*Typing*

Nobody reads your mission statement.

Companies telling themselves their customers care about their mission statement is the corporate equivalent to the drunk frat kid believing the stripper loves him. She doesn't. If she did, she'd dance for free.

Your customers don't love you either. If they loved you, they'd throw fistfuls of cash at you for doing absolutely nothing.

Business is the process of exchanging value for money. No value. No money. Advertising makes this value so overwhelmingly obvious to the customer, they're willing to pay for it.

Because of this, you're far better off investing in a narrative. Unlike a mission statement, a narrative focuses entirely on the customer. It makes the customer the hero of the story. Furthermore, it explains how the value your company is providing makes their life better, easier, fuller or more exciting.

Too many companies focus on themselves. They think by talking about their "mission," they will land more customers. But, customers don't give a flying f___ about your mission. All they care about is whether or not the value your company is providing is worth more than the money they're exchanging for it.

You convince them with a story, not with a statement.

Bad ideas breed good ideas. If you feel like you don't have any good ideas, you likely don't have many bad ideas. Ideas behave like the inverse of the Gremlins. The Gremlins was a bizarre horror film from the 80s. One day, a kid named Billy gets a Mogwai for Christmas. It's a strange, adorable little creature that's clearly not from Earth. He names it Gizmo.

Gizmo is a low-maintenance pet. Although, he comes with three extremely important rules that can't be broken:

1. Keep him away from bright light

2. Don't get him wet

3. Never feed him after midnight

All three rules inevitably get broken. Gizmo gets wet. He spawns several less friendly Mogwai. They trick Billy into feeding them after midnight. Soon, they transform into blood-thirsty reptilian monsters called Gremlins led by a psychopath named Stripe. This snowballs into murderous chaos.

And so ideas are the exact opposite of Gremlins. You have to produce a lot of Gremlins before you wind up with a cute, cuddly, adorable Gizmo you want to take home with you. Ideation is a bit of a bloodbath. Until it isn't.

Problems aren't problems. They're opportunities to build trust, win loyalty and flex your creativity. When the Carthaginian General Hannibal Barca was crossing the Alps to launch a surprise attack on Rome, his path was cut off by an enormous landslide. Instead of turning back, he had his troops pile wood around the large boulders and then set them ablaze. Once the boulders were red-hot, Hannibal asked his men to dowse them in vinegar. This rapid heating and then sudden cooling caused the rocks to crack, making them much easier to clear. Before long, the Carthaginians were back in the saddle with even greater momentum than before.

Wherever you are, it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be. That’s important to remember when you start to feel restless—or even hopeless. You didn't arrive in this particular place by happenstance. You arrived here for a reason. It takes time discover this reason. In many instances, you will only understand the reason in retrospect. But, there is a reason. As for mistakes, there are none. There are only lessons. And the lessons repeat themselves until they are learned.

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Success, in anything, requires a degree of delusion. You don't want to be so delusional that your friends and family attempt to check you into a psych ward. But, your delusion should cause them to consider sitting you down for an intervention.

It's important to remember that most of the people who inhabit this planet are fairly rational. This is a good thing. It's to humanity's benefit. If everybody who existed on this strange space rock were completely out of their gourd, we'd have blown ourselves up decades ago.

With that said, if you're an ambitious individual, you must constantly remind yourself that you live in a highly rational world. Those who care about you will attempt to force their rationality upon you. This is an act of love. They don't want to see you get hurt. They don't want to see you go broke. They don't want to see you fail. But, you must ignore them. No matter how much you love them and respect them, you must ignore them.

For rational thinking achieves rational outcomes.