How to Sell a Vision Before It’s Real

Social impact leaders are visionaries — but getting others to see what you see isn’t easy. When your work hasn’t caught up to your ambitions, how do you win over funders, staff, and partners who need proof before they commit?

In this episode, Eric and Jonathan explore what it really takes to sell a bold new vision — even when the work is still taking shape.

➔ Why internal conviction is the first — and most underrated — step to building external trust.
 ➔ How to frame your future vision when your current reality doesn’t match it (yet).
 ➔ The power of showing instead of telling — and what that looks like with no budget.
 ➔ Why funders are often more excited by possibility than proof — and how to use that to your advantage.
 ➔ A real-world playbook for prototyping your vision, building buy-in, and navigating the messy middle.

If you're leading through change, launching something new, or reinventing your organization’s direction, this conversation will help you craft a message that inspires belief — before the results are in.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to sell what’s possible.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00] - Eric and Jonathan kick off with a definition that goes beyond mission statements.
• [01:12] - Jonathan shares real talk about leading through transition at the Seymour Center.
• [02:13] - Eric maps the vision lifecycle from insight to realization.
• [05:13] - Why writing one too early can backfire—and what to do instead.
• [07:02] - Eric recounts Cosmic’s pivot to social impact and what it took to bring his team along.
• [11:48] - Jonathan’s tips for gaining internal and external buy-in.
• [14:48] - Funders and stakeholders appreciate realism—if you frame it right.
• [18:35] - A smart messaging pivot that worked for Seymour Center.
• [19:56] - How DIY prototypes and low-budget demos helped seed a big vision.
• [24:17] - A thought-provoking exchange on fluidity, revision, and what comes next.
• [28:42] - Two different leadership styles—and how to make both work for you.

Notable Quotes:

• "It's a vision of a new way of what could be, but what is not yet true." – Eric Ressler [00:00]
• "You as the executive… you really, truly, deeply in yourself believe in the potential." – Jonathan Hicken [04:51]
• "Vision and mission statements sometimes get an outsized amount of attention… I'd rather see more time on having a compelling vision." – Eric Ressler [05:13]
• "The single best way to sell a vision when you’re not delivering yet? Start prototyping." – Jonathan Hicken [19:56]
• "Move fast and break things is not a good social impact strategy." – Eric Ressler [32:27]

Resources:

• Article - How Your Purpose, Vision, and Mission Can Guide Better Brand Storytelling
• Podcast - How to Stop Planning and Start Doing

Transcript 

Eric Ressler [00:00]:

You're usually somewhere along that journey where you have that vision and it's a brand new fresh idea, a new insight, a new realization, a new opportunity. It's a vision or an idea of a new way of what could be, but what is not yet true.

Jonathan Hicken [00:14]:

The first thing that I think is the most important is that you as the executive, that you really believe the nature of the conversation shifts a little bit depending on who you are selling this to. But I think this is one of those cases where the why and the how really matter to being able to sell this new vision when you're not delivering the work yet.

Eric Ressler [00:32]:

Acknowledging where there are risks or where there's some unknown potential pitfalls in the new vision. To me, I think as an investor or a funder, I would feel comforted by acknowledging that because it feels authentic and grounded and not this kind of pie in the sky vision.

Jonathan Hicken [00:57]:

Alright, Eric. Today's topic is one that I have certainly experience with and I suspect you deal with all the time with your clients, and that is how to sell a vision when you're not yet delivering on the work. And I want to unpack this together. What do you say?

Eric Ressler [01:10]:

That sounds great. Let's go for it. 

Jonathan Hicken [01:12]:

Let's get into it. So what does it mean you're selling a vision that you're not yet delivering on? What I mean by that is you as a leader, social impact leader, you've got this big idea for where you want to take the organization or frankly, your big idea for the impact that you want to have or the world that you want to live in. And you look at your organization and you realize you're not actually yet doing the work to get there, but you know what it's going to take to deliver on that new vision. How are you going to rally the support? How are you going to rally the team? How are you going to rally all the resources you need to get to that vision at some point? That's a really, really hard thing to do when you're not yet doing the work. So this is something I experienced at the Seymour Center when I came in and saw an opportunity for somewhat of an impact shift or a pivot. And so I've practiced some of these things and I learned a few things along the way before I get into my experience and some of the things I learned. I'm curious, how often are social impact leaders or organizations that you work with facing this question or a similar one?

Eric Ressler [02:13]:

I think all the time. So almost by definition, no one's really delivered on their vision or it's no longer a vision, right? It's just reality. But you're usually somewhere along that journey. So you might be at the very, very early parts of that where you have that vision and it's a brand new fresh idea, a new insight, a new realization, a new opportunity, and it just starts in your head. The way I think about this sometimes is that it's a vision or an idea of a new way of what could be, but what is not yet true. And then there's a whole vision life cycle essentially from that moment, that insightful moment, or maybe it's a combination of moments that leads to that all the way through realization of that vision. And so it really comes down to where are you on that path? And it's a very fluid thing and often in my experience. So I guess the

Jonathan Hicken [03:07]:

Case that I'm talking about here is one where you look around at the actual work being done by your team and you're realizing that that work is not advancing towards the vision

[03:18]:

And you need to rally the resources to get there, to start doing the work, to start moving in that direction. Now, this could happen for, if you think about the nonprofit life cycle, at least in this example, you could think about that as being sort of the startup mode. You've got a vision, you're about to launch a new social impact venture and you need to sell it. Oftentimes nonprofits also get to this point of reinvention or sort of needing to recycle back to the beginning. And I think that that's what Seymour Center was going through a moment of transition transformation. And so this, there was space for this new vision to emerge, but nevertheless, what we're talking about, what I'm talking about is that moments where you're really not doing the work yet and how do you rally the resources.

Eric Ressler [04:05]:

Got it. So there's a new vision, it's in your head as the executive director or the board chair or whatever the leadership team maybe even has the vision, but the day-to-day work that's being done is not actually moving towards that vision. It's moving towards a different vision or an older vision. And so how do you go out there and sell that vision to a funder, to a partner, to maybe even a new team member you're trying to recruit? Is that kind of what you're saying?

Jonathan Hicken [04:29]:

That's it, right. And this is something I'm living now. If someone comes into my center and hears me speak and looks at what's in the center, those two things don't always match. And so how am I selling this idea? And really the first thing that I think is the most important is that you as the executive, that you really believe.

Jonathan Hicken [04:51]:

And I'm not talking performative belief, where you're like, I'm the ED. I need to put on a good face. I need to show that I believe in this thing, but that you really, truly, deeply in yourself believe in the potential for this, this to make a difference. And so that internal belief to me is a non-negotiable piece of being able to sell a new vision.

Eric Ressler [05:13]:

I think that's true because I think otherwise it's not really an authentic vision. It's a marketing ploy. It's a packaging of an appeal to a donor. And I think we hear in the space, oh, we need to have a vision and a mission statement. And in my experience, that's sometimes the origin story of a vision, which I think is exactly backwards. I think the process of creating a vision statement should be translating a vision from the head of a leader or a group of leaders into a discernible and recognizable rallying cry really, for lack of a better term. And I think that what I've experienced more often than not is that those vision and sometimes even those mission statements are, I don't want to say performative, but they get an outsized amount of attention as the statements themselves. And I would much rather organizations spend more time on actually having a compelling vision and mission versus how you describe that mission, which sounds maybe a little counterintuitive given we do messaging work.

Jonathan Hicken [06:18]:

Yeah, I'm actually surprised to hear you say that. Unpack that a little bit.

Eric Ressler [06:21]:

Well, I mean, we write a lot of vision and mission statements for organizations. And what I've experienced at times is that when we really start to dig into how do we craft these statements, what becomes clear is that there is no coherent vision remission for the organization, or there's not consensus around what that should be. And you could say that's just kind of part of the process. But what I've also experienced is that when there is a very compelling vision or a very compelling mission that supports that vision, those statements kind of write themselves.

Jonathan Hicken [06:52]:

So you did somewhat of a shift for Cosmic several years ago, and I had imagine you had to sell a new vision to your customers, to your team. What was that like for you?

Eric Ressler [07:02]:

So you're referring to when we went all in on social impact, that was before we were a generalist agency. So I mean, it really did start, to your first point, with an internal belief from me that this was the right move for us. And I spent a lot of time thinking deeply about that move and other moves we could have made instead. And that was a collaborative process. I owned that as the founder and the creative director at Cosmic. Ultimately defining and picking a vision is my ultimate responsibility and choice. But I included my team along the ride and we explored, without getting too belabored in the explanation here, we explored multiple different avenues, multiple different directions or paths that we could have taken as an organization, but ultimately we landed on this vision and because of a belief that it was the right move to make.

[07:51]:

So to break this down further, there was kind of the decision of this is what we're going to do. And then there was the, how do I explain that to my team? How do I rally my team around that? Although they were part of the process, ultimately I had to make a choice and get everyone on board with that choice, which in my experience went really well. But I don't think it always does, right? There are times where that decision might mean parting ways with some team members who aren't on board with that new vision. I think that that can be okay, and sometimes maybe even a sign that it's a strong vision. So when I was thinking about how do I package this to my own team, and then more so to our marketing strategy and our messaging strategy as an organization, it really did start with I need to believe this is true.

[08:38]:

And I did. And from there it started to trickle down into a series of strategic moves. How does that affect the story that we tell to people when they're reaching out to us? How does it affect our website and our messaging and our positioning on the website and elsewhere? And so kind of trickles down from that clear core idea. And the idea was really clear and really intuitive. It was, we are going to focus on serving social impact organizations and that is our target market. So there's some corollary I think between the vision for us, and I consider our organization to be a social impact organization. We're not a nonprofit, but our success is measured and valued based on how much of an impact we're making for our clients alongside how sustainable and profitable the business is. And so I guess in certain ways it is a similar trajectory, and it really did kind of start with that core belief. 

Jonathan Hicken [09:34]:

What I'm noticing is that in both of our cases, we had these businesses, these organizations and teams of people who were capable of doing the work that we knew needed to happen, which I think in a way is a unique advantage. And what I mean by that is you had your staff at cosmic, I had my staff at Seymour Center, we were bringing new visions to the table, but we believed that we had people on our teams who could execute on this new vision to a certain extent, agree

Eric Ressler [10:04]:

To a degree. So what I'll say about that is our team was very capable of delivering the creative work and the strategic work and the technical work. So the motions were the same, but there was a lot of learning to do about understanding this niche and the distinct problems of that niche, the distinct opportunities, the way the culture operates in the sector, the specific challenges that these organizations face on a daily basis. And we had some theories and some experience with that because before this move, we had worked with nonprofits and social enterprises and even some government organizations and funders, but they were a subset of our client base. So we had some, I'll call foundational, I'll call it some foundational knowledge of the space, but we were not category experts when we first made this choice. So we had to rapidly learn and study.

[10:58]:

And we did that through research, through reading, through listening, and pretty quickly through additional experience. And so building expertise is a lot about identifying patterns and matching them and seeing like, oh, a lot of these organizations struggle in the same way with this specific thing. And if we didn't have that niche understanding, we never would've seen those patterns to the same degree. So we had, I'll say 75% of the expertise and capabilities that we needed, and we had a strategy to quickly build the rest of that capacity and expertise to meet the specific strategy that we outlined there.

Jonathan Hicken [11:48]:

You mentioned bringing your team along, getting them bought in, involving them, and I think that's an important part of this. The second tip, so to speak, is to be really clear about the why and the how, and that can be internally, and that can be externally both. But it's like opening up. I really do actually believe that transparency in your thought process and this particular case is a powerful use of transparency where you're like, Hey, look, this is where we're going. This is how I think we're going to get there, but it's going to take all of us, and so let's work on it together.

Eric Ressler [12:25]:

So do you mean in this case when you're talking to your team specifically or just what about when you're talking to a funder? Does that change a little bit?

Jonathan Hicken [12:34]:

Yeah, I mean, I think it's both right? If you're talking to your team, you're asking them to do slightly different work, and so you need to make sure that they understand what that means for them and their lives. But also in the case of Seymour Center, it means making sure that the funders understand where their money's going and the impact that their money's going to have.

Jonathan Hicken [12:54]:

So yeah, the nature of the conversation shifts a little bit depending on who you are selling this to, but I think this is one of those cases where the why and how really matter to be able to sell this new vision when you're not delivering the work yet.

Eric Ressler [13:07]:

Yeah, I mean, I actually feel like this sometimes can work to your benefit for certain funders if we're talking about that audience. Because in my experience, funders get really excited about those early days where they get to be a keystone funder in a new exciting project and sometimes can actually be a little less excited about funding work that's already proven that just needs additional scale or that needs additional resources. It's like a less sexy funding opportunity. Now, of course, this is funder dependent. Some funders specialize in that kind of funding. But I mean, you look at some of the proven models out there, you look at some of the global work around malaria, for example, where it's literally buying nets, the least sexy kind of funding you can do, but it's a proven model. It's one of the most effective ways to spend money to make a global impact on humanity, and it can be hard to track that funding, whereas spinning up a new think tank for a new progressive organization might get more attention. The funder gets to be part of something new. There's this excitement of creating something new. So I think it kind of cuts both ways.

Jonathan Hicken [14:15]:

I experienced this actually, this exact dynamic. There are programs Seymour Center have been running for 25 years that are incredibly effective. It's harder to fund those in some cases, whereas selling this new vision catches their attention. And like you said, there's kind of a conversation that starts immediately. So whether it's with your team or with your funders, you need to be really clear about the why and the how. And in some ways that's the hardest part of defining the why and how when you have this new vision, you might not always know exactly what it's going to take,

[14:48]:

But you got to at least put something out there. You got to make a guess, an educated guess about what it's going to take. Which also brings me to the third piece, which is acknowledging the risk, right? Or acknowledging where things could go wrong. And I think that there's trust building that happens there. So when you're selling this new vision, I think you just need to be honest with yourself about, Hey, if this happens, we're going to need to shift where the work's going. I like to think about risk taking with these almost like these bands like upper band and lower band that trigger certain decisions to happen. If the line goes above a certain mark, it's going to trigger additional investment. If the line drops below a certain mark, we're going to pull back. And I think in that case, it's in selling a new vision, it's important to also acknowledge where the failure happens and how you're going to know whether or not it's working or not.

Eric Ressler [15:47]:

This reminds me of pitching a new company to a VC where one of the kind of common things you'll put in a slide is the risks. What are the risks or the unknowns or the unknown unknowns, which obviously you can't define, but investors want to know what the risk profile of the investment is. And in the VC world, there's the philosophy, or traditionally there's been this philosophy of knowing that nine out of 10 investments are going to flop, but the 10th one if successful, will more than pay for all of those failed investments. And I don't think social impact works in that way, but the corollary there is that yes, acknowledging where there are risks or where there's some unknown potential pitfalls in the new vision. To me, I think as an investor or a funder, I would feel comforted by acknowledging that because it feels authentic and grounded and not this kind of pie in the sky vision. And I do actually think that there's a balance there because you want to be inspirational and magnetic in your vision crafting and authentic in it. But if you go too far, I do think funders can become skeptical, and I think that's a reasonable response because there are no sure bets. If the vision's big enough, there's always going to be some level of risk. And so if you can in the presentation or the pitch or the narrative, include some of those to a reasonable degree, I think that just builds credibility for you.

Jonathan Hicken [17:20]:

Yeah, I think there's a time and a place for talking about this particular piece.

[17:24]:

I'm probably not going to get up on stage and try to sell this new vision in front of a huge audience and then spend a ton of time on what the risks are behind closed doors with a potential funder. I need to be prepared to talk about those things just to make this conversation about risk a little more concrete. Lemme give you an example of something I experienced at the Seymour Center, which is essentially we were trying to pivot to be more solutions oriented and more locally oriented in the kinds of stories we're telling in our space and through our different channels. And the word climate change comes up a lot in this conversation because our community is experiencing the impacts of climate change, and it's real and it's tangible. One of the risks that we identified pretty early was like, are people really going to want to go to a science center that's just talking about climate change the whole time? That sounds like kind of like a bummer. So we acknowledge that risk, and actually we've been testing what's working or what's not in terms of the language. And indeed the term climate change is not something that motivates somebody to go to a science center. So one of the things I've been thinking about a lot is how do you talk about climate change without talking about climate change?

[18:35]:

So just as an example, we identified that risk pretty early that we weren't sure how attendance would react. The good news is that we set attendance records last year, so we're seeing some positive results from this, but we did identify it as a risk early on.

Eric Ressler [18:52]:

What was your solution or pivot in the messaging if you didn't mention climate change? Did you just not mention it or did you say solutions oriented? Yeah. How did you reframe that story?

Jonathan Hicken [19:02]:

Yeah, skip straight to fact about what Santa Cruz is experiencing. So just a concrete example is just a few months ago there was this huge storm that came through, produced some massive waves, and it destroyed the Santa Cruz wharf. And that was a big deal for the community. So rather than saying climate change is causing these bigger waves, what we just went to directly was there were bigger waves and it destroyed the wharf. That is indisputable, and here's what we're doing about it. It's almost like we make the assumption that people know, at least in our community, that there's a certain level of belief in this concept of climate change, and we don't really even need to start with that education.

Eric Ressler [19:46]:

Yeah, it's assumed.

Jonathan Hicken [19:47]:

It's assumed.

Eric Ressler [19:48]:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Jonathan Hicken [19:56]:

I mentioned testing and experimenting, and I think that may be the single best way to sell a vision when you're not yet delivering on the work is to start doing experimentation and prototypes and demonstration projects. So the way that we handled it at the Seymour Center was we didn't have a huge budget to be building these really complex science exhibits. So what we decided to do was get in whatever we could with what we had so that when the community and donors and supporters came in, we could point, Hey, here's where we're headed. Imagine if we had the resources to make this a world-class science experience.

Eric Ressler [20:37]:

This sounds like the MVS framework in action to me. Bingo. Yeah, minimum viable strategy. We'll link to that podcast episode in the show notes, but I believe that's a great idea, and even I wonder about when you have a new vision. I know I did this when I was redefining our vision for cosmic, I socialized it, and that is actually kind of a form of MVS or early testing, just getting feedback and then from there, getting into prototypes is kind of like the next step. But that seems like a really smart intuitive way to go about it because I do think there's always a risk of going too far and then not easing people into the change, especially for an organization like yours where there's a perception of the brand of the Seymour Center and what it stands for and the vision and the mission of the organization that people have in their brains.

[21:28]:

And if you start to do something on a new vision and they're not up to speed on that new vision, they're not in the loop so to speak, that creates this dissonance of like, wait, why is the Seymour Center doing this? This is not the Seymour Center I know and love. Why are they doing these things? I don't understand. So I think to me, there's two takeaways from that. One, even more burden on effective consistent communication that actually cuts through and having an apparatus for that so that you can educate people along the way and two, bring them on along the ride, so to speak, and doing these kind of prototypes or these smaller steps to start to plant the seeds for this new vision instead of just going all in on it all at once.

Jonathan Hicken [22:07]:

It's a show not tell approach, right? It's like I could stand up and try to sell you on trying to advance local solutions, and you might think that's all great, but you're going to ask what does that actually look like? And so the approach is, well, let me show you.

Eric Ressler [22:23]:

Yep,

Jonathan Hicken [22:23]:

Lemme show you what that looks like. Let me show you what a great exhibit looks like, but with our budget and imagine what we could do with yours,

Eric Ressler [22:31]:

Which I think is a great strategy for funding too.

Jonathan Hicken [22:33]:

And similarly events and other digital content, we produced a 30 minute documentary. We have these demonstrations in place. So when the question comes, are you capable of doing this or what does it look like? We have the demonstration. We have some proof to say, yes we can. And here's the impact of that work. Now again, this is minimum viable strategy, and I'd actually say in some of our case, a minimum viable product too.

Jonathan Hicken [23:00]:

Really like DIY kind of exhibit experiences just so that we can show where we're headed.

Eric Ressler [23:05]:

How did the community respond to those?

Jonathan Hicken [23:08]:

So far so good. I mean, we have been getting feedback on our first set of prototypes. We heard from people, Hey, we actually want some more text. We were too light on the amount of information that we were including,

Eric Ressler [23:20]:

But that was really surprising.

Jonathan Hicken [23:22]:

I was totally shocked. You wouldn't have guessed that. Probably. I would not have guessed that. So we started adding some more written content, and that has been helpful. We also learned about sort of interaction dynamics. I won't get into museum theory too much right here, but the kinds of things people want to touch and feel and experience when they're learning about their community. And we made some assumptions about what those interaction types might be. We were right about some of 'em, we were wrong about some of 'em. And each time we roll out a new exhibit, we're incorporating the feedback that we've learned from the previous ones.

Eric Ressler [23:56]:

One thing that I think about a lot in my own work and in working with clients is how do you know when it's time for a new vision? And do you reach your vision before you change it? And I think the answer is no. Actually, if your vision's big enough, I think you change the vision before you reach it. Thoughts on that?

Jonathan Hicken [24:17]:

I agree, right? I mean, I think you started the episode off by saying, Hey, part of the nature of a vision is you never get there. And so I agree that it's probably worth changing it before you get there. I mean, great. Look, if you achieve your vision, kudos shutter the business and call it quits. You did your job. I don't know of any social impact leaders who can claim they did that.

Eric Ressler [24:43]:

I mean, if your vision is small enough that it's basically just a fancy mission, maybe that can happen. But yeah, I can't think of an example where there was a bold, interesting vision that was just like, we hit that a hundred percent jobs done. Let's go home. Everyone. I just don't think that really happens. And I think about even in, I had this vision for cosmic of repositioning us and focusing on social impact, and you could say that we reached that, but before we were fully done with that vision, I already had a new one of what's the next level look like? Okay, we're on track to check that first box, that first vision. But I didn't just sit there and wait to start thinking about my new vision until that one was a hundred percent. Maybe that's just the nature of how my brain works, but I was already like, what's next? What's next? How can we get deeper on this? How can we elevate it? How can we do better at these things? So I just think it's a fluid thing more than anything.

Jonathan Hicken [25:41]:

An interesting contrast between Cosmic and Seymour Center in this case is that you did to a certain degree change your customer or your client, whereas we kept our audience the same, and we asked ourselves, how can we best serve this audience with our assets?

Jonathan Hicken [26:00]:

And so that's where our vision shifted because we saw a new opportunity to have more impact on the existing audience where you kind of shifted. So I'm actually, I'm kind of chewing on this live. I wonder how that factored into how we navigated these changes.

Eric Ressler [26:16]:

Yeah, I mean, I guess I wonder did your audience change or is your audience going to change slightly? Maybe your target audience doesn't change your strategy of who you're trying to reach, but I think probably what is happening or might happen is some people aren't going to be as into the new vision and they're going to want to say, I liked the old Seymour Center better. I was comfortable with those exhibits or whatever the details are. But new people will come in who are more into that and more interested in it who maybe weren't interested in the old vision quite as much. So your target audience might not change, but who actually shows up and feels most drawn to the vision I imagine is going to shift a little bit.

Jonathan Hicken [26:56]:

Yeah, fair enough. I mean, we think about local families with kids in grade school, it was kind of like the bread and butter, but you're right, you're right. I mean there are going to be people who come in and continue to just go straight to the aquarium. They just want to see the fish and that's okay, come on in. But now we're offering something else that's intended to mobilize and activate the community.

Eric Ressler [27:21]:

And I mean, I think we're going through a different kind of vision shift at cosmic over the last six months or so at the time of this recording. And in our case, this is actually kind of more like the Seymour Center example where we are not changing who we're trying to reach, but we're how we actually partner with clients to partner with them more deeply, more holistically to work with less clients and to support them beyond some of the, I'll call it foundational work that we do. And so I see that as a revisioning of our agency. It's actually a really big one from my perspective and from an internal perspective and navigating that vision shift has been definitely one of the most challenging things I've had to do as a leader.

Jonathan Hicken [28:04]:

On a personal note, I think one of my areas of personal growth over the last several years has been patience. And a kind of closing tip for our listeners here is access your patience. Because especially in a time in space where we're looking for that instant gratification, where we're looking for the quick hits, these things and vision shift take time, and sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back, other times it's two steps forward, one step back, the pace is not linear. And I think a big vision shift takes a lot of time.

Eric Ressler [28:42]:

I could absolutely relate to that because first of all, I'm not a patient person, which has served me well in life in certain ways and not in other ways. And I experienced an interesting kind of a transition, I guess I'll say in I spent a lot of time getting crystal clear about my vision for this pivot for cosmic, and then I got there and I was like, I've got it. I've got it. I can see it so clearly. And then it was like, but now you have to actually make it happen. And that was discouraging as an impatient person because I was like, I'm ready. I just want to be there now. I just want that to be what it is to run cosmic now. And I've had to reset expectations around what the transition time might look like for us to make that transition fully.

[29:30]:

I think sometimes impatience is a good quality though. If you're too patient, you have to balance this, right? But you have to have that drive and that impatience can serve you. Well get a new vision. You think about examples like Steve Jobs who had this kind of famous reality distortion field people call it, where he just didn't accept reality, and that is a visionary quality. Now there's also a lot of accounts of Steve Jobs not being the best person to work for and having a lot of personal flaws that I think were the double-edged sword of that reality distortion field. But I do question this tip around patience, and maybe it's like you want to be impatient, but also realistic about that this isn't going to happen overnight. But I do think in certain ways, being impatient is a good visionary quality.

Jonathan Hicken [30:25]:

Yeah, I'm struggling with this one, right? Because I am proud of this new patience that I've achieved and yet, yes, I mean the experience I'm drawing from when I talk about patience is really is coming from Seymour Center. And we've been architecting this change for three years now, and I continue to believe we're heading in the right direction. If I rewind the clock three years and I've told myself back then, Hey, this is going to take at least three years to get done, that might've scared me off. I might've said, forget it. Let's just stick with the program. We'll make a great aquarium. And I'm really glad that I didn't get that foresight and that I have remained patient because I still think it's possible. I still think it's going to happen.

Eric Ressler [31:17]:

Yeah, fair point. And I mean, maybe the word is, maybe you could think about it like patience or just being steadfast or just really committed believing in it and knowing that the obstacles are impermanent. And this is something I've been experiencing because as I've been trying to make this transition, there are also business realities that I face around keeping pipeline going, keeping cashflow going, being able to make payroll, all the core business functions. And I found myself having to veer off my intuition in what I would love to be able to do is just put blinders onto all those business realities and just focus 100% of my energy and time on realizing this new vision. And it just doesn't work that way. You can't do that. You just can't do that, right? Maybe if you're starting from scratch and you have a brand new vision, but there's going to be obstacles there too. So I think you have to find the right mix of those things. It's a tough thing to do.

Jonathan Hicken [32:13]:

Yeah, I wasn't willing to break the things that were working in order to get to the vision, which I think has slowed us down, but we didn't break the impact we were having as we made this move, which I'm proud of.

Eric Ressler [32:27]:

Well, we've also said before, move fast and break things is not a good social impact strategy. It might work for Silicon Valley, but when the things you're breaking are true impact that the world needs or people's jobs and livelihoods, yeah, I think you have to be realistic about not just totally scrapping what you've got. And so maybe there is a little bit of patience that comes in there or just understanding that it's going to take a little more time than you'd like it to, but I stay committed to impatience being a good vision quality.

Jonathan Hicken [32:56]:

Fair enough. It's worked for you. So you've sold me. Alright, Eric. Well look, we could talk about vision I think for days on end, but for all you leaders out there, have that bold vision and do what it takes to sell it even if you're not delivering on the work yet. And I hope this episode helped you think through that a little bit. Awesome. 

Eric Ressler:
Thank you, Jonathan. 

Jonathan Hicken:
Thank you, Eric.