Adam Torres Explains Why Mission Matters

Serial entrepreneur Adam Torres kicked off the Fall 2021 semester entrepreneur lecture series, sponsored by the School of Business’ Entrepreneurship Center, with a passionate talk about making your mission matter.  Mr. Torres reflected on his career path, which has led him in various directions before co-founding Mission Matters, a media agency.  Adam first aspired to become a financial advisor and quickly discovered his desire for entrepreneurship and owning his own business. One of his mentors advised him to write a book, which sounded like an unattractive proposition at first. However, when thinking about it more deeply, Adam realized the value of publishing his insights and helping others along the way. He pointed out that his first work was by no means perfect, but he learned and improved as he progressed. The Money Matters series became a great success, with each of the collective works still available on main book-selling outlets.

Publishing books on finance-related topics soon led to numerous LinkedIn invites and speaking engagements, which expanded his network tremendously, exposed him to a global audience and turned out to be a lucrative endeavor.

Through these engagements, Adam received a recommendation to start a podcast.  Like book-publishing, he didn’t think it was right for him at first, but decided to play around with the idea. He started to record with his iPhone and his amateur earphones with the assistance of ‘how-to’ clips on YouTube.

While imperfect, his podcasts gained traction, and after four years of operations, his Mission Matters podcast, a series of eight popular shows, now has more than 11,000 episodes.  Mission Matters, which is also published as a book-series in the Business Leaders volumes, elevates the voice of entrepreneurs, entertainers, experts, and executives through evergreen material that is timeless and meaningful to current and future audiences. The series ranks in the top 5% out of 2,617, 524 podcasts globally (according to Listen Notes ranking index).

Some important takeaways from Adam’s lecture:

• You can learn everything regarding an entrepreneurial endeavor through YouTube, so start there if you want to dive into any direction.
• Understand that your current focus may not be your final one. Sometimes your biggest success is not necessarily what you currently consider your passion.
• Making a start can be hard and challenging, but if you are persistent and keep moving forward, you will find that practice makes for a great outcome!
• Keeping yourself motivated throughout the rough path of building a business is not easy, but can become rewarding when you find that others rely on you. The fact that you’re making a difference will help you manage your own problems.
• Mentors are great, but make sure you match your mentors to your need. Sometimes you can outgrow certain mentors or not be ready for new ones. Your growth is influenced through your connection with the right mentor at the right moment. And that’s a constantly moving target.

Last Updated on October 12, 2021.