Last week I shared with you our vision as a gym. That we exist to facilitate a higher quality of life by helping others reach their health and fitness goals. This week I want to put some teeth to that statement by sharing with you our mission.
Before we jump into that though, I want to once again provide some context and define terms so we’re all on the same page. If our vision defines why we exist as a gym, our mission is the way in which we carry out that vision on a day to day basis. When we talk about a mission, we’re really talking about marching orders. Our mission is what we can do day in and day out that will move the needle further and further in the direction of our vision as a gym.
To give a common example, any good and well equipped soldier understands the reason why the military they serve exists. Whether that be to promote the common welfare of the people, to protect and to serve, to expand an empire, etc… the good soldier knows ultimately why they have a job. The soldiers day to day actions, their mission (fighting in a war, upholding the law, striving for justice, etc…), serves that ultimate purpose. If that is not the case, there will always be a disconnect between what one wants to achieve and what actually occurs. It is imperative that the mission serves the vision.
Now that we have some context let’s look at the Laminin Mission. Our mission is to daily provide the most excellent quality strength and conditioning on the market in a fun, challenging, and encouraging environment. Just like with our vision statement, every phrase in our mission statement has a specific purpose. Lets dive into each of those.
The first phrase describes the quality of product we want to provide those who trust us with their health and fitness. A couple of the characteristics we want to be known for is our consistency and our excellence in what we do. This is because it’s easy to be excellent occasionally and it’s easy to be consistently below average. However, one of the ultimate characteristics and determinants of character are those rare individuals, companies, and causes that are consistently excellent in everything they do. The reason these two traits are so rare is because they can not be faked or imitated. For someone to be consistently excellent will require their cause to be rooted deep in their soul. If it’s not, the storms of adversity will wash away their drive and desire just as quickly as they were planted.
One part of our mission is to strive for excellence every day in every action we take as a company and as members of that company. We want our athletes to know they can count on us to deliver and to trust that what we deliver on is going to be done with excellence. Why? Because this develops a track record of trust that deepens our relationship with our athletes and ultimately allows us to help them more and ensure that they are achieving the higher quality of life they desire (e.g. our vision). If we fail to carry out our day to day actions with consistency and excellence, then our athletes have no reason to trust us and in the end, they are the ones who will suffer.
I don’t want to get too long winded on this point, but it’s so important that I can’t afford to skim over it. There have been a lot of gyms recently in our area that have closed down (this topic in and of itself will need to be another blog post) and shut their doors. I won’t venture to say why that has happened. However, I will be bold enough to say that if Laminin is to be different and to endure, it will be because we remain committed to these two convictions of excellence and consistency. The moment those stop being defining characteristics of our owners and our coaches will be the moment we fail and start a downward spiral to closing our doors.
The next phrase, ‘strength and conditioning’ actually refers to our product. This is the ‘package’ that delivers to our members a higher quality of life. Laminin is, at its core, a strength and conditioning program. We are not Zumba, spin class, or a yoga studio. We are a strength and conditioning facility who employs and equips strength and conditioning coaches. This is part of the reason you don’t see Laminin offering a ton of different options outside of our CrossFit Classes, Personal Training, or Nutrition Coaching. We don’t specialize in those other offerings, because we know they don’t serve our vision and that we can’t carry them out with excellence and consistency. This doesn’t mean those other offerings are bad, it just means they are areas we have chosen not to pursue so that what we do pursue (CrossFit) can be done exceptionally well and with everything we have.
The final phrase in our mission statement describes the environment in which we want to deliver a consistently excellent strength and conditioning program. These three descriptions are fun, challenging, and encouraging. Each of these are non-negotiable for us. Our members must have fun or they will not come back. Likewise our athletes must be challenged or they are never going to see the results they desire. In addition, if they’re not encouraged they run a high likelihood of losing momentum when things get hard and become tempted to throw in the towel.
Out of all the aspects of our mission statement, this last one is the one I see that we carry out the best in our gym. Our coaches do a fantastic job of making sure people smile when they come into our gym - we have a lot of fun. Not only do we have fun, but we also don’t allow our athletes to shy away from challenges. Our programming is not watered down and we do not neglect programming certain movements or workouts in fear that no one will show up. This is because we know that nothing grows inside our comfort zones, least of all our fitness. Finally, we encourage one another - not just our coaches, but everyone. We understand that no one is in this alone and that together we will always achieve more with others than we will alone.
This is our mission: to daily provide the most excellent strength and conditioning on the market in a fun, challenging, and encouraging environment. We’re not perfect at it by any means. But we are committed to it.
Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1
Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin
