Jason D. Barr

Is vision just for CEO-types? I don’t believe it is. Everyone needs to have vision.

Vision is the ability to take the long-range view, to look at a challenging situation and see many possible outcomes, to make the choices that will direct one through the challenges to the best result. Vision is crucial to becoming engaged in whatever situation you are dealing with. If you can’t conjure a long-term plan, you’ll tend to get bogged down in the details of the day-to-day. Your vision, the big picture, is what you can do better than anyone else and the way you can leave your mark on the world around you.

How do you cultivate the tendency to think big picture? I believe that, first and foremost, you’ve got to have a big picture view of your life. What’s the motivating force that goads you to action every day? What gets you most excited about waking up in the morning? If you’re not excited to get up, then you don’t have a vision. Many people call these “goals”, and the terms probably could be used interchangeably, but I believe that goals are what get you down the road to achieving your vision. Goals are incremental steps to how you plan to make the environment in which you live a little bit better.

A vision is something that you are so interested in, so excited about, that you willingly invest your spare time, energy, and money to accomplish. For some people, it’s studying some particular topic (say, philosophy or history). Some people write, some are passionate about helping other people.

And, some people are just enthusiastic about themselves. If you don’t have a vision of something greater than yourself, you’ll automatically default to surfing the couch five nights a week and drinking beer with your buddies the other two. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a valid choice to make. Everyone is at that stage at some point in their lives. However, I will have to say that not looking past yourself to something greater is a gross misuse of your God-given abilities and talents.

There is something in you are better at or know more about than anyone else in your social circle. Don’t miss the opportunity to share your insights and skills with other people. Whether it’s helping a friend who’s starting a business to design a website, or tutoring kids who have a tough time with their math homework, find something or someone outside of yourself to focus on.

Once you feel like you’ve found that thing that you are passionate about above all other things, it’s time to brainstorm. Make two lists: one list of how you can develop this passion (more study, practice, etc.), and another list of how your passion can benefit those around you. Once you know how to get better at what you truly care about, and how you can help other people through applying your passion, you’ll have the vision for your life.

As you go through life, you’ll naturally refine what you see in your big picture. It may be a tweak here or there, or it may be a full-blown change of course. Either one is fine. You never truly know how your actions will affect those around you until you start.

Big picture thinking will elevate you above the mundane issues you face in the daily grind, and will cause the things that formerly frustrated you to become much smaller issues than they had been previously. Once you’ve got a long-term mindset, those frustrations don’t matter as much. If they’re challenges blocking your way toward achieving your vision, you’ll have a reason to keep going through them. And, if they’re challenges in an area unrelated to your vision, you’ll know that they don’t really matter. What’s important is keeping your vision always in front of you, and constantly reminding yourself of what you will achieve.

So, what’s the big deal?  Why should I worry about other people; shouldn’t I be looking out for number one (especially early in my career)?

These are questions that used to cross my mind quite often. Having grown up in these United States, I was thoroughly indoctrinated with the “John Wayne” mindset; I could do it on my own. Independence is valued very highly in our society (and rightly so). However, in asserting our independence, we often slide too far in the other direction and totally miss all the benefits we receive as members of society.

There are many things to be gained from our social circles, it’s true. However, if one approaches “networking” in the manner in which it is often conducted, that person will totally miss the point. Relationships aren’t something to be milked for all they’re worth. You cannot use other people to get ahead for very long before they quit allowing themselves to be used. Each relationship has to be approached from the standpoint of giving. What benefit can I provide for this person? How can I help him or her out with the challenge they are facing? What value am I bringing to the table? If we as individuals approach our relationships from a service standpoint, we will never lack for opportunities.

This mindset applies everywhere. In order to get a raise, you first need to demonstrate that you’re willing to put in the time and effort necessary to generate value for your organization. To be placed in a position of authority, one first must be willing to become a good follower; working hard to ensure the success of the team. In order to make friends, you need to be a friend first. An extremely wise Man once said, “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first”. Take a subordinate position, humble yourself, and be willing to learn. You cannot demand respect (well, you can, but you’re most likely not going to get it), it must be earned.

So, in order to build a network of friends and associates that you can draw upon for assistance, you first need to be a person who offers his or her assistance to those around you, without question and with no thought for being repaid. Don’t keep track of the favors you do for other people. It’s not worth the mental effort. If you give of yourself to others, be it financially, with time and expertise, or just as a friend who listens, you will always receive back more than you give.

I’m an introvert. Not in the sense that I stutter, or have anxiety attacks when I leave my house. I’m an introvert in the sense that I would rather spend my time with a few close friends, rather than in a room full of people I know only superficially. This doesn’t mean that I have poor or below average social skills; far from it. I’ve read many books on relationship building and I feel like I do a good job when I’m meeting new people. One of my favorite things to do, in fact, is speaking in front of a group of people on a topic I find interesting. It just means that big “party” type settings, where I interact with many different people, drain me of energy, rather than renewing it.

However, after an event like this, when I’m on my way home, I think about situations of extreme isolation, and wonder just how far one can go in that direction. Wouldn’t being a hermit be great? What about shutting yourself up like Thoreau? What if you were literally the last person on earth? What would that be like?

Can you imagine being totally, utterly alone? Nothing to interact with (television, internet, radio, etc.) and absolutely no one to talk to. Imagine walking around a world that looked exactly like the one you’re familiar with in every way, but totally devoid of any other person or animal to interact with. How long do you think you could last before you went crazy from loneliness or literally died from boredom? Could a lack of relational stimulation really kill you? I think it could.

The bottom line is, even introverts like me need human contact. Parties may be draining, but it would be nothing compared to the alternative. Voluntary isolation from other people can be refreshing for some, but it always ends. We need other people in order to survive. It is only in the regular give-and-take with people that we know and meet that we can find purpose and meaning in our lives. We exist, to a certain extent, for relationships. Relationships with our Maker and with each other. If there were no others, there would be no purpose. But, in interacting with others, we find purpose on the most basic of levels. Every motive in life, running the gamut from selfless service to manipulative control and domination, requires interaction with other people. Make the most of your opportunities every day to talk to the person in front of you at Starbucks while you’re waiting for your frappachino; you may meet a person who makes your life more worth living (or, you could be the person that makes their life more livable).

Trent over at The Simple Dollar wrote a great piece yesterday that kind of dovetails with what I touched on briefly in my previous post on the 10% Myth. You can read his post here.

I’d like to quote his closing thought on this topic, then ramble a bit on my own:

“Different people have different talents and different ways to give of themselves. What matters is that you actually do give, whether it be working hard so that you can make a donation to help a cause or directly working for that cause. What matters is that you put your talents to work in the end for a cause that is important to you. To me, that’s what a spiritual life is all about.”

Now, I will disagree with him on his comment that living the spiritual life is concerned with DOING something. But, not knowing Trent or his personal views on religion, I won’t quibble on semantics. That’s not the point here. I do think, however, that he captured a truly important concept in that paragraph that I feel too many “spiritual” people skip right over.

You not only owe it to yourself and your family, you owe it to the world at large and to God to be financially successful to the point where you can share some of your wealth with others. Some of you might think that you don’t have “wealth” to share, but I assure you, you do. Per capita income in developed countries is so far being the imagining and dreaming of residents of developing countries, it’s unbelieveable. Dollars a month (”the price of a cup of coffee a day”, as the Christian Children’s Fund commercials tell us) can guarantee one child food, immunizations and an opportunity at education. How in the world can we, as compassionate people, not find some change rolling around in the couch cushions for this?

So, as I mentioned previously, I was raised by a financial advisor. My dad made me save 50% of everything I ever earned, and I didn’t get to decide what I was saving for. It was just gone. I didn’t get an allowance; I had to do work. Not household chores, mind you, but mowing lawns or paper routes. Nothing was given to me. I didn’t appreciate it at the time (boy, did I hate handing over 50 cents on every dollar), but, when I cashed out a mutual fund to pay for my first year of college, I discovered my dad was pretty smart after all.

Will I make JD Jr. save 50%? Probably not. I felt it was restrictive, and it really didn’t give me a lot of money to learn how to spend wisely. It took too long to save up for anything, so I just frittered it away on nothing. My money problems came when I started college. I got a credit card (heard this story before?) and ended up running up a pretty big bill that I didn’t have any way to pay for. Due to some other choices I made, not related to the credit card at all, I ended up having to drop out of college and get a job half way through my junior year. Not having a degree meant I wasn’t qualified for much except manual labor or factory work. I chose the latter, because I could work nights and earn shift differential.

Let me tell you, $9 an hour does not go very far when you have to pay for rent, food, student loan bills (those showed up after I had exhausted my savings mid-way through my sophomore year), a car payment for a crappy used car, and credit card debt. I distinctly remember depositing a $600 and some odd check at my two week pay day and still being overdrawn at my bank by over $100. Those were not fun days.

When I was 25, I joined the Army (it was just after 9/11, and I wanted to do my part). I met my soon-to-be wife in basic training, and we were married 9 months later. She had debt, too, but we resolved that we were going to get out of it as soon as we could. We got married five years ago next week, and combined, we had over $40,000 in consumer debt. Today, I am proud to say that it’s less than $10,000, and that is on one car payment. We carry no credit card debt and live very frugally in an attempt to pay that off as quickly as possible.

So, I believe it can be done. For us, it came down to understanding that we really were in control of our lives. Both of us want to travel, work in foreign countries where we’re considered the outsiders, and give back to the world. We realize that those types of jobs don’t typically pay very much, so we know that we have to develop a lifestyle that’s rather spartan in order to be able to subsist on substantially less than what we currently make. It all comes down to crystallizing in one’s mind what is truly important to that particular person. Not everyone has to have my dreams, but everyone needs some dream. Once you decide what’s so important to you that you can’t live without it, then you’ll start doing what you need to do to make it happen, no matter how (temporarily) painful the process.

The Motley Fool says you need to suck it up, and I agree. 10% is a bare minimum, and most of us need to be saving more. Especially in the past few years, the real estate run-up has caused many people to discount the need for savings and view capital gains as a means to ensuring your retirement income. The plateau (and in some places, precipitous decline) in real estate prices caused by a glut of inventory on the market, coupled with the slowdown in sales may have opened some eyes, but I still worry that some folks view it as a temporary speed bump on the highway of home appreciation.

So, what can we do to free up some cash flow for savings?  The usual: cancel your cable, don’t eat out as much, quit drinking lattes, blah blah blah.  All good advice, but it seems to me that, unless you’re actually redirecting that money into some type of investment vehicle (your emergency fund stashed in an ING Orange Savings account, some index funds, or the like), you’re not really improving your financial future.

My counsel to myself was to learn to live on 75% of my income.  Honest confession:  I’m not there yet.  I’m only at 80%, but I’m working my way to 75%.  I believe (especially if you didn’t do what you should have been doing in your 20’s and started with the 10% savings from your first post-school paycheck) that I probably want to put away 15% of my pay every pay check.  I don’t plan on spending my raises, either.  Those go right off the top (as do bonuses) into savings.  And, I give 10% to a charity I believe in.  Every pay check, without fail.  The tax deduction is great, but the intangible benefit I get by sharing a part of my income with those less fortunate than I goes far beyond the reduction in my Adjusted Gross Income.

Later on, I’ll be explaining how I got to where I am today financially, and where I’m going from here.