EP 127: All About Life Mission Series - How Does Mission Driven Living Work?
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“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”
These are words meant not just for Ethan Hunt but for YOU, right now! God divinely fashioned you to make a difference where you are. Your level of commitment to preparing for the calls God has for you will make all the difference for you, for your family, for your community, and beyond.
And all you have to do is say “YES!”
Through the lens of the Mission Impossible movies, Audrey demonstrates just how mission driven living works. Then, taking those same ideas into the life of George Washington and her own personal experiences, she paints a picture of a beautiful life cadence from one call to the next—full of self-discovery, personal development, and blessings to those around us.
If you’re ready to say yes and begin the adventure of life mission in your own life, this podcast is for you!
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Transcript AI Generated:
Hi, welcome back to the podcast. I’m Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission-Driven Life, founder of The Mission-Driven Mom, creator of the MDM Academy, and I’m your host today to talk about this series of questions we’re answering—what is a mission-driven life, what is mission-driven living, how does it work, and how can we be more mission-driven individuals?
I want to thank you for joining me today. If you’re brand new, you can head back to the beginning of the podcast and listen to some of those first episodes. They’ll give you some backstory. We talk in detail about the Seven Laws of Life Mission. You can listen to some mission-driven stories, and in the meantime, you can also keep up with our most recent podcasts.
You can expect a variety of different types of podcasts here. We tell mission-driven stories about great men and women—or sometimes men and women living today—who are living according to these Seven Laws of Life Mission. We also talk about what mission-driven living and a mission-driven life look like, which we’re going to dive into today.
We also talk to some of our students and graduates about the amazing things they’re doing in the world today in their mission-driven lives. And I also interview individuals—authors, influencers, and others—who have important things to teach us about how we can be more mission-driven in our own lives right now.
So thank you for joining me. It’s a joy to be here. If you haven’t headed over to themissiondrivenmom.com to get your free audiobook chapters, I encourage you to do that. We’re giving you part of The Mission-Driven Life book so that you can hear the backstory and framework of the Seven Laws and get acquainted with them easily.
While you’re there, if you want a hard copy, you can grab a copy of the book as well.
So thank you for being here today. We’re going to answer the question: How does mission-driven living work? And if you stay until the end, you’ll hear a little about my own path along this mission-driven life that I’m attempting to lead, and some of the stories of how I got started and what it’s looked like for me.
But I want to start out by giving you a frame of reference for mission-driven living that we’re all probably familiar with—and that is the Mission: Impossible movies. You guessed it—Ethan Hunt enters stage left.
In fact, I was reviewing one of the movies recently so I could say this more intelligently to you. It’s just so funny how he’s always on a plane or a mountain or something, and then something gets dropped and it says, “This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.” And it’s always insanely difficult and basically impossible.
But in the one I was watching recently, he’s talking to his superior and says, “Well, that sounds really hard.” And his superior replies, “This is Mission: Impossible. ‘Hard’ should be a walk in the park.”
So, we aren’t going to do Mission: Impossible when we try to live a mission-driven life, but sometimes it can feel like “Mission: Pretty Hard.”
You’ve probably seen one or more Mission: Impossible movies. You know who Ethan Hunt is—you have some context. So, keeping that in mind, let’s think about how those movies always start: he’s given the opportunity to choose to do something. There’s a need in the world. The world is calling to him: “Will you come and save us?” in some specific way.
The one I watched recently was Mission: Impossible 2. In that story, there’s a deadly virus that kills within two days, and a corrupt company has been building both the virus and its antidote so they can create the problem and then sell the solution. The scientist working on it tries to get to the United States—probably to work with the U.S. government—but he’s killed along the way.
So the call that Ethan Hunt gets is: “Will you save the world? Will you find where this virus is? We have an agent who’s gone rogue—he has both the virus and the antidote—and we need to stop him before he starts a global epidemic.”
Now, the calls that you and I get aren’t going to be to save the world in such a literal way. But I want to break down what goes on with Ethan so that you can better understand how this applies to us.
If you’ve read my book—or even just parts of it—you’ve seen how, in everyday ways, we can hear and answer calls all the time. There are also larger, encompassing elements. In my last video in this series, I shared an analogy about a king who sees all the needs of his kingdom, and when you make yourself available, he sends you where you’re needed.
Today, I want to talk more about the tactical side—what it actually looks like and how it really works.
In Ethan Hunt’s case, there have been years and years of preparation. These are what we call the foundational laws: loving God, loving yourself, loving truth, and loving humanity. We’ll return to those laws all our lives. We can always get better at loving ourselves, loving God, loving truth, and loving humanity.
But until our home is in good enough order—until we’re out of victimhood, our relationships are more stable, and we’re living some solid financial and personal principles—it’s very hard, when things are messy and out of control, to go out and serve others.
That’s why, when we see ourselves as children of God and treat ourselves as such, we can first be of service to ourselves and our homes. That’s where it starts. We work on ourselves and our homes first, and then we can begin serving in our community.
Now, Ethan Hunt probably doesn’t believe in God, and I don’t know if he’s lived all these laws, but he’s definitely prepared. And those foundational laws encourage us to prepare as well. There are two ways we prepare for the calls God has for us:
- We say yes right now to the things we already know we should do.
- We prepare as we go.
We’re intentional about our preparation. We gain knowledge and skills, we work on ourselves and our homes first, and we recognize that preparation leads to calls—and calls lead to more preparation. As we execute calls, we develop new skills and gain more experience, which makes us more capable of answering larger and larger calls.
We don’t know much about Ethan Hunt’s backstory—maybe there’s a book series somewhere—but what we do know is that he shows up with massive preparation, education, and skill. He’s done a lot to become the person capable of answering a call that big—one to save the world.
Here are some practical skills he’s clearly developed:
He’s proficient with guns, explosives, and other equipment—an expert-level operator. He knows which weapons to use and when. He’s also incredibly good at hand-to-hand combat, with strength, agility, and endurance at the top of his physical game. In Mission: Impossible 2, he’s even free-climbing a rock wall at the beginning!
There are always car chases, too—and he can manage all kinds of vehicles: cars, motorcycles, helicopters, and more. He can operate them under high-stress, high-stakes conditions with incredible precision.
He also works with a team. He handpicks his people, depends on them, trusts them implicitly, listens to their advice, and surrounds himself with those who can help him accomplish his mission. He’s an excellent team leader—he sees what needs to be done and coordinates everyone effectively.
He’s also an expert in secrecy, stealth, and spy work.
Now, of course, not everyone could reach his level of proficiency—and honestly, his abilities are “impossible” because it’s Hollywood—but there are real people, like Navy SEALs or special agents, who train and develop high levels of these same kinds of skills.
He also has access to a vast network of resources. The heads of his organization are plugged into the world’s top leaders and intelligence networks. In the story I watched, they’d discovered the virus threat and were coordinating with top agencies globally. They trust Ethan completely—he’s earned that trust—and they give him everything he needs to succeed.
They provide him with other agents—in that movie, a woman whose trust he had to earn because of her relationship with the villain, which allowed her to infiltrate. He can also choose the rest of his team, and they’re all experts in their respective fields. They back him up with tech, surveillance, and intelligence.
He has access to all the equipment he needs—explosives, technology, flights, secret identities, passports, travel arrangements—whatever it takes. They also cover his living expenses and provide financial resources and global connections.
If you listened to my last podcast, this probably sounds familiar—it’s the same analogy I used before.
And finally, his personal character: we admire Ethan Hunt because he puts his life on the line for the good of others. He usually has little to gain and a lot to lose when he accepts these missions. Sometimes it’s his wife’s life at stake; other times, it’s the whole world. It’s definitely over-the-top praise for him—but it’s also inspiring.
But the fundamental issue is, he doesn’t have to be this guy. He doesn’t have to risk his life—and he does. And we know that. Sometimes his life might be at risk, but sometimes not. Sometimes it wouldn’t affect him much not to do the mission, but he’s the type of person who has been willing to do all the work to get himself in this position where he can do this kind of work. And he’s always willing to risk himself for the greater good.
He keeps himself in top condition. He accepts the mission. He has a passion for the work. He has the natural talents and abilities—in addition to the preparation. Obviously, he had interests in that direction, and he was willing to do the work to be that kind of person. In many ways, he doesn’t always have the same moral compass that I would have in different aspects of his life.
But he definitely knows some key, fundamental aspects of right and wrong. He really respects life. He tries not to kill people, even if they’re very evil, unless he absolutely has to. And it’s those traits that he has that cause us to like him, trust him, want to follow him in his adventures, and to cheer him on when he’s trying to make the world a better place.
And of course, all of us can choose to be Ethan Hunt. We can choose to live a mission-driven life, where we hear calls and we answer them. So I’m going to give you the example of George Washington, and we’re going to walk through and talk about what mission-driven living looked like for him.
And then I’m going to tell you a little bit about me. He, of course, was born in 1732 in Virginia to a slaveholding family, and they were pretty well off. I don’t know all the details—I didn’t go research everything about why he didn’t inherit and how that all went down—but when he was eleven years old, his father died.
And when this happened, basically his formal education ended. If you’ve read much about Washington or from Washington, you know that he was very self-conscious about this. He was surrounded by men who had the most elite education available, probably in the world at that time, but definitely in the United States.
And he felt inferior to them because he tried to be a lifelong learner. He tried to always keep reading and educating himself, but he hadn’t learned all of the other languages, and he hadn’t read all of the great classics that they had. And so he felt a little bit inferior, and it was because his dad died and he didn’t get to finish that formal education where he would’ve received that tutoring.
So time goes by, and he’s working, he’s learning, he’s doing the stuff. And when he’s seventeen years old, he’s appointed to be a county surveyor for a frontier county called Culpeper. It’s really interesting because this is where his interests, his natural propensities—his strengths—really started to show. He was a very tall man, a very strong man. He was more inclined to tactical things rather than abstract ones.
Someone like Thomas Jefferson was interested in tinkering with things and inventing, but definitely way more of an intellectual. George Washington loved to be outdoors. He loved the rough and tumble. He loved to do things with his hands. So when he was seventeen years old, he accepted this post to be a surveyor, and he did really well at it.
He really, really liked it—and it was rough work. I mean, he was out living in the middle of nowhere on his own, living off the land, and trying to survey this county by himself. It taught him a lot of lessons.
And the question I’m going to ask as I go through this example, and my own, is—was this his mission? Was the call to be a surveyor? Well, yeah, he felt like it was the right thing to do. It matched his interests, and like I mentioned before, it developed certain traits, certain gifts, certain skills that he used later. The more he did this kind of thing, the better he got at it, and the more everything he learned could be of use.
It’s this cumulative effect in our lives when we say yes. And he keeps saying yes—to the next call, to the next opportunity. He faces his fears. He steps out courageously. He does something he’s never done before. Sometimes with minimal mentorship, sometimes with minimal financial aid—he just does it. He takes on the adventure. He says yes to the call again and again.
A couple of years later, his brother becomes ill. So they travel together to Barbados—it’s the only time Washington travels outside North America. While he’s in Barbados, he contracts smallpox. Again, this becomes an opportunity to go do something adventurous, to see the world, and it’s also a call to take care of his brother. He travels with him so he doesn’t have to travel alone.
And guess what happens? He gets really, really sick. But by virtue of the fact that he got sick, he was able to care for his soldiers and remain in the war later when smallpox broke out. So again, every time we take an opportunity to serve—he’s serving his brother, he’s developing his own skills—it comes back to bless him and many other people in the future.
A year or so later, Governor Dinwiddie, the governor of Virginia, sends him on a mission to the Ohio Valley to deliver a message to the French. And when he goes on this journey, he keeps a journal and writes down everything that happens. When he’s done, it’s a successful mission, but again, it’s fraught with danger.
He’s traveling through Native American territory to deliver a message to the French. It’s very dangerous—he could have lost his life—but it was important for Virginia that this happen. He had proven himself in the militia and through his work as a surveyor, so he was given this task. In fact, I think he may have even volunteered for it.
He was just in his early twenties. By virtue of the fact that he ran a successful mission and wrote down his journal, which he later handed to Governor Dinwiddie, this journal was printed—and you can still find it online. It made him a local celebrity and earned him a lot of respect.
A year later, he’s still a soldier—now a major—and he travels again to the Ohio Valley to fight for Virginia’s claim on some land. During that campaign, he has a combative confrontation with French soldiers. His men end up retreating and surrendering. It’s really embarrassing to Washington. But again, he’s on the front lines. He’s learning a lot from these experiences.
He’s so embarrassed by this that he resigns his commission. That failed campaign ends up sparking the French and Indian War. He could’ve just decided he’d had enough—that he was too embarrassed, that it was over—but he didn’t. He didn’t slink away. He kept saying yes when new opportunities came.
He recognized that he loved being in the military—that was where he performed best—and that he really wanted to be involved. He loved his country, the colony of Virginia, and he wanted to fight for and defend it.
The next year, he returns to the Ohio frontier as a volunteer for General Braddock. He exhibits great courage and leadership, and because of this, he’s recognized for his conduct in battle and given command of the entire military force of Virginia. Still a very young man, just in his mid-twenties, he’s already recognized as someone with great courage and valor in the face of death.
Of course, countless people in America—and around the world—owe the freedom they enjoy, at least in part, to this man.
A few years later, he marries Martha Custis, the widow of a wealthy man and mother of two young children. George and Martha couldn’t have children together—it was probably George’s infertility, since Martha had already had children. He loved his stepchildren as his own.
For the next sixteen years, they lived at Mount Vernon. He was a gentleman farmer, and he loved it. From the beginning, he was born into a slaveholding culture—he couldn’t change that—but he did try to live it differently. He was generous with his slaves. He kept families together and wouldn’t sell them off, even though it became a financial burden. He gave them opportunities to innovate on the property and lived in relative harmony with them.
Obviously, they were still enslaved, so I’m not trying to sugarcoat it—but within the time and place he lived, he elevated his circumstances. He lived a higher level of truth at a time when he didn’t have to. That tells us a lot about his character.
Then, of course, in 1775, he’s appointed Commander of the Continental Army. For eight years he risks his life over and over again, taking care of his soldiers who often had nothing. If you study that war, you’ll see the struggle and the heartache—how they went without supplies, how the states didn’t always send soldiers or money. It was awful.
And when the war was over, he resigned his commission and gave his power back to the people. He was declared a hero around the world because that kind of humility and integrity were rare.
Finally, I said yes. Okay, I’ll try it. You’re gonna get what you’re gonna get—I just made sure they understood this was going to be whatever it was going to be. I wasn’t making any promises. But they wanted me to come, so I did.
I found out that I’m a pretty okay speaker naturally. Then I got asked to be on a panel, and then to speak more at conferences. So for over twenty years, I’ve been public speaking simply because I said yes when people asked me. They saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself, and I responded to that feedback.
So this book club grows and grows. By the end of that year, I’m homeschooling, and I realize we don’t have the kinds of things I want—we don’t have a science fair, we don’t have group outings, we don’t have family events. I really wanted an annual Shakespeare dinner for couples where we could read Shakespeare together and enjoy a traditional dinner. I wanted a family ball.
And I knew other people wanted these things too. I saw a need, and I answered the call. I gathered a few friends, we met over the summer, brainstormed how we could do it together. We booked a free room at the library, sent out invitations to people we knew, and asked them to invite others.
They came, they paid a small annual fee, they volunteered in the community, and we connected online. It grew and grew until we had over a hundred families in this community. We had an annual ball every year. Later I moved, but it outlived me—it kept going.
And all I did was say yes—like George Washington, like Ethan Hunt. Every time I said yes, I learned, I grew, I developed. I found more gifts. I made mistakes and learned from them. And over time, I was able to have more and more influence—really until now.
Today, I’m on this podcast. I’ve had the privilege of talking to people like James Lindsay and Susie Mighell, who will be on soon, and others I’ve been reaching out to. I’ve been able to work with Richard Paul Evans, a number one New York Times bestselling author, who helped design my cover and endorsed my book.
I’ve had the privilege of amazing experiences—meeting heroes, taking pictures with them, and hoping to meet more. When I was bumping around that college campus years ago, I never imagined I’d be doing what I’m doing today.
I’m not famous. Most people don’t know who I am. I’m not Ethan Hunt or George Washington. But in my own small way, in the circles I move in, I’m trying to serve. I’m trying to see a need and answer a call—to give people something that I believe will bless their lives.
And in many cases, it’s blessed mine too. In every case, I bring my family with me. I’ve taught them the things I’ve learned, read books aloud to them, and built a family culture of great literature. They saw the book club in our home. They saw me taking risks and facing fears. They’ve come to hear me speak, and when I was on the radio or speaking at big public rallies, they could be proud of a mom using her gifts in the world.
I’ve had the privilege of serving over six hundred women in the academy and watching their lives change through the curriculum I’ve built—which happens to be one of my gifts.
And you can do these same things. You are so much more gifted than you think you are. You can truly live a mission-driven life—where, over time, as you see a need and say yes, as you grow in your love of God, you love yourself better. You take the actions of love for yourself—self-care, self-leadership, self-discovery.
Then you love truth. You build a principle-centered life and a principle-centered home and family. Then you go out and learn about the people in your community. You understand the bridges you can build through shared principles. Then you see needs and start to answer them—as many of our graduates are doing right now.
And as you listen to their stories on this podcast, I hope they’ll inspire you too. This is you. This can be you. You are amazing. All you have to do is say yes.
Just say yes right now. Offer yourself to God. Tell Him that you’re willing to learn and grow—to face fears, to take personal inventory, to strive to overcome, and to grow as an individual. He will show you the first step.
If my book can help, I’m grateful. If our academy can help, I’m grateful. But most of all, what I really want you to know is that you are divinely fashioned—that you are irreplaceable, that your worth is infinite, and that you can make a difference right now, where you are. You’re already leading. People are already following you. They’re watching you level up, improve your game, improve your skills.
Go practice more. Be willing to fail faster. Be willing to take risks. Be willing to face your fears. You will be shocked at the person you become, the opportunities that open up to you, and the positive influence you get to have—right where you are, in your own world.
So please, become that servant leader God means for you to be—because the world misses out if you don’t become who you could be.
Thank you so much for joining me today. If this podcast has been a help or inspiration to you, please pass it along and leave us a review. Thank you for joining me, and I’ll see you next time.
