The date was the 4th September 2025 and the last Will and Testament of my dear grandfather had just been read. His friends knew him as Barry “Pirate” Cramer, to me, he was simply Papa, and he and I, were the best of friends.

Barry “Pirate” Cramer was an entrepreneur in the true sense of the word and left his family a financial fortune that many people can only dream of attaining. My father, Leon Cramer, was his only son and today became the wealthiest person on the planet.

In my grandfather’s Will, I was left no money, real estate, works of art, or other trinkets that those in the know would classify as valuable. However, the “Pirate” had left me two items that to me characterised the “real” him. These were his gold-rimmed monocle, and his personal diary.

It took about three months before I could open his diary owing to the grief I had been feeling, but once I did, I could never have imagined the innovative insights that this little worn leather bound book contained.

Barry “Pirate” Cramer was a business visionary and could always see how to commercialise new and novel ideas that many of his peers, and competitors, could never understand, or appreciate.

He earned his “Pirate” nickname for two reasons. The most obvious one being that he always wore a monocle in his right eye. The other one was that he was famous for plundering companies that were on the brink of bankruptcy that he miraculously, and quickly, transformed into highly profitable business that were the envy of the original owners.

As I was rummaging one night through his diary, I was intrigued by the words that he had scribbled when he was only 21 years old, an age which signalled the start of his financial prowess. The reference was to why pirates wore a patch over one eye. Apparently they did this so their eyes were ready for combat in the poorly lit interior of a ship [1]. As such, they always had one eye accustomed to light, the other prepped for darkness.

Papa took this concept further and replaced the pirate eye patch with the monocle, which eventually became his personal signature facial accessory. Yes, he did need to wear glasses, but he used the monocle in a cunning and rather visionary way. By wearing a monocle, his eyes were always focussed on the short and longer distances, ready for any visual obstacle that he may encounter. However, he took this in not just the metaphorical sense. Whenever he viewed a problem, he was always able to literally “see” two sides to the solution, the short-term and most obvious one that everyone could appreciate, but also the future opportunity that many of his competition could not comprehend.

What a brilliant visionary concept, one that many corporate businesses, particularly their CEOs, could learn from and utilise in in the development of their strategic plans. The key is to be a “pirate” and to have one eye looking at the now, the other eye very much focussed on the future.

So next time you go to the optometrist for your pair of fashionable glasses, why not get a monocle instead and let the potential pirate in you take control! You will also look rather spiffy, and will most definitely be noticed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyepatch