Text copyright © 2013 FranklinCovey Co. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Brilliance Publishing 1704 Eaton Drive Grand Haven, MI 49417 Digital ISBN: 9781477898048 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE The Personal Mission Statement CHAPTER TWO Anatomy of a Mission Statement CHAPTER THREE The Highest and Best Use CHAPTER FOUR Your Highest Ideals CHAPTER FIVE Stay on Target CONCLUSION REFLECTION QUESTIONS OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN R. COVEY ABOUT THE AUTHOR INTRODUCTION A personal mission statement is based on Habit Two of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called “Begin with the End in Mind.” In one’s life, the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement, one that focuses on what you want to be in terms of character and what you want to do in reference to contributions and achievements. It is based upon self-chosen values and principles. Victor Hugo once said, “There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” A mission statement is that idea. You may call it a credo or a philosophy; or you may call it a purpose statement. It’s not important what it is called. What is important is that vision, purpose, and values are more powerful, more significant, and more influential than the baggage of the past or the accumulated noise of the present. The power of the personal mission statement lies in your vision and in a commitment to that vision, that purpose, and those principle-centered values. They will control your decisions, determine your outlook, and provide the direction for your future. The single most important and far-reaching leadership activity that you will ever do is to develop a personal mission statement—and then to bring that sense of mission, of purpose, to your family. This book is a simple, short guide to developing your personal mission statement. After you develop your personal mission statement, consider also developing one with your family as described in the separate book How to Develop Your Family Mission Statement CHAPTER ONE The Personal Mission Statement Think about taking a trip on an airplane. Before taking off, the pilot has a very clear destination in mind, which hopefully coincides with yours, and a flight plan to get there. The plane takes off at the appointed hour toward that predetermined destination. But in fact, the plane is off course at least 90 percent of the time. Weather conditions, turbulence, and other factors cause it to get off track. However, feedback is given to the pilot constantly, who then makes course corrections and keeps coming back to the exact flight plan, bringing the plane back on course. And often, the plane arrives at the destination on time. It’s amazing. Think of it. Leaving on time, arriving on time, but off course 90 percent of the time. If you can create this image of an airplane, a destination, and a flight plan in your mind, then you understand the purpose of a personal mission statement. It is the picture of where you want to end up—that is, your destination is the values you want to live your life by. Even if you are off course much or most of the time but still hang on to your sense of hope and your vision, you will eventually arrive at your destination. You will arrive at your destination and usually on time. That’s the whole point—we just get back on course. This idea—this principle—of beginning with the end in mind is based upon the concept that all things are created twice: first in the mind, as a thought or intellectual creation; and second in reality as a physical creation. The mental creation, the flight plan, brings forth the hope in the flight. Norman Cousins taught, “The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It gives human beings a sense of destination and the energy to get started.” At the beginning of this process you will find enormous hope and encouragement as well as fun and happiness in developing a mission statement. It’s truly an enjoyable process. It’s also a leadership process. But here’s something to think about carefully. The opposite of a mission statement is the opposite of beginning with the end in mind: beginning with no end in mind, no intellectual creation, no envisioning of the future. In other words, to let life happen . To be swept along with the flow of society’s values and social trends without any sense of compass, without a map, without vision, without purpose. In a sense, someone else has done the creation of your mission statement for you and, unaware, you’re simply living out the script that has been given to you. You’re really not living; you’re being lived That’s why highly effective business and athletic teams all have a game plan, a vision of their destination. Consider the human body as a beautiful model of this idea. The DNA chromosomal structure that lies inside every cell of our body has a mission statement about what it and what the entire body is, how it functions, how it relates to other cells, and what it will become. We are talking about the most basic principle manifest in all nature; that is, the habit of beginning with the end in mind. It’s all based on this principle that all things are created twice. Therefore, take charge of the first creation, or someone or something else will. You’re really not living; you’re being lived A Sense of Meaning One of the most inspirational people I have ever known is Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist who was imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany in World War II. He was a scientist. He was terribly inquisitive and understood scientific methodology, and he wondered what enabled some of the prisoners who were subject to such terrible treatment in the death camps to survive. He studied the survivors and attempted to understand what enabled these people to survive, unlike the hundreds of thousands who perished. Was it their physical health? He found physical health to be secondary. Was it their survival skills? Secondary. Was it their intelligence? Secondary. He explored every alternative hypothesis. He finally concluded they were all secondary factors. The overriding primary factor was very simple—they had a sense of the future, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning. Based on his studies, he wrote his famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Those survivors were people who had a sense that some important work was yet to be done. He spoke about it as detecting rather than inventing their meaning. What is life asking of me? What is my responsibility in this situation? What kind of future contribution can I possibly make? By asking and answering these kinds of questions, they were strengthened and emboldened toward those purposes. And it enabled these people to survive. I’ll never forget the language he used: “Our wounds would heal.” This sense of the future somehow triggered the healing mechanisms and immune system inside their minds and bodies. The sense that they could make a better future gave them a deep feeling of hope. He quoted Nietzsche: “He who has a ‘why’ can live with any ‘what.’” Dr. Frankl hypothesized that we have three parts to our nature: our body, our mind, and our spirit. But his deepest conviction is that most—not all—diseases originate in the spirit. That is, in a sense of meaninglessness, a sense of hollowness, a sense of purposelessness. No mission. No vision. No future. And that this void, this hollowness, translates itself into both the mind and the body. That’s why I’m saying here that a mission statement gives a future focus, a sense of hope, a sense of deep meaningful purpose. It’s like the airplane scenario. We have a destination. We have a significant important place to go. And even though we know that we’ll probably be off course about 90 percent of the time, we have hope. We just keep coming back to it. Back. And back. And back. This sense of the future becomes more impactful, more powerful, than the sense of the past, than what’s often called baggage: past traumas, social injuries, past failures, and even the grasp of present circumstances. Those forces are not as powerful as a deeply embedded sense of the future and of a well-developed value system to deal with the past and the present. So as you look at your mission statement, you’ll need to work basically on two things: vision—your sense of the future—and the principles that you want to live by. Your vision is the end, the destination. Principles are the means, like the flight plan. Vision is who you really are and what you could become. Principles are those unalterable truths you feel so strongly about that you are willing to accept them as your own set of values. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nothing gives so much direction to a person’s life as a sound set of principles.” So get perspective, take time, and be patient. Prepare to pay an enjoyable price in order to cultivate this sense of vision and purpose, committed to values that are principle centered and based upon natural laws that are universal, self- evident, and belong to all enduring cultures and religions. To begin with the end in mind, you must develop a personal mission statement. It is the most practical way to start and something that is possible for everyone to do. You should write out your mission statement. You can do so in the form of a picture, or a powerful image, or through words. Writing down your mission statement, whether it be words or a picture, is an extremely powerful psychological process that imprints the brain. Visualizing imprints the brain—so does writing. Writing also brings a crystallization of thought and distills learning and insight into words. Words have a powerful impact in our lives, as well as in our relationships with other people. When you write, you have to think through your thoughts carefully. Lord Bacon put it this way: “Reading maketh a full man, but writing maketh an exact man.” Nothing gives so much direction to a person’s life as a sound set of principles. CHAPTER TWO Anatomy of a Mission Statement Now, consider four criteria of a good mission statement. First, the mission statement should be timeless. That means you write it as if it will never change. In fact, as you mature and grow, you might change it, but you should write it as if it will never change. They’re not goals—you know that goals will change. Goals are situation specific. Instead, principles are general rules that deal with the totality of our life. You’re writing a timeless mission statement. Second, the mission statement should deal with both ends and means, which means our destination and the way that we get to our destination. In practical language that would be the development of a purpose or a vision and then the value system, hopefully one that is principle-based and enables us to accomplish our purpose or fulfill our vision. Third, the mission statement, because it is based on principles, should deal with all the roles of your life. Fourth, a mission statement should deal with the four dimensions of our nature. What are these four? Well, we have our body, that is, the physical. You could combine it with the economic, because we need money to take care of our body, our physical well-being. The second is our relationships with others. We could call it the social/emotional aspect. Third is our mind, the mental aspect. And fourth, our spirit or the spiritual aspect. The body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. The essence of these needs is captured in this phrase “to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.” To live encompasses our physical and economic needs and well-being. To love deals with our relationships with others and how we relate together and deal with each other—kindness, respect, dignity, support, and so forth. To learn involves helping each other continually with education, learning from our experiences and identifying, developing, and using our talents. To leave a legacy is our spiritual need for a sense of meaning, for a sense of mattering in life, that we truly contribute, add value, make a difference, and have a deep connection with the eternal and divine part of our nature. Albert Schweitzer once said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will really be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” Helen Keller observed, “Many persons have the wrong idea about what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. So as you prepare your mission statement, try to remember to deal with all four dimensions. Remember also to focus on the ends and the means, to make it timeless, and to deal with those principles that apply to the totality of life. To live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy. The Three Lives We all lead three lives: our public life, our private life, and our deep inner life. Our public life takes place in a community setting, where we interact with others. Our private life is away from the public—we may be alone, with a friend, or with family members. But our deep inner life is our most significant life. It is where our heart is. It’s where we have the capacity to explore our own motives, to examine our own thoughts and desires, and to analyze our problems and our needs. We can go into this deep private life— we could call it a secret life—even when we are in a public or a private setting. Our secret life is where we are able to tap into the power of the four human endowments: self-awareness, conscience, imagination, and independent will. When you are dealing with the development of a personal mission statement, you need to go into the deep inner or secret life, which influences the other two. It is the part of you where you decide the most fundamental issues of your life. As the psalmist put it: “Search your own heart with all diligence, for out of it flows the issues of your life.” It truly is a secret life. No one knows the thoughts and intents of your heart. You alone have that awareness, and you can step in on your own deep inner life; you can examine, explore, and change it. Many people, unless they are in pain because of something they care about that is not being fulfilled, will not go into their deep inner life at all. In a sense, they’re not living. They’re just being lived, publicly and privately. I love the movie Gandhi . In it, Gandhi says, “A person cannot do right in one department of life, whilst attempting to do wrong in another department. Life is one indivisible whole.” So as you decide what your mission statement is about, ask yourself, “Am I prepared to act this way privately and publicly?” That question is a deep and private question. Developing a personal mission statement is profound and deep work. Get perspective. Take time and be patient. Give yourself several weeks, perhaps even months. You’ve got to pay the price. Because so many elements in your nature and so much history—social and psychic—are already in you, you need to nurture deep harmony and unity among all the different parts of your nature. Your habit system, your value system, and your intuitive feelings are all different dimensions that must be blended. You may even discover pockets in your life that you don’t want to look at or motives that fall outside the highest order from the point of view of your conscience. In other words, if you go inside, if you go into this deep private life, this secret life, prepare to pay a price in order to get a sense of vision, a sense of purpose, and a deep commitment to principle-centered values. Viktor Frankl shared a brilliant insight about developing mission statements. He said, “The thing I learned is that you don’t invent your mission, you detect it. You uncover it, as it were.” You see, everyone has special gifts, unique qualities, and characteristics. And they need to work inwardly until they detect those aspects. The Turn of the Tide One day, a man visited a doctor about his boredom. Something was wrong, and he could not identify the source. He asked his doctor, who was also his friend, for a diagnosis. The doctor gathered information about the symptoms, made his diagnosis, and said to his friend, “I can find nothing medically wrong, but I think I know what is wrong. I have written out four prescriptions that I encourage you to take, but you have to follow these prescriptions carefully. Where was the favorite place you loved going as a child?” “I loved going to the beach,” the man said. “Okay, you go to the beach again and take the first prescription at nine in the morning, the next at noon, the next at three, and the next at six o’clock.” “Well, doctor, where’s the medicine?” the man asked. “Just follow the prescriptions.” “You’re kidding.” “Wait until you see my bill,” he answered. “When you go, you can’t take anything with you. No radio, no reading materials, no books, no magazines. Just get with nature. Now remember, the first prescription you take at nine.” So the man arrives at the beach, walks down from his car, pulls out the first prescription, and reads just two words: Listen carefully. Two words. Listen carefully . What could this possibly mean? Inwardly, he says, “What can I listen to? I mean, I’m listening to everything right now. And I’m finished listening. And I have to do this for three hours? Okay, I can hear those birds. Yeah, okay, good, I hadn’t heard them but I hear them now. The surf, I can hear the surf coming in. I can hear sand crabs if I listen really carefully. I can hear the wind blowing. I can hear the rustle in the weeds. Isn’t that interesting? The more I listen, the more I hear.” He starts to listen to himself, to slow down the frantic pace of his public life and his disenchanted private life. In fact, after a period of listening, he begins to hear sounds below sounds, sounds he’d never even thought or heard before. After a period of time, it so quiets his spirit he becomes almost euphoric. He becomes peaceful. He hasn’t felt this way in a long time. He’s getting deeper into his inner life. In fact, by noon, he is almost loath to take the second prescription because he has been so deeply peaceful and quiet and has enjoyed this first one. But as agreed, he pulls out the second prescription at noon. This prescription contains three words: Try reaching back. That throws him. What could this mean? Try reaching back. “Maybe I should start thinking about the past,” he thinks. So he starts to get into his memory. “I remember after school what kind excitement we had when we’d come down to the beach. We’d be yelling, we were exultant, we were so happy. I remember coming down here with my brother.” He becomes especially emotional and nostalgic when he thinks about his brother, because his brother was killed in the war. He is gone now. But he remembers running down to the beach after school with his brother and just screaming like wild people. They just couldn’t get enough of this freedom, this fresh air, this excitement. They would dance around and hug each other. They would have great family activities and family times. They would play with each other and their parents in the surf. They would throw water on each other. He gets so enveloped in these memories of all the fun times he had on the beach, with his family, his friends, and especially with his brother, that he is more loath than ever to move to the third prescription by three o’clock. He has journeyed deep into his inner life that contains memories and feelings that are so precious. When he takes out the third prescription, he discovers it is the tough one, the core prescription. In a sense, the other two were preparation for this one. This third prescription takes him into his deep inner life with enormous force. Three words again: Reexamine your motives. “Examine my motives for three hours? What is my center? What is my life about? What is my core? What is my mission? What is my vision? What is it that I am all about?” This prescription, although difficult, makes him think deeply, and he begins to observe a pattern. He discovers that he has put at the center of his life himself and the fulfillment of his own needs. He is following a selfish pattern. Even his so-called service or selfless activities are selfish in that he wants to be known for them, to be seen, and his service to others is anything but anonymous. He discovers that his private life is different from his public life. He puts on that he is caring, but inwardly he could look and find a selfish motive that he is trying to serve within himself. He starts to become aware that his malaise, his boredom, his disease is of the spirit. The selfishness of his life is that his whole motive structure is improperly centered not on true service, on true contribution, but on self. He spends much of those three hours thinking through these realizations, reorganizing his life, reorienting, and planting new motives, new desires that are more congruent with higher principles. He feels a great sense of creativity through this exercise. He starts to use his imagination instead of just living out of his memory. He draws heavily upon his conscience. When you live out of your memory, you focus on the past. When you live out of your imagination, you focus on the future. What lies behind us is nothing compared to what lies within us and ahead of us. But it took all this self-analysis, this self-awareness, this self-exploration. It took the first two prescriptions of quieting down his life and his spirit and remembering happy times to prepare him for the period of self-analysis, self-awareness, and self-exploration to develop the willingness to examine his own motives and cultivate new ones. When six o’clock comes, he is, for the first time, able to say within himself, “I know what my life is about. And I know what my sickness is about. I know what I am about. I know the cause of my problem and what I need to do. It’s not yet healed, but I know the direction I want to take.” So at six o’clock, he pulls out the last prescription and it says: Write your troubles in the sand. He thinks, and then he lets the paper blow away. He reaches down, takes a piece of shell, goes to just under the high-water mark, and writes down a few words. Then he turns, walks away, and never looks back. And the last sentence to the story? The tide was coming in. We must give Arthur Gordon, the author of this story, credit. It is called “The Turn of the Tide.” It is a beautiful story and contains a lot of wisdom. It teaches that you don’t start writing a mission statement without first preparing to write it. Maybe you have been preparing for a long time. Maybe you’ve done a lot of this deep inner work and now you’re really prepared for your mission statement work. Everyone, however, is in a different place, so if you’re working with others, make sure everyone comes prepared. Then you can tap into this collective sense of vision and mission. When you live out of your memory, you focus on the past. When you live out of your imagination, you focus on the future. When you prepare for your own mission statement, ask the deeper questions. What are your unique gifts? Listen to those who see the potential in you. Listen and sense their affirmation of you. Study the lives of people who’ve inspired you—your heroes and what it is that you admire about them—so you can get a sense of the principles on which you want to build. You want to write a mission statement that is timeless, that will not change. It may in fact change, but you want to write it as if it will never change. You want to act upon it by exercising your will, your independent will, to live by it. That is the ultimate source of your integrity, and your integrity is the true source of your power. CHAPTER THREE The Highest and Best Use This chapter was written by Dr. Blaine Lee, a FranklinCovey consultant and author of The Power Principle: Influence with Honor, published by Simon & Schuster. Over the past two decades I have coached thousands of people on creating and using mission statements. What is the purpose of your life? What do you have as a focus that channels your energies? What do you have that is a passion for you? When people get focused on the highest and best use of themselves, their lives change, and that’s exciting. The principles you live by create the world you live in. So when you change the principles you live by, you can change your world. Your mission statement serves to summarize the principles you want to live by. I remember hearing Robert Schuller speaking about this interesting concept: If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you give your life to? If you knew you didn’t have to work for a living, what would you give your life to? It’s an interesting process, because as we find out who we are, we also find an energy and focus to our lives. Often this process involves detection, rather than selection; it’s something that we discover inside ourselves. Sometimes people say to me: “Blaine, I’ve thought about it a lot and nothing really specific and concrete is coming to mind. What am I going to do?” Usually what comes to mind is the old line the gentleman says, “Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.” This process is more than just sitting. It is looking at the inside of you. With this inside-out approach you don’t have to go read the great literature or go ask someone what the purpose of your life is. You detect it as you peel back the layers that comprise you. And in the process, you make wonderful discoveries. If you were to call someone you respect, who knows you well and will give you wise counsel that is in your best interest, and tell them that you’re trying to put into words something that will act as a guide for you in how you make decisions and how you live your life—I wonder what that person would say. Someone who really knows you well, who sees your potential and your possibilities as well as whatever problems and limitations you might have. Someone who can see beyond the exterior to the real capacity that you have to do good and be good in the world. It might be an interesting exercise for you to call three or four people who fit that description, perhaps an old mentor or a teacher from earlier years. Maybe even a grandparent, someone who is a little older, perhaps a little wiser, and not ruffled by the day-to-day so much anymore. Tell them what you’ve discovered and ask them what they would say. Perhaps they’ll remind you of something that you’ve always considered a focus for your life but had somehow overlooked. I remember one gentleman I met during a seminar who had just been passed over for a major position with an aerospace company. He had spent most of his life working in this industry, and as we chatted, he was frustrated because he had been confident the job was going to be his. “Where’d you get your interest in aerospace?” I asked. His face came alive; his eyes started to sparkle and twinkle, and he told me about a four-year-old child, an earlier version of him, walking out into the backyard in his home in California and looking up at the sky. Even at that young age, he wondered: “Will anyone ever go there? I would like to go there.” He was fascinated by astronomy. He took science courses when he was in high school. He got a degree in aerospace engineering and made a career in that business. When he didn’t get the job as CEO at this large organization, he took a week off to meet with us at our leadership retreat and answer the big questions: What is the purpose of my life? Today’s the first day of the rest of my life—so what am I going to do with it? Should I get that farm in Montana and just leave all this behind? He went through some real soul searching that week. I didn’t have answers for him because I don’t have answers for anybody. I can’t tell you what is your highest and best use. But I read with great fascination two months after our time together that Dan Golden, this man I met, had been selected by the president of the United States to be the new director of NASA. Now Dan is not just focusing on the aerospace industry, he’s coordinating everything that happens in space for the entire planet—all the efforts of all the countries. He’s the one trying to figure out the best use of this program so that it benefits humankind. His face came alive; his eyes started to sparkle and twinkle, and he told me about a four-year-old child, an earlier version of him, walking out into the backyard and looking up at the sky. The focus of your life you detect by looking on the inside. Some people say, “I was going to be a fireman or a cowboy.” And you may find that thought intriguing enough because it does come from you. When you are older, a piece of it—the adventure, saving lives, making a difference— can be a part of your vision, your personal mission statement. Highest and Best Use I’ve used the phrase “highest and best use” here. It comes from a friend in the real estate business who taught me the phrase. He said to me one day, “Blake, you know how we value property when we do an appraisal?” And I said, “Well, you measure the acreage and look at comparable properties or something.” He said, “Yes, we do that; we look at the current use of the property, but we also try to envision the highest and best use of that property. So if someone were to tell me they have 10 acres, what’s it worth? I’d have to say, where’s it located? Say it’s out in the desert and it’s covered in sagebrush and some toxic waste. That pretty much determines what its value is. But what if those 10 acres were just on the outskirts of town in the direction in which the town is growing. Well, that’s worth a lot more because it’s good development property. What if it’s actually adjacent to a new strip mall that has just been put in? The value increases even more. And what if it’s not adjacent, what if it’s a part of the mall development, or what if it’s on the land that is going to be used for a high-rise condo? Or