How Stoicism Inspired Me to Change My Company’s Mission
By: João V Souza
Tags: Stoicism, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Business, Goals

Big Hairy Audacious Goal

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” — Seneca

When I started my first company, I didn’t understand the importance of setting goals. I knew how to work hard, and that was what my three partners and I did. After two years of long hours of work and a few hours of sleep, my three partners decided to give up the entrepreneurial journey. We were not getting good results. I decided to go on, but I had to learn to work better to achieve better results. That’s when I learned about goals. Setting goals helped me make my company profitable, and when that happened, I started to think more about long term.

I learned from Jim Collins’ books that a company’s mission is its Big Hairy Audacious Goal. BHAG is a powerful and bold long-term goal, which influences the medium and short term goals. This long-term goal has the purpose to challenge and motivate everybody to do a better job, which was something that I was looking for.

Jim Collins presented four types of mission:

Targeting: set a clear, well-defined target and aim for it. Most examples were about being #1 in an industry or country. Common Enemy: set out to defeat a common enemy. It appeals to people’s competitive instincts. Role Model: use organizations that you admire as images of what you want your company to become. Internal Transformation: usually best in organizations that need a dramatic restructuring.

Although I didn’t choose to go with the Common Enemy type of mission, I’m a very competitive person. I always thought about being the best. Because of that, I chose the Targeting type. I defined my company's mission as “Be the #1 word game company in the world”.

Entrepreneurship is a long-term emotional game

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…” — Epictetus

There are some absolute things in our lives. One is that we will always have problems. Entrepreneurial life is basically solving problems. So it is up to us to decide how we are going to face them. We can complain or find ways to solve them.

In 2018, I was going through burn out, and because of that, I started therapy. One of the things I learned from my psychologist is that we tend to create goals considering things that are not in our control, which is frustrating. I remember saying that I would like my next romantic relationship to be the last one in my life. However, this is not an objective that belongs to me alone. What is up to me is the type of person I will be in the relationship, so, even if it doesn’t work out, the important thing is to look back and see what kind of person I was.

Being the number one company in the world was not a goal that was entirely up to me either. I have no control over the results of other companies. Let’s say you set the goal of making US$2 billion in revenue for the year because currently, the #1 company in the world in your segment makes US$1 billion. The year ends, and you reach US$2 billion, but the company that is currently #1 in the world makes US$ 3 billion. How do you feel? You couldn’t reach the goal of being #1 in the world. As much as you made an incredible number, our brain focuses on the part not achieved, which creates frustration.