Your Mission Statement

We’re facing a complacency crisis. It’s exacerbated by the non-stop competition for our attention that leads us to recede into distraction where we can lose hope and fall into apathy. And it’s compounded by the growing stupidity of some of the things we’re doing for work, which can make it feel like fiddling while Rome burns.

I heard a statistic recently that 25% of people feel that their job is socially useless.

I will never criticize anyone for taking a job they need to meet the increasing financial demand of raising a family or escaping debt or poverty. But as you move to a new income bracket or find greater stability, I suspect that you’ll feel a nagging need to do more. Beyond accomplishment or a higher paycheck, you might feel the need to find meaning or purpose. If you find yourself feeling this way, a better question to ask is: what do you believe in?

What are the values or the mission statement that drives your life? You’ve likely developed a set of values that influence how you behave. I’m not talking about saving the environment, reforming the justice system, or starting a hotel for dogs. I mean something that you fight for and live out daily, whether you’re a car salesman, teacher, or influencer. Something like showing all people respect or kindness, or bringing positive energy to any situation.

I feel lucky to have spent five years in Washington, D.C. doing “meaningful” work to learn that you don’t have to go to the source to make a difference. Nor do you have to become a morally virtuous pauper. So-called meaningful work doesn’t solve your need for value, in part because we define what value means. We think it must be a grande gesture when the truth is that you can make a meaningful difference right now, today, in the way you interact with people.

The bonus is that if you show up consistently and live true to your values, even when it’s not satisfying, even when it’s inconvenient, I can almost guarantee something will come from it: an idea, a community, something. Because you are living a more authentic and aligned life. And as you age, you’ll develop the power and influence to do more to help advance your mission. If more of us did this (rather than the rich guys whose mission appears to be: lower taxes and higher fences), we could see some really cool stuff.

So, my question for you after all this is: to what are you willing to dedicate your life? Scary, hard, but an amazing question to ponder as we approach 2026.

Compromise (And Love For ‘The Other’)

The second (and more unspoken) part of this is removing judgment to find common ground as you spread your mission outward. Defining and refining your mission is beautiful, but we can’t expect everyone to agree with us or to even respect our mission. Yet culturally we’re encouraged to believe that anyone who disagrees with us is our enemy. Once again, the Internet has exacerbated this.

An overlooked detail of the abolitionist movement is the middling compromises that were made on the way to ending slavery. It was won slowly, in painstakingly frustrating ways. In the early stages, abolitionists got together to choose a slogan. It was either: Ban the Slave Trade or Ban Slavery. They settled on banning the slave trade because too many people’s livelihoods depended on slavery. That decision is what helped the movement gain traction.

It’s despicable, yes. But it’s our history. Changing things is hard. It takes time. Unfortunately, today, we’d be lucky to make middling compromises. Today, we don’t come close to middling compromise. We argue about who is the most morally progressive (or, on the other side, the most Christian, I guess?). And we still accomplish nothing. Congress just set a record for the lowest legislative output in history.

I worked on Capitol Hill during the Speaker Boehner years. Democrats were in the minority. You know how my bosses passed bills? They compromised.

Compromise sucks. It’s both sides walking away a little disappointed. And it’s usually in service of putting money in the pocket of a single mother, service member, or small business owner.

Today, we argue to score points and feign outrage as we sprint past a deadline. And the people who suffer aren’t you or me.

The only way to compromise is to find humanity in the other, and to be willing to compromise in service of action that won’t immediately benefit us (that second part also seems harder these days).

It’s been my experience that the most effective negotiation is to say to the other side: how can we make this work for both of us?

We’re currently unwilling to make anything work for the other side. Until we’re more willing, we’ll keep failing.

This applies to much more than politics.

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