Purpose & Vision

Your personal purpose can be a key source of creativity and differentiation. What is it that you are setting out to do that goes beyond your personal benefit? This section is reflective and deeply personal. It is designed to help you begin thinking about what your purpose is.

The reason we specify purpose is so that it can become a filter/benchmark. It becomes a reference point for whenever we make a decision. We can easily tell if what we are doing is actually aligned with our long-term purpose, and we can focus on just that.

Purpose also encompasses a focus on "profit sustainability". This is to ensures that people we are responsible for have security. That is a responsibility as a business owner. We also have a responsibility to run a business that embodies the values that we believe in. An organization's values meet, change, and evolve and grow over time as an organization grows, but in the early nascent days, it is absolutely critical that those are the values of the owner, founder, co-founders of that business.

The way I understand this, purpose becomes synonymous with "direction" and "goal" and the best goals are set to be precise and have a measurable level of success. On an even higher level, it is important to factor in the 10-year time span! It isn't just enough to do just be what makes you happy. If we did, we'd simply seek dopamine sources like alcohol, drugs and sex. Purpose must be at an intersection between Happiness, Financial reward, and an excellent Risk/Reward Ratio.

1. Happiness - is this project going to keep you happy for 10 years
   • Will it keep you happy for a long time?
   • If it satisfies this criterion, you'll naturally focus more on it, spend more time on it, and get good at it
   • Work on things you'll continuously be happy to work on for a long period of time
2. Financial - is this project going to make the money you want in 10 years
   • watch out for project that makes more money but doesn't keep you happy. These short-term projects will leave you unfocussed on the bigger picture.
   • E.g. working at a job might seem like the best decision for the next 3 months. You'll be more comfortable in the short term, but this detracts from your long-term goals.
   • There may be other things that make more money, but if you're not interested in them, you won't do them properly over the long term. You'll get distracted.
3. Risk / Reward Ratio - if this thing does not work out, would you still be happy and be glad you did it at your death bed?
   • A common barrier for people is the fear of taking large risk e.g. they don't want to lose their comfortable job
   • if it doesn't work out, would you still be happy? And if so, what can you lose from taking the risk? You'll still be winning. You'll be glad you did that.
   • There's nothing called a "risk free opportunity" but there are opportunities that you're glad you swung at.

If what you're doing fulfils all the above, then it is always going to be the right choice. It will always make you happy. Especially if you think about these things over a span of 10 years i.e. the LONG term. If it lacks aby of these, then it's a bad decision. It is a framework to check your decisions, to see if it'll take you where you want to go. But overall, you can't do anything without defining your purpose; do this and you'll head in a direction in your life that you won't regret on your death bed. Focus and streamline your work.

It will help you focus and streamline what you do. Stop working on 100 things and work on the thing that matters to you. Work on what will make the money, make you happy etc. why work on 15 things to make a 1 Billion $ when you can just work on 1?

Why have a Purpose?

Tim argued that roles used to be predetermined, yet the erosion of traditional structures (family and community roles) have replaced life-long jobs with job hopping. Back then, defining your purpose was less relevant - you'd most often follow a pre-determined path.

Nowadays, you are set on a path where you decide what you want to do. Unfortunately, a side effect of this newly attained "freedom" is some struggles such as (addictions and anxieties). Anthony Giddens, Runaway world 1999, The Reith Lectures. This is why it is important to define what your purpose is. You are expected to self-determine your purpose to avoid this.

Ken Banks argued that If you go looking for things, most often you don't find them. It is the same with purpose. Therefore, sometimes it's best to just throw yourself into the world and your purpose will find you.

Ken realised when watching live aid 1985, that while living his comfortable life in jersey, he becomes less aware of people in other countries who are living with a completely different reality. They live with famine etc. and this made him feel privileged. This is when he realised his purpose to help people through his own guilt. This is why he worked on Frontline SMS without focussing on profits for 8 years. He actually didn't take profits, but just did it as a social venture. He wrote the code himself, had no co-founders or any of that.

"I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good" ~ Roald Dahl

You should stick with what you believe in. He also disapproves of innovation for innovation sake. He argues that you can't focus on innovation for its own sake when you can instead help millions of people in third world countries with the same funding. For that, you don't need the fastest and best.

Other reasons why purpose matters:

• Motivation, Direction & Drive
• Passion, Happiness and confidence
• Clarity
• Staying on track
• Resilience
• Sense of achievement and success

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs. Self-actualization needs are the highest level in Maslow's hierarchy, and refer to the realization of a person's potential, self fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. Maslow (1943) describes this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be.

Having a Social Impact Through Your Purpose

Industry trends and perceptions are changing, "conscious capitalism". A company that is a great demonstration of this is Patagonia. Patagonia is a company that is an American clothing company that markets and sells outdoor clothing. It is also known for having a strong purpose/being quite progressive. They believe quite strongly in causing no unnecessary harm. They aim to create "triple value".

In 2017 their mission statement read "Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis" ~ 2017. By 2019 it read "We're in business to save our home planet".

Patagonia is an interesting case, where they use their values to create value - not just in the financial sense, but in the environmental and social sense as well. In 2011 they had an anti-consumerism advert saying, "don't buy this jacket", pushing against people buying their product. They tried to push people to send in their stuff to have it repaired. This caused their sales to increase by 30%.

People buy into this vison because it is highly authentic - "we care". Eventually, they pivoted to being more akin to an NGO. They donated 10% of profits, had a rapid grant mechanism to NPO's and a 100 year business and impact plan. Clearly, they have been heavily driven by the founders values from the start.

Damon, 2008, argued that purpose is a "stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the same time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond the self."

I've highlighted the two important parts. It should be important to you and your inner being and have connotation of an impact not just about you.

Purpose Statement - Questions to Home in on Purpose, Passion and Profit

To choose what to work in, marry your inclinations, aptitudes, and opportunities. Trial and error is the only way to find what you're good at.

The vehicle of doing things normally doesn't matter when it comes to your purpose and if what you are doing has a meaningful impact. Ritesh for example didn't set out to start a coffee company, but it satisfies his purpose. Purpose, Passion and Profit; what you should do is at the intersection of these things. The question is with what type of purpose are you turning into meaningful work?

The questions are:

1. What issues or ideas make your heart beat faster? Whether you're compelled by them, angered by them or because you were overjoyed by them
2. Think back to a moment when you felt most alive. Why did you have this feeling?
3. What about your future excites you and why?
4. In what types of experiences do you tend to be at your best?
5. What values are dear to your heart?
6. When where your values in tension with others expectations? Describe the situation?
7. When you imagined the world you want to live in, what 3 words come to mind?
8. Have you ever stood up for anyone? who and why?
9. Who Inspires you? Why?
10. What challenges and problems in the world do you ache to see solved?
11. When you hear the word profit, what are the first things that come to your mind?
12. When did you last benefit from a situation without any financial gain?
13. What is your position regarding the following statement? "When someone profits, someone else loses"
14. Think back to a situation that deeply shaped who you are. What role did money play?
15. If you were starting a company or project, what values would you shape it around?

These questions are always evolving, so it is worth editing and updating these as we figure things out. Nothing is right or wrong, you can make those distinctions yourself. Above, questions 1-5 hone in on passion, 6-10 on Purpose and 11-15 on Profit. Examine your output, are there deeper commonalities, a thread that ties it all together? What are you observing?

Theory of Change

A criticism of the lean startup methodology is that although it is good at improving precision and narrowing down focus and precise in testing hypotheses, with its constant iterative feedback loop, it focusses on how peoples lives are today. It lacks a transformative change vison - how things may look in the future. It is less good at imagining and creating new products that drive towards broader transformative change. That is what this theory of change is about - formalizing a futuristic outcome.

Think, define a theory of change for your idea/startup: If your startup were to be successful, what change will it create in the world? What will it be remembered for? How will the world look like in 2035 thanks to the realization of your startup idea? What legacy do you want to leave behind? Create a broader scope and a broader vison. Future making though business, closer to activism. And how does what your organization does today link to your legacy and the long-term goals you have defined.

How can you imbue the business with this? Out in the open, observable, and tangible methods, but there are also in the air, unobservable and intangible methods. Mission statements, norms and explicit expectations, rewards and celebrations, benchmarks, and self-regulation. You can also manifest this though practices and rituals.

Books:

• The Road to Character, David Brooks
• Design Your Future, Dominick Quartuccio