Category Archives: 7k

Rene and I have a mantra for this year: Only Do What Serves The Mission.

Pretty simple, really, when you boil it down. We have come up with a series of goals that we want to achieve. These goals combined are The Mission and all the things we do, public and private, need to help advance The Mission.

This mind set has kept us very focused, which hasn’t always been the easiest thing for us the last few years. Personally speaking I’ve been professionally scattered since 2006. At the time I was a year into my producing career and wasn’t really pursuing acting. There were some major changes in my personal life and these things converged into a reactive state of mind instead of me being proactive. To that end I followed the money, since I needed it, but it was money without passion or drive so it wasn’t satisfying and really only paid enough for it to barely be enough. Some good things came out of that time, mostly friendships and a few projects here and there, but a majority of that time was spent with the career equivalent of a headache. Who wants that?

The worst thing is, I know what it’s like to do things the other way. For most of my career I was a “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!” kind of guy. My head was down and I charged forward. I knew what I wanted and didn’t let anything get in the way.  I quit jobs, didn’t worry about advancement, didn’t let anything get in the way of the bigger goal – The Mission – and I had a lot of success doing that.

But then the fear came.

It’s really easy to keep doing what you know you should when you are experiencing more success than failure. But eventually that scale is going to tip and that’s when you start second guessing yourself. Am I doing this right? What if people don’t like it? Where’s my next paycheck coming from? A whole bunch of questions that spawn from fear. Don’t get me wrong, fear can be valuable. It can be a motivator, keep you out of hazardous situations, and heighten your awareness, but if you let it control you then you’ve lost track – you’re not serving The Mission.

In order to serve The Mission you must identify what The Mission is. Companies do this with Mission Statements. I have a mission in the acting class I teach for the actors in it (come on in to learn about that).  You can have a Mission too as long as you have specific goals. My friend, Jeff Garvin, has a FANTASTIC video about this process. See it below:

6 Secrets of Creative Goal Setting

Check out the rest of the blog too. And, if you get a chance, tell him that 7k needs to do a reunion tour.

Once you have your goals you need to make sure that your whole team is on the same page. This is really important. Nothing can derail a plan like conflicting ideas on where you’re going. I’ve watched this, more than anything else, destroy so many strong projects. And it isn’t always obvious that you aren’t on the same page until it’s too late. It takes some very honest introspection to see if things are all going the same direction or if you’re just hoping that they are. But when you are on the same page it hits you in the face, metaphorically, to remind you that it’s happening. Rene and I have repeatedly remarked to each other how relieving it is to be on the same page together. It’s made things so easy. Even hard decisions seem to just naturally fall into the right answer. That’s a very freeing advantage.

Asking the question, “does this serve The Mission” also gives you the greatest power in all business – the ability to say, “no.” If used right, “no” is the the single most powerful word in any language. It is a definitive negative and doesn’t allow for any mis-reading. It might be ignored, but your intention is never in question. Knowing what to say no to is a skill that can be learned and should be practiced.

What we’re doing isn’t new and it isn’t a secret, lots of very successful people do this all the time. What we have done is identified the process in a way that works well for us – and so far it’s working beyond expectations.

Do you have a Mission? Is there anything you’d add to the process? Let me know in the comments.

See you soon.