What's your mission statement?

When Matt and I were sophomores at BYU, we were in the same ward and had a fantastic bishop by the name of Stephen Covey (he was the oldest son of the famous author). It was 2 years after the well know book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" had hit the bestsellers list. Our bishop took 3 months and put a few of us through the leadership course that was taught at the Covey Leadership Center. Matt and I were fortunate to be in that group. It was terrific.

Fast forward to now. I saw the above book in a bookstore and thought it would be great to read. The idea of the book is to teach young children the 7 Habits and implement it in their lives. Easy, right? I finished the book this weekend and was excited to put it into action. In the last chapter, the construction of a family mission statement is discussed. Decided where you want your family to go and how you want to get there and put it into a statement. I was excited. This was going to be great. We needed a family mission statement. (I tend to get a touch over-excited about things like this.)

I was talking about it to Matt and the kids were wandering in and out as we were discussing it. Brett came in and asked, "Hey, don't we already have a family mission statement?" I started to think that we had already done this and I'd completely forgotten. This was entirely possible the way my brain has been working lately. Just as I was about to pat myself on the back, I asked him if he remembered our statement. "Oh, sure," he said. "Don't be an idiot."

Matt was eating a bowl of cereal at the time and I thought he would have milk come out of his nose he was laughing so hard. Me and my grand ideas.

Isn't that nice? Our family mission statement is "Don't be an idiot." Short. Sweet. To the point. At least they won't forget it.

I think I need a new book.