Life changed when I brought process to purpose
Aloha family,
New month, new mantra.
To briefly recap the journey we've been on this year:
- January: Do Less Well
- February: Flow With Cycles
- March: Integrate to Elevate
And as we have now entered spring, it's time for us to blossom, so this month's mantra is:
Bring Process to Purpose
Let's first begin by defining these two terms and then we'll navigate how they fit together. Then in the second addition, I am going to share some of my best practices for you to implement into your life and work.
Purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
Process is a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.
🚀 Life Transformed When I Became Aware of These
I want to preface this next piece, I am not saying any of this to brag - I am simply sharing my own journey and testimony to bring a personal example to introduce this mantra and hope you can glean insight and inspiration from it.
In 2017, I began freelancing - I set my hourly rate based on my previous salary's hourly rate (by the way, don't do this - it's stupid) and started off at about $50 per hour. By the time 2022 rolled around, my hourly rate was $400 per hour.
How was I able to make 8 times more per each unit of my time within that time-frame?
The first thing, I was continually skill-stacking. I learned software engineering during 2017, which merged really well with the innovation, strategy, and design work I did prior. I took on my first Head of Product gig in 2019, where I begun honing my skills in product management. The more skills I was able to bring together, the more value I was able to bring.
The second, and more important for this newsletter, is that I was able to articulate my value (purpose) and bring process to it. Now let's look at what I mean by this.
🧙 How I Brought Process to Purpose and Built a $2M Company
I had a certain set of skills that I was offering in exchange for money. It was all very loose, taking on consulting gigs trading my hours for dollars.
At some point, I begun recognizing that people were coming to me to solve a very similar problem, and then they would refer me to others to solve that same problem.
What problem was I solving?
Many mission-driven startup founders lack the understanding of product, design, and engineering to bring their vision to life. They have a blurry vision, and they're spending money each month (sometimes theirs and sometimes investors) without a clear path.
I became aware of my purpose.
The next thing I recognized was that there was a specific set of steps that I generally followed to guide these people to their dream outcome: to get their minimum viable product (MVP) to start serving their audience.
I became aware of my process.
When I had these realizations, I began to be more intentional about honing that process, and instead of selling hours of my time, I began selling the process for $60,000 for a 6-week venture design program.
This allowed me to buy my first home, buy our second home, learn how to run a company of 20 people, while serving my purpose: leveraging technology to bring more conscious innovations to society.
🔗 What do I really mean by bringing process?
So you may be looking at the definition and thinking "well, of course I'm taking steps to complete an action... duh".
Yes, you are, and so begin becoming more aware of what those steps are. Begin documenting what those steps are. Begin mapping your process.
What happens when you begin mapping your processes, is that you can see them holistically. You actually see what you are doing, it's down on paper. Once you do that, you're in a much better place to further refine and iterate on it. In many cases, you'll find aspects of your process that can automate (that's the holy grail - same outcomes, less of your time needed).
And get this...
People typically refer to a product as something that doesn't require a lot of human touch to deliver to customers, whilst people typically refer to a service as something that requires more human touch to deliver to clients.
The only difference between a product and a service, is process.
Think about withdrawing cash for example, traditional banking required customers to visit a bank branch and interact with a teller for almost all transactions, from depositing checks to transferring funds. This manual service has been replaced by online banking platforms and ATMs, which automate many banking tasks without the need for direct human assistance.
Same outcome (get cash out), different process.
From video rentals to streaming, and calling cabs to Uber, by creating better processes, we are able to get people the same outcomes they need faster and cheaper. And when you can do that, you've got something really great.
✨ Looking Forward
Hopefully this is beginning to make some sense to you and is sparking ideas of how you can begin honing in on your purpose, and begin bringing more intentional process to it.
The next edition, we'll get even more specific on best-practices and how we can leverage things like process mapping or software tools to begin improving and streamlining our processes.
I ask you to show up to the next one with an open mind....
Aho,
Elijah 🌴
P.S. We deeply appreciate any feedback you may have on our newsletter (it will take you just 1 minute), to help us continue to make it better for you.
