Too many opportunities to pursue? What should you choose? Here’s how to decide.

Do you ever feel that there are too many opportunities to pursue?

Having too many opportunities — like starting a new company, tackling that big project, pursuing our career — can leave us distracted and feeling stretched thin. It can take the focus off of our most important goals, objectives, outcomes and activities.

The problem with many successful people is they ask ‘What should I do?’ instead of ‘What should I NOT do?’. What we say no to can be just as defining and more useful as what we say yes to.

But how do we know when to say yes and when to say no?

Choose Significance Before Success

Many people start a company because they think it’s an easy way to get rich, to create freedom or life on their terms. Some of us find it hard to say no to opportunities that have attractive financial incentives.

In my experience, whenever I’ve done something simply to make money, it’s been a mistake. Starting anything new is hard work, and if our heart isn’t in it, and the effort is not rewarding, and chances are we will give up before we get the job done and get to our result. We will end up quitting in what Seth Godin calls The Dip.

On the other hand, when we start to solve a problem that we genuinely care about — one that’s aligned with our highest purpose — even if the solution takes ten years, each one of those years is well spent. We have invested in our education, learning moments, contribution, fulfilment, and meaningful.

Whenever you’re given a choice to prioritise significance, aka meaning, over financial success, take it.

There’s a secret to motivating individuals and teams to do great things: Its purpose. And the best tool to help you do that is your MTP—Your Massive Transformative Purpose.

What’s your MTP? Are you using it to inform which projects and opportunities to pursue?

I’m in the process of creating mine in time for Q2 2021 and figured sharing is caring, so I’m sending this out to the universe.
Of course, it’s not a tool I developed; it’s one that I’ve been privileged to be exposed to by minds much, much, much greater than mine.
Peter Diamandis, Singularity University, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The competitive advantages of an MTP
Having an MTP can trigger incredible outcomes, which is why high-growth organisations all tend to have them.

The aspirational quality of an MTP pushes teams to prioritise big thinking, rapid growth strategies, and organisational agility — and these behaviours all have substantial payoffs in the long term. As an MTP harnesses passion within an organisation, it also galvanises a community to form outside the company that shares the purpose. This sparks an incredible secondary impact by helping companies attract and retain top qualified talent who want to find mission-driven work and remain motivated by the cause.

How to begin creating an MTP

Peter Diamandis boils down two main areas of focus to identify your purpose:

1. Identify the who: Ask yourself who you want to impact. What community do you want to create a lasting positive impact for? Is it high school students? The elderly? People suffering a chronic disease? These are just a few examples of potential groups to focus your purpose towards.
2. Identify the what: What problem do you want to take on and solve? Here’s an exercise created by Diamandis to identify the “what” of your purpose:

Step one: Write down the top three items you are most excited about or get you most riled up (that you want to solve).

Step two: For each of the three problems listed above, ask the following six questions and score each from 1–10.
(1 = small difference; 10 = big difference)

ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS
1. If at the end of your life you had made a significant dent in this area, how proud would you feel?
2. Given the resources you have today, what level of impact could you make in the next three years if you solved this problem?
3. Given the resources you expect to have in 10 years, what level of impact could you make in a 3-year period?
4. How well do I understand the problem?
5. How emotionally charged (excited or riled up) am I about this?
6. Will this problem get solved with or without you involved?

TOTAL = Add up your scores and identify the idea with the highest score. This is your winner for now. Does this one intuitively feel right to you?

Download a checklist for writing your MTP

Uncertainties are always bound to exist. By the time you read this, the state of the world will have shifted dramatically. Today isn't just like yesterday—not anymore. So, it's more important for both you and your organisation to create a sense of a compelling future in times of such uncertainty. Our MTP is one way we can do this—playfully, with joy and ease, and with fun.
Lost your job or career? Currently unemployed? A jobseeker?
Working this out can help you align the kinds of companies and people you wish to align yourself with—it’s a win-win for both you and them. Outlining the higher, aspirational reason for yourself and your organisation (or a future one) is one tool in our repository to guide our decision making through an uncertain future.