2018 Mission Statement

2018 Mission Statement

So, I woke up on the 1st Jan and reassessed.

I don’t, as a rule of thumb, jump on the resolutions bandwagon and all the main ones that people flock to such as “this will be the year I lose that extra stone” or “this will be the year where I will find my dream job”, don’t really apply to me in any case. I’m happy watching what I eat and exercising with the odd indulgence thrown in and I’ve run my own business as my main source of income for the best part of three years now. Add in a very settled home life and I’m one happy guy. What’s to resolve?

I find reassessing once a year a positive thing. It helps you (Certainly helps me) to assess whether the long-term goals I set the previous year are still relevant, whether my values have evolved or my interests also evolved? We evolve as humans, so it makes sense that everything that makes up you would also evolve. That’s if you want to evolve that is.

Why is this relevant to anything in my life, I hear you ask? Well part of my evolution is to chase down some dreams and aspirations. One of those, get my voice heard a bit more, is the reason I’m writing this. I’ve aspired to be published for some time but always found something else to take up my time that “carries more importance” but I said, “this will be the year where I publish some work” (Wait a minute, isn’t that a resolution?).

Those around me would (Hopefully) look upon me as a thoughtful guy who applies common sense and intelligence to everything he does (Is that what they think or is that what I think they think?) and I’ve had some thoughts kicking around in my head for some time now. Time to offload.

I’m never been a boat rocker, more of a boat stabiliser. Someone who stabilises the boat so that everyone on board can continue their journey into better things (I know, pretty good eh, just came to me now). In saying that, as I hit 40, I’ve begun to realise that actually, rocking the boat every now and again is healthy, that it’s good for next level thinking and to challenge the normal way of approaching things. This all came to me as I realised that there is something much bigger happening and it all centres around one simple word. Legacy.

I’ve wrestled with this word in the last year as, like a lot of people, I had come to the conclusion that legacy is what life is all about. As it transpires, for most that stops with family and doesn’t really transition into their work, but this year, I got thinking about it a whole lot more as my own family legacy dream was nearly taken away (A whole different story).

In any case, my legacy mindset change came after reading a book with the same title. “Legacy” by James Kerr, it’s a great read. From the outside, it looks like a sports biography and whilst there are strong references to the greatest sports team that has possibly existed (the All Blacks) on more than a few occasions, there’s a lot more on how you can relate their success in to a set of values that we could all benefit from living by at home and at work.

One resonated with me greatly. “leave the shirt in a better place than you find it”. In real world terms, this translates to leaving the world in a better place than you found it.

And so, this is my re-assessment moment. To this point, that’s not featured as a focal point for me but as I get older it’s becoming more and more prominent.

My 2018 Mission Statement – To leave the industry in a better place than I found it.

I’ve no idea how I’m going to do that yet, but I find that a collaborative mindset helps so what I will say is this.

There’s a good chance you don’t know me. Even if we are connected on LinkedIn or wherever, there’s still a good chance. But I’d like to change that. Let’s collaborate on how we can all make the industry a better place to be/work for everyone now and generations to come.

Thank you for reading.