What is your mission? All the most successful and fastest growing companies are not centred around a product, but a mission. Because missions create movements.

Here are 16 billion dollar mission statements that grew into 16 billion dollar companies:

FACEBOOK: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

GOOGLE: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

UBER: “Transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere for everyone.”

VIRGIN ATLANTIC: “To embrace the human spirit and let it fly.”

NIKE: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete. If you have a body, you are an athlete.”

WEWORK: “To create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.”

AMAZON: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

EBAY: “Provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything.”

ALIBABA: “To make it easy to do business anywhere.”

STARBUCKS: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

LINKEDIN: “To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

TWITTER: “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”

PINTEREST: “Help people discover the things they love and inspire them to go do those things in real life.”

TUMBLR: “To empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.”

KICKSTARTER: “To help bring creative projects to life.”

AIRBNB: “Belong anywhere.”

Why is your mission so important? Because when people get stuck in the ‘WHAT’, it’s your job to get them focused back on the ‘WHY’.

Over the last month, Elon Musk has been faced with criticism of his planned merger between his companies, Tesla and Solar City. He faced negative press following the first death in a Tesla on Auto-pilot. His response? To come out with the 2nd part of his Master Plan (Master Plan Part Deux), with an upgraded mission.

In the master plan, he began by upgrading the Tesla mission from the original mission of Tesla Motors, to a new mission for Tesla (dropping the ‘Motors’ in the name): From

TESLA MOTORS: “To accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible.”

to:

TELSA: “To accelerate the advent of sustainable energy.”

He halved the words, and doubled the power. All the key steps in his upgraded master plan then fit in to how Tesla would achieve this upgraded vision. Since he wrote it, the media has stopped focusing at today’s problems, and instead are focused at tomorrow’s promise. (You can read it here):

https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

How could you halve the words and double the power of your mission?

Not sure what your mission is? Take the Purpose Test and find out which of the UN Global Goals fits with your No.1 Purpose:http://purpose.geniusu.com

“When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.” ~ Howard Schultz