I am a visionary. Before you get all excited, let’s define a visionary as the dictionary does: (especially of a person) thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom. Being a visionary doesn’t mean you are always right, but it does mean you almost always see a path out of the current predicament. You might think it’s a wonderful thing to be a visionary, and I suppose in some ways you would be right – if your definition of wonderful is spending most of your time trying to get other people on board with what seems blatantly obvious to you. The problem is that, in and of themselves, visionaries can accomplish very little unless they surround themselves with people who are willing to implement the vision. A great idea is worth a popcorn fart if nobody else is on board, and the vast majority of people aren’t willing to take chances to the degree the visionary is – because to the visionary it isn’t about taking chances. The visionary sees the path through to the end right from the start. The rest of the world believes we are crazy, reckless, or both, and tries to steer us back to what they believe are safe waters. Visionaries find those “safe” waters to be stagnant, pools filled with disease vectors that won’t generate anything positive. The rest of the world frantically rearranges deck chairs on the Titanic, thinking that if only we get some nice new covers for the cushions on the chairs the ship won’t sink. They get mad as hell when the visionary doesn’t endorse their need for a class on how to sew new deck chair cushions. That’s probably why religion is dying today. The average person and the below average leader share one thing in common – they are paralyzed by fear of change, and so they push the visionary to the margins. Once the visionary is out of the way, they are free to continue complaining about how nothing changes.