EP 73 | Do you have a Mission Statement?

of these other economic challenges that are going on. And to the extent that a business owner is locked in to the opportunities that they have with their team and locked in to a system for how to grow and develop people, and they are able to truly lead from the front and be confident in their leadership. They're going to win. They are going to crush it in this economy.

And for the business owners who aren't locked into this stuff or aren't paying attention, well, hopefully those are your competitors. Your competition isn't paying too much attention, doesn't know how to do this, but you're not going to let finding talent, keeping talent, growing and developing talent to be the thing that holds you back because you already have a system in place, and teamwork is the blueprint for that system. So chapter two starts off with the mission statement and

I highly encourage you. You gots to read the chapter. The chapter gives a story about me very early on in my career, having an experience where I didn't know the mission statement of the organization that I was working for, and I was embarrassed by it, but it set the tone for me. It made me understand. Holy shit, these people are serious about what they do. And quite honestly, in your business, that's exactly what you want. You want

people to think to themselves, man, Joe is serious. Joe is like, he's doing this thing and I want to be a part of Joe's excitement and Joe's enthusiasm. And so when you take these things seriously, it does create the culture in your organization. So again, the book chapter two starts off with this awesome story about why it's so important, very early on experience that I had. And then it goes into, okay, what are all the criteria

that make up a great mission statement? What do you need to do to have a mission statement that works? What how do you actually fall in love with your mission statement? What are the things you don't do? All

of that is in chapter two. And for those of you who have read it, or if you're currently reading it, I'm not going to bore you with the exact same things that you can read in the book, but what I want to dive into is all of the things that I hear from clients who have established this mission statement, who have used my criteria, the success stories I have in here. Let me actually read a handful of the

mission statements that have helped our clients with so. I'm going to open up to chapter two in my book Teamwork Client examples. So balance well space mission statement is we transform the medical paradigm in our community through a focus on function, empowerment of our patients, and helping our patients achieve true health and wellness. Flawless dentistry is mission statement is we create an amazing experience for every patient.

The simple Life mission statement we transform real estate agents lives through developing teams with multiple streams of income and creating generational wealth. Doesn't that get you excited again? In the book, you can hear all the criteria for how to actually craft this for yourself. Aero, marine and Tax professionals. We help people gain financial freedom by eliminating their tax liability. Sign me up. See how clear it is. Like you understand what they do. It's not this like Fluffy Duffy.

I know that Duffy is a word, but that's exactly my point is, when people make up words and then you just are left confused. Nobody likes to be confused. So don't have your mission statement be all sorts of confusing. Okay, just a couple more here. So silver lining herbs. We deliver natural health products and education that help people provide optimal care to themselves and their animals. And lastly, our

partner in the Hvac space, Inland Mechanical Services. We provide state of the art heating, cooling and automation solutions that offer reliable comfort to the customers we serve. I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona right now and it is 115 degrees here. And Hvac is important. And this is this would make me want to choose this organization to work with because. Their customer focus, but they're also team focused. So those are

some examples of mission statements. And one of the fallacies, once you've created something like this is that it's like checked off the box, you've completed the task, you have a mission statement. Okay, great. And business owners, they really don't know how to use this short of putting it on their wall. Now, funny enough, just today on, you know, I think it's the 1st of July in 2023, in Scottsdale, Arizona,

I finally got our core values hung on the wall. Yes, it is nice to put your mission, your vision, your values up on the wall. I'm not saying that that's not important as a visual cue, it is important. But how do you actually use this statement? Because it's not just something that you put on the wall. It's not just something that you come up with in a workshop,

and then you never talk about it again. And so today what I want to go through is once you have this, once it's developed, how do you actually use it. So first place to use it you need to use your mission statement first and foremost for you. Your mission statement is a reminder to yourself every fricking day, hey, why am I doing this? Like, why am I showing up to this task? Why am I hiring team members? Why am I putting my financial situation at risk in

order to go chase after this dream? Why am I putting my energy and my all into this, when sometimes it feels like it's at the sacrifice of your friendships? Or maybe your family? Like why am I doing this? To be even more transparent with you right now shooting this podcast, it's like the last freaking thing I want to be doing right now. It's literally like, I can't think of something that I would rather not be doing more than this right now. I don't even know if

that sentence makes sense. I don't want to do this. I don't feel like talking about mission statements today. There's a lot going on. I have 75 emails that I need to respond to. We're going into a holiday weekend. I know the house is a disaster. I know that brand and I need to catch up on a few things. Like I just, I got other things to do. But then I remember as soon as I turn into this, like negative Natalie instead of negative Nancy, it's like negative Natalie.

As soon as I turn negative, I'm like, oh my gosh, wait a second. I'm trying to help business owners achieve their personal, professional and financial goals to their growth, their businesses. And I get countless questions from business owners about how to use a mission statement. I get this constantly because most people just talk about the actual formation of the mission statement, but they don't know how to use it.

And I feel like it's my job. It's my responsibility to equip business owners with the information that they need in order to actually be successful. Nobody's talking about this. Therefore, I have to show up today. I have to put on a good face today. I have to be in it. I have to be committed to it today. So you use your mission statement to remind yourself first and foremost, why the frick am I doing this? If your mission statement doesn't really identify why you're doing it, change your

mission statement. Go back to the book, read the criteria, rework it. Maybe come to my People Essentials workshop coming up. I know I have one happening in just a couple of months. To get information on that, you can go to Cardinal ventures.com/people like if you're not in love with this thing and it's not hitting, let me help you with it. But for those of you who do have

a mission statement, most days you're excited about it. You use it to remind you why you're showing up, when maybe you're thinking, oh, I don't need to do a daily all team meeting. What if I just did a weekly alt meeting so that I don't have to commit to doing it every single day with my team? No, you're trying to grow. You're trying to do the thing

that you committed to yourself that you were doing. Therefore, you're going to have to commit to the daily team meeting, whatever those objections or those hold backs that you have with yourself about putting in the work that you need to grow your business. Your mission statement is like, oh yeah, I'm doing this thing so I can't give up on this goal. The next way that you use your mission statement is to prioritize the initiatives that you are planning.

So if you're going down this path and I'll, I'll continue to use Cardinal Ventures. If we are really serious about helping business owners grow and scale and achieve their personal, professional and financial goals, that's our mission. And something comes as an idea from a team member. Or maybe it's it's through a networking event that were unsure of if

whether if we should move forward. Well, if that's something that we're potentially interested in but not really committed to quite yet, I'm going to use the mission to say, hey, wait a second, does this actually help us get closer to this mission? Does it help us get closer, or is this going to be a distraction, many of you? Say that you're all in with your business. Say that you want to learn and you're going to show up to the events. And to be honest, we even have partners.

People who we like have a stake in their business. We have equity in their business, and they are just like Mr. and Mrs. Rah Rah. They they do all the right things, and yet their promotion to their teams or promotion to, uh, social platforms is all fricking over

the place. I'm doing these investments and I have this side business and I'm also doing this other thing, and there's this personal thing like they're they're a total confusion to the people around them in those scenarios, like realign with your mission, keep the main thing, the main freaking thing. Stop confusing people with all of the random initiatives. If it's not tied to the mission statement, don't do it. Just say no. That sounds great, but it's not for

me right now. I really respect that. Grant Cardone. It's like I do multifamily. I don't do house flipping, I don't do crypto, I don't do the stock market. I do one thing and I am great at that one thing, because it allows us to also be committed to that one thing. And sure, there's going to be other people who make money doing the things that you say no to.

But hey, wait a second, you said that you were going to accomplish this one thing, and until you accomplish that one thing, don't go adding a bunch of random things that could distract you before you actually get to the finish line on the main target. Because guess what that's going to do? It's going to cause you to not have confidence in yourself. Because if you falter at the one thing because you went and chase the chase, this other shiny penny over here, and then the shiny

penny doesn't work out. But then also the original thing doesn't work out. Well, what are we doing? We missed the target. So the mission is like this guiding force of, okay, I'm going to do this thing and I'm going to get grooved into this thing until I become so good that I'm considered an expert at this thing. And until you've reached expert status, don't go. Don't go chasing the shiny pennies. Don't go off in and add all the

random stuff. Just stay focused on the mission. Okay? The third thing that you use your mission statement in order to. Remind them in order to pivot, in order to redirect is your team. So first it's you, then it's your organizational priorities, but then it's your team. You know, I have clients who I open some events and I ask clients what their people problems are. Like, listen, everybody has people problems. We have people problems. I'm very transparent about

the people problems we have here at Cardone Ventures. I'm actually going to start a TikTok series on. Well, I don't know if I can do this. I'm running this by our lawyer at the moment, but I'm going to do a TikTok series. Uh, on. People who are no longer with us. Obviously, I would like not tell people who they are. Sorry, I'm fixing my shoe right now

to be sure. Um, I'm going to do a series on people who are no longer with us, looking at their resumes and seeing if I could point out based on their resume, what the reason was, that they didn't end up working out, because I'm fascinated by this idea of how do you become the most proficient and efficient resume reader? So that's a tangent. Um, as it relates to your team and your mission statement. Man, I totally

lost my train of thought. This happens on the Work Woman podcast, and I already told you guys I'm having a little bit of an off day. But, you know, I feel even I even feel like when I have an off day, this the content is good to be good. So don't you worry. I'll, I'll, I'll switch back on. Um, why? Your mission statement is important to your team.

really ask. Ask yourself when when something like that happens, why does the team member think that they are there at your organization? If the team doesn't know what the mission is, you have nothing to redirect them to when they are off target. There's a line, right? When there's some really personal thing happening with the team member. You are supposed to be sensitive. You are human being. You are kind and empathetic. But it's not social hour. It's

not gossip time. And whenever team members come into my office in the past and have gossiped or they're wasting my time, I'm like, hey guys, wait a second, what are we here to do? I'll ask this. I'll stop the entire meeting and be like, guys, what are we here to do? And if they look at me blankly like, I don't know, what are you talking about? Say, what is our mission? And they'll have to repeat back to me. Our mission is to help business owners achieve their personal,

professional and financial goals for their growth, their businesses. Okay, great. If that's our mission, how does what we're talking about actually relate to this mission right now? Normally the room goes silent at that moment, which makes sense, right? Like we need to take a pause, reflect, redirect and move on. Like this. This is not what we were just talking about. Has nothing, absolutely freaking nothing to do with why we do what we do. So let's stay focused on the

thing that we are here to do. But. I hate to break it to you. You're the person that's responsible for this in your organization. If you're not moving people back to your mission, then you've done what most of your competitors are also likely doing, which is created some mission statement that sounds nice and is great to maybe bring up annually on your annual review with the whole team, or maybe at the Christmas party or holiday party, but

you're not actually creating a culture around your mission. So you use this with your team to redirect to say, hey, wait a second, we're not focused on this. What are we here to do? And then they tell you what the mission is. It's like, okay, great, let's get back to doing that thing. Because right now we're all confused. Right now, everybody in this room, we're a little distracted. And whenever I have a moment where. Because, like, I'm

a human, I'm not a robot. Whenever I have a moment where I'm just like, I'm feeling bad about holding somebody accountable to something like, oh man, maybe they had these things that came up in their life that didn't allow them to show up on time. And, and I have this whole rhetoric of a story in my head. I actually find a lot of strength and confidence in, like, resetting myself, being like, okay, wait a second, what are we here to do? Oh, we're here to help these

business owners. And so I'm going to let this person's stuff, this person's mess, take me off of doing the thing that I'm here to do. And when I can be more objective and less emotional, doesn't mean that I'm a jerk or I'm rude to the team. And I'm not suggesting that you are either. But it's like, hey, wait a second, I really want to do this thing. The mission isn't just some bullshit language I created. The mission

is I'm dedicating myself to do this thing. And so when you think about it like that, why would you ever let somebody take you off course from that? Like, is the thing that they have prioritized for you actually more important than what you've stated that your mission is? I am a big proponent of thinking about the end of my life and really like assessing, hey, did Natalie do everything that she wanted to do in this lifetime? And there's a lot of weight around that to me.

If I help these business owners and I help their team members and I help our team members, I will feel like I have a sense of accomplishment for what I wanted to do here on planet Earth, and to me, it really is that deep. So why would I let Suzy So-and-so to pull me off of that target in any moment in time, or Joey, or name whoever it's going to be? Like, why would I let that happen? Well,

I'm not going to let that happen. And when you look at it objectively like that, you will all of a sudden create boundaries in your life where you're just not not allowing yourself to get pulled off target because somebody else just happened to be, you know, talking about something alluring or just put something in your path to make you stumble over it. Like, take yourself more seriously. Take the goal more seriously. Okay? Number four. When you

are faltering with this. Your mission statement, you're like, I don't really know how to use this. Remember that your competition is not learning what you are learning right now. Just think about how your competition is hiring people. Are they really talking about the impact that they want to make in their industry? Are they really talking about how they want to transform people's lives? Nine times out of ten,

I would I would bet that they aren't. If you're thinking about your competition, and I hope for you that when you think about them, you like want to crush them. Like, I hope there's that thing inside you that's like this, like little burning desire sensation. It's like, screw you guys. I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to go all in in order to crush you, because I know that I win. That's how I think of myself.

That's how I think of our business. That's how I think about everything that I want to be good at in life. I'm going to crush the competition, and I'm also going to do it because I know that I'm capable of it. Like I can do both sides, but I don't want my competition to beat me. So in in the context of your mission statement, how are you using what your competition isn't doing to your benefit? Because

everybody wants to be a part of a mission. Your team members are looking for you to create clarity around a mission, your competition, if they're they're not clear on that,

but you are. You are going to be a more attractive choice, especially in a time of uncertainty, especially when there are things going on that make people nervous when gas prices are going up, when inflation is going up, when unemployment is going up, when those things happen, people are looking for a leader and your competition is probably not spending the time developing themselves as a leader and going all in on changing the world, because most people

just go into contraction and they think small and they want to protect what they have. Instead of taking that moment to be like, I'm going to gain market share, I'm going to go dominate. I'm going to go and

destroy and just take everything that I can in this opportunity. Well, your mission should be correlated to the taking of the opportunity, the taking of the customer's mind share, the taking of being able to be the best service provider for the businesses that you or the customers that you work with.

So this competition should really be considered in, oh wait, I need to make my mission statement bigger and more impactful and double down on it so that I'm creating this this ethos in my environment of like, we fricking win. I don't even have to say anything to our team any longer because I've grooved this in so much. It's the 1st of July right now, and we were four days ago, like pretty off from our target, our revenue target.

But every single month when we look like we're off from our target, I say over and over and over again, we do not miss targets like that. Is that's going to be a tagline at this company pretty soon. We don't miss targets. We just don't. There's nothing about us that misses targets. There is a culture that that creates when somebody is saying, hey guys, we don't miss targets. So what has to happen if we're off of our target right now? And that's the same thing with your

mission statement. It's just a reminder. It's this ethos. It's this culture and environment that you're creating of why we're doing what we're doing, why we're putting the hard work in that's going to get you the talent that your competition cannot continue to keep. All right. Um. Just one one thing on the team. One way that I use our mission statement to suss out and really evaluate team members that I sometimes have issues with is are they in it for the mission or are they in it

for themselves? If there's something that comes up? Not if when there's something that comes up with the team. I have team members who will mess up something that like, I mess up, Brandon messes up, Grant messes up. Everybody messes up at some point. I have team members who mess up and they are defensive because of their own ego. They're defensive because they want to be right or they want to be the leader, or they want to vie for some position versus I have other team members who

they still messed up, same situation, but they're. They're fighting for the team, they're fighting for the business. And they might have been wrong, but their intention was, hey, I wanted to make us be better. I was missed, I missed stepped, but this was where I was going. This is why. And there's the passion behind it. And so when you're evaluating when when team members, you know, I'm trying to think of a good example. Let me come up with a really good example on this. Um, I

have a girl. I had a girl who it was always about her idea, like she wanted to be the person that didn't tell anybody else about this idea that she had so that she could take credit for it, and she would work on it in, in secret. And

half the time they were amazing ideas. Like, she would just nail it and surprise us, but the other half, like they weren't great and I'd be like, why did you waste all this time and resources instead of telling me earlier you just like spent all this, this unneeded time going down this path, that you shouldn't have gone down, but it's because she wanted to be the person. She wanted to have the credit. She wanted it to be, you know, thought of as like she was really smart.

And to me, that's not fighting for the mission. It was about her, not where we're going. It was about her career advancement and her recognition. And so as you're evaluating different team members choices, like really try to get to the root of it, is it about them or is it that they're trying to progress and, and make forward movements on behalf of and for the greater good of the organization? So with that, I'd love to know, like from your standpoint, what is the the thing that

holds you up with the mission statement? Is it that you don't know how to craft it? Is it that you don't know how to use it? Like where where's the the stopping point? Because what I know is if you're listening to this still, you likely either have a mission statement or you don't. And if you do have a mission statement, you're likely struggling with how to actually use it and how to actually implement the mission statement.

And so is it. More so you saying like, oh, my mission statement, it's not good enough for us to use it or it's doesn't even exist at all? I'm curious to know that. Let me know in the comments or just shoot me a DM. I'm pretty active on

my own DMs on the Instagram. Um, I would love to be just a sounding board for you with your mission statement, because if this is out, everything else in my book teamwork, it's hard to build off it because there isn't the foundation, because we use this mission statement when we're hiring people, we use this mission statement in performance reviews. We use this mission statement across every single

touchpoint with team members. And so if you can't crystallize the mission statement and we can't do this early on, it's going to be hard for you to understand why there's missing pieces along the path. Uh, and so I want to know what I can do in order to

help you get this mission statement up and running. Speaking of how it can help, I do have a two day event where I just hammer into all of this content, but also I give you feedback on what you've come up with for people who have read my book, and then they go to my people workshop, they are like the straight-A students who are looking for those granular pieces for how to fix the process, or they're also able to,

you know, learn and be introduced to it. But the ones who have listened to the stuff, like they're they're looking for those gems. That's also the type of student I am. And I do have one coming up. You can go to Cardno Ventures, dot com forward slash people. That's Cardio ventures.com/people. Last time we had to cap the event because every seat in person was full, so we could only allow virtual attendees. I don't want that to

happen to you, so definitely get registered ASAP. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but the people event is always the one that is the most sold out here at Cano Ventures, so I would want to have you miss out on the opportunity to be in person and really workshop those things. With that, I appreciate you. I believe in you. I know that you can implement these things. These things are not impossible. The last thing that I want you to do is listen to a

podcast like this and and do nothing. So if you haven't bought the book, go buy the book. If you haven't figured out how to implement it, like start going through and saying, okay, how do I make myself a reminder of this? How do I make the team remember this? How do I implement it with the competition that I'm up against? Like actually start using this to implement it and we're going to dive deeper into teamwork. We're only

on chapter two. Ladies and gentlemen. We got a lot of work to do, but do not miss the execution on this mission statement. Wait. See you on next week's episode of Work Woman.