My Mission
It is my firm belief that just as every successful company has its own Mission Statement, in life, individuals need one as well in order to be successful. It has been my experience that people who have one generally get a lot further in life than those who don’t, regardless of their own walk in life.
Rick Upshaw’s Mission Statement
When I was just starting out in life, I was fortunate enough to be exposed to a sales organization full of professionals who taught me (among other things) that regular self-improvement and training is something I ought to consider mandatory in my life if I was every going to be a success. They were right, and I teach that important fact today to my students and clients. In my very first seminar, I heard a sentence that changed my life. This was not any kind of special one-on-one training or mentoring. Rick Upshaw was just some punk kid barely out of school who had no idea what he wanted to do with his life – until he heard one sentence. That one sentence has been the driving force in my life ever since that day, more than 20 years ago.
“If you help enough other people get where they want to go, you’ll eventually get where you want to go.”
The man giving the seminar was Zig Ziglar, and what I paid for his training I’ve gotten back 1,000 times over – professionally as well as personally! I don’t know how much training – if any – Zig Ziglar does anymore, but if you ever get the opportunity to hear this man speak, I strongly advise you to pay any price to do so!
I must admit that I have not always succeeded in following the mission dictated by that one sentence. I’ve fallen short many times…. perhaps even more than I’ve succeeded. Sometimes I’ve turned away from it entirely for my own selfish reasons. I believe that most people follow a similar journey with their own unique “ups and downs”. However, every time I got my head screwed on straight again, it was always this one sentence that gave me purpose, motivation and direction. Whatever business idea I was working on – my own or someone else’s… whatever client I was working with… whatever new ideas I’ve had over the years…. everything is compared against that standard.
Today I live my life and run my businesses by the same standard. If a project doesn’t stand up against that standard, I don’t pursue it. Period. People I’m working with may quit before reaching their goals. Funding might disappear. Laws may change or get rewritten causing the opportunity to disappear. Perhaps the right resources or staffing doesn’t materialize in time to make the project work. However, the underlying core driving force, “helping others get where they want to go” has always remained.
For example, the consulting services I provide for businesses are such that – in the vast majority of cases – I can estimate a client’s return on investment for my services prior to a client engaging my services. I get paid for helping my clients “get where they want to go” which, in this case, is a more streamlined, more effective and more profitable business operation. My clients win, their clients win and I win as I get paid to help them get where they want to go. I believe all business should be that way, and that is the influence I’ve tried to have on the business world with my products and services, as well as any contribution I have to this world outside of my business life.
Living my life working to help others get where they want to go has given me a laser-sharp focus, purpose and direction in a world that continues to spin more and more out of control every day because of people (such as our politicians, for example) who continue to live their lives for themselves rather for others, and I could not be more grateful to Zig Ziglar for his wisdom in understanding this concept as well as his talent for being able to convey it to me in such a way that I would never forget it.
