out loud.”

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“I’m building that plane you see there, a Starduster Too.”

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he.”  Proverbs 29:18

The day my dad started to build his lifelong vision I was 4 years old.  The day he finished it, I was 8.  It took him 4 years, and in those years the comments and banter that surrounded our garage on 450 Holmes Ct. was astounding.

“He’ll never finish it.”

“That doesn’t look like a plane to me.”

“Even if he finishes it, I wouldn’t fly in it.”

As the plane began to take shape, the picture on the wall above the workbench didn’t seem so crazy . . .

Here is the plane just after finishing with my dad at the helm over the grass fields in Oregon . . .

Here is the plane today, 2012, still flying . . .

What about you?  What are the visions you are tacking to your wall?  What pictures do you have in your mind that you want to strive toward?

I have a life plan, which is nothing more than a vision document for my life.  By the way, you can have one too.  It’s free!  Here is a great resource if you are interested:

http://michaelhyatt.com/life-plan

Vision is the seed of action.  Vision is what will help your leadership take off the runway like an airplane . . . a Starduster Too!

Do me a favor today . . . write something down, or print off a picture and tack it up!  Here’s to your vision “taking off!”

Blessings,

Eric