Her shop had absolutely nothing to do with funeral homes. On the contrary, she had called it “The Body Shop” because of living bodies. But that alone would be nothing new. She brought two things together: her idea of the world harmonized completely with nature (which was very revolutionary and avant garde at that time) combined with products made from natural ingredients that enhance the lives of human beings, who are part of nature, after all.
That’s what we call a mission. And, as is well known, Ms. Roddick has not only achieved it: it has made her one of the richest women in Britain.
Why mission? No sooner have the values which are personally decisive been ascertained when you should accomplish a “mission”? And…isn’t that a little too much pathos? Ask someone who knows what he is talking about: the missionary Albert Schweitzer.
In his opinion you lead a happy life if you want to pursue a specific objective in your life. If you direct and concentrate your values towards a challenging objective, your mission will appear. And then you are happy while you are accomplishing it.
Mission and melancholia
B
ut like most people, we often renounce what we would really like to have. The “I want that”
of our childhood is forced out of us, though it would make decisions for example much easier.
If you can’t recognize your fundamental impulses, you can’t join the game. But it would be tedious if you attempted to fight against these human impulses.
Instead try to get them under control. Ambition is the impulse that determines the size of your goal. False humility restrains this ambition. If you duck out of the way of these challenges you will notice how the senses become dulled and you fall into a peculiar form of lethargy – the melancholy that arises when you regret in your inmost being not having tackled a goal, and you mooch around more or less aimlessly because of it.
It looks something like this. After getting up you don’t know what to do. But you get by. Every distraction, even including breakfast television, comes to the fore. You arrange to have breakfast with like-minded friends in order to talk yourself into the vale of tears. It is not long in the conversation before there is no way out of it. Then, first a prosecco to it. A small one. Thus weakened, and also to avoid being reminded of past glorious times, you lie down briefly after lunch for starters. In the end it was three “small” proseccos.
Afterwards you drag yourself over to the computer to check your email. And even if the guy you met recently has sent you an enthusiastic email you will never be satisfied with your mail. If anything, you are an email junkie. In the evening a couple of great ideas, especially ones which make sense of your life, occur to you. You make some notes and already your energy has gone. Your energy only stemmed from the guilty feeling that you haven’t done anything else sensible all day in the first place. But the first beer of the evening tastes great again. You meet up with your peers again, because you can be sure that with they will go along with anything you say. What a taxing, tiring day! Although you haven’t done anything. In his thesis on “Melancholia and Society”, Wolf Lepenies describes the phenomenon of melancholia as coming not from inside but out: forms of melancholia, such as lovesickness or other mental symptoms which were treated (mostly by blood-letting) up to the nineteenth century, are indicators of a society which has outlived its time, with failed revolutionaries, bankrupt noblemen and others who lounged about uselessly in the salons of the late nineteenth century without really having anything to do. For they had literally given up their job - or it had been taken from them.
In the modern sense this type of melancholia is of a different nature: an event in your life that continues to have an effect on you such as a separation or a divorce and makes you feel that you have been badly or unjustly treated by someone or, worse, by a man. This feeling dominates you and robs you of the power of looking ahead. You have to get out of this dark corner of the soporific salon.
Charisma: the power of women
W
omen have one big advantage over men in their careers. At the end of the performance scale, that is to say at the summit of satisfaction, you find yourself in a Buddha-like state: things happen simply because you want them to. You don’t do anything any more, you have an effect. Your magical magnetic power of attraction, the spell of your charisma alone ensures that everything you want comes true. You know this situation. You only have to be standing on your own at a party and send out a couple of signals, play with your feminine charm so that men sniff around out like Pavlovian dogs and, yes, sit up and beg. As is well known, men can always do that. But if the woman isn’t interested they don’t have a chance. And everything that men do, they do only to win women, even if they aren’t aware of it. And if that isn’t an incentive to use this wonderful feminine quality in your career, we don’t know what is. At last that is the aim of this chapter: to show how women can determine their goals.
What would happen to these wonderful values if you didn’t use them? Of course you need a target before you can hit the bull’s eye. And a target needs a playing field, a system of coordinates in which the time span and the challenge are plotted. Then your values will turn into a mission. For one thing has been missing in our notes up to now. And this factor comes into play in this chapter: other people. Your mission is your personal vision of how to use your values in reality. This vision can be brilliant, bombastic, challenging or simply sweet, humane and tender: there is no difference in principle between Joanne K. Rowling with her empire and Mother Theresa. Some people want to change the world, others to have a good life and raise a family. And some want both.
Your mission is a game for life, a strategy which will in every case even fascinate and attract like-minded people. If you ply them with what arouses your curiosity and bring out what is within you, you will not be alone for long. As soon as you channel your values into a coherent mission, your life takes on a sense of direction. You will have comrades-in-arms who love you and want to put the same values into practice with you. Only: the others have to realize that these values can be implemented together.
Up to now we have talked about general values that are important for you. These are abstract values that you have taken for your personal ones. But up to now we haven’t been dealing with concrete things, personal goals, content. Life isn’t a church synod. It is great to be for peace, but it won’t bring you any closer to your goals. Think more individually, more egoistically, more materially: what can I do for peace? What are my intentions? What do I want to be successful at? Not what do I want to be, but what do I want to achieve. This is nothing to do with thanks and recognition for great human endeavors, but with success. Enough of petting, what you need is a brilliant idea, which however you have to be completely convinced by. Then, and only then, will your success be unstoppable.
What arouses my curiosity?
T
he fundamental question of your mission is: what arouses my curiosity?
What is it that keeps me going, what theme can I play upside down on the keys like Mozart, for what do I have the right touch, will I appear genuine to people, what drives me, what things that others don’t see can I paint in oil if I have to, curiously enough? What devolves on me, what is so easy for me that I am amazed that others don’t find it so?
The answer is very simple: your genius. And your genius consists in exactly those things for which others admire you, even if it is that you are the only one around who can open every kind of tin can. And that’s why missions develop out of things that can be seen. Your mission is no longer an abstract mental picture, but an ability to attract the attention of others in the real, physical world. You often do something that arouses your curiosity and combines two of your basic interests in a strange way – look at Anita Roddick – and suddenly everything revolves around you. It is decisive that you see these things in all clarity. Don’t think too much about what you would like to be or to have, or about false compliments, or your career will take completely the wrong direction. You discover two things: that your road will cost you trouble and pain, and that your efforts are not fully recognized. A genuine mission comes true when people come to you in droves by word of mouth and enthusiasm, because they can see that you are the best at what you do!
You have one major talent in your own right: you can see the truth. In the end you are a professional in your chosen field. Like a premiere league football coach you know every move, every trick inside out from your own experience. No one can fool you. And so you can look on with partial amusement when others in your own field make the most stupid mistakes. You are professional and realistic, and see things as they are, so you also know your limitations. There is little point in projecting yourself as Marlene Dietrich when you aren’t. What one person can do others can do better.
Find out exactly what specific field you can be the best at, even if it’s a self-organized world championship in female can opening in which possibly thousands world wide would take part.
If you regard yourself as a small player in a big game, you will not only disappoint yourself, but won’t be able to entice anyone out from behind the oven because you don’t appear credible or fascinating enough. So, Ms. Cobbler – stick to your last, and go for quantity. Aim for high goals. Really make something of your mission. How? By visualizing it. That’s enough of theory.
Anybody who has a vision can see something: the goal. It becomes visualized. You see a million human beings all over the world sitting in front of the TV or the internet to watch the world championship in tin can opening which you as former champion organized! You see how you are acclaimed, carried on people’s hands, honored, valued…and loved by millions.
This is what a vision looks like. Three dimensional. It can be grasped in the hand. Not something far away. If that is the case, Helmut Schmidt is right. Anybody who has visions should go to the doctor. And so don’t ever give in to small, realistic, attainable short-term goals. There aren’t any. Instead live your life as a series of astonishing incidents and take care of the surprises yourself: throw parties, go on exciting journeys. Take the bull by the horns:
meet the people you have always wanted to meet, for example.
A journalist we knew always had a list of prominent people whom he would most like to meet – particularly architects, musicians, philosophers, futurologists and visionaries. But how? Simple: he founded a magazine dealing with the subject. Not financed by himself. Instead he convinced the boss of a PR agency of the idea of starting a customer magazine through which the company could make a name of itself as cutting edge. It worked. He was even astounded how easy it was to get an agreement from these people as soon as he became a representative of the press. For the next few years he traveled all round the world, met everyone he wanted to meet and a few more, and was paid a princely sum for his interest.
It is very simple: become a person whom others admire and the person you have always dreamed of being…Close your eyes and envision yourself in your wildest dream. That is your mission.
Comments are killers
O
f course the road to success, your “Road to Mandalay”, isn’t always visible as far as the horizon. There are often obstacles in the way. There are well-meaning friends, who comment on your project to death, who want to demonstrate that they are leading the right life and you the wrong. And they are not in the least malicious: but being frustrated themselves, they don’t see that others might fare differently. Because they have accepted their lot.
This is the negative side of the mission: melancholia. When you look back on your life high spots appear which are irretrievable. They move further and further away from you. As long as you fail to embark on your mission, these images will remain present. There are people who live entirely in the past. You can recognize them by the fact that they are always telling anecdotes and “stories from my life” that begin with, “Do you remember…?” They are satisfied getting old with a partner and a pension. Hello? “I want to live while I’m alive” is a wonderful and simple lyric and very close to reality. How many people can honestly say that they are in fact alive during their lives? Instead they have given up at some time in their lives. They lay most of the blame on others without realizing it. They can least stand it when others dash ahead. They prefer to be mired in mutual misery.
Germany is a very melancholy country. It can be seen from the peculiar unanimity in grumbling. It is simply alien to most Germans to be greeted in a friendly way by someone in the street. On the other hand it is completely acceptable to get volubly excited over some nuisance, and a whole chorus of dissatisfied people can be found to agree with it, whether it is delays on the railroad or some failure on the part of the government. They lay the blame on higher powers instead of taking responsibility for themselves.
Simply don’t be taken in by such things. It is better to keep your mission to yourself or to choose the people you tell it to carefully. Comments that call your pictures, visions, intentions into question are killers, as for example, “Yes, but that has certainly already been done”, or, “Great, and where will you get the money for it from?” These are valid questions, but one the whole they are not meant constructively. Don’t let yourself be deflected from your path by obstinate needling. For as soon as you do it will be painful, and you will feel it physically. On the other hand it is a sign that you are on the right path. Imagine you had an excellent plan for becoming self-employed, and then found yourself back in a stifling insurance agency office. This is the kind of pain we mean.
As long as you stay on your path you will have many good experiences, even if it is often stony. The more you can convince, the more pleasant impulses come from without that justify your activities. And that’s a damn good feeling. What is convincing is your sense of curiosity and your self-confidence in everything you do.
What you can do like no other inspires you and you can talk about it frankly, freely and with absolute enthusiasm. You become your own PR machine. This charisma attracts more and more people.
Your mission is to live up to your values
I
f you have your main focus on your mission you won’t have much time for doubts and conflicts, fortunately. You are bright, awake and always in top form. These attributes, namely your character, makes you a better person. Your commitment inspires other people. You become so alive when you suddenly live up to your values and take your purpose seriously that you even give wings to other people’s careers. Because you are suddenly alive yourself, and become adorable and intoxicating in a refreshing way! This way, your charisma, your personal magnetism increases in proportion to the scope that you give your mission.
A mission that sparks produces action and attraction. Your intentions determine your lifestyle both qualitatively and quantitatively. You define a game that more and more people join and which encourages them to tell others about your business. But this depends solely on you communicating your ideas with complete conviction without leaving any question marks. The further the scope of your mission is stretched the more fame you will reap. “Fame” means immortality. Your aims could well be designed to outlast your death, and you will enrich your life and make yourself alive even more. In a certain sense a family is such a mission: you pass on offspring to the future with commitment, responsibility and love. In your lifetime this love will already be returned ten times over in a wonderful way.
Visionaries see far and clearly. People who follow their path can be recognized by their external appearance. They move as if they were approaching something. They walk upright and look clearly ahead as if they had a map to show them the way. Other people for example always look at the ground or slouch. They meander through life like that. And then of course there are people who can laugh and those who pull a face. If you are seized by a great idea and are prepared to pursue it, you will have glowing cheeks.
On the springboard to the goal in a few leaps
Y
ou begin your business journey best by envisioning your own intentions or invoking the picture you have of yourself and which others should have of you. How should others see me and my business? What should someone else say about me? You have to answer these questions to give your business a structure. Try to put your mission into a couple of concise sentences such as a private business plan. Your mission, mind you, is not the artificial credo of collective companies. These sentences should arouse all your passion every time you read them. Just thinking about what you see before you makes your heart beat faster and turns your day into pure pleasure. If you formulate this mission it has nothing to do with your “funeral eulogy” any more, but with something that you can freely and frankly share with others. It is so to speak the “Holy Ghost” of your business religion: “Go and tell it on the mountains”. You should inspire others when you express what is important to you in your career. Write down your goal in a couple of short, clear, terse and purely positive sentences. What should your business project do for other people? How do you want to achieve your aim? Why should others be inspired to work with you?
Nevertheless it is advisable to involve only trustworthy people in your mission statement at first, people who also have your respect. These people are there for the test. If your mission has a meaning it will spark off others. This mission concerns what is most important to you, what you do, love and enjoy most in life. You can therefore grasp and feel it. The more defined your mission is, the happier your life will be.
A successful mission is based on ambition. It requires a strong ego. You want to be a business leader, and such people are driven by three factors: affluence, fame and profit. Imagine that you had not exhausted your life, that there is more – that is the profit, the surplus value that your life has through the fulfillment of a mission. Imagine that your values outlast your life - that is fame. Imagine being unconstrained and untroubled by money matters and therefore being free to deal with things beyond your business – that is affluence, and it doesn’t sound bad. Entrepreneurs are not better human beings because of it. But they go their own way, like happy children who demand a lot in their innocent way.
Which of these three factors fires you the most – affluence, fame or winning? Which thought drives you the most? Do you dream of fame? Does financial independence appear the most important to you? Do you simply want to emerge as a winner? It is generally considered taboo to answer these questions in the affirmative. Do it. Look yourself in the face to find your values. See yourself in your dreams to have a clear mission in front of your eyes. There are no taboos. Logic doesn’t come into it. Look for something that really turns you on. It will cause you a bit of fear, as it is so far from reality. Don’t be fooled. If you look these positive fears directly in the face, energy is the result. After that comes the work, ten per cent inspiration, ninety per cent perspiration. But you’re happy to sweat for the right goal.
Your style is your image
A
s soon as you walk out onto the business playing field, you lose your diffidence. As soon as you stand up for your mission, other people will regard you in a new light.
Listen to how others regard you, what they say about you. That is your personal image. Make it into a distinct brand before others label you with it. What character do you want to play? What costume goes with it? And what part do you want to play on the business stage? You still have freedom of choice. Your image is the one thing by which other people can read your intention. One can tell from your clothes whether you are going to get milk or going to a business meeting – at least, hopefully. Your style, and we are not just talking about your clothes, has to correspond to your advised target group, to your customers and business partners. This style (not style in the sense of fashion, thank you) is your manner, your native wit, your sense of humor, your character – whatever makes you unique. You discover your own nature when you let yourself be who you are. Only when all affectation is put aside and you are completely relaxed (without prosecco) can you look at yourself calmly in the mirror. There you are. With a bit of luck you are the person that you know rather than the stranger who greets you with, “Hello, do we know each other?”
You radiate the image that you have. It is the direct projection of your intentions or un-intentions. If you want to be successful, this image will galvanize others to work with you.
That doesn’t mean that your present image is already the appropriate one. Find it by trial and error, and don’t play the prima donna, an unrecognized goddess on earth, at whose feet everything should lie. The more natural and relaxed you become the more honest and stable your business will be. You notice this from the magnetism you have. You radiate energy from which others can create. And that will pay off when you are dealing with selling. So cultivate an image that you want to live and that is you. If you are not yourself, you attract the wrong people. If you have customers whom you can’t stand, who are not “your type” at all, you can feel how much effort and nerves it costs.
Pretending is the wrong way. And everything that you do will not only grow stunted, but also go in the wrong direction.
Career barriers: Bustle, panic and tactics
A
mission is a good reason why you do something and which direction you work towards.
You unleash an unbelievable amount of energy and drive. You suddenly feel power. And that’s good: you will need all your convictions to overcome obstacles that inevitably lie in the way. Among them for example might be your own shortcomings. One of the main reasons for passive melancholia lies in the belief that you won’t do anything wrong if you don’t do anything – a wildly inaccurate assumption, but that need not interest us here. It is a matter of course that you make mistakes as soon as you start on something. Good trainers allow mistakes in order to study them. For then they can be dealt with as soon as they arise – otherwise not. The second reason is that your image is almost never congruent to your character. You can change, while others still have the same picture of you. You will often experience this when you deal with people whom you haven’t seen for a long time. On these occasions you are still in the old condition, which you have long left behind. For one is always in a position to correct oneself on the road to success.
Every contact, every conversation brings an experience with it which you build into your business strategy for the next time. Therefore your performance becomes more and more perfect. If there were no tactics, there is the third reason. Your desire to get on with everyone and simply to do nothing wrong can lead to you losing sight of your mission: you are everything under the sun, but no longer yourself.
It is better to lose a client than to lose your character. For if no one can classify you correctly – if, for example, you present yourself as the well-known “jack of all trades” – they will not take you seriously any more. The market shows that you are more successful if you specialize in something. For you have exactly the right, loyal customers for your service. Still of course it doesn’t do any harm to update yourself regularly to show who you are.
