Positive Impact E-Book

Francisco Palao

• Herausgeber: Editorial Bubok Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 412

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

EVOLVE YOUR MINDSET TO IMPROVE YOUR PROJECTS… AND THE WORLD! Humanity's current challenges are also huge business opportunities. To leverage them, we have more technology and knowledge at our disposal than ever before in the history of mankind. However, the key that distinguishes individuals and organizations with successful projects is their mindset—the way they view the world, face challenges, and overcome them. This is precisely the point this book addresses: the mindset we need, whether in a startup or a large organization, to successfully implement our business projects and have a positive impact on the world. The book shares with readers many success stories and a novel and increasingly recognized framework called Purpose Launchpad, which integrates, organizes, and optimizes existing innovation methodologies and takes them one step further. Innovation alone is no longer enough because we have entered a new era: the era of positive impact. This book and its author, Francisco Palao, will accompany you through your mindset's evolution so you can improve your projects… and the world! -------------- "When you face a large problem that can be transformed into a business opportunity, you can start to change the world, and this book will inspire you and guide you to do it." – Jack Sim (Founder, World Toilet Organization) "Positive Impact shares an interesting journey across current innovation methodologies, unfolding them to create Purpose Launchpad. This book will help startups and organizations get to the next level." – Pilar Manchón (Senior Director of Research Strategy, Google Research) "If you're an entrepreneur, you must read and implement this wonderful book. Once you've read it, you and your startup will have evolved." – Carlos Saucedo (CEO, Labgo) "The world has needed this book for some time; it offers the keys that every corporation needs to evolve. It goes beyond methods to focus on what's truly important: our mindset!" – Guayente Sanmartin (General Manager, Global Head of Commercial Systems & Displays Solutions, HP)

Leseprobe

Positive Impact

Positive Impact

The Purpose Launchpad mindset and the framework to improve your startup, your organization, and the world

FRANCISCO PALAO

© Francisco Carlos Palao Reinés, 2022 © Positive Impact

August 2022

ISBN paper: 978-84-685-6890-4

ISBN ePub: 978-84-685-6891-1

Edited by Bubok Publishing S.L.

[email protected]

Tel: [phone]

C/Vizcaya, 6

28045 Madrid

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing by the Author, or as expressly permitted by law, by license or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

For my sources of infinite love: my daughters, Mar and Luna, and my wife, Andrea, the star that lights my way

Index

Foreword

Introduction

Part One. You Change the World

1. Evolution

2. Discover Your Purpose

3. You Are Your First Company

4. Leverage the Democratization of Technology

5. Connect with Abundance

6. Update Your Mindset

Part Two. Purpose Launchpad

7. A Brief History of Innovation Methodologies

8. The Impact Pyramid

9. Discovering Purpose Launchpad

10. Values and Principles

11. Phases

12. Axes

Part Three. Evolution of Startups and New Products

13. Being a Zebra Before Being a Unicorn

14. Purpose Launchpad for Startups and New Products

15. Define the Purpose of your Startup

16. Connect with the Right People

17. Discover and Develop Your Customer

18. Achieve Triple Sustainability

19. Leverage Abundance

20. Implement the Right Processes

21. Make Something People Want

22. Measure Your Progress and Your Impact on the World

Part Four. Evolution of Established Organizations

23. Industries Create Scarcity, Purpose-Driven Ecosystems Generate Abundance

24. Implementing Purpose Launchpad in Established Organizations

25. Defining an Established Organization’s Purpose

26. Align The Organization’s Culture with Its Purpose

27. Generating Community and New Initiatives

28. Adapting the Habitat to New Initiatives

29. Creating the Future of the Organization

Afterword. Positive Impact: That is the Question

Resources for Creating a Positive Impact

The Purpose Alliance

Purpose Launchpad Certifications

The Purpose Manifesto

Tester for Purpose-Oriented Organizations

Summary of Tools Integrated into Purpose Launchpad

Summary of Related Reading for Purpose Launchpad

Official Contributors

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Humans are a fascinating species. Always pursuing new achievements.

Exploring.

Innovating.

Evolving . . .

According to the latest data,Homo sapiensappeared on Earth about 300,000 years ago. We were nomads at first, wandering from here to there as we hunted, fished, and gathered everything we needed to survive. We improved our mastery of hunting and fishing techniques and were consequently able to survive for thousands and thousands of years throughout what we call the Paleolithic Age.

But it was not enough. About 10,000 years ago, our eagerness to innovate and improve led us to become farmers and raise livestock. With the discovery of new skills and techniques, we were able to settle down and produce our own food and ensure our sustenance, laying down the foundations of our current civilization. Thus began a period we know as the Neolithic Age.

That was not the end of it. Improving our quality of life and safety as a species made us refuse to conform. Soon we acquired new knowledge about working with metals like copper, bronze, and iron, which allowed us to leap forward as a civilization. We developed new tools and continued to learn about the universe, about life, and about ourselves.

In recent centuries, evolution has been spectacular. Discoveries and advances in medicine have enabled us to double our average life expectancy from approximately thirty-five years in the Middle Ages to over seventy years today. We discovered that the Earth is round and that we live on a planet within a solar system in a galaxy we named the Milky Way. We invented the combustion engine, which led to the Industrial Revolution and radically changed the way we travel and move goods from one place to another. We discovered electricity and learned to control it to produce energy, light, and heat and provide our homes with endless possibilities. We created systems for exchanging value, inventing the concept of money and creating a space for economies, markets, and businesses and a long “et cetera” that could fill the entire book. Humans, with our continuous purpose of improving our own existence, have the amazing ability to imagine something that does not yet exist and make it happen.

Information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, have now provided us with new ways of living and interacting with the world. They have also brought about a new paradigm in the business world with the emergence of startups and the era of digital innovation. During the last few years, we have seen a new generation of innovative companies with a strong tech component emerge, completely disrupting the status quo and leading to the disappearance of entire industries and large organizations.

This new environment has given rise to new techniques for business management and the development of innovative products and services. Until recently, when a company wanted to develop a new product, they drew up a detailed plan and put it to work. Known as the waterfall model, this works when we know the problem we want to solve and are clear about the right solution. But, in a changing context full of uncertainty, fixed plans no longer make sense. Customers’ needs and solutions that the market demands are constantly changing, requiring us to implement techniques that allow for continuous adjustments.

This need for new approaches to product and service development led to the birth of “agile” techniques supported by theAgility Manifestoand solidified by frameworks such as Scrum. Nevertheless, focusing exclusively on agile product development turned out not to be enough. In constantly changing, highly uncertain environments, it seemed more logical to first discover who the customers really are and who they are not—that is, to focus on the problem rather than on developing the solution. An initial approach to this came from Steve Blank, who created a new methodology called Customer Development, which makes it possible to develop the customer before the product and create a solution to a real market problem.

A few years later, Eric Ries strengthened the use of agile principles and customer development by creating Lean Startup, one of the most widespread methodologies in the world of entrepreneurship and innovation, which teaches us to implement a continuous cycle, gathering customer input to improve our product using three simple but powerful steps: build, measure, and learn.

Business models were forced to adapt to this new situation. To facilitate that adaptation, Alex Osterwalder developed the Business Model Canvas, a simple tool that lets us easily define and communicate business models. Subsequently, many new canvases were designed for different tasks using the same approach. Salim Ismail then described the exponential organizations concept, a new phenomenon centered on organizations with a business model that lets them grow exponentially by connecting with abundance and managing it.

I feel profound admiration for humanity and for those who have brought us here. I feel a special gratitude toward the entrepreneurs and innovators who did not limit themselves to developing a project but dedicated much of their lives and energy to sharing their knowledge so that others could leverage it and avoid the mistakes they had made. Some of them, like those I have mentioned—Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Alex Osterwalder, and Salim Ismail—shared a series of techniques based on their experience and knowledge so that we could take our ventures to the next level. However, as throughout human history, new scenarios force us to develop new techniques and new ways of interacting with the world. This book and the framework I describe, Purpose Launchpad, are part of this evolution and the beginning of a new era of Positive Impact.

I am absolutely convinced that the time has come to start acting as a species and not as individuals, taking our purpose beyond improving our own existence and focusing on improving the world we live in. Today, we face significant economic, social, and environmental challenges that are generating unprecedented global awareness. More than ever before in our history, we need to respond to global problems. It is imperative that we act.

It is no longer enough to innovate and generate new products and services that create value for our customers; it is now necessary to create innovations that improve the world. It is no longer enough to be sustainable; it is now necessary to regenerate the resources we have consumed and the assets we have eliminated.

We are moving from the innovation and sustainability era to the era of Positive Impact.

In March 2022, a group of more than 100 impact-oriented innovators, entrepreneurs, activists, and investors from across the globe gathered to create thePurpose Manifesto(which you will find at the end of the book), sending a crucial message out to the world: It is no longer enough to do things the right way (as theAgile Manifestoannounced to us all 20 years ago); it is also necessary to do the right things. The good news is that we can do this. We can do the right things correctly, generating value for our projects and for the world.

Innovation techniques like agile, Customer Development, Lean Startup, or exponential organizations (among many others) continue to be completely valid; just as in many environments, waterfall models are still the right choice. However, we needed to integrate all these innovation techniques and create something that went a step further. Purpose Launchpad was born from that need—a new, completely open framework that combines innovation methodologies, integrating and sorting them so that entrepreneurs and organizations can create a positive impact on the world and on their own projects.

Purpose Launchpad’s main contributions, which I will describe in detail in the book, are as follows:

1.Integrating innovation methodologies to activate our purpose and turn it into positive impact.The global challenges facing humanity, many of which we have caused ourselves, demand immediate action. Many of these challenges represent enormous business opportunities that must be implemented using innovation techniques to minimize risk. However, it is not enough to do things the right way; we must also do the right things. It is time to move from the innovation era to the impact era. Purpose Launchpad brings us the best of existing innovation techniques, integrating and sorting them to activate our purpose and turn it into positive impact on the world and on our projects.

2.An approach based on eight axes: Purpose, People, Customers, Sustainability, Abundance, Processes, Product, and Metrics.Every innovative project is a set of hypotheses that must be evaluated. These hypotheses refer not only to the customer and the product, as many of the existing innovation methods indicate, but also to every aspect of the endeavor. Purpose Launchpad introduces eight axes addressed in an agile manner and in parallel to develop our projects comprehensively. It also integrates the various innovation techniques and methodologies into each axis, including (among others) Customer Development for the Customer axis, Lean Startup for the Product and Customer axes, exponential organizations for the Abundance axis, and so on. In addition, any other tool or methodology linked to innovation or impact can be incorporated into Purpose Launchpad’s open, common framework.

3.Three action modes for each project’s three phases: Exploration, Evaluation, and Impact.In an innovative initiative’s early stages of development, we cannot know what we do not know, so, rather than focusing on evaluating hypotheses, we’ll have to discover new ones. And, when we find a market opportunity, it must be validated with the first customers (and with actual sales) before the product is developed and sent to the mass market. Purpose Launchpad helps us adapt how we act and think in each of the three basic phases: Exploration, Evaluation, and Impact.

4.A regenerative growth model.Exponential growth is not sustainable, and our planet is warning us of this. Similarly, no industry can support continued exponential growth, for the very size of the market has a limit. It is possible, however, to have unlimited growth by generating a massive positive impact around a purpose. Purpose Launchpad shows us how pioneering organizations are moving from single-industry models to purpose-based ecosystems. This generates a wealth of opportunities that enable unlimited growth sustainably while creating a positive impact.

5.A framework for both startups and established organizations.Established organizations and businesses are focused on operating to maximize their bottom line. Startups, on the other hand, are focused on exploring new markets and business models. Purpose Launchpad makes it easy for both to interact within a common framework, leveraging the best of each world and maximizing their synergies.

6.A new mindset.The key to success does not lie exclusively in using the latest technology or even in implementing the right innovation methodologies. The key to launching successful initiatives and evolving organizations towards new models is a new mindset. Purpose Launchpad incorporates a series of principles and elements specially designed to help people evolve the way they think and see the world while they implement it. It is not merely a new framework but a new mindset as well.

As a species, humans are guided by their curiosity. We are explorers searching for new knowledge and new techniques to improve our lives and the world around us. We cannot remain anchored in the techniques and tools of the past but must integrate them and take them a step further, developing new models that are more suitable for the environment we inhabit. Thus, I invite you to do just that: go one step further.

Welcome to the era of Positive Impact!

FRANCISCO PALAO Granada, June 24, 2022

Introduction

I will never forget that Sunday afternoon when I received a very special message from someone in Mexico: “Thank you so much for creating this website! Thanks to you I met the woman who is now my wife. We just married and are very happy. You’ve changed our lives!” It was 2002. I was 20 years old and had never been to Mexico, but I was generating a positive impact on the people living there through BuscarAmigos.com, the web platform my friends Rafa, Raul, and I had created the year before. Rafa was a very talented graphic artist who loved technology, which led him to quickly learn to use different digital graphic design applications, and he created the graphics and the interface. Raul and I were studying computer engineering, and, as the university was not teaching webpage design at that time (it was too “new”), we decided to learn about web development on our own by searching for information on the Internet, a source that was starting to offer abundant resources. We did it all without any previous skills—and, of course, without any experience—but we had the most important element: the right mindset. We knew we could create something new by leveraging the possibilities offered by technology, especially the Internet, and felt we literally held the power in our own hands. So, while most of our friends and peers focused on other activities, we developed the platform in our free time. We worked from each of our bedrooms in our parents’ homes, our parents unaware that, from their homes, their sons were changing the lives of thousands of people.

Three years later, when the platform already had thousands of users around the world, we sold it to a larger company, receiving the offer at a time when we didn’t have enough funds to continue. Plus, we were quite busy studying our respective college courses. None of us thought of looking for funding for the project; it wasn’t something in our mental frameworks, as, among other reasons, nobody had ever spoken to us about that possibility. At the time, in 2002, there was barely any entrepreneurial culture in Spain, and the word startup, so widely used around the world today, was practically unknown. Therefore, when we got the offer, we simply thought it was a good option to make a little money and move on to the next chapter of our lives.

If I could go back, I would probably not have sold BuscarAmigos.com, because the growth and positive impact margins were still huge; the Internet was starting to take off just at that time. Nevertheless, I learned from that experience that we all currently have the possibility of accessing knowledge and technologies that allow us to change the world and our lives. So, after finishing college and obtaining a doctorate in artificial intelligence, I focused on launching new projects. Some were very successful, like Nativoo, a smart system for customizing tourist visits, later acquired by the Brazilian company SBTUR, or like LeanMonitor, a platform to help entrepreneurs and organizations implement Lean Startup methodologies, eventually bought by Gust.com.

Besides my activity as an entrepreneur, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with companies around the world regarding innovation and disruption, helping them shift towards new, more scalable models with greater impact. I am currently dedicated to promoting a global community called Purpose Alliance, focused on empowering extraordinary people and organizations to create a better world.

This entire experience has led me to develop the Purpose Launchpad framework, which is the basis for this book and is something I would certainly have loved to have when I started out in entrepreneurship twenty years ago. Since then, technology’s potential for creating a positive impact in the world has multiplied. The amount of knowledge we can find on the internet has grown exponentially, as has the number of technologies we can access to create new things or improve existing ones, regardless of where we live, our age, and even our education. That said, neither technology nor innovation methodologies are as important as your mindset. I’d like this idea to be clear from the start, and I will continue to insist on the concept throughout the book.

What will you find here? I’ll summarize it so you can optimize your reading time.

The book’s first part (“You Change the World”) focuses on what I consider the most important starting point: you and your purpose. We all have superpowers for changing the world in a positive way, but we must be aware of them and have the will to do so. I’d like to begin by helping you find (or refine) your purpose and learn about the elements that will boost your projects, evolve your startup, or transform your organization while you create a positive impact on the world in alignment with your essence.

In the second part, I will introduce you to the Purpose Launchpad mindset and framework, which I’ve developed based on my own experience and that of numerous organizations (which I will also talk about). The goal is to help entrepreneurs and organizations properly develop their projects while creating a positive impact on the world. Here I’ll talk about some of the core principles of the Purpose Launchpad that will be applied further on. You might find this part of the book somewhat more conceptual, but it is important for you to learn the foundation of the Purpose Launchpad to get the maximum leverage from it.

In the third part, I’ll talk about how to properly evolve a startup or a new product to reduce risk and maximize its positive impact, both for your own project and for the world. You’ll learn how to apply the eight axes of Purpose Launchpad (Purpose, People, Customer, Sustainability, Abundance, Processes, Product, and Metrics) to a startup throughout the three phases of the framework: Exploration, Evaluation, and Impact. If you are an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, or launching a new product, you can’t miss this part. This content will also interest you if you work for an established organization or company, since companies increasingly need to launch their own startups or innovative products as part of their transformation strategy.

I’ll address precisely the more important challenges traditional organizations face upon transforming and evolving in the fourth part of the book. Whenever we try to innovate in an established organization, the “internal immune system” goes on the attack. The main challenge is changing the mindset. We’ll analyze the most effective ways to evolve established businesses while creating a positive impact in the world. In fact, we’ll see that the best path for evolving an organization and maximizing its outcomes is not directly and exclusively seeking its own benefit but rather by generating a positive change in the world.

Keep reading to discover all these subjects in detail and incorporate them gradually using the activities I propose. My value proposition is simple and clear: as you absorb and apply the Purpose Launchpad mindset and framework, you will be able to develop startups and new products and maximize their chances of success, as well as transform established businesses so that they remain relevant in a changing environment—and all this while positively impacting the world. Will you come with me?

Part One You Change the World

1 Evolution

It all started with a single point of energy. It all began with the Big Bang.

Look around you for a moment and realize that everything you see is the product of that primordial explosion, which occurred about 14 billion years ago. Since then, the universe has never stopped expanding. We don’t know if there is any meaning to existence; all we know is that the universe evolves constantly and relentlessly.

The Big Bang transformed energy into matter, resulting in hydrogen atoms composed of a proton, an electron, and a neutron. These atoms gradually clustered into cosmic clouds that attracted more and more hydrogen due to gravity, and that gave rise to the first stars.

The changes didn’t stop there. In the nucleus of those starts, the hydrogen atoms began to come together, giving rise to new, more complex atoms with more properties. For example, they created the iron atom, composed of twenty-six protons, twenty-eight neutrons, and twenty-six electrons, thus originating a metal with new properties, since iron, unlike hydrogen, is malleable, tough, and magnetic. We have called this phenomenon “emergence,” meaning that the elements resulting from the sum of simpler elements not only exhibit greater atomic and structural complexity but also new properties. In other words, the result is greater than the sum of its parts.

Let’s continue with the evolution of the universe. Molecules emerged from the different atoms, including the one for water, which was created by joining two hydrogen atoms with one of oxygen. Continuing with the phenomenon of emergence, having greater atomic complexity, water offered new properties and was fundamental to life. Consequently, at some point about 3.5 billion years ago, the first unicellular organisms were generated on Earth, some with properties as incredible as the ability to reproduce. It seems normal to us today, but, if you think about it for a moment, it is surprising that, at one given moment, the universe evolved so that some of its elements were able to reproduce themselves.

As part of the universe, life continued to evolve and gave rise to multicellular beings: bacteria, fungi, plants, animals … These beings were increasingly complex and had increasing capabilities, including humans, whose brains are the most complex atomic and molecular structure known in the entire universe. It has astonishing properties, some of which we don’t even fully understand, such as consciousness, which allows us to perceive our own existence, unlike hydrogen, iron, single-celled beings, or plants.

Consciousness is precisely what now allows you and me to stop and think about all of this and understand that we are part of the universe. We not only see it when we look up at the stars but also when we look in the mirror, because we are each of us a tiny piece of the universe. Each of our atoms has been created in the core of a star or in the explosion that happens when a star dies. We are, as they say, “stardust.”

The universe, at least as far as we know, continues to evolve and will continue to do so forever. And, as part of it, humans will too. In addition to consciousness, we can imagine things that do not exist—and, best of all, create them! We can create art; we can create technology; we can create whatever is needed to fill the space between reality and our desires. If we want to run faster, we create shoes for our feet. If we want to fly, we create airplanes and other devices in order to travel through the air. We constantly create things that did not exist before, and, in doing so, we continue to push the boundaries of what is known and of the universe itself.

We are all here to create something that did not exist before we were born. We are all cosmic elements and, as such, actors in the evolution of the universe. We are all here to change the world, and we do it with our actions every day.

Key Points

•The universe has not stopped evolving since the primordial Big Bang.

•Humans have consciousness and the ability to imagine things that do not exist and to create them.

•As part of the universe, we are also active agents of change.

Activity

As I mentioned at the beginning of this book, I’m going to suggest a series of activities so you can put the different key concepts from each chapter into practice. Here’s the first one!

Think of something you have done or created—anything—that contributed to the world being different. It could be a project of great scope, like a book or a new company, but it could also be something simpler, like a poem you’ve written for someone or a positive action you had towards someone. Describe it briefly below:

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This exercise will help you understand two things:

•That you have changed the world on numerous occasions.

•That you constantly change the world with your actions.

2 Discover Your Purpose

When I was little, someone told me, “If you have health, money, and love, you’ll be happy.” Over time, I have discovered that, despite being very popular, this belief is not true. I have been able to verify that there are people who enjoy good health, have enough money to live on, and people close to them who love them, and yet they do not feel fulfilled. They spend a lot of time doing all sorts of activities, but they do them because, in their own words, “it’s what there is,” “it’s my job,” or “it provides me an income.” They appear to have it all, but they feel empty inside; they feel that their lives have no meaning. And meaning is precisely what their lives lack.

We all need for what we do to have a purpose, to have sense. As the Roman philosopher Seneca said, “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” Purpose is the North Star that helps us stay the course, even in times of vital storms. It is the fourth leg that the popular recipe is missing: health, money, love, and … purpose.

I recall the day I wrote my purpose down on paper. I felt I had something inside me and needed to express it, to take it out and let it do its job. I sat at my desk, pen in hand, and began writing. I connected with it very quickly and wrote it down succinctly: “To help humanity evolve.” Everything fell into place: I understood the type of projects I wanted to dedicate my life to, which kind of people I wanted to share them with, and how I could help make a better world. Since then, everything I’ve done has been focused in that direction.

It was also clear to me from the beginning that I wanted to do it through technology. A while back, I had spoken with Eudald Carbonell, co-director of the archeological dig at Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), a conversation that had a profound effect on me. He explained to me that, were it not for technology’s contribution to social advancement, humans would not live beyond an average age of thirty-five. I perfectly remember what he said: “Technology is what makes human beings evolve.” At that moment, I felt that I wanted to be a part of that, to contribute to the advancement of humanity as others had done before.

This book is a fundamental part of my purpose, for my desire is that it inspire many people to create projects that have a positive impact on the world. Nothing would make me happier than to encourage you to think differently, to evolve your mindset, thus contributing to the evolution of humanity. So, the first thing I want to do is to help you discover, remember, or redefine your purpose—or at least get you a little closer to it. To do that, I will share below a simple and very effective method consisting of three steps: connect with your essence, express your purpose with words, and share it with others.

Step 1: Connect with Your Essence

It is not easy to connect with our true essence, as it is often hidden under many layers of culture and education. To find your purpose, it is imperative that you delve into your true essence. To do this, I propose that you ask yourself three questions, one about the past, one about the present, and one about the future (do not answer them yet; you will do so at the end of the chapter):

•Past: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Connect with your inner child and try to remember not only what you wanted to be but why. In my case, I remember it perfectly: I wanted to be an inventor, an athlete, and a hermit.

•Present: We lose track of time while doing certain activities. Which ones are they for you? You can find a very important clue there for identifying your purpose. In my case, I love reading about science, psychology, philosophy, and astronomy. I love learning more and more about the universe in general and about humanity’s role in it.

•Future: What would you dedicate your life to if you won 100 million euros or dollars through the lottery? The first thing you will probably think of is traveling to places you’ve never been to or buying things that you can’t afford now, but try to take it further and imagine what you would do after that to make sense of your minutes, hours, and days. In my case, if I had unlimited resources, I would probably still be doing the same thing I do today. If this is your answer, you are surely already very close to your purpose and only need to express or remember it to give more strength and direction to everything you do.

The combination of these three answers will help you connect with your essence and purpose. This is the first step: to identify it and feel it. Answering these questions and reflecting on them is often a very emotional process. You may feel frustration, sadness, joy, anger ... Whatever it is, it’s okay. Feel it and then find the way to align yourself with your purpose—or, if you already have it, to strengthen it.

Step 2: Express Your Purpose with Words

Writing down your purpose will help you remember it and share it. To do so effectively, I recommend you follow this guideline:

•Make sure it describes the impact you want to achieve, the vision you’d like to turn into reality—for example, “access to quality education for everyone” or “eradicate poverty from the world.” It could also have a more local scope of action—for example, “making my city safer.”

•The second rule is that the change must be a positive one—that is, it must contribute to improving society and the world in general. The examples above are valid in that sense, since they each would improve the world we know today.

•Lastly, the wording must be inspiring. It should inspire you first and then others. It should be like a mantra we can remember whenever needed, especially when we lose our way or things get complicated. It will not only help to remind us where we’re going but will also fill us with energy.

By the way, do not do this yet; wait for the exercise that you will find at the end of the chapter.

Step 3: Share Your Purpose

The third and final step is to share your purpose with others. I initially recommend sharing it with people who know you well and who you trust enough to share something so intimate. This will help you validate your essence, since those who really know you will be able to tell you if those magic words are part of you or not. Stay away from purposes with a merely commercial focus and go to the essence of who you really are. Once you have shared your purpose with people close to you (and possibly fine-tuned it based on their feedback), you will have to continue sharing it with others you might not necessarily know but who may have an affinity to it. This will help you continue validating it and connect with people who may eventually become your partners in a future project or customers of a potential company focused on your purpose.

In short, it’s about finding a phrase connected to your essence that, as I pointed out earlier, inspires you and others to have a positive impact on the world—a simple phrase that, together with health, money, and love, will lead you to a full life.

Key Points

•To lead a full life, it’s not enough to have health, money, and love. We also need a purpose.

•To discover your purpose, you can follow a simple three-step method:

◦Connect with your essence.

◦Express your purpose with words.

◦Share your purpose.

•Defining your purpose will help you find like-minded people with whom to share experiences and even projects.

Activity

Now, connect with your essence and answer these three questions:

•When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

•We lose track of time while doing certain activities. Which ones are they for you?

•What would you do if you won 100 million euros or dollars through the lottery?

Try to express your purpose with words to describe the positive change you would like to make in the world. Make sure they’re inspiring.

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If you have achieved it, remember to share it to evaluate and continue to improve it, both with people who know you well and whom you trust and with people aligned with your purpose.

If, for any reason, you feel that you haven’t figured out your purpose or can’t express it, that’s okay. Below is a link to an open program that proposes a series of much more complete exercises and to“Massive Transformative Purpose,”a book I wrote a few years ago. I hope you find these resources helpful. The important thing is that you reflect on these things, because, in doing so, you will discover very relevant information about yourself that will give more meaning to your actions.

Resources

•“Discover your Personal Purpose” Open Program:www.purposealliance.org/academy/personal-purpose-discovery-open-program

•“Massive Transformative Purpose” book:www.purposealliance.org/books/massive-transformative-purpose

3 You Are Your First Company

I don’t know what your current work situation is; maybe you are self-employed, a freelancer, or run your own business, or maybe you are an employee, part of a private organization, or in public service. It’s also possible that, for whatever reason, you are not working right now, or perhaps you’re studying. Whichever your current situation, the truth is that you are an entrepreneur. That’s right. You are the entrepreneur of your own life.

Just like a company has income and expenses, in order to live, every person needs resources obtained sustainably. Just like a company must have a strategic plan, everyone must plan their lives to some extent. And, even in the same way that a company has a team of people and external collaborators, we all need other people to carry out our lives.

We usually spend our time working for the organization that employs us or for our own company, and we forget to think about our personal plans. I don’t mean plans for the weekend or for your next vacation; I mean the vital plans for the short, medium, and long term. It’s something that companies do. They have strategic plans, annual plans, marketing plans, and all other sorts of documents that help them sort out their ideas and communicate their goals to the team and to potential customers and investors. But people don’t usually do this.

What about you? Do you have any kind of document to visualize and plan your life? Do you at least have clear ideas in your head to neatly communicate your life plans for the short, medium, and long term? If the answer is yes, great—reading this chapter can help you continue developing them. If the answer is no, that’s OK. I will explain how below and give you some guidelines so that your personal plan is consistent with your purpose.

You have surely already taken the first step of defining your purpose or at least reflecting on it. It all starts there. This is your reason for being and what will shed light on the rest of the elements that we will define below. The first of these is vision, which consists of visualizing how you would like to see yourself in the long term. It is one of the strategic components also used by companies, and I will define it on an individual level.

Formally speaking, your vision is a phrase that describes how you would like to see yourself in the future using your purpose as the starting point. As we saw, our purpose is focused on positively impacting the world. If, for example, my starting point is “eradicating poverty from the world,” my vision could be “to become a world leader in the fight against poverty” or “to live a life in which my contribution helps create a world without poverty.”

The next step is to define your mission, which will describe the path you will travel to achieve your vision. If I take as a starting point the vision “to become a world leader in the fight against poverty,” I could define my mission as “to promote high-impact projects to eradicate poverty worldwide, as well as to share my experience through conferences and books to inspire others and encourage them to join this cause.” Your mission is a first step in grounding your purpose and vision, which are more abstract, and in beginning to express them more tangibly.

Phases

Dreaming and writing good intentions on paper is relatively easy, but making them a reality is often tricky. Therefore, just as companies do, we must consider a strategy with different phases.

You may not have the right job, the financial resources, or life circumstances at this time to pursue your purpose and try to fulfill your vision. Nothing, however, prevents you from thinking about the steps that will lead you to it. For example, if you currently work for an organization that has no link to your purpose or vision, you can think about maintaining this situation for a time while creating the circumstances that will allow you to change jobs. Or you can even keep the job and work towards your vision in your free time. It’s important not to be maximalist—that is, remember that you do not necessarily have to dedicate your entire life to your purpose. The important thing is to keep it in mind and dedicate some time and energy to making your life full.

My advice is to dream big and start small—or, as my wife Andrea always says, “dream, but keep your feet on the ground.” Let’s take, for example, the mission suggested above: “to promote high-impact projects.” Let’s imagine that I currently have an administrative government job. I could design a plan with three strategic phases:

1.Stay at my job in order to continue having the income I need to survive while connecting with people and communities related to my purpose, volunteering in my free time, and, if necessary, taking courses and training in the subject.

2.Take the leap to a paid position within an organization aligned with my purpose, taking advantage of the fact that I already have some experience in the subject.

3.Lastly, start launching my own initiatives and generate and share content on the subject that might inspire others, both individuals and organizations, to contribute to the purpose, thus achieving a world without poverty.

Circumstances change, so you must adapt your plans to those changes, just like companies do. This requires frequent review, sharing them with others, and staying open to objections and warnings.

In the end, of course, the decisions are yours to make, and you decide the degree of risk you want to assume. I remember that, when I was twenty-four, I decided to leave my position as a researcher and teacher at the university, where I had a promising career ahead of me. Although having a permanent position in a public institution seemed a perfectly respectable option to me, it was not aligned with the vision I had of myself in the future. I wanted to launch my own startup, something consistent with my vision. I shared this decision with my parents, who were not very amused at the time (although they always supported me in all my decisions). It’s not that they didn’t want me to be happy, but they believed college gave me emotional and financial stability, whereas there was risk involved in starting a company. Over time, they have seen that undertaking projects aligned with my essence, although not an easy path, is what really makes me happy, but they were originally quite influenced by all the “if you have health, money, and love, you will be happy.” Therefore, my advice is to share your plans (purpose, vision, mission, and strategic phases) not only with people close to you (family, partner, friends) but also with people related to your purpose, as they can be not only more objective but can also actively help you carry out your plans.

Likewise, before taking a step that commits you fully, it is important to validate that it is the right step by running small tests. For example, before you quit your job to look for one that is more aligned with your purpose, you can volunteer doing something similar. There are always options to try a path before jumping right into it. In my case, before launching my first startup and while I was still in college, I shared the idea of the new project with different people, which resulted in finding two clients before taking the leap. Nothing was easy, but at least I had some initial income. I had a dream but kept my feet on the ground.

It’s not imperative to create your own company to drive your purpose. You can also work for an organization aligned with your purpose or achieve it through individual actions (we’ll see how to activate your purpose and your projects under different circumstances or contexts later in the book). The important thing is to act and not get stuck with the words. It’s the only way you will have a real impact and live a meaningful life. The plans put into action are the ones that really make things happen and move the world. That is precisely why you must plan and manage your life as if it were a company. You are your own company, and it’s up to you to have a positive impact that improves the world and your life.

Key Points

•As the entrepreneur of your own life, you need a strategic plan.

•To define it, you must be clear about your vision (how you would like to see yourself in the long-term future) and your mission (the path you will take to fulfill your vision.)

•That path or strategy should consist of several phases. Dream big and start little by little.

Activity

Keeping your purpose in mind, define the following elements:

•Vision (the image of yourself that you’d like to see in the future):

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•Mission (how to make this vision a reality):

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•Strategic phases (the steps you’ll take in the upcoming years to achieve your vision by way of your mission; if it’s difficult to lay out a plan with several steps, define at least the first one so you can start walking):

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Defining your vision, your mission, and your strategic phases will help you:

•Implement your purpose in life in a practical way.

•Make better decisions in your life, ones that are aligned with your essence.

•Create a true positive impact in alignment with your purpose.

4 Leverage the Democratization of Technology

In 2012, at the very tender age of eight, José Quisocala launched the first bank created by a child: the Students’ Bank. The bank currently has over 3,500 clients who receive a bank account, a credit card, and basic financial skills so they can best manage their money.

José Quisocala’s story is similar to other extraordinary young people who created businesses that changed the world (Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) but with one important difference: the Students’ Bank was not created in Silicon Valley (USA) but in Arequipa (Peru). Quisocala had access to knowledge from a very early age through the Internet, which led him to understand how a financial institution works and to new technologies that helped him implement his project. In other words, he leveraged the possibilities offered by technology increasingly available to more people around the world.

Another fascinating story is about Jack Andraka, who, in 2012, at the age of fifteen, created a diagnostic method to detect pancreatic cancer (among others) in five minutes. He earned the Gordon Moore Award at Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair and was invited by US President Barack Obama to attend the 2013 State of the Union Address. Jack had not studied medicine at a university; he learned everything he knows on the internet.

As I am writing this (mid-2022), 60 percent of the world’s population has access to the Internet, nearly 4.4 billion people. A privilege of a few only decades ago, today, for most of the world’s population, access to technologies, resources, and knowledge is now just one click away. We don’t even need a computer; a mobile phone is enough. This small device has computing capabilities millions of times greater than the computer that guided Apollo 11 to the moon over fifty years ago. Don’t you think it’s incredible that technology has advanced so much in such a short time?

In the last five or six decades, technology has experienced exponential growth, giving rise to artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, etc. Whether we are aware of it or not, they are already part of our daily lives. In 2016, the president and founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, announced the Fourth Industrial Revolution in a book with the same title. This new revolution is based on the intersection of various exponential technologies. According to Schwab, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution is not just about intelligent, connected machines and systems. Its scope is broader. Simultaneously, there are waves of further advances in areas ranging from genetic sequencing to nanotechnology and from renewable energy to quantum computing. It is the fusion of these technologies and their interaction across the physical, digital, and biological domains that makes the Fourth Industrial Revolution fundamentally different from previous ones.”