You Can't Chat GPT Your Mission, Vision, and Values
I used to own a haircare company you’ve probably seen at Target.
It looked successful from the outside — colorful branding, huge community, growth charts that made potential investors drool.
Inside? It was good for a long time. Until it wasn’t.
We had strong values at oVertone, sure. But what we didn’t have was a clear mission to drive us or a vision to pull us forward. That meant departments fought with each other. Priorities splintered. People with strong personalities pushed the company into places it was never supposed to go, with expensive consequences.
And when things got hard — when we faced real decisions about what we wanted to be and how — the cracks turned into a chasm. If I could go back and do one thing differently, it would be this: I would have built our Mission and Vision into the company the same way I did our Values - instead of floundering without a true north star.
Because here’s the thing no one tells you when you’re starting a company: Without a strong foundation, it doesn’t matter how good the branding is and it doesn’t matter how talented you are. You need something solid to stand on if you’re going to build a business you actually enjoy running, and run it sustainably.
And most people don’t realize they’ve skipped the foundation until it’s too late.
Why You Feel Stuck Even If You’re “Doing Everything Right”
Most people come to me thinking they have a strategy problem. Their marketing feels messy, or they’re frustrated with their team, or they’re frozen about a big decision. When we dig deeper, it almost always comes back to the same thing: They don’t actually know what they want.
They might have a "mission statement" they pulled together from ChatGPT, or a vision they borrowed from somebody else’s TED Talk. But when it comes to making real, painful decisions — the kind that cost money, require change, or risk disappointing people — those surface-level statements fall apart.
Real mission, vision, and values work isn’t about sounding good. It’s about knowing what matters enough that you’re willing to lose money for it. It’s about having something sturdy to grab onto when you’re spiraling at 3am wondering if you should blow the whole thing up.
This is why, even when clients come to me for what they think is tactical help, we almost always start with mission, vision, and values first. It’s not sexy, it’s not fast, but it's the foundation for everything else.
(And yes — this is the first thing we work on inside Foundations coaching, even if you think you’ve already “figured it out.”)
What Mission, Vision, and Values Actually Mean
Let’s break this down, because a lot of people get it twisted:
Mission:
Why your feet hit the floor every morning. What you do and the modalities you use to do it. It should feel so personal and real that you’d be willing to lose money over it if it meant staying true to yourself.
Vision:
Not where you are today but where you’re headed if you do your mission 60,000 times. It’s the ripple effect your work has on the world. If your vision is just “IPO” or “be in every big box store,” you’re missing the point.
Values:
The how. The operating agreements you live by, even when no one’s watching. Values are how you move through the world and how you invite your team to move with you. If your team doesn’t know your values, don’t be surprised when they start making choices that make you crazy.
If you can’t say what you stand for, what you’re moving toward, and how you work — other people will make those decisions for you.
And you won’t necessarily like where you end up.
Why You Can’t Fake It And Why AI Won’t Save You
You can’t shortcut your way into a real mission, vision, or set of values. Trust me — people try. They run templates, hire branding agencies, or copy what’s trendy because it’s easier than sitting in the messy, vulnerable work of figuring out what they actually care about.
But when you reach a hard moment — a product failure, a major leadership challenge, a decision about whether to sell or pivot or stay the course — you’re going to need something real to lean on.
A recycled mission statement that sounds good on LinkedIn isn’t going to help you when you’re exhausted, heartbroken, and questioning everything. The only thing that will help you is your own clarity — the real, raw, sometimes scary truth about why you’re here.
That’s why I don’t just help clients write pretty words. We build missions, visions, and values that can survive real life. The moments when your business drives you to consume Nerds Rope - or whiskey sours - in bulk.
If You’re Building Something Real, Start Here
If you take one thing from this post, let it be this: Mission, vision, and values aren’t extras — they’re oxygen.
If you’re feeling stuck, scattered, or low-key miserable in your business, this is where I’d look first. Not your social media strategy, not your quarterly goals, not your morning routine - though all of these are important!
And if you want support figuring it out — with someone who’s been through it and will sit in the hard stuff with you — that’s exactly what we do inside Foundations coaching. It’s not always pretty or fast, but it’s real and it changes everything.
