A workshop I used to give my business students at the University of Florida. They loved it and many have written me years later saying they still use and revise the statement they wrote in class. Advice on writing it Inspiring quotes Powerful questions to help you gain insight, clarity, and confidence. I hope you find it useful and empowering. Please share it with your friends.

1. The Mission Statement
Workshop (part 1)
© Vikram Rangala (vikram@thenewcapitalist.org)
Creative Commons: distribute unaltered for non-commercial use.
Email if you're interested in a live, expanded mission workshop

2. Example: Jerry Maguire
Dorothy: "I care about the job, but mostly I just
want to be inspired. What you wrote inspired
me. I'm working with you because of that
memo. I loved that memo."
Jerry: “It was a mission statement.”
Mission statement written before screenplay
http://www.thisisawar.com/PurposeJerry.htm

3. A Thought Experiment
Source: The Soul’s Code, James Hillman
Drawn from Plato’s Republic
Before we are born, our souls choose the
circumstances of our birth and enter this
world for a purpose.
If so, our job is to discover something that
already exists and is in progress.

4. Mission Statements
Tell us who we are and what we’re
living for.
Unchanging center in the midst of
change.
Commitments. Promises to ourselves
and those who matter to us.
Give us a vision on which to act.

5. Mission Statements
Must be written,
not just thought about.
Must be revised regularly.
Must be individual and unique.
Must resonate deep within us.

6. Mission Statements
For individuals, families, companies,
organizations, nations
Declaration of Independence
Like a nation’s Constitution
A place to go when in doubt
A source of guidance, inspiration, and
connection to something greater

7. Some quotes
All that we are is the result of what we have
thought. Our thoughts of today determine our
life of tomorrow. Life is a creation of the mind.
—The Buddha

8. Some quotes
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
—Carl Sandburg

9. Some quotes
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a
ridiculous beginning. —Albert Camus

10. Some quotes
Where there is no vision, the people perish...
—Proverbs, 29:18

11. Some quotes
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

12. Some quotes
You reach a certain age where you’re no longer
waiting for the man you’re going to become.
You better start being the man you want to be.
—Bruce Springsteen, 60 Minutes interview,
1/21/96

13. Some quotes
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall
find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that
seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it
shall be opened.
—The Book of Matthew 7:7-8 (KJV)

14. Some quotes
Some men see things as they are, and say, “Why?”
I dream of things that never were,
and say, “Why not?”
—George Bernard Shaw,
quoted by Robert F. Kennedy

15. Some quotes
We must become
the change
we wish to see.
—Mohandas Gandhi

16. Some quotes
Whatever you can do,
or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius,
power, and magic in it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

17. Writing a Mission Statement
A way to explore your mind and learn to trust it.
Trusting one’s mind is a basic skill for writers
and leaders.
Ernest Hemingway put it this way:
“What every writer needs is
a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector.”
Recognize and exchange illusions for something
closer to the truth.

18. Questions
What do you dream about? What dream do
you have that no one knows about? What
would give you great pain, years from
now, to say “I never did ________.”?
Why would it be painful?

19. Questions
If you had a week to live, what would
you absolutely have to do, to feel you
had made the most of your life?
Why? What if you had a month, six
months, a year?

20. Questions
What do you secretly suspect you’d be
very good at if you ever had the
chance? How would you feel if you
actually did it?

21. Questions
When someone a hundred years from
now says your name, what feelings
would you want that person to feel?
Will your name be a source of
strength, just to say it?

22. Questions
What do you value most in life?
What values are you absolutely
committed to standing for? What
would pain you if others said,
“He/she doesn’t care about _____?”

23. Questions
How do you want to contribute to others in
the future?
What do you have to offer right now to
someone who walks into the room
needing help?

24. Questions
Whose life really inspires you? Why?
Whose life scares you? What if your
life began to resemble either of these
in significant ways?
What would be the signs?
What would you do about it?

25. Questions
What injustices will you fight against?

26. Questions
What painful or negative experiences have you
had which could potentially make you stronger,
more capable, wiser, and better able to
contribute positively to others?
How would it feel to turn those experiences into
sources of strength? What pain will you feel ten
years from now if you have not turned them into
sources of power?

27. Final Question
It's hard to answer and may sound strange, but it
will be a source of great power for you...

28. What are you pretending
not to know?