Carly Ries
One of the most common pieces of advice new business owners hear is to write a mission statement. But do solopreneurs actually need one? In this episode of The Life-First Solopreneur, Carly and Joe take opposite sides and land somewhere more useful than either started.
Why Business Mission Statements Often Fail
Joe has watched teams spend hours crafting mission statements that end up framed on a wall and never referenced again. Designed by committee and full of lofty language, most of them are decoration rather than direction. For solopreneurs, that time is often better spent elsewhere.
The Mission Statement Solopreneurs Actually Need
Carly agrees on the business side but makes a strong case for a life first mission statement. Instead of asking what you sell and who you sell to, a life mission statement asks how you want to spend your days, who you want to be present for, and what enough looks like to you. Get clear on that, and the direction of your business follows.
A Framework to Get Started
Joe shares six questions to think through, including why your life exists, how you want to behave, what you will and will not do to succeed, and what matters most right now. Carly offers a simpler three part approach. Name your non negotiables, describe your ideal Tuesday rather than your ideal vacation, and define success that does not need an audience or outside praise.
Your Challenge This Week
Find one current commitment that violates your life first statement, then decide what you will do to get one step closer to your ideal Tuesday.
If your business has slowly started taking over your life, this episode will help you flip the order and put your life first. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, and subscribe to The Life-First Solopreneur for more.
EpisodeTranscript
Carly Ries: What if the most important thing you wrote this year has nothing to do with your business? On this episode, we get into the Life-First mission statement, the one that answers how you want to spend your days, who you want to be present for, and what enough actually looks like for you. We talk about defining success that does not need an audience, and we leave you with the challenge to find the one commitment quietly pulling you away from the life you actually want to live. If your business has started running your life instead of the other way around, this one is for you. You're listening to the Life First Solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business.
I'm Carly Ries and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I spend every episode with solopreneurs who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first, then business. So let's get right to it. Joe, I feel like you and I actually agree on things. Like, we have similar not perspectives, but we agree on a lot of things and we kinda come to it from different angles.
I have, in the past twenty four hours, come across something that we disagree on. And I was like, well, awesome. This will be a great podcast episode. So, I presented you with the idea and the team of writing a mission statement for your life. And the concern about telling people that, was that they may think they have to be writing a mission statement for your business, which is very corporatey.
I think you use the term as very MBA like. And when I started my solo business, I just had, my core values written down and then I had, a statement to help me, guide my decisions. But you have a different take on a mission statement, and I want to know your thoughts on the business mission statement, whereas on this episode, we're gonna be talking about writing a mission statement for your life. But I want you to say why you don't think solopreneurs necessarily need a business mission statement.
Joe Rando: Yeah. it's just I've seen it, back in the day when I worked for companies. we would get together and come up with a mission statement or they would already have one. do all this work and put all these words in. It would be, designed by a committee or whatever, and then it would get, put in a frame and nobody would look at it or think about it ever again. And, I read a book years ago called The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni, and he argued that mission statements were really, generally, the way they were executed was pretty useless.
And he came up with a different formula that's probably beyond the scope of this soundbite, maybe we can talk about it another time. But, an approach that I think is better for businesses and, honestly, better for individuals and just kinda keeping it practical. I mean, there's the big questions of, why am I here? What am I about? You know, what is this business about?
But then you get into the kind of nitty gritty of what you're gonna do and not do. And I think a lot of people, when they do it, maybe as solopreneurs, because it's just them, they can focus in and make it useful. But just I think it's risky to kind of send somebody off saying, hey, oh, wow. Carly and Joe say, I need a mission statement.
They go Google it, and they see all these mission statements, and they go, okay. And then they're gonna put a bunch of time into something they're never gonna use. So that was my issue. I just think a lot of mission statements aren't very useful in the way that they're executed.
Carly Ries: I would agree with that from a business standpoint. However, I think something that solopreneurs do need to put time and effort into is into a life mission statement. Basically, how do they and except for in a business, you're talking about what do I sell? Who do I sell to? Why does this matter?
Blah blah blah blah. But a life mission statement would answer things like, how do I wanna spend my days? Who do I want to be present for? What does enough look like to me? And getting really clear and concrete on that, which can help dictate not necessarily a mission statement for the business, but just a direction for the business.
And I think it's a mistake if you optimize. If you do do a business mission statement without doing a personal mission statement. Do you agree?
Joe Rando: It's the whole life first thing. Yeah. It's the whole life first thing. If you don't define the life, the business is gonna basically take it over or has a very good chance of taking it over.
So oh, I totally agree that you need to do something like a mission statement, for your life. I came up with a list of six things to think about. And the first one is, why does my life exist? Or what am I here for? What is my point?
You know, it's not gonna be just about money. It's gonna be, what am I here for? What do I hope my legacy is when I'm gone, if you will? How do I behave? how do I behave with other people? What is it I actually do? and this is again, what do I do in my life? what do I spend my time doing? What will I do to succeed?
And what won't I do? That's something. What matters most right now? What is the priority right this second?
And which, again, a mission statement doesn't cover that kind of thing, because it's forever, right? And, who's doing what in my life, right? So if I'm married, I got a partner, then, what are my responsibilities versus theirs, and coming to terms with that. So I don't know. That's what I came up with in, my fifteen minutes of preparation for this one this morning.
Carly Ries: So I kind of had, a similar , you had six. I think my three were to name your nonnegotiables. And these could they kinda tie into what you said, but name your nonnegotiables, the things you refuse to trade away, describing your ideal Tuesday, not what your ideal weekend looks like.
Joe Rando: I love that one actually. I think that's a great one.
Carly Ries: we talked about it a few months ago in another episode, and I can't for the life of me remember what it was tied to. But, if you think about what you want your vacation or your time off to look like, that's not practical. Like, think about what a Tuesday, or we're doing this on a Friday. What do we think your Friday mornings look like? And then this is based off of a conversation we had, last week or two weeks ago on this show to define success that doesn't need an audience.
Like, you're not gonna get that approval and or that praise that you would get in corporate. So what would that be as part of this, like, North Star statement that you have in your mind? I just think the mission becomes the question you run every decision through both for both personally and professionally. So that's my take on the Life-First mission, not necessarily the business mission.
Joe Rando: Yeah. No. I like those. I mean, it's true. And if you don't do that I mean, we have come up with, setting goals.
Obviously, we talk about that all the time. And at some level, if you think about doing something like this, it helps you define those goals that you want to work toward in your life because you kind of you know, what is it at the bottom , you know? What do I wanna say? At end of the day, what is really important? And, if this is a process to do that, I'm a huge fan.
If it's a process of kinda going on about, we exist to make the world a better place by, creating whatever. You know, it gets to the point where it's lofty and unactionable. But if it's what you just talked about, then I really like it.
Carly Ries: It's what I just talked about. We came to an agreement. And listeners, I think a challenge for you this week is as you're thinking through what you want your life first business to look like, start by finding one current commitment you have, that violates what that statement would be, and then decide what you'll do about it to get one step closer to that ideal Tuesday. So that's my challenge.
Joe Rando: here's something funny . So when I was looking at this topic, I decided to go to Claude, and I said, give me some soundbites that I could use in this podcast. And they were not really my style, but I have them here, and I just want you to hear what Claude said. Clarity you use on a Tuesday beats poetry you frame on a wall.
Carly Ries: Oh, I like it. And I would've put that on my wall.
Joe Rando: another one was; a GPS can't help you until you enter a destination.
Carly Ries: Oh, Joe. That is great. I like that a lot. Alright. Those road bumper stickers
Joe Rando: I couldn't work it in like it was mine. But they are pretty good. And the last one was if your mission never cost you anything, it's decoration. I'm not sure if that one resonates as much. But, yeah, the first two, I kinda like, but like I said, I couldn't just pretend they were mine. It just didn't feel real.
Carly Ries: The Compass one, we have a lot of compass things now in our Life-First verbiage on this site and throughout all of our content, so maybe we'll just steal that one.
Joe Rando: Yeah. The new website, which isn't up yet.
Carly Ries: Well, listeners, Joe and I can go back and forth on this all day, but thank you so much for tuning in. It would mean the world to us if you left us a five star review on Apple or Spotify. It helps us spread the word to other Life-First Solopreneurs who might need some direction with that compass of theirs. Share this episode with another solopreneur who you think would find it helpful, and subscribe to our show on any podcast platform, including YouTube. And we'll see you next time on the Life-First Solopreneur.
You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.