Defining Your Why: How to Build and Sustain a Powerful Mission

Your mission is not what you do, it’s why you exist. In this episode, Alex and Ben discuss Path for Growth’s core mission, and the lessons Alex has learned about creating and sustaining a mission for an impact-driven organization. They also share practical steps for defining your mission, hiring people who align with your culture, and getting back on track if you feel you’ve strayed from your core purpose. Whether you’re building a new business or want to continue leading in alignment with your mission, this episode is packed with useful insights.

Information isn’t the gap between failure and success—action is. Path for Growth’s 1-on-1 coaching helps you create a plan and execute on what matters most for your business. Apply today at pathforgrowth.com/coaching.

Episode Recap:

• When the leader gets better, everyone wins 
• Mission is about why we exist, not what we do
• Why does Path for Growth exist, and how did that mission come about? 
• Clarifying what you’re for also means clarifying what you’re not for 
• What steps can a leader take when they’ve strayed from the mission? 
• How do you hire in alignment with your mission and culture? 
• How do you establish and sustain a mission?
• Who should you involve in the mission creation process?
• How can you test drive your new mission statement?
• Avoid these mistakes when establishing a mission statement 

If you’re ready to move beyond just gathering information and start executing on what truly matters, Path for Growth’s 1-on-1 coaching can help. Apply now at pathforgrowth.com/coaching.

Resources:

Follow the podcast on Apple or Spotify

Schedule a call to learn more about Path for Growth Coaching and Community

Download the Free Reading Guide

Listen to our episode on building a value-based business

Connect with our Founder Alex Judd on LinkedIn and Instagram

Episode Transcript

Alex Judd (00:02):
It was over five years ago now that we had just
started the business, and I'llnever forget, it coincided with
an individual that was seekingone on one coaching. And at this
time, I I was the only one onone coach. Praise god. We've
grown beyond that now. But, so Iwas the person he was going to
be working with.
And he really came to us saying,I want vision for my business. I

(00:24):
wanna grow my business. I wannaexpand my business. I want
vision for my business. Andobviously told him, I think we
could provide that sold him onthe services and the path that
we were going to walk through tohelp him accomplish that.
But then was already reallyconvinced that the principle,
although I didn't have thislanguage at the time rang true.
If you want to put your businessin order, start by putting

(00:45):
yourself in order. So we startedwith something back then that we
still do today in coaching,which was like a deep dive
intensive of let's justbasically lift up the hood on
your life, your leadership, andyour business. I'm just gonna
pepper you with questions on thestat the status of things, the
health of things, how you thinkthings are going, how other
people perceive things aregoing, and really just get our

(01:06):
thumb on the pulse of thevitals. Vitals.
It it was a little bit informalback then. Now we have really
formalized and mechanized andoperationalized ways of doing
this. But really, I was justtrying to wrap my head around
where's this person at? And oneof the things that stood out was
his business was actually doingwell from a profitability
standpoint. It wasn'tnecessarily expanding or growing
or moving forward, but it it wasstable.

(01:28):
But what wasn't stable was hesaid, I haven't focused on my
personal health in a really,really long time. He he said
that my marriage is reallystruggling because there's some
unresolved things that wehaven't discussed and addressed.
He said, I feel a little bitspiritually confused or not not
certainly growing. And so all ofthat stuff was going on at home.

(01:49):
And then he also said, I I wannagrow as a leader.
Like, I I don't feel like I'mactually leading our business
anywhere. And so basically, whatwe walked through is we said, of
kind of working on a planinitially to revamp your entire
business, let's take thatprinciple seriously. If you want
to put your business in order,start by putting yourself in
order. And I said, what if wejust applied ourselves first to

(02:13):
your morning routine? And helooked at me like, I'm paying
you to tell me what time to wakeup in the morning.
I said, just just trust me. Justtrust me. Let's just talk about,
like, what would make yourmornings better if you did it
every single day. Andconversely, like, if you were to
do that every single day, like,it would have ramifications into
everything else you do. And sowe focused on things like his
wake up time, like hisconsumption of scripture, like

(02:35):
his way of engaging with prayer.
The the way, and then beyondthat, we started to look at his
relationships. We were focusedalmost entirely on personal, and
I'll never forget. I had afeedback call with him and he's
like, we he said, it's good. Hesaid, we're spending a lot of
time on me. And he said, and Iand that's not necessarily why I
signed up for coaching.
I I said, I understand. Justtrust me. And in my mind, I I
had just started doing this. Iwas like, I really hope this

(02:58):
works out. So I'm not positivethis is gonna work out.
And sure enough, he started hestarted following the process.
He started to remake hismornings. He started to make
sure he was getting consistentexposure to truth. That started
to, make his thoughts and justattitude and approach to his
marriage, his finances, hisgrowth healthier. He started to

(03:19):
pray a little bit more andconnect with the God of the
universe and focus on what wasgood, right, beautiful, and
true.
And what was crazy is we couldlook up six months, certainly a
year, and he could tell thestory, my marriage is healthier.
I am training for a marathon. Ifeel like I'm spiritually alive.

(03:40):
And not only that, I have grownas a leader. We've hired people,
which we weren't hiring before,and and I'm getting the best
people I've ever gotten becauseI can culturally lead them into
a greater vision.
And our business has vision andis growing. And that's when I
was like, that's why we do whatwe do.

Ben Loy (03:57):
Mhmm.

Alex Judd (03:58):
Right? And and so when we talk about mission, I
there's so many stories I couldtell, but I always think back to
one of those core first storieswhere it's like we focus so
hardcore on his personal growth.Why? Because he's a leader. And
when a leader gets better,everybody wins.
Like there's an overflow effectto that. And ultimately, the

(04:19):
process of writing a missionstatement was us just saying,
how do we capture what happensin interactions like what
happened with that gentlemanfive years ago so that we as a
team know deep down, this is thesoul of the business. This is
why we do what we do, and thisis the thing that we absolutely
refuse to depart from.

Ben Loy (04:38):
Break that story down a little bit. So what what is some
evidence that maybe you youeither don't have a mission or
you had a mission and you'reyou're now off base from that?
Because I feel like that waswhat what was apparent in in
this guy's business and in hislife. And then from that
breakdown, what does it looklike when, just from a higher

(04:59):
level, when a business isaligned in their mission, is is
being effective, is, you know,that mission has permeated the
staff, the culture, and theoperation of what they're doing?

Alex Judd (05:11):
Yeah. Well, what's interesting is it's like I it's
almost like there's two teachingpoints out of this. I look at it
as, like, customer interactionslike that is how we discovered
our mission.

Ben Loy (05:22):
Mhmm.

Alex Judd (05:23):
But part of what we do for work is we help other
people describe and discover themission that they're on. Let's
clarify some terms real quick.We think that businesses and
leaders win when they can answerthree questions. Number one is
why do we exist? Number two iswhat do we stand for?
And number three is where are wegoing? And you can and people do

(05:45):
call the answer to thosequestions a multitude of things.
You could call it a purposestatement. You can call it a
manifesto. Right?
There's there's all these, like,disagreements basically about
what word you should use. Quitefrankly, I don't care what word
you use. I will tell you whatword we use. The answer to why
do we exist is found in yourmission.

Ben Loy (06:03):
Mhmm.

Alex Judd (06:03):
And the the critical distinction that I wanna make
sure people hear and understandthat we can talk about later in
the conversation if we want tois the mission is our answer to
why do we exist. That's thething that is probably most core
to the heart and soul of ourbusiness. It is not our answer
to what do we do. And that's acritical distinction. Right?

(06:26):
So in this gentleman's case, ifwe were to look at his business,
really what was going on in hisworld was the same as what had
gone on in our world beforehandis people, I mean, if ever,
start a business without sometype of mission, without some
sense of why. It's way too muchwork. It's way too much risk.

(06:47):
Right? Why would you ever doanything for such a sustained
period of time without a reason,without a why?
And there are people out therethat the reason why they start
is strictly personal. It's it'stheir basically, owner's intent
and it doesn't go any furtherthan that. Right? Like, I want
to be able to go on as manyvacations throughout the year as

(07:09):
I want to. Right?
I can't work for anyone else. Ihave this income goal. That is
really, like, your personalowner's intent. What we find is
that for someone to really beattracted to what we talk about
at Path for Growth, you areexpanding beyond your owner's
intent and you're thinking, isthe grander impact that I want
to make with this business?Like, there's a deeper calling

(07:30):
or sense of why to why you'rebuilding what you're building.
That's why we always say that wework with impact driven leaders.
Right? And so in thisgentleman's case, he had started
his business with legitimatepurpose, with legitimate intent
that was personal, but thenalso, like, legitimate impact
for providing opportunities forteam members and making sure
that people had a place to beable to grow and flourish and to

(07:52):
create an impact on thecustomers that he served. He had
all of that in his head. What hedidn't have is a codified
statement that could remind him,why am I doing this?
And that's fine if you're in thefirst year or two. Right? But
what's crazy is if you get ayear or two in and with that

(08:13):
year or two in, you start tobecome a little bit successful.
What what shows up isdistractions that look like
opportunities. And you start toget diluted in your
effectiveness because you don'thave an anchoring statement that
says, this is why I'm doing whatI'm doing.
And that decision should, in thefuture, operate as a filter for

(08:36):
everything moving forward. So inhis case and in our case as a
business, the process ofcreating a mission is not
saying, I'm in a dream aboutsomething that doesn't exist and
try to put words to someimaginary statement of purpose.
Rather, it's what are the bestpossible words to describe why I

(08:56):
started in the first place andwhy I'm energized about this
thing whenever it's my wheneverit's at its absolute best. We're
gonna try to put words aroundthe soul of the business so that
that soul is never lost.

Ben Loy (09:10):
Makes me think of that, you know, the analogy of flying

(10:55):
from, like, LA to New York andwith the curvature of the earth,
the plane always having tocontinually correct back a few
degrees. And it's like, if youstart from LA and you're two
degrees off course, that'syou're gonna be way off course
by the time that you get to,well, you know, what you thought
was New York. That's right. Kindof the same idea. It's mission
is a and, I mean, core values aswell, but mission being a,

(11:19):
compass to for your business andfor your organization.

Alex Judd (11:21):
And for founders and owners that are impact driven, I
think it's a act ofaccountability to take your
mission seriously. To say, whatis the soul of this business?
Why does this business exist inour most naive early founder
stages? Like, why are we doingthis? We're gonna put words to

(11:42):
that because in some ways, oneof the things that you're saying
there is I am radicallysusceptible to being distracted
by inferior reasons.
Right? Like, I mean, we talkedabout this in a recent episode.
Like, I am so capable of thisthing growing. And suddenly, I

(12:03):
started with a really healthy,strong, people oriented, God
glorifying mission, but now I'vebeen persuaded by wealth. Now
I've been persuaded by fame.
Now I've been persuaded byimage. And and we we look at all
of these figures that we say,oh, man, they started and they
were so good, but now they'vegotten deviated. A lot of times

(12:23):
it's because they never codifiedthat reason and they were never
held accountable to that reason.And so of course they went off
track because all of thedistractions are so tempting and
so readily available.

Ben Loy (12:35):
So you already stated this, but state those three
questions again that, you know,the mission needs to answer.

Alex Judd (12:41):
So it's not the mission that needs to answer
them. I would say the missionneeds to answer why do we exist?

Ben Loy (12:46):
Okay.

Alex Judd (12:47):
Core values answer what do we stand for? Vision
answers where are we going? Andso what we're really focused on
in this episode is why do weexist?

Ben Loy (12:56):
Cool. What is Path for Growth's mission?

Alex Judd (12:59):
I'm so glad you asked. And I bet I could ask you
the same question. Do you haveit memorized, Ben?

Ben Loy (13:03):
We exist to help impact driven leaders step into who
they were created to be so thatothers benefit and God is
glorified.

Alex Judd (13:09):
Okay. Praise God. Yeah. Yeah. You learn as a
founder, you're like, man,you're really putting people on
the spot when you hope they haveit memorized.
But you're also putting yourselfon the spot because you're like,
I tell everyone that our teammembers have this memorized. I'm
gonna look like a fool if hedoesn't. So praise God.

Ben Loy (13:24):
There you go.

Alex Judd (13:25):
That's awesome.

Ben Loy (13:25):
We practice what we preach.

Alex Judd (13:26):
That's exactly right. So so that's how much I and we
care about this is, like, allteam members memorize this and
keep this memorized. So to Ben'spoint, I better operate in
alignment to our mission thatyou're gonna hear us talk about
a lot today is we exist to helpimpact driven leaders step into
who they were created to be sothat others benefit and God is
glorified.

Ben Loy (13:46):
I mean, I know there's multiple facets to this mission,
and you could pro we even saidbefore this, like, could
probably break this down word byword as to why you picked the
language that you did. How didthis mission really come about?
I mean, that you shared thisstory from the beginning. Was
that was that really thebeginning of Pathrigo's mission
or did you already have a graspof what you wanted that to be

(14:08):
before you started the business?

Alex Judd (14:09):
It's a good question. I did have a grasp on what I
wanted it to be whenever Istarted the business, but I
would tell you that the, like,the extent of that grasp was
whenever I was working atRamsey. Again, we were talking
about me having a little bit ofa speaking and content creation
presence there as a Ramseypersonality. We were just in
early innings of having thosediscussions. And they they kept

(14:32):
asking me, like, what's thething that you are, like, just
relentlessly passionate aboutthat you want to see come to the
world that you're also uniquelyqualified to speak on, like,
that you have experience in?
And what I found is at thattime, especially, I wasn't just
a business guy. And honestly,just focusing on business was

(14:52):
not my, like, my only passion ormy primary passion. I love what
business can do for people Mhmm.But I'm not the guy that just
loves to geek out aboutbusiness. Right?
And so I said business is a partof it, but it's not the only
thing. And so then I I reallythought, well, what are the
other things that I enjoy? I Ireally love and I'm passionate
about people understanding likepersonal growth and self

(15:14):
improvement and and theopportunity that's available to
them when they grow and selfimprove. And so for a while it
was like, okay, are you going totalk about business or are going
to talk about self improvementand personal growth? And that
was a little bit of the questionthat was going on.
And then I said, but wait,there's more. I am also really
passionate about leadership. Andit was kind of this like three

(15:36):
separate things like, am I aleadership person kind of like
John Maxwell? Am I a businessperson that I would actually say
Dave Ramsey is more of atraditional business guy or or,
you know, you can think of anumber. Morgan Housel is more of
a traditional business speaker.
Right? There's a number of AlexHorn Mosey is a business
speaker, right, first. And so Iwas like, am I more of that?

(15:59):
Because there's a lot of moneyin that, right, to say the
least. Or am I more of a apersonal growth person?
And I started to have thesethoughts around, well, I get a
little bit of a cringey feelingwhenever I just think about self
improvement. And one of thethings that I realized is I I
don't actually get cringey aboutself improvement. What I get
cringey about and what justmakes my skin crawl is selfish

(16:20):
improvement. It's like all thesepeople out there that are like,
me getting better for the sakeof me getting better and then
making sure all of you knowabout it. And then one of the
things that I started to realizeis that there's also a spiritual
component to it that if it's ifthere's not the spiritual side
to it for me, then ultimately itfalls short or lacks meaning or

(16:42):
lacks power.
And so what I realized is I'mthinking about all of these
things as separate, and whatthey really are is is almost
what I believe to be almost likethis flywheel or this three
circle Venn diagram of personalgrowth and self improvement is
so critically important. But whyare you doing that? Not just so

(17:03):
you can get better and everyoneknows about it. It's so that
others benefit. Right?
And and I actually believe thatwhen you personally grow and
other people benefit from theoverflow of that, well, then
that starts to feed into theleadership and business arena.
And then on the third circle islike there's a faith and
spiritual component to that thatmakes that all matter. So that

(17:23):
was the extent to which I hadthought about it, and it was
honestly probably more jumbledthan that, but I could draw it
out on a whiteboard before Istarted the business. And then I
started to see stories like thegentleman I talked about at the
beginning, and and really that'sjust one of a number of stories,
of when we did it right. And Ialso saw times when people paid

(17:45):
us and we did something forthem, and I was like, well, we
provided value there, but thatwasn't why the business existed.
Like, that wasn't the work thatwe were uniquely designed and
and designated to do or calledto do. And and so it was at a
certain point there reached aboiling point where we said,
okay. We have enough evidenceavailable to us in terms of when

(18:06):
we are at our best, when we aremost on fire for the work, when
our team members are mostengaged in what we're doing. Now
it's time to put words to these,and that's where it became we
exist to help impact drivenleaders step into who they were
created to be. Personal growth,self improvement.
So that that, like, this has tobe inextricably linked. The
reason why we are investing inpersonal growth and you being

(18:28):
who you are created to be is sothat others benefit, right, from
the overflow of you steppinginto the person God created and
then the result of that beingthe spiritual element, God being
glorified. And so it was reallyfinally us just saying, we've
got a mounds of evidence of whenwe are at our best and when
we're most passionate. Now let'sput words to it.

Ben Loy (18:49):
Mhmm. Like, development is great. Personal growth is
great. Growth as a leader,obviously, will it will have a
cascading effect. Right?
It'll be contagious within anorganization. But then tacking
on a defined purpose at the end,I feel like is what from what
I've seen really distinguishes,like, our model for mission and
the and and and our mission froma lot of other missions that I

(19:11):
see organizations and businessesrun with.

Alex Judd (19:13):
Yeah. I I mean, it's almost like there's the reason,
then there's the reason behindthe reason, and I would say in
ours, there's the reason behindthe reason behind the reason.
Right? So it's like, exist tohelp impact driven leaders step
into who they were they werecreated to be. Like, that is
both a statement of what we doand why we do it.
Right? Although it doesn't getinto the practical elements,
like it doesn't say anythingabout one on one coaching, team

(19:35):
trainings, in personexperiences, anything of that.
Right? We're and we'll get towhy mission statements are so
crucial for scaling businessesin a bit, but that is a reason
why we exist. It's not the fullreason though.
There's the reason behind thereason that when, an impact
driven leader steps into whothey were created to be, others
benefit. And, like, that's whatI'm so stoked about is whenever
I'm talking to a room of 45 atour most recent in person

(19:59):
experience, I am not talking to45 people there. Right? I am
talking to 45 leaders, whichmeans at minimum, it's not
unlikely to assume or it's notunreasonable to assume that I'm
actually addressing 450 people.Because, I mean, it seems like a
common thing that if someone'spart of Path for Growth, they
have, like, seven kids orsomething like that.

(20:19):
So so they're at the very leastinfluencing their home. The
average is probably three orfour in reality, but they're
influencing their home. But thenbeyond that, that, you know,
some of these people lead 300person companies, so they're
like, they're reaching all ofthat. Right? And so the reason
behind the reason is that othersbenefit from the overflow of
this impact driven leaderstepping into who they were

(20:41):
created to be.
And then the reason behind thereason behind the reason is,
Matthew five sixteen, in thesame way, like your light shine
before men that may see yourgood deeds. Right? That they may
see your personal growth, yourbusiness growth, your leadership
growth, the way you treat yourteam members, the way that
you're moving forward inbusiness, that they see all
that. They see your good deeds,and they glorify the father in

(21:01):
heaven. Right?
That when people are so orientedfor the right reasons in growing
in a healthy way, it it actuallyso attractive that people can't
help but lift their eyes towardsheaven and say, man, thank god
for that. And and they willactually say that and do that
regardless of what they believe.They might even not necessarily

(21:25):
overtly say they believe in God,and they will still say, thank
God. Right? And that's like,man, God even when people don't
realize it, God is beingglorified in the work that's
being done.

Ben Loy (21:36):
So after you established the mission for Path

(22:41):
for Growth, what was, like, themost difficult decision that you
had to make? Like, was there atime that you you you chose
mission over what felt likemaybe opportunity or growth in
the business or, you know, fillin the blank.

Alex Judd (22:59):
Yeah. I mean, anytime you're clarifying what you're
for, you're also saying whatyou're not for, and that means
sacrifice. Right? So decision,this is a interesting aside, The
word decision comes from theLatin root word that means
scissors, and so it's to cut.And so anytime you're making a

(23:19):
decision, which I think of thisas advanced decision making.
Right? It's the one decisionthat will make thousands of
decisions for you again movingforward, then, yeah, you're
saying I'm I'm cutting. I'msacrificing. There's certain
things that I'm not going to beable to do. I mean, there's
there's a multitude of things,and I I would say there's a

(23:40):
multitude of examples,especially in core values.
But as it relates to mission, Iwould say one that I experience
most personally is I have ideasall the time about things that
we could technically do with theresources that we now have

(24:02):
because of the business thatwe've grown. Like, I have an
aspiration one day to start asalsa company. Right? Like,
that's something that I I verymuch want to do. Right?
And and I support that. That'sgood. Praise god. Yeah. So it
can be really tempting to belike, well, we've got all these
path for growth resources.

(24:22):
Like, why can't we shoehorn thesalsa company as, like, a side
thing that Path for Growth does,make that part of the Path for
Growth p and l, and it's just,this side quirky thing. And
it's, like, I I could try reallyhard to make up an answer of how
salsa helps people step into whothey were created to be so that

(24:42):
others benefit and God isglorified. And it's like that
that isn't actually tied intothe mission. That's that's a
little bit of a quirky example,but it's like, I truly have to
take one of my personal passionsand say, that's a good passion.
It's just not a path for growthpassion.
Mhmm. And it doesn't fall underthe path for growth umbrella.
And so it means it's eithergonna have to be a different

(25:02):
thing that's drawing from mypersonal resources, not Path for
Growth resources, or it's goingto have to not happen. So I
guess the mission causes me toexercise a level of self
restraint. And I would also sayit's not just self restraint.
If I announced to our team, hey,we are starting a salsa company
right now, and I need y'all topassionately get behind this and

(25:24):
sell this. The the firstquestion they or y'all would
have for me is, how does thattie into the mission, Alex?
Like, you gotta you gottaconnect the dots for me. Not
telling me I can't do it, butyou gotta connect the dots for
me on how that connects to themission because the thing that I
signed up to work for at Pathfor Growth above all else is the
mission, and I didn't sign up tobe a salsa purveyor if that

(25:47):
doesn't connect to the mission.

Ben Loy (25:49):
Yeah. Well, and I think that that just speaks to the the
power that it is to, a, haveyour whole team memorize the
mission, but also b, for it tobe like a part of the culture
and repeated consistently infront of mind at team meetings.
Like, I mean, yeah, we we weretalking about this. We've well,
we've talked about this a littlebit. I I would actually like to

(26:10):
have more of a conversationabout this with non anxious
presence and and social media.
And, like, how do we, you know,I think that's one of the things
that I'm personally wrestlingwith right now is, like, there
are there is a method to get ahook, to engage on social media,
to create anxiety, to createanger, to create frustration in

(26:32):
a way that, like, keeps peopleengaged. And then there's the
way that we're called to asChristians. And and when you
when you factor in Path forGhost mission, it's like, how
how does playing into thesestrategies that work on social
media, how does that weigh intowho we are as a business and the
value we wanna provide and whatwe wanna stand for. And so it's

(26:56):
been really interesting, liketrying to navigate that. Like
man, social media and marketingcan be so toxic and you could
get so off course with it if youwere just focused on growth and
you didn't have a mission as asounding board to be like, hey,
yeah, we're not going to engagein that way.
We're gonna think creatively andwe're gonna find up with come up
with a different solution. Mhmm.

Alex Judd (27:17):
Yes. I love that you brought that up because in the
absence of a clearly definedpurpose or mission statement,
effectiveness and efficiencyhacks will always be loud. Mhmm.
Right? Like, if I mean, we weactually did work with a social
media company for a while andthen ended up ending it just

(27:38):
because it didn't feel onmission or on brand.
And it it was because they werereally coaching us on writing
scripts that would basicallyappeal to people's most base
level emotions. Right? We'regoing to say this thing in the
absolute most controversial orpolarizing way was what they

(27:58):
were essentially coaching us on.Like you need to be more
controversial. You need to bemore polarizing.
You need to make sure that ifthere something that happens
that everyone's talking about,you are online within ten
minutes giving your hot takes onthat.

Ben Loy (28:13):
Yeah.

Alex Judd (28:13):
And it's like, if if my reason is effectiveness,
efficiency, fame, right, then ifthat's my reason, then I should
follow all of those strategies.If I have a higher reason, a
higher calling, a higherstandard, which has represented
our mission, then I'm gonna sayI understand that that might be
the fastest way to get moreviews and more followers in the

(28:37):
next ten days, but thatcertainly contradicts some of
our core values, and it's noteven aligned with our core
purpose. So I can't do thatright now. And so there's a
level of accountability embeddedin describing your mission,
which is why some people avoidit. It's also why, like, some
people are like, oh, I did this,like, twenty minute one pager on

(28:58):
write your mission statement foryour company, and now I've got
it.
And I download it as a freedownload online. Do not do that.
Right? Because you if you dothis right, you are making a
decision now that will affectyou for minimum the next ten
years. And so it it's worth thetime, energy, manpower invested
to really get it right.

Ben Loy (29:17):
What would you say to maybe a leader or a business
owner who is, like, sitting hereright now and they're going,
man, like, I we have mission ormaybe we've never even defined a
mission, but, like, I had amission in mind and we have just
gotten so off base. Like, whatwhat is their what is their
first step that they would needto take?

Alex Judd (29:38):
Recommit yourself to the mission. So if if there is a
reason why you started and thatreason is still prevalent
because I I I think it can shiftand change, although I would
hold it with a pretty tight gripbecause oftentimes it doesn't. I
I would recommit yourself tothat mission, and then I would
recommit yourself and hopefullyyour closest leaders to whatever

(30:01):
it takes. Mhmm. Right?
We are going to get back to whythis business exists and why we
started in the first place, andthat is going to be difficult.
Mhmm. And then from there, froma practical standpoint, this
will exist in the core valuesconversation we have as well. I
would start with an apology.Right?
You're you're going to have tomake some hard decisions if

(30:23):
you've deviated because you'rebasically saying we have gone
way off track and we're goinghave to get back on track. That
might mean that we hired somepeople that we shouldn't have
never hired because they weren'tmission aligned. We might have
launched some things. We mighthave done some things or said
some things. There's a wholemultitude of ways you can
deviate from your mission.
And ultimately, you've got totake responsibility of that was
my fault. As a leader, I allowedthat to happen. And so I would

(30:46):
start with, hey, I just wannalet you all know I am sorry
because there's a reason whythis business exists and why we
started, and it's something thatI deeply care about as the owner
or leader of this business. And,we have deviated in these ways.
And the reason why we've donethat is because I've allowed it
and tolerated it happening.

(31:07):
But what I am going to let youknow is this is my and our line
in the sand moment. Mhmm. We aregoing to do things differently
moving forward, and we are goingto recommit ourselves to this
mission. And if you want to be apart of that, then I want you to
be a part of this. If you don'twant to be a part of that, we
can still be friends.
I just want you to know thatthis is why we exist, and this

(31:27):
is where we are going, and weare going to realign ourselves
to this, and we are not turningaround. Right? It has to be a
very firm ownership, but thenalso clear assertive redirection
of why the business exists andwhere we're going.

Ben Loy (31:40):
Mhmm. It does make me think of JP from from Austin,
right? Five Five Stone. And andI mean, he spoke at our
experience and he shared alittle bit of that story. I
would like to hear way more,like, about it.
It's

Alex Judd (31:52):
so good. We should include JP did a, value based
business podcast for us yearsago that we should include in
the show notes of this episode,but we need to have him on
again.

Ben Loy (32:01):
Yeah. And I mean, obviously, like, I that was my
first exposure to him and histeam, but he had how many p five
team members? Six? At theexperience.

Alex Judd (32:10):
Oh, he had eight team members

Ben Loy (32:11):
at the there. And the culture of their team and the
the people that were I mean,everyone was just so aligned and
grounded and it was it was justso clear that, like, this
difficult decision that he hadmade years prior to realign
himself and his business hadpaid off in dividends.

Alex Judd (32:33):
Yeah. I mean, it's pretty fascinating to to look at
the graphics behind the businessand even to talk to him about
his general enjoyment of thebusiness that he owned and
stress level associated with thebusiness because he would say we
grew to 60. I think it was 60team members. And then I had
this realization, like, we arebigger than we've ever been, but

(32:54):
I am enjoying this the leastI've ever enjoyed it, and I'm
more stressed out than I've everbeen. And the reason why is
because the team had gotten awayfrom the core reason.
Right? And and he would be thefirst to say, I allowed that to
happen. Mhmm. The thing that Ifreaking love and honestly am
inspired by about JP is thatwhen he owns something, he owns

(33:14):
it, and he says no more. Andthey recommitted themselves to
mission and core values.
The team is now 30 people.Right? And this is years and
years and years removed, and itis doing exponentially. This is
not an exaggeration. It is doingexponentially more business than
they were doing with 60 people.
Mhmm. And he would tell youthat's the power of having a

(33:36):
unified, culturally aligned teamwhere just think about this. The
difference that it makes whenevery single person on your
team, especially if it's 30people, enjoy the people that
they're working with. Yeah.Like, I know I get minimum 20%
better personally whenever I'mworking with people that I I

(33:57):
enjoy working with.
And that's like a minimum. Therethere could be evidence where I
actually get a 100% better whenI'm with people that I enjoy
working with. Praise God. You'reone of those people. Right?
So it's like, I get way better.And then we apply that across
every single team member, andit's like, if we're saying
people get minimum 20% betterwhen they, like, enjoy the

(34:19):
people, feel aligned with thepeople, or are motivated by the
people that they're workingwith, you have to guard that as
a leader. And if you've everdeviated from that, like you've
got people that aren't onmission in the building, it is
the single most high leverageaction you can take to either
coach them up or coach them outbecause cultural alignment is a

(34:39):
it has a multiplying effect onyour business's performance and
impact.

Ben Loy (34:43):
Mhmm. It sounds like that's got that's gotten
increasingly more important foryou in path for growth in the
hiring process.

Alex Judd (34:50):
For sure. And it's become more clear for us. Mhmm.
Like, we're we're engaging withthe hiring strategic priority
right now, and this is somethingthat I learned from JP is it's
like we have now established thestandard. We we have the funds
to hire someone.
We have the work to hiresomeone. We are establishing the
standard of we will not movefaster than our ability to get

(35:12):
cultural rock stars. Mhmm. Andwe are going to pray for God to
send us great people. Right?
And and if there's someone that,man, they would crush the job,
but the team is not convincedthis is a cultural rock star,
I'm not doing it. Like, Ithat's, like, I've just I've
seen enough examples from myselfpersonally, but also the

(35:33):
businesses that I work with thatit is not worth it. It is not
worth it. And you are if youhire a high performer that is a
culturally neutral, you areactually hiring a detractor. I
actually believe that.
And so the thing that isprobably worth hitting on here
too, the stronger your cultureis, the more true that is. If we
have a milquetoast culture thatwe haven't actually defined

(35:56):
things that we're unique about,bold about, that differentiate
us, things like that, then youand you hire someone that's
culturally neutral, it's notgoing to make that huge of an
impact. If you have a remarkableculture and you hire someone
that's culturally neutral, itwill massively detract. And so
we are actively in the processof making it harder for people

(36:17):
to work for us because we areactively in the process of
making our culture moreremarkable. And that's the type
of business that I wanna lead,quite frankly.
It's the type of business that Iwanna be a part of. And so but
we're gonna double down, andy'all can check-in in two years
and see how it works out for us.

Ben Loy (36:33):
And, I mean, what's incredible is it it really does
all go back to mission. Right?It goes back to, like, is the
team aligned and headed the samedirection in yeah. Like, why
they're even here, why they'reworking.

Alex Judd (36:46):
Yeah. And let's think about the baseline too. What I
don't want working for our teamis someone that's like, oh, now
that I know that mission at Pathfor Growth, I could see myself
aligning my life to that and,like, being passionate about
that. No. I want someone that'slike, I finally found a place
that exists for the same reasonthat, like, I love to get out of

(37:09):
bed every morning and, like,foaming at the mouth passion of,
you're telling me I could getpaid to do this work?
That's the type of person that,like, we know we've nailed it,
and there's already evidence intheir life of how they're living
it out. Like, every singleperson on our team right now, we
are we are culturally I wouldput us at the level of

(37:30):
culturally exceptional on ourteam right now, and we haven't
always been there. We are thereright now. I would say every
single person on our team rightnow, I can point to evidence
before they were hired andcertainly now of how they were
living the mission before theyeven knew it existed. They were
stepping into the man or womanthey were created to be so that
others benefit and God isglorified.

(37:51):
And they were already passionateabout it, and now it just turns
out that there's a paycheckassociated with it.

Ben Loy (37:56):
Yeah. Break that down a little bit more, like how having
a clear mission helped youidentify those things and those
individuals.

Alex Judd (38:04):
Yeah. Well, the interview process is kind of
like dating. Right? And have youever gone to to a first date,
and you're supposed to ask greatquestions, right, at your first
date? And and so you show up toyour first date, and you say,
oh, I I just I'm so excitedabout this, right?
I I didn't swipe right on you. II don't know what way you swipe
for people like this.

Ben Loy (38:24):
I we're off dating apps a long Yeah. Time

Alex Judd (38:27):
Good. Praise God. Culturally aligned, right? Only
half kidding there. So we'redown for our first date and I've
been waiting to ask you thisquestion.
Who am I? Like, how on earth isthe person that you're dating
going to answer that question?Right? So many of us expect
people to tell us about who weare in the interview process.

(38:51):
What you want to do is say, hey,I'm excited to ask you
questions, but I also want tolet you know this is who I am
and this is what I'm passionateabout and this is what I stand
for.
And what we're really trying tofigure out here is, does who you
are align with who I am? So manypeople, they don't know who they
are. And so they're actuallyspending 50% of their time in

(39:11):
the interview process meanderingaround who am I and trial and
error around who am I. And thenthey're trying to figure out if
this puzzle piece fits into apuzzle piece that they don't
even know what it looks likeyet. It's it's virtually
impossible.
Right? And so that's why it's socritical that we do this. Like
we spend this time on the frontend to say, who am I? Really,

(39:33):
what we're saying is who are we?So that really what we're what
we've got is a puzzle piece.
And then our interview processis oriented around, does this
candidate sitting across from mefit into that puzzle or not? And
a lot of times, if you're themore clear you are on who you
are, the more the wrong peoplewill self select out. They'll

(39:56):
say, oh, I'm I'm actually notthat passionate about that, and
I actually think y'all are kindof weird. And you will say, yes,
we are. We are not kind ofweird.
We are extremely weird and youwould hate it here and and you
should just check out of theprocess right now. Right? I
think is important to keep inmind.

Ben Loy (40:11):
Yeah. I keep thinking of, when we it was you,
Michelle, and I flew to ColoradoSprings for, what was it, like
forty hours or something Yes. Tolook at our our next experience
location for next year. And, Imean, you and

Alex Judd (40:27):
I were up at probably four four or 04:30 that morning.
Yeah. And I mean, this was stillwithin your first four months of
working here or something likethat. Yep. And then and Michelle
was also up at 4AM that morning.
We met her. I think we had afull day. I mean, we we probably
did work stuff for twelve hoursminimum. For sure. And then we

(40:49):
weren't done.
No. Like, we were like, okay,from here. And it was, like,
genuinely, like, I feel like wemade a collective decision.
Didn't feel like I was forcingy'all. No.
We were like, well, man, our twoincline is right down the road.
Yeah. What if we go do that?Which is a, to clarify for
people, this is a 2,000 footincline in one mile. I mean, it
is the absolute most absurd mileyou've ever done.

(41:09):
And, we did that that afternoon.So we had, like, a sixteen hour
workday. You and I woke up earlythe next morning and at sunrise
went and recorded Worth ItWednesday videos. Then we had
intentional business discussionabout which property we were
going to land on for our nextexperience. And then within
forty hours, we were back on aplane headed home again.

(41:30):
And what was the point? I so Ijust recounted the story.

Ben Loy (41:33):
Yeah. Mean, that, like, just the fact alone that a, we
we all showed up that Monday andhad all woken up super early and
collectively we were like, yeah,let's go hike a mountain. Like
let's go walk up this endlessstaircase and like that'll be
fun. And it was really fun.

Alex Judd (41:48):
Yeah.

Ben Loy (41:49):
And like to work at that level and to come to the
end of something like that andbe like, okay, yes, I'm tired.
Like, didn't necessarily sleepthe best. Like, we've been
running for for forty hours.But, like, man, it was fun and
it was so great to see Michellein person and, like, be and be
in another location with youand, like, get the things that

(42:10):
we got done done and and I andjust the ideation and, like, I
was it was very life giving eventhough we were working, right?

Alex Judd (42:18):
And that's cultural alignment, right? So I wanna hit
home on that. There's two typesof conversations I could have on
the back end of a con of a triplike that as an owner.
Conversation one is with someonethat says, I didn't get paid
overtime for that. Like, thatwas a bit much.
Or, like, you just absolutelywore me out and I needed to

(42:41):
take, like, five days offbecause of what we just did. Or,
you know, what's in it for me?Essentially, like, all of those
conversations. Or you can havethe conversations that we
actually had is I'm coming homeand telling Aspen, man, that was
a fast trip, but that was ablast. Like, love that.
And then I have my next one onone with you and Michelle both
the next week and both of you,it's your highlight or win that

(43:04):
trip, and you're telling me howgrateful you are, and you're
just, like, so much more excitedabout the next experience
because of what we were able todo and everything like that. And
and there are so many benefitsassociated with those latter
conversations, but one thatpeople often underestimate is,
like, what does that do for mymorale? The the thing that I

(43:25):
enjoy and love doing as a personis the thing that my my team of
the business that I own alsoloves doing and enjoys doing.
Mhmm. And I'm not having toapologize for basically me me
being me, essentially.
It's like one is a recipe forincredible levels of stress and

(43:45):
guilt, and you're just settingyourself up to to just not be in
a good place mentally versusthis is like, I literally just
feel like I got to go on a fortyhour trip with friends and we
got to do great work and andexperience creation, be
physically active together, andnow we're both just goo goo

(44:05):
gagaing over how great it was.Mhmm. Oh my gosh. The the impact
of that cannot be measured.

Ben Loy (44:11):
Well, and what's incredible and kind of bringing
it back to mission and ourmission is, like, a month later,
we all flew to Austin and we hadfour days in Austin and man, I
enjoyed a, being able being ableto scope out a, next year's
location got me excited for thiscoming experience a month later.

(44:35):
But then also, yeah, just beingin the room with the team, being
able to interact with so many ofour customers and so much of the
community in person in such likea real and raw space. And it
just goes to show like ourentire team is just so well
aligned in, like, this is ourpurpose, this is why we exist,

(44:55):
and then we all show up to theexperience. And it's like, this
is the time of the year inwhich, like, is the absolute
best we are the best at what wedo.

Alex Judd (45:02):
Right? Like Super Bowl. It's Christmas. Right?
Yeah.
It's our finest hour in someway. It's like the concentrated
version of what we've been doingfor the entire year. Now we're
just all in the same place doingit.

Ben Loy (45:12):
Yep.

Alex Judd (45:12):
Yeah. I mean but one thing I would call attention to
with that though is the samemission can apply to different
personality types. And so theexperience is such a great
example. It's like I, you know,I love checking in with our team
after the experience becauseI'll talk to you and Kyle, and
I'll be like, how are you doing?You're like, I like really

(45:33):
needed to recover with somealone time and like I need to
go, like, that was a lot ofpeople time and I loved every
bit of it.
It was awesome and like I'm sograteful for it wouldn't change
a thing, But I need to like gointo a dark corner and hide for
like three days before I getback into society again.
Meanwhile, I called Matt andMatt says, Oh, I'm just so
energized. I'm so engaged. I'mjust so ready to be around

(45:56):
people more. And like, this iseverything I live for.
He's like, more people. Right?The difference between
essentially extroverts versusintroverts. Right? Where do you
get your energy from?
You and Kyle are not any less onmission than Matt is is what I
would say because you're bothyou both love the mission.
You're passionate about themission. You two just happen to

(46:16):
be introverted. Matt happens tobe extroverted. And so I would
just keep that in mind forpeople is because sometimes if
you're not careful, you couldover prioritize extraversion
because those are the peoplethat are the most vocally or
visibly on mission, and that canreally, really be a mistake.

Ben Loy (46:35):
Yeah. Or often, even sometimes just the most, like,
charismatic in an interviewprocess, right? For sure. Let's
dive into I know we have so wehave a course around this. We're
working on hopefully making thateven more accessible in the near
future.
But, yeah, let's dive into,like, what it looks like to

(46:55):
practically establish and buildand sustain a good mission.

Alex Judd (47:01):
Yeah. So it's it's one of our 12 fundamentals for
healthy growth, and there's anumber of ways that we have done
this with companies around thecountry since we we started our
company. The the current waythat we do it is people work on
their mission statement throughone on one coaching, or we also
provide team training sessionswhere we go on-site with your
leadership team, and we walk youand your leadership team through

(47:24):
a process for really getting theright words to why do we exist
as a company and codifying that.But, really, what we're gonna
start with is an incredibleamount of context gathering on
hopefully, if the founder isstill around, we wanna talk to
the founder. We wanna know whythey started.
We wanna know what was importantto them. We wanna know what they
were most excited about at thebeginning. And sometimes the

(47:47):
founder is like, well, I Istarted out a necessity. Like, I
had to pay the bills. That's notnot noteworthy.
Right? So, like, even that isnoteworthy because paying the
bills, like, whose bills? Andlike, so you provide provision
is clearly important for you.Why didn't you go get a job?
Right?
Why and then why was itimportant to get into this line
of work? And then beyond evenjust the founding story, we

(48:10):
wanna ask a ton of questionsaround, tell me about the times
when you and your business areat your absolute best. Tell me
about the when the work is mostenergizing for you. Tell me
about your most ideal customersand the impact that you've made
on them. Tell me about the thingthat when you see it occur in
your business, it's an absolutegrand slam for you as an owner

(48:30):
or you as a leader.
And we could spend more time onthis in the podcast if we want
to, but it's really importantthat you craft the right people
in the room for the mission.Right? And and the process that
you work through to get theright people in the room, to get
the right input in the room isreally, really critical because
this is something you arecommitted to living with. And so

(48:50):
probably the people that are inthe room should likely have a
level of ownership and stayingpower because you might be
living with them too, right? Iswhat I would say.
And so we're putting all thatinformation in. A lot of times
that's where people stop andthey just have, you know, a
bunch of loosely held togetherideas. What we're gonna do is

(49:11):
we're going to put all of thoseup on a whiteboard and we're
gonna start distilling and say,are the buckets that these fall
into? And it's more art thanscience, but we're gonna say,
you know, which of these havethe most umph to them? Which
ones feel the most right?
Which ones oftentimes when youwere talking about it, you spoke
with the most passion? I've beenin these sessions before and
it's like they're they're givingme a lot of answers about why

(49:33):
the business exists. And thenI'm asking them a bunch of
questions and then I get them totell one story and that story
causes them to start crying. AndI'm like, you're not a person
that cries that right there.Whatever that is, that's what we
have to codify.
Right? And so what what carriesthe most emotional resonance
within the team? All of thosequestions, we're going to kind

(49:53):
of just isolate our categories.And then based on those
categories, we're then going tosay, okay, if we were to take
these categories of ofstatements of purpose and to
distill them down into a singlepowerful sentence that is
present, portable, and personal.So so present today, this isn't
some aspirational mission forthe future.

(50:15):
There at least has to be seedsof how this is already being
played out today. Portable. Weneed we need to make this
sentence memorizable. So itcan't be, you know, Paul in the
New Testament adding comma,comma, comma, comma. Right?
Like, just a run on sentencethrough and through. Right? We
got to make it portable, andthen we got to make it personal.
How do we choose language thatis uniquely yours and uniquely

(50:36):
your team's? And how do we dothat?
Well, oftentimes, it's languagethat you and your team are
already using. And so we'regonna isolate those categories.
We're gonna build them into aspecific sentence, and then
really we get into wordsmithingand word defining till we land
on a draft. And then we can talkabout what you do with that
draft. It's important you don'tland on a final statement.
You land on a draft because thenwe have stuff that we can do

(50:59):
with that draft. But anythingabout that process you wanna
dive deeper into or you gotquestions about?

Ben Loy (51:04):
Yeah. You talk about this if if you're already
established with a team, right,bringing bringing people in on
this, what are maybe someguidelines that you would use to
decide who's qualified or whoshould be included in this
conversation?

Alex Judd (51:18):
Yeah. So, obviously, there's contextual things here.
Are we talking about a 300person team? Are we talking
about a 20 person team? I wouldsay all information is valuable
is a principle.
And so you're about to makedecisions. It's really good for
you to leverage the whole teamto get information. What that
could look like is you sendingout a a Google form to everyone

(51:41):
and just saying, we're doingsome work on our organization's
purpose. What I want to knowfrom you is when are we at our
best? Who are my most idealcustomers?
And from your experience, like,what are your favorite moments
working for this business? Thequestion that you are not
putting in that Google form is,what should our mission

(52:02):
statement be? Mhmm. Right? Andyou are also not making any
guarantees about anything themthat they put into that form
will show up in the finalmission statement.
You're just saying, I'm justgetting my film on the pulse of
what our people, all 300 ofthem, think about our company
and when we're at our best. Andwhat you'll see is, you know, a
lot of times we have leaders dothat and the forms are

(52:23):
incredibly encouraging andincredibly insightful. Right?
But what we don't wanna do ismission statement by committee.
Right?
Because that it just looks likea jumbled mess if we do that. In
terms of the people that are inthe room making the decisions of
with all the information that wehave, all the things that are on
the whiteboard, the core themes,the categories, all of that. How

(52:44):
what is our statement going tobe? I would say most likely is,
your leadership team, which wewe actually have criteria in our
leadership team fundamental forwho should be on your leadership
team. But these are people thatyou would say, even though we
don't have the mission definedyet, they are already living the
mission.
And like, you're like, I don'tknow what it is yet. I just know

(53:06):
that they're part of it. Right?You trust their feedback, their
pushback, and their advice.Right?
They're people that probablyeither they have some
established tenure with theorganization or you envision
them having tenure with theorganization. And it's this is
critical. You want them to be apart of the decision. Right?

(53:26):
Like, you're like, for multitudeof reasons, I really want this
person to speak into thisdecision.
Those are just some criteria ofwho's in that room to make that
decision about what the missionstatement's going to be. So

Ben Loy (53:39):
once you establish a draft, then what yeah. I know
you mentioned there are thereare things you can do with the
draft. What does that look like?

Alex Judd (53:46):
So what I what I encourage people and where I see
people have the most success iseventually, I think it would
actually be very good for you totake the mission statement that
you've created and to put it ona concrete block somewhere and
then hang that concrete blockup. Right? Artifacts are
actually part of making culturecome to life. So physical

(54:07):
objects that represent theculture is actually really,
really important.

Ben Loy (54:11):
It makes me think of Ted Lasso with the cricket
believe sign up on his office.

Alex Judd (54:15):
I haven't seen Ted Lasso, but that sounds like a
Ted Lasso core value orsomething like that. Yeah,
absolutely. So so I would saythat is going to be important.
But before you print the Tshirts or make the coffee mugs
or things like that with themission, I would say just test
drive it for 60 days. And what Iwant you and your leadership
team to do is to to memorizethat mission statement and keep

(54:39):
it in mind, and then just lookfor either confirmation or
contradiction of did we nail it?
Right? Maybe that's confirmationin terms of you're having
conversation with someone aboutthe work that they're doing, and
they are clearly really enjoyingit. And you just ask them, why
are you enjoying that so much?And they describe their answer
to you, and you're like, oh,that is like they either said

(55:02):
word for word the missionstatement we just created or
they hit on all of the themesthat are in the mission
statement. Maybe, you know, theorganization does shout outs at,
at a team meeting or somethinglike that.
And the things that people areshouting out that people are
clearly most engaged in orthings directly related to your
mission. Right? Maybe you hearsome of the words and you're

(55:22):
like, I wasn't even looking forit before, but we're actually
using some of these words. Orthat's confirmation. Maybe it's
contradiction.
Maybe you're like, there's abetter, simpler way to say this.
Or a lot of times what I see iswe have like this this three
part sentence that we created,and the more I think about it,
the more it's like one part ofthat is actually the mission,
and I'm starting to see thatthese other two parts are just

(55:44):
ancillary pieces to why we'remost excited about this. And so
maybe it's thirty days, maybeit's sixty days. You run a
little bit of a test period, andthen on the back end of that,
you say, okay. We're gonnasolidify, finalize, roll out to
the whole team, you know, holdthe party, launch the cannon,
print the t shirts, the wholeshebang.

Ben Loy (56:05):
Are there any, like, mistakes that people make as it
pertains to mission statementthat people should be aware of?

Alex Judd (56:11):
Yeah. I'm so glad you asked. The first one is just a
misconception of what we'reactually talking about here. A
lot of times people think abouttheir mission statement as
marketing collateral, and thereason why they think that is
because there's groups out therethat teach that. Just let me be
very clear.
That's not what I slash we atPath4Growth are teaching. Right?

(56:33):
Like, your mission statement,from my perspective, is most
powerful when you are notthinking about it primarily as
marketing collateral. Right? Weare thinking about our mission
statement as the statement thatrallies our team in the building
around why we do what we do toserve people outside the
building.
And when you think of it asmarketing collateral, the

(56:55):
questions that people are oftengonna ask you whenever they
think about your missionstatement or whenever you're
evaluating your missionstatement is like, well, what do
you do? Right? Like, what like,can you describe it? And, like,
it doesn't really describe whatyou do for people, like, in
terms of the service youprovide, one on one coaching,
team training experiences.That's not what this is for.
We do that in other places. It'sjust not this. And what I often

(57:16):
see is people try to make itsomething that is a cultural
element, but also marketingcollateral. And in doing so,
they reduce and dilute thecultural power of it. Listen,
the people on our team do notneed me to remind them.
Remember, we do one on onecoaching. They are very aware of
that. The thing that they needme to remind them of is we exist

(57:37):
to help impact driven leadersstep into who they were created
to be so that others benefit andGod is glorified. Marketing
collateral is a separateconversation. Does it mean that
there won't be customers thatare deeply attracted to your
mission and excited about yourmission?
No. I actually think customerswill be more excited about your
mission when you ride it our waythan as marketing collateral. I
would just say don't don't tryto shoehorn both objectives into

(58:01):
the same sentence is really,really critically important. The
the second one I would say isnot being intentional about
rollout. Anytime you launchanything this big, I mean, the
the quality of adoption oftenreflects the quality of launch.
And you you want people to actlike this is a big deal. You

(58:23):
have to treat it like a big dealin the way you launch things.
And and that doesn't mean youhave to throw some massive
resource intensive party, butsometimes the best way to convey
that something's a big deal isto put it on write in writing
and, like, print. Sometimes if Ishow up to a meeting and I
printed stuff, people are like,wow, he's serious about this.
Right?
Like, he took the time to gofind a printer. Right? Or or

(58:45):
create coffee mugs with it orlike just do something that
conveys to people like we aretaking this extremely seriously.
Right? Maybe it's havingcustomers come in and tell the
story of how the mission hasimpacted them.
There's so many multitude ofways. And then the third mistake
that people don't make is isthey don't have a strategy for
launch or they don't have astrategy for sustained adoption.

(59:07):
And so ingraining this in youronboarding process, we recommend
having a quarterly process ofevaluating your mission that we
talk about in the path forgrowth fundamentals. Red,
yellow, greening, are we livingin alignment with it? Making it
a part of your teamcommunication rhythm, regularly
referring back to the mission.
There's gotta be rhythmsassociated with this. Otherwise,

(59:28):
it will be a dusty piece ofpaper in a binder that never
gets opened again. So so makingsure we're not treating it as
marketing collateral, makingsure that we focus on the
launch, and then making sure wecreate rhythms and systems for
continued and sustainedadoption.

Ben Loy (59:43):
I mean, feel like I've talked to multiple business
owners. I've been a part oforganizations where that's the
case. It's like on onboarding,it's like, here's our mission,
here's our core values, youknow, here's what we're about.
And then it's never mentionedagain. Or it's like this it's
almost like this joke, you know,that it's like, oh, yeah.
Like, this is what we stand forwhen decisions are made that are

(01:00:04):
just completely not in line with

Alex Judd (01:00:06):
what they say. Yeah. If you are an impact driven
leader, that is so sad. Yeah.Like, that should break your
heart.
The the purpose the theoreticalpurpose of why your mission
exists is now a joke Yep. Toyour organization. And and a lot
of times, why it becomes a jokeis because it was never serious
to begin with. It was never likeSure. We went through this
methodical intensive process,and we invested time and money

(01:00:30):
to define why our organizationactually exists.
Because if you actually investall that time and money, you and
your organization take it moreseriously. Mhmm. It's when we
just put something togetherhaphazardly that, of course,
we're not actually gonna take itseriously years down the road.

Ben Loy (01:00:45):
In closing, is there anything you'd wanna say about,
yeah, sustaining our mission ingeneral?

Alex Judd (01:00:51):
I guess the final word of encouragement that I
would give to the leaders thatare listening to this podcast is
you have to stay zealous aboutyour mission. Right? Like, you
have to stay passionate about itpersonally. And so as you think
about rhythms for and systemsfor sustained adoption and even

(01:01:11):
improvement within your team, Iwould also ask yourself the
question, what's the rhythm thatI need to make sure that my
heart is still soft to thismission? How do I make sure
that, you know, the same way Iwas bouncing out of bed year one
whenever I started thisorganization because I was just
so on fire with with the purposeand the way we were serving
people and and the calling thatwe had to do this.

(01:01:35):
What rhythms do you have inplace to to keep making you that
person? Because your team needsyou to have that level of energy
and zeal if they're ever gonnahave a comparable level of
energy and zeal for the mission.And so make sure you define ways
for yourself personally to staypassionate, warm, white hot on

(01:01:57):
the reason why you started thebusiness and why the business
exists.

Ben Loy (01:02:00):
And I guess to commend you, like, that's something that
I see that you do really well.And I consistently like, I'm
always like, Alex is practicingwhat he preaches, and I just can
consistently find myself sayingthings like that. So, yeah,
thanks to you, and and thanksfor this conversation.

Alex Judd (01:02:16):
Well, I always love ending on a compliment. You.
Appreciate it, Ben. Well, thereyou have it. Thanks so much for
joining us for this episode.
If you want any of theinformation or resources that we
mentioned, that's all in theshow notes. Hey, before you go,
could I ask you for one quickfavor? Could you subscribe,

(01:02:36):
rate, and review this podcastepisode? Your feedback is what
helps our team engage in asequence of never ending
improvement. We wanna amplifywhat's valuable to you and
obviously reduce or even removethe things that aren't.
Also, you leaving a positivereview is what helps us connect
with, build trust with, andserve other leaders around the

(01:02:57):
country. So thanks in advancefor helping us out on that
front. Are you a leader thatwants to grow your business in a
healthy way, serve peopleexceptionally well, and glorify
God in the process? Go topathforgrowth.com to get more
information about our communityof impact driven leaders and
schedule a call with our team.Hey, thank you so much to the

(01:03:17):
Path for Growth team, KyleCummings and the crew at Pod
Circle, and the remarkableleaders that are actively
engaged in the Path for Growthcommunity.
Y'all are the people that makethis podcast possible. Y'all
know this. We're rooting foryou. We're praying for you. We
wanna see you win.
Remember, my strength is not forme. Your strength is not for
you. Our strength is forservice. Let's go. Let's go.

(01:03:41):
Let's go.