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[2025 Audit] Vision Is Optional (If You Love the Process)
Most founders believe you need a crystal-clear vision before you start building.
A detailed roadmap.
A defined destination.
A plan for what the business will look like ten years from now.
For years, Ray believed that too—and even taught frameworks to help entrepreneurs clarify their vision before scaling a company.
But during his 2025 audit of the past 20–25 years in business, he realized something surprising: vision isn’t always required if you genuinely love the process of building.
Some founders build like Jeff Bezos, starting with a clear long-term vision and methodically constructing toward it. Others operate more like Steve Jobs, iterating, experimenting, and only connecting the dots when looking backward.
Both paths work. The real requirement isn’t vision—it’s having either a strong vision pulling you forward or a deep love for the process that keeps you building through the inevitable frustrations of entrepreneurship.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why Ray reconsidered the “vision-first” rule during his 2025 business audit
- The difference between the Bezos vision-driven model and the Jobs iteration-driven model
- Why some founders succeed without a perfectly defined long-term plan
- How loving the process of building increases your tolerance for entrepreneurial frustration
- Why businesses become unsustainable when founders have neither vision nor process passion
- How to decide which approach fits your personality as a builder
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This episode is part of the 2025 Audit series — lessons learned, relearned, and unlearned.
This podcast is where Ray thinks through hard decisions — especially when the usual playbooks stop working.
If that way of thinking is useful, that’s what continues here.
New to the show? Start with the “Start Here” playlist:
https://player.captivate.fm/collection/a7577a6f-15da-4521-b214-35e4e47f320b
Transcript
I audited my 20, 25 year and extracted what I believe the highest leverage lessons that I've learned relearned or unlearned throughout the year.
Speaker A:And the things that really changed how I operate, and this is one of them that I'm, that I'm sharing for you.
Speaker A:And it is that a crystal clear vision is not as important as I thought it was when it comes to business.
Speaker A:And so this is, this is actually an unlearning you.
Speaker A:If you go back and look at some content that I've shared over the years.
Speaker A:I talk a lot about the importance of vision.
Speaker A:In fact, I've got a whole exercise that I used to coach people on to help them extract the vision from their head.
Speaker A:If they were building something and they were fuzzy on what it was they were building and who they were building for and what they wanted that business to be.
Speaker A:And the thought behind it was, hey, you've got to get really clear on what you're building so you can be intentional with the decisions that you make.
Speaker A:Because I see a lot of people build businesses that they eventually become prisoners of.
Speaker A:You know, like they, they get three, four, five years in and the business itself is cranking out sales, generating revenue, it's got profit.
Speaker A:But they can't stand the business, right?
Speaker A:Like they either can't, can't stand the team they're working with, the product that they're delivering, the clients that they're working with, or the systems are kind of holding them hostage and everything is dependent on them.
Speaker A:And there are things you can do as you're building to help you avoid ending up with a business that you really don't want if you take the time to sit and reflect on that.
Speaker A:And I still believe that to, to, you know, in, in large part, you know, I do believe that if you're proactively building something with a clear vision, it makes things a lot easier, right?
Speaker A:Like you've got a decision making filter on, you know, new client comes in the door and offers you a bunch of money to do something.
Speaker A:If you've got a really clear vision on what it is you're building and why you're building it, then you can look at that and put it through your filter and say, no, it sounds like a lot of money, but not something that I want to do because it's going to conflict with where I really want to go with this business.
Speaker A:Again, still believe that be true.
Speaker A:The thing that I've learned though this past year is that's kind of like the Jeff Bezos approach.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like Jeff Bezos kind of famously articulated what Amazon was going to be very early to shareholders.
Speaker A:And I'll actually link to, to a shareholder letter in the, in the, the notes of this, the show below.
Speaker A:And you read it and you're like, damn, like that dude.
Speaker A:Clearly a visionary.
Speaker A:Like, I mean, just almost prophetically said, hey, this is what Amazon is going to be.
Speaker A:And then piece by piece, bu.
Speaker A:That thing.
Speaker A:And that's, that is a, there's one way to build a business right now, the, the lesson that I've learned and the reason I've changed my mind is because that's not the only way to do this.
Speaker A:There is another way, which is treat it more like a blank canvas.
Speaker A:And you know, it's more art than it is science.
Speaker A:Like, you're not, you're not necessarily assembling every single thing and every single piece and every brick intentionally with a clear outcome in mind.
Speaker A:You are building something because you love building, right?
Speaker A:And you are going to iterate as you go.
Speaker A:So the strategy is going to kind of unfold more dynamically as you make decisions.
Speaker A:So you go into something and you say, you know, I know I want to build a business.
Speaker A:I'm not exactly sure, like the, the vision isn't crystallized.
Speaker A:I can't sit down and write you a vision statement of exactly what this thing's going to look like.
Speaker A:But I have some general direction, I have some general preferences, and frankly, I just, I, I love building businesses.
Speaker A:So I'm going to march down this path.
Speaker A:I'm going to let the strategy unfold and I'm going to iterate very intentionally as I go.
Speaker A:And I don't need the clarity of the vision to pull me forward.
Speaker A:I have the love of the process that is keeping me going, and I look at those and I don't think that there's a right and a wrong way.
Speaker A:That would be more like Steve Jobs famously said, you, you can only connect the dots in hindsight, like looking backwards, right.
Speaker A:Like it's.
Speaker A:And that's how I'm looking at this now.
Speaker A:You've got kind of like a Bezos approach, which is crystal clear vision build, you know, intentionally and proactively towards that thing.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:You can write the letter to the shareholders on day one and 10, 20 years later go, damn, that's pretty accurate.
Speaker A:Or you can take more of the Jobs approach, which is, hey, we know this is going to be somewhat random.
Speaker A:We know that there's going to be a lot of iteration.
Speaker A:We know that, you know, the decisions we make Today are going to create opportun.
Speaker A:Optionality that doesn't, doesn't even exist tomorrow.
Speaker A:So why spend a ton of time, like, pretending that we know exactly what it's going to look like?
Speaker A:How about we get started?
Speaker A:How about we, you know, just intentionally make decisions as we go and we let that strategy unfold.
Speaker A:And I now looking at that and knowing that that is in the arsenal of, of entrepreneurship, I, I just say it's a, it's an unlearning because it's a, it's a, it's a reminder or reinforces that there's more than one way to do this right, no matter what.
Speaker A:The gurus and, you know, the YouTubers and all of, all of the content creators, myself included, say, like, we give you a perspective, one way to do something, but it's not the only way.
Speaker A:And I think you can have the vision to pull you forward or as long as you love the process, you can go about it, which with a much, a lot more flexibility while you build.
Speaker A:I will.
Speaker A:One caveat to this is if you go about this with a somewhat fuzzy vision or recognizing that it's a blank, you know, blank slate, blank canvas, and I'm going to build on it.
Speaker A:If you don't love what you're doing, it will become very frustrating and it will affect the, the sustainability of the business because it can be very frustrating, right?
Speaker A:Like, it can, you know, as you get to certain plateaus and thresholds and bottlenecks.
Speaker A:And if you don't love the process of building, if it's not like an art to you and you're like, hey, you know what?
Speaker A:Like, all right, we're now we're going to change directions here.
Speaker A:We're going to change directions here.
Speaker A:It can get, it can get frustrating.
Speaker A:So I do now believe, you know, you, you've either got a clear vision or you've got a love of the process.
Speaker A:In either case, those things are going to enable you to stay the course, right?
Speaker A:Like the clear vision.
Speaker A:When those frustrations come up in business, building the vision of what the outcome is going to be is going to.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker A:That's going to pull you forward.
Speaker A:And if you don't have it, the love of the process because you actually love building is going to increase your tolerance for the bullshit and the frustration that comes with business.
Speaker A:Building either one, you can keep going without either.
Speaker A:I believe that you're.
Speaker A:One of the biggest challenges you have is going to be the sustainability of building a business because it can be extremely frustrating and without one of those two things.
Speaker A:It can be, it can be tough to keep going.
Speaker A:And that's where I see most businesses fail.
Speaker A:So that is one of my lessons as I, as I reflect on the year.
Speaker A:And I hope that you found it helpful, valuable.
Speaker A:Adios.
