33-Live The Mission

Season #3 August 19, 2026

Episode 33 — Live the Mission

Become The Leader Podcast

Hosts: Jody Holland, Mike Grigsby, and Meghan Slaughter

Episode Summary

Most organizations have a mission statement. Far fewer actually live it.

In this episode of Become The Leader, Jody Holland, Mike Grigsby, and Meghan Slaughter explore what separates a meaningful mission from a collection of inspirational words hanging on the wall.

A powerful mission should do more than sound good. It should help leaders decide what to pursue, what to reject, how to treat people, what behaviors to reward, and what kind of organization they are trying to build.

The conversation moves beyond corporate mission statements into personal purpose as well. The team discusses how leaders can identify what matters most by examining what puts them into a state of flow, what problems make them disproportionately frustrated, how they want to be remembered, and the values they are unwilling to compromise.

Ultimately, the challenge is simple:

Don't just write the mission. Live the mission.

When values consistently produce the right actions, those actions create results—and those results become what people know you for.

Key Takeaways

1. A mission statement should be a decision-making filter.

A mission statement has little value if it simply hangs on a wall.

The real test is whether leaders use it when making decisions.

Before pursuing an opportunity, initiative, customer, hire, or strategy, ask:

Does this move us closer to our mission—or simply keep us busy?

Mission creates focus. It helps organizations determine not only what they should do, but also what they should refuse to do.

2. Mission without action becomes organizational hypocrisy.

Employees notice the gap between what leaders say and what leaders actually do.

When an organization claims to value people, service, integrity, or community—and then abandons those values when financial pressure arrives—the damage goes beyond the immediate decision.

People begin to believe that leadership's words cannot be trusted.

Your mission therefore has to survive difficult decisions, not just easy ones.

3. Mission and profitability are not enemies.

A meaningful mission does not require a business to ignore profitability.

Business is an exchange of value.

When an organization solves meaningful problems for customers and creates significant value, it deserves to receive value in return.

A strong mission can actually strengthen profitability because it keeps the organization focused on creating outcomes customers genuinely value.

No mission, no margin. And without margin, you won't be able to pursue the mission for very long.

4. A good mission answers three questions.

One practical framework discussed in the episode is:

We are here to __________
so that __________
because __________.

This helps leaders identify:

What do we do?

What outcome are we trying to create?

Why does that outcome matter?

That final question—why does it matter?—connects the work to purpose.

5. Your personal mission can become a filter for your life.

Mission isn't limited to organizations.

A personal mission can help you evaluate opportunities, relationships, priorities, and the way you invest your time.

Meghan described her personal mission as leaving people better than she found them by helping them grow, lead intentionally, and recognize their potential.

Jody described his mission as investing in the leadership and growth of others so that he leaves them better than he found them.

A mission becomes powerful when it begins influencing everyday interactions.

6. Look for clues to your purpose in what creates flow.

One way to discover your personal mission is to ask:

What do I lose track of time doing?

What work absorbs you so completely that hours pass unnoticed?

Those moments of deep engagement may reveal the kinds of problems you naturally want to solve and the contribution you are uniquely energized to make.

7. Pay attention to what makes you disproportionately frustrated.

Purpose isn't revealed only by what you love.

It can also show up in what bothers you.

Ask:

What problem makes me think, “Somebody needs to do something about this”?

Jody described his frustration with ineffective leadership and leaders who fail to bring out the best in their people.

Sometimes frustration reveals the problem you feel called to solve.

8. Use the eulogy test.

Imagine reaching the end of your life.

What do you hope the people who knew you will say?

Jody shared that he wants people to remember that he left them better than he found them, made a positive impact on the world, and was a good husband, father, and grandfather.

Mike emphasized wanting people to feel seen, acknowledged, treated justly, and confident that he had their best interests at heart.

Meghan spoke about being remembered as kind, compassionate, caring, and someone who helped others grow.

Thinking backward from the legacy you want can clarify how you should live forward.

9. Values must translate into observable behavior.

Organizations often spend significant time selecting values such as integrity, excellence, service, teamwork, or respect.

But a value only becomes meaningful when people know:

What does this value look like in action?

Jody described the V-A-R-Y framework:

Values + Actions + Results = You

Your values determine the behaviors you choose.

Those behaviors create results.

And those repeated results become what people know you for.

10. Fewer core values create greater clarity.

If everything is a core value, nothing is truly core.

Jody recommends reducing organizational values to roughly three core values that genuinely distinguish what the organization stands for.

Then identify two or three behaviors that demonstrate each value.

The goal is for employees and customers to recognize your values from your behavior without ever needing to read them on a wall.

11. Mission should be simple enough to remember.

A mission statement shouldn't require employees to memorize a paragraph.

The best missions are clear, relevant, and repeatable.

Mike shared an example from Southwest Airlines where employees could connect their individual roles to the simple idea:

“I fly planes.”

Whether someone worked in maintenance, ticketing, operations, or another function, their work ultimately contributed to the same mission.

A strong mission helps every employee answer:

How does my work contribute to what we're trying to accomplish?

12. Mission should eventually become ethos.

There may be a progression in how people internalize a mission:

Create it.
Recite it.
Believe it.
Live it.

Eventually, the mission should become so deeply embedded that you no longer need to consciously repeat it.

It becomes your ethos—the way you naturally operate.

The question then becomes:

Are my decisions still consistent with what I say I believe?

13. Purpose matters to the modern workforce.

People increasingly want their work to matter.

They want to know that their effort contributes to something meaningful rather than simply completing tasks and collecting a paycheck.

Organizations that clearly communicate why their work matters create a stronger foundation for engagement, alignment, and belonging.

14. Mission and strategy are different.

Being the largest company, beating competitors, increasing market share, or achieving a financial target may be strategic objectives.

They are not necessarily a mission.

Mission answers:

Why should this organization exist?

Strategy answers:

How will we succeed?

A clear mission should guide the development of strategy—not be replaced by it.

15. Live an infinite game.

Great organizations aren't simply trying to win the next quarter.

They're trying to create something sustainable enough to continue making an impact for generations.

That longer horizon changes how leaders think about people, culture, decisions, investment, and success.

A Mission Statement Framework

Use this formula to begin developing either a personal or organizational mission:

We/I __________
so that __________
because __________.

For example:

We build great leaders
so teams can thrive
because everyone deserves an amazing place to work.

Then test the statement by asking:

Is it simple enough to remember?
Can people use it to make decisions?
Does it describe something we genuinely care about?
Can every employee connect their role to it?
Are our behaviors consistent with it?
Would we protect this mission even when doing so is difficult?

Questions for Reflection

Ask yourself:

What do I lose track of time doing?

What problem makes me disproportionately frustrated?

What makes me think, “Somebody needs to do something about this”?

At the end of my life, what do I want people to say about me?

What three values am I unwilling to compromise?

What actions would prove those values are real?

What results would naturally come from consistently taking those actions?

Does my personal mission align with the mission of the organization where I work?

Can people tell what I stand for without hearing me explain it?

Quotable Moments

“Your mission statement should be the filter for the decisions that you make.” — Jody Holland

“When the mission is done right, the money chases you down. When the mission is violated, the money runs away.” — Jody Holland

“If you have no mission, you will have no margin.” — Jody Holland

“Sometimes it just takes somebody else seeing it in you first for you to believe in yourself.” — Meghan Slaughter

“Am I doing this with intention, or am I just doing this to be busy?” — Meghan Slaughter

“You can't help people grow if you don't challenge them in some way or another.” — Jody Holland

“Your mission statement should be a lens that you're focusing your life and your activities through.” — Mike Grigsby

“What do you look at and get disproportionately annoyed or angry about?” — Jody Holland

“I am a fan of treating your people in such a way that it inspires greatness in them.” — Jody Holland

“If you have 27 core values, you have no core values.” — Jody Holland

“Your mission statement should be simple enough that you can remember it and relevant enough that you can apply it to everything.” — Meghan Slaughter

“We are longing for purpose and meaning in our lives.” — Jody Holland

“People without ever hearing your mission statement should know what you stand for based on what you do.” — Jody Holland

“Live the mission. Don't just write the mission.” — Jody Holland

The Leadership Challenge

Take a fresh look at your mission—personally and professionally.

Don't ask whether it sounds inspiring.

Ask whether it actually changes the way you behave.

If someone followed you around for thirty days without ever seeing your mission statement or core values, could they accurately describe what you stand for simply by watching how you make decisions, treat people, invest your time, and respond when things get difficult?

That is the real test of mission.

Write it.

Believe it.

Protect it.

And most importantly:

Live the Mission.

Episode Transcript

Jody Holland (00:09.006)
Hey guys, Jody Holland here with Mike Grigsby and Megan Slaughter. And we're going to be talking about mission statements today. And I'm going to do just kind of a funny kickoff here. I am a big Scott Adams fan. I have loved the Dilbert comic strips. I used to back in the late nineties read the Dilbert comic strip to find out what was about to happen at work that day from cat Burt, the evil HR director or his boss or dog bird or any of those. So

I always love those things, but one of the things that Scott Adams said one time is, it is my personal mission statement to scratch my bald spot once a day. It doesn't help me make money, but most people's mission statements don't. But we're going to talk about a different angle on that and look at how you create a mission statement personally or professionally that actually guides your life to have meaning and purpose and profit. Cause I think all of those are really, really important. So I'm going to ask

Mike, I know you've done a lot of consulting, Mike, tell me your thoughts just as direct as you want about mission statements and how helpful they are in business.

Mike Grigsby (01:17.32)
Well, I think that's a little bit of a loaded question because I do think that they are extremely helpful in business. If you pay attention to them, if you craft them the right way, if they if you use them to actually filter your decision making, which very few organizations do, you know, the old joke is, you you create a mission statement and it's designed for the wall. It's going to get framed and it's going to get put in the HR room or the break room or someplace where

People are supposedly supposed to see this and feel inspired and go do and achieve and accomplish that mission. It doesn't work that way. A lot of it is fluff. And I mean, just to be very, very candid, it's fluff. It's aspirational, which is not a bad thing, but you can't drive every decision that you're doing through your daily activities.

Jody Holland (02:05.634)
Right.

Mike Grigsby (02:14.462)
You can't drive it through aspiration only. So you do have to have some qualifiers in there, but I would say your mission statement is absolutely critical. But I would also say that you probably need to do the real work and craft a mission statement that you can use to actually drive and steer your mission.

Jody Holland (02:33.537)
Well, and that you will steer your mission.

Meghan Slaughter (02:34.768)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (02:35.9)
I bet you will. Yes.

Jody Holland (02:38.615)
So Megan, your thoughts, what do you think on this thing?

Meghan Slaughter (02:42.149)
I agree with Mike that a lot of them are fluff and they just look and sound pretty. And the purpose of a mission statement is to actually drive your organization forward. So I think they can be really helpful, but I also think that you should have one overarching mission statement for your organization that you follow all the time. And then I think you could actually have a mission statement that transforms based on your needs at the time.

So I do think you should reevaluate your mission statement periodically and update it to fit your needs. But I also think that you can have this main mission that drives you forward and that you're constantly following, whether it's through your work at your job or just through your life at home.

Jody Holland (03:27.185)
I look at it the same way and I opened this up humorously, but I do think the mission is important if it's followed. And that's the point that I get so frustrated with in business is, and Scott Adams poked fun at this too, in the Dilbert future, I think it was. He said, so many people's mission statements are things like, it is our mission to provide hope and healing in a loving environment and blah, blah, blah. And they have all this fluffy stuff in there, paragraph long.

And then the moment we don't hit financial targets, none of that stuff matters. So the problem is if you throw out a mission statement and then you violate the statement, you've convinced your employees that the things you say can't be trusted. Your mission statement should be the filter for the decisions that you make. Back in one of my other books titled Leadership Evo, I did V-A-R-Y. Your values.

plus your actions, plus your results creates what you are known for, V-A-R-Y, values, action, results, you. And I liked that concept. That was, I don't know, 2012 or so that I wrote that. But I was thinking about it from a slightly different perspective now. Now I think you have to figure out, well, what do we do so that we achieve a certain thing and why are we doing that? And that format now that I teach when I'm working with companies is,

We are here to do something so that we achieve an outcome because here's why it matters. And that's what drives employee engagement is when we actually know there's a purpose behind the company. We're serving people and solving problems rather than, you know, we're just here to make money. Cause I'm not against money. I am a consummate capitalist. I'm an entrepreneur. So I don't want any of my listeners to get it wrong and think, he likes working for free. I do not.

Mike Grigsby (05:00.926)
Yeah, for the purpose of, yeah, exactly.

Jody Holland (05:23.723)
Like working for free, I like working for lots of money. But I also believe it's an exchange of value. If I am fulfilling my mission, I am solving a really important problem for the customer that provides great value in their organization. Therefore, I deserve value back. That's a good exchange. When the mission is done right, the money chases you down. When the mission is violated, the money runs away.

Meghan Slaughter (05:26.715)
You

Mike Grigsby (05:51.572)
All

Jody Holland (05:52.195)
If you have no mission, you will have no margin. If you have no margin, you might still have a mission, but you won't get to do it for very long.

Meghan Slaughter (06:03.471)
Yeah, I think that's very true. And I think the purpose of a mission is to kind of create a focus for you. And so, you know, with the formula that you were just talking about, that's the impact that you want to have, how you intend to create that impact and why it's important or the outcome that you're receiving because of that. And so I think that's really important in business, but I do think that you can have a personal mission statement as well. And I know we've talked about that a little bit.

amongst us in the past. And so I've been working on a little bit of a personal mission statement that I think could be applied in everything that I do. And so my mission is to leave people better than I found them by helping them grow, lead with intention and recognize their potential. thank you.

Jody Holland (06:42.903)
Let's it.

Mike Grigsby (06:44.52)
Okay.

Jody Holland (06:54.125)
That's really good. So then the question you would ask is, like let's say in recognizing their potential, what do you do to help people recognize their potential?

Mike Grigsby (06:55.1)
I like that.

Meghan Slaughter (07:07.141)
There are so many things that you could do. And so when I'm having a conversation with them, I'm kind of keeping that in mind and I'm trying to draw out what their purpose is and where they hope to go. And so I am listening to understand them and then I am helping them see that they already have what it takes to get to where they want to be.

And so I'm asking them questions, I'm guiding them in the right direction. I'm not giving them the answer, but I'm helping them draw it out themselves. Because I think that we all have the potential to be something great. Sometimes it just takes somebody else seeing it in you first for you to believe in yourself. And so I love talking about perspectives and I am trying to help other people shift their perspective to understand.

that they can do or be whatever it is they want. And sometimes it just takes some additional effort. I think we should all be striving to learn and grow. And I think everything we should, we do should be with intention. That was actually one of my references or my, words of reference for the year of one year was intention. And so within everything that I did, I had to think about what am I hoping to get out of this? And

Mike Grigsby (08:17.364)
Mm.

Meghan Slaughter (08:26.007)
Is it going to get me the results that I want? Am I doing this with intention or am I just doing this to be busy?

Jody Holland (08:33.773)
Well, that reference to the one word that will change your life or the business version of it called Life Word, really good books, both very short reads, but they do help you find that filter. And I think that's the point is your mission or your filter word or whatever, it shapes your thinking as you're interacting. I like one of the things you said that when you're in a conversation with somebody, you're trying to draw out what is their purpose so that I can facilitate them moving forward.

And I think in a lot of that, Mike will back me up on this. We challenge people. You can't help people grow if you don't challenge them in some way or another. So if you're going to lead people better than you found them, then you're challenging them to take a hard look, an honest look at where they are right now, what they would need to do differently to get to where they want to go. That is the challenge of becoming a better version of themselves.

Mike Grigsby (09:10.238)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Grigsby (09:23.796)
you.

Jody Holland (09:32.214)
Not everybody likes us to challenge them and not, not everybody's mission fits with everybody else around them. I know at times it is possible that I challenge people too much. I got pushed back on them and expect more of them. And they're like, dude, that's enough. I'm tired. I want a nap. I don't want to do this anymore. You know, whatever it is that they're saying, but in business, it's kind of the same way. And what you're really trying to find is

Meghan Slaughter (09:35.963)
True.

Jody Holland (10:01.409)
How do we create a mission that the right people get so excited about that they want to do all the extra work and the people that don't fit the mission want to go away? And when you live into that, that works.

Mike Grigsby (10:13.044)
That's an E.

Yeah, you find that formula and I think you will be a very, rich man. know, I I liked your your your personal mission statement. And I think it's I think it's important. I like the way that you framed it. It was well grounded. You put your values in there. And I think that's the other thing, too, is that is that I said that we we try to be too aspirational. There's got to be a concrete portion to this. And the other thing that I would say, too,

Jody Holland (10:21.067)
Working on it, working on it.

Mike Grigsby (10:45.648)
is you don't have to have just a single mission statement to govern your entire life. You go through phases. There are different, you know, experiences that you have through life and your mission statement today may not necessarily be what your mission statement is when you go into retirement or when you finally step out of your business and you, know, out of being a W-2 worker and into an entrepreneur, you know, business owner.

It's okay to change these. idea is not to have, you know, swing for the fence and find the perfect mission statement. The idea is to find something that you can use to filter your life through, right? To get clarity. Jody, you said it just a second ago, right? We talked about the life word or the one word that would change your life. It's not about a magical word. It's about a tool that is used to focus.

You know, focus what you are doing. We have so many activities, we have so many things we are engaged in so much. If we don't find a way to focus it and hone it and sharpen it like almost like a laser magnifying glass or like a laser light, we're too broad spread and we're gonna miss the many things that we can be doing. So think about it in terms, your mission statement is, should be a lens that you're focusing your life and your activities through.

Jody Holland (12:05.151)
And I think there's a couple of ways that we can help people figure that out. The first way that I think of is what do you lose track of time doing? Like, what is it that you just, you start doing it and you're like, my gosh, I've been here for three hours. I had no idea. I was just sitting here doing the same thing for the last three hours. When you are so tuned into the thing that nothing else around you matters, you're in the zone or as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it in a flow state.

Mike Grigsby (12:33.672)
The flow. That's right.

Jody Holland (12:35.393)
When you're in that flow state, you're just, happy and you're working really hard. think the other side of it is just as important too. What do you look at and get disproportionately annoyed or angry about?

Mike Grigsby (12:49.492)
You mean besides drivers on the road?

Jody Holland (12:52.021)
Literally one of the things that's your passion, Mike is teaching people to remove their head from the part of their body that prevents them from seeing effectively while driving, you know, whatever it is, the cranial rectal optiplexy, where they've got a little glass in their belly, just in case, whatever the case may be, what do you get disproportionately upset about or angered by related to work? Now the driving thing, that's kind of funny, but

Meghan Slaughter (12:52.027)
You

Meghan Slaughter (13:04.28)
You

Mike Grigsby (13:07.582)
Yes.

Jody Holland (13:19.733)
I get disproportionately upset when people do not lead effectively. And we used to think, well, it's an information problem. They don't have the information. How many books have been written on leadership management and supervision? I don't even know the answer, but significantly more than is required to get the point across. And yet people still don't read the books. They don't take the courses. They don't attend the seminars. All the information is there. They have to learn it and apply it.

Mike Grigsby (13:26.516)
Yes.

Mike Grigsby (13:34.814)
More than one. Yes.

Meghan Slaughter (13:34.98)
minute account.

Jody Holland (13:50.072)
So it's not an information problem, it's an application problem, which means they're probably not passionate, they don't lose track of time investing in people and bringing out the best in them. So I get disproportionately annoyed or upset when I know there's a team that should be treated well that's not being treated well. And it's not coddling. I am not a fan of safe spaces and stuff like that.

Mike Grigsby (14:10.548)
Mm.

Jody Holland (14:17.875)
I am a fan of treating your people in such a way that it inspires greatness in them. And that is different than, I'll never push you very hard. So think about what makes you really happy and get lost in time and what makes you really angry and makes you think, somebody needs to do something about that. It's the somebody needs to do something thing. That's good. And then I think there's two other things and you and I've done this one, Mike, before where you do the

you know, the eulogy or the rocking chair test, whatever you want to call it, you know, at the end of my life, this is what I want people to say. And I remember all the way back to when you and I were working together in 2000. And what I came up with then is still what I believe to this day. And that is at the end of my life, I want people to say that I left them better than I found them. That I made a positive impact on this world. That I was a good husband, a good father, and a really good grandfather.

Mike Grigsby (14:47.006)
But yeah.

Jody Holland (15:14.709)
And if they say that about me and they don't remember a single podcast episode, including this one or anything else, I'm still okay. Like that was what I was put on this earth to accomplish is in those areas. That's where I wanted to make a difference. I think that's eulogy test. So at the end of your life, Mike, then Megan, what do want people to be saying about you?

Mike Grigsby (15:29.745)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (15:38.293)
don't know that I have any phrase or anything that they would say. Obviously I would agree with everything that you just said. But I just remember what Maya Angelou said is that people will rarely remember what you did, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. And I don't say that to say I want to make everybody feel good. Because quite frankly, the things that I need to do don't always make people feel good. But I want them to know that they were seen.

that they were acknowledged and that they were dealt with justly. think that's probably a good word because, know, I mean, I think about my kids, I don't want to coddle my kids. need to train them up into certain things. The clients that I work with, I'm not always going to tell them things that will tickle their ears and make them feel good, but my job is to get them to a place of being better. So I want to, I want to know that I have shown up and people felt like I

I dealt with them justly and people know that I had their best interest at heart.

Jody Holland (16:41.473)
And you kind of explained yours, but anything you want to add to yours, Megan?

Meghan Slaughter (16:45.987)
I was just thinking back to growing up, was a Girl Scout and I grew up with a Boy Scout family. And so I think a lot of my core values came from those organizations and understanding that you should leave every place better than you found it and you should leave people better than you found them and that you should just take care of things. And so for me, I just, I care about people and I want to take care of them.

And so I want to be remembered as somebody who was kind and compassionate and who cared about others and helped them grow. And I think if I've accomplished that, then I can be content with my life.

Jody Holland (17:27.382)
I think that's really good.

Mike Grigsby (17:27.87)
That's That's good. So, Jody, you made a personal, we heard Megan's, have you made a mission statement?

Jody Holland (17:30.657)
So yeah.

Jody Holland (17:37.111)
We're kind of cracking up because ours are so similar to one another. You know, it is my mission to invest in the leadership and growth of the people around me so that I leave them better than I found them because that is the only thing that will be remembered in my life.

Mike Grigsby (17:54.745)
That's Almost.

Meghan Slaughter (17:56.06)
It's almost likely we're related or something and we do similar work.

Jody Holland (18:00.857)
Yeah, I do think though, you know, from a business standpoint, it's difficult to whittle it down. One of the exercises that go back to that V-A-R-Y, I do that in business. I want to help people understand their values. So I have everybody write down the five most important values that we should have as this organization. They each write them down on a card and then we write them on the board and see how many people said integrity. I don't...

Think I've ever done one of those and I've done a bunch of them where somebody didn't say either honesty or integrity or both. We don't want to be remembered for an utter lack of integrity. get that. But I almost think sometimes integrity should be the baseline. That shouldn't have to be a part of what you're describing. That should just be an expectation for every interaction with everybody we deal with. But

No matter what, let's say we get it whittled down to you've got 10 on the board. Everybody on the exec team goes through their thing. And then we say, okay, we have to give up one of these 10, which one are we giving up? And you force the removal of a single value. And usually the first, you know, get it down to about number six. Like, well, this is kind of like that. So it really kind of counts there. We'll scratch that off. You get down to about five because you just keep doing it. Okay, you got to get rid of one, which one is it?

You keep pushing, keep pushing. They start fighting you about five. You're like, no, no, we are not getting rid of that one. That one's really important. And you just keep pushing, you keep pushing. I don't think any company should have more than three core values. And my justification for that is I did work with a bank at one point that had 27 core values. If you have 27 core values, you have no core values.

Mike Grigsby (19:26.822)
I do.

Mike Grigsby (19:48.244)
would agree.

Jody Holland (19:49.038)
because there's nothing poor about that. You have a bunch of words that are really pretty and you like them, but that doesn't tell people who you are. Second thing is what actions will we take that demonstrate those values? So that's the second piece of that exercise. It's not just what do we do, it's what actions will we take that will clearly demonstrate our top three values on a regular basis so that nobody has to read our statement on the wall to know that these are the values that guide us.

Meghan Slaughter (19:49.339)
Yeah.

Jody Holland (20:19.019)
And when they do that exercise, I think it makes a huge impact and they'll have like 10 or 15 actions. We keep whittling that down until we get no more than two or three actions. Then you say results. What are we going to be known for? If like, if we lived by those actions, demonstrating those values, what is the natural outcome of that? And we get them to describe it.

Because I think unfortunately we bought into the idea that a mission is being better than everybody else or making more money than everybody else. That's not a mission. That's part of your strategic plan, but it's not your mission. And having the right mission guides how you develop your strategic plan and everything that you do. And it kind of goes back to Simon Sinek's, Game Are We Playing? Which he took from somebody else from the 1980s, Infinite and Finite Games.

But if we're playing an infinite game, we're not playing to win this quarter's profitability. We're playing so that in three generations, the business is still here and still strong. That's very different.

Mike Grigsby (21:18.996)
Correct.

Meghan Slaughter (21:24.015)
Yeah. And I think that what you were saying leads back to your mission statement should be simple enough that you can remember it and relevant enough that you can apply it to everything. You don't want this long, complicated, you know, 10 part sentence. That's your mission statement. You want it to be repeatable and you want your people to memorize it because how many organizations have these really pretty mission statements, but not a single employee can repeat it back to you.

So you should be talking about your mission statement all the time. Bring it up in your meetings, have it everywhere, and keep it in mind within everything that you do.

Mike Grigsby (22:06.164)
Yeah, I remember a few years ago, more than a few years ago, Jody, you might even remember, I interviewed the then communications director for Southwest Airlines. And she had, you know, I was asking about culture and asking a lot of different things. And I don't know if it was the official, official mission statement, but she told me, said, you can pull any Southwest employee aside and ask them what do they do?

and their response is going to be, fly planes. It doesn't matter whether they were janitorial staff, whether they were mechanics, whether they were actual pilots, whether they were ticketing staff or anything, I fly planes. And that was really interesting because one, it was the shortest mission statement I had ever heard. And two, could easily be mapped onto any individual's work there. If I'm a janitor, I sweep these floors so that the pilots don't slip and floor fall or whatever.

Jody Holland (22:58.444)
Yes.

Mike Grigsby (23:04.308)
you could easily extrapolate whatever you do to iFly planes. So I think Megan, to what you're saying, I think it's important. You have to be able to make it relevant enough that you can actually use it. In fact, I was actually gonna challenge both of you guys. How often or how frequent do you look back at your personal mission statement and allow it to either help you make decisions or help you think about...

next steps or next journeys or next chapters or evolution that she goes through.

Jody Holland (23:36.078)
Probably not as often as I should, but I do think from a filtering standpoint, the question I ask, I don't like recite my mission statement, the question I ask is, is doing this going to improve the people I serve or is it just going to make me money? And I want to make the money as long as it's improving the people that I serve. I don't want to do something just to sell it. I want to do it because it actually improves people's lives.

And so I do think I filter it from that standpoint fairly regularly, but I kind of like the WeFly planes. Like we build leaders.

Mike Grigsby (24:15.622)
Right. It's simple. It's a miniature mission. doesn't have to be, to make his point, doesn't have to be a 10 part sentence that, you know, sounds, you know, like written in Elizabethan English or anything. So.

Meghan Slaughter (24:27.355)
Yeah, I would agree. probably don't look at my personal personal mission statement as much as I should, but I do have a bulletin board in my office where I write notes to myself with encouragement. Yeah. And so I need to put that on there so that I can be looking at it every time I walk in here as a reminder when I'm going to work that this is how I'm filtering the stuff that I do.

Jody Holland (24:28.012)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (24:39.38)
This is not a surprise.

Mike Grigsby (24:55.709)
I like that.

For my personal mission statement, there was a period of my life where I would recite it every single day. And it's not that I don't believe it anymore. It's not that it's not effective repeating it every day. It's that I am looking at things beyond it now. It still filters what I do. I just don't have to recite it to get that filter. I think there's a portion of it, and both of you may be in the same boat, right?

Jody Holland (25:21.389)
Alright.

Mike Grigsby (25:27.732)
where you have to really ingest it. There's a time when you're just reciting it, right? There's a time you gotta create it, then there's a time that you recite it, then there's a time that you actually gotta spend believing it, right? You gotta start believing your own hype in that respect. And then once you believe it, you don't actually have to keep reminding yourself every single day because it becomes kind of the, you you're just modus operandi. It's the way you do things. It's your ethos, right?

Jody Holland (25:57.847)
Yes.

Mike Grigsby (25:57.863)
And so once it becomes that, you don't have to keep revisiting it. But where I would, I would challenge people is that even if it becomes, or if it has become your ethos, or if you believe it has become your ethos, are you actually making decisions that affirm that or are filtered through that? It's probably one of the two, right?

Jody Holland (26:19.829)
Yeah. So I was just thinking through some of this and like, you know, this is really powerful stuff when people do it right. And if they don't do it right, then it's not so powerful. But you can make or break your entire organization based on this. And if you look at what's going on with, I mean, you're talking about 45 year olds and down, they don't want to work for a company that doesn't have a purpose.

Mike Grigsby (26:28.52)
Yes.

Jody Holland (26:45.645)
We are longing for purpose and meaning in our lives. And in reality, I think if you're 46 and older, you probably don't want to work for a company that doesn't have a purpose. Like you don't want to just get up and trudge away at something that doesn't matter. You want to get up every day and do something where you can look back on it and go, that was worth my time. Because I know that's what I want in my life. And I was thinking about this whole formula of, you know,

getting this statement right. So maybe we need to modify my Jody Holland, Inc. statement to something like Jody Holland, Inc. We build great leaders so teams can thrive because everyone deserves an amazing place to work. And I do think that everybody deserves it. I get disproportionately angry when leaders run people's Like, it's not cool.

Meghan Slaughter (27:34.469)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (27:36.701)
Yeah. I would also say, you said this, think maybe you didn't say this, maybe I was filling in the blanks, but if your business is failing, it is most likely not because you don't have a good enough mission statement. But if your business is succeeding, it is, you can absolutely point back to having, you know, some attribution to a really powerful or really effective ethos or mission statement.

Jody Holland (28:03.679)
I agree. All right. Final thoughts, Meg?

Meghan Slaughter (28:07.307)
say take some time to reflect on what your own personal mission statement is. Look at your organization's mission statement. See how they align or differ and really focus on driving that mission and everything that you do. And if you do realize that your personal mission statement is drastically different from your organizational mission statement, maybe it's time to look at reevaluating that mission statement or if you don't have any say in that.

maybe you're not in the right place and you need to find something that aligns more with your values.

Jody Holland (28:40.085)
Yeah. Any other parting thoughts, Mike?

Mike Grigsby (28:42.568)
Well, I think it's just why I said, you know, it's it is time well spent creating a mission statement, but your business is not going to succeed just because you crafted a really good mission statement.

Jody Holland (28:53.985)
Yeah, that's why I think the actions go with the values to get you the results, which create who you are. So my parting thought is, I do think you have to filter through a value structure, or you will get pulled around by the world. And it's very easy to get pulled off track and to violate your values if you don't have a solid reason for staying there. So you have to know why the values are so important and why you're willing to die on that hill.

Mike Grigsby (28:57.81)
Yeah, I like that.

Jody Holland (29:22.221)
protecting those values to the right actions. People without ever hearing your mission statement should know what you stand for based on what you do in all of your interactions. So that's my challenge to you is live the mission. Don't just write the mission. I'm Jody Holland with Megan Slaughter and Mike Grigsby and we cannot wait to see you on the next episode of the Become the Leader podcast.