Adam Smith in his book of 1776 defines an entrepreneur as ‘An individual who undertakes the formation of an organization for commercial purposes and a person with extra-ordinary fore-sight who could recognize demand for goods and services’. Fore-sight is vision and besides integrity, hard work, determination and risk-taking vision is an important characteristic of an entrepreneurial mind-set. A person with a foresight is a visionary who has an ability to see an opportunity before others. A vision in entrepreneurship is as important as it is in other areas. For example, whenever the UDI-Smith Regime and Apartheid-South Africa bombed Zambia for its support of its neighbouring countries of Angola, Mozambique, South West Africa now Namibia, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe to gain their independence President Kaunda would always address the nation and say ‘These are the last kicks of a dying horse’! It came to pass when all these neighbouring countries of Zambia gained their independence between 1975 and 1994. In entrepreneurship, all great business ideas are simple but the trick is to see them before others. The Greek millionaire Aristotle Onasis once said ‘The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows’. The African proverb puts it this way ‘A guinea fowl is caught by the fastest runner’.  One of the world’s greatest business visionaries is Asa Candler who incorporated the Coca-Cola Company more than 120 years ago today. The famous soft drink Coca-Cola grew out of a single bright and creative idea from the mind of a US pharmacist John Styth Pemberton in 1886. The mysterious ingredients in its formula were the product of the work of Pemberton’s imagination in his subconscious mind. Originally, Coca-Cola was introduced as an exotic patent medicine, one that contained both cocaine from coca leaves and caffeine from cola nuts. Three years later in 1889, Coca-Cola was bought by an entrepreneur Asa Candler who had fore-sight and a vision for a market niche for Coca-Cola as a soft drink. He incorporated Coca-Cola Company in 1892. Today, Coca-Cola is a global brand covering all the five populated continents.
Another business visionary is Shojiro Ishibashi the founder of the Bridgestone rubber conglomerate.  Shojiro Ishibashi took over the running of his father’s tailoring business at the age of 17 in 1906. Twenty-two years later in 1928 Shojiro Ishibashi had a fore-sight and a vision for a market niche in the rubber industry. Shojiro Ishibashi’s vision enabled him to fore-see a big future demand for car tyres in Japan. At that time most of the car tyres used in Japan were either imported from Europe and the USA or made at foreign-owned factories. His enthusiasm was fuelled by his own desire to promote national exports and to help his government to earn foreign exchange. In spite of the fact that at that time there was no market for Japanese-made tyres in Japan Shojiro Ishibashi went ahead and launched a car-tyre making company in Japan which he named after himself. The name Ishibashi in Japanese means ‘stone bridge’. ‘Ishi’ means ‘stone’ while ‘bashi’ means ‘bridge’. Then he changed it to a better sounding ‘Bridgestone’.  The company’s name ‘Bridgestone’ was created as a marketing strategy to enhance its marketing image and gain widespread acceptance in overseas markets at the same time when foreign products were fashionable and highly regarded in Japan. His business company became Bridgestone Tyre Corporation in 1931 with the goal to ‘Produce the best tyres in the world using Japanese capital and technology alone’. Shojiro Ishibashi expressed his business philosophy in this way ‘Corporate business should not aim at making money. Our first and foremost goal is to produce quality products and please the customer. Money and profit are a by-product of the foregoing. We should return the benefits to society besides reinvesting them into the business’. Not surprisingly, the motto for Bridgestone Tyre Company was ‘Serve society with products of superior quality’. Soon after the establishment of Bridgestone Tyre Corporation Shojiro Ishibashi had to endure great challenges. For instance, immediately after he had introduced the total quality control system that guaranteed the exchange of any defective tyre for a brand new one, 100,000 tyres had to be recalled for the following three years. However, Shojiro Ishibashi persisted and persevered until he finally succeeded. After the Second World War (1939-1945), his business dramatically expanded as a result of the rapidly growing Japanese car industry. Later, Shojiro Ishibashi said that ‘I was determined to be involved in the business world throughout my life. Upon making up my mind, my ambition expanded to include running a nation-wide enterprise and doing good for society’. In 2011, 80 years since Shojiro Ishibashi founded Bridgestone Tyre Corporation the company was now operating 46 plants in 23 countries and was the number one company in the global rubber industry. Clearly and convincingly the fore-sight or vision, persistence, perseverance and positive endeavours of Shojiro Ishibashi were indeed the pillars of his Bridgestone’s success.
Alice Foote MacDougall says that ‘Success of life depends upon keeping one’s mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes’ and Nathan Bedford Forrest states that ‘The key to victory of great war generals is to get there first with the most’. The Bible puts it this way ‘Where there is no vision, people perish’. Putting it in a positive way ‘Where there is a vision, people live’. John Mason observes that ‘Unfortunately, the average person’s life consists of 20 years of having parents ask where he or she is going, 40 years of having a spouse ask the same question and at the end the mourners wondering the same’. In addition to the power of fore-sight or vision the ability to see what others could not see, a successful entrepreneur should also have courage the ability to act despite tremendous doubt;  creativity the ability to think openly; the ability to withstand criticism as there is no successful person who has not been criticized; the ability to postpone gratification as it can be challenging to learn to deny short-term immediate self-gratification in  favour of a greater long-term reward; and faith which makes one strong when external and seen circumstances and conditions appear hopeless. The benefits of being a successful entrepreneur are many and they include happiness; independence and freedom from financial worries, bosses and supervisors; higher income; security and retirement plans; personal fulfilment and realization of one’s potential; acquisition of assets; accomplish extra-ordinary projects; become the master of one’s destiny and President of one’s own corporation called ‘Self Incorporated’; doing what one loves and enjoys to do; and experience a sense of personal achievement. The advice of Cecil Beaton is worth taking, ‘Be daring, be different and be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against play-it-safers, the creatures of the common place and the slaves of the ordinary’. Most successful entrepreneurs are dreamers and visionaries. Just imagine the business vision of a futuristic magnetic levitation train (MAGLEV) currently undergoing trials that can speed at 430 Km/h and turn a 30 Km journey into an eight-minute joyride!
To acquire your entrepreneurial mind-set that has fore-sight or vision, train your mind to see business opportunities before other people can see them.

The author is a motivational mentor and consultant in Positive Mindset Change. Email: positivemindpower1511@yahoo.com