Defining your MTP
Transcription
This video is our gift for you. It contains an exercise to help you define your own
personal massive transformative purpose, or MTP. An MTP can guide you as you
navigate our community and your life and career in general.
Let's dive straight. First, let's define what an MTP is and give you some
examples of how it can look like, and then let's get you some help in defining the
first version of your own MTP. In short, an MTP answers a question of why you
do what you do. It's the core drive behind your key choices in life, both
personally and professionally.
It's not meant to be a job, a profession, or a particular role, such as being a.
Instead, it is meant to capture the deeper motivation behind your activities,
career and life choices. For a doctor, a core motivation could be healing people
or achieving a healthy world. But besides being a doctor, there can be other
ways to fulfil that core motivation.
One can also be a nurse, a nutritionist, filmmaker of health related
documentaries, or a fitness instructor. MTP helps you to navigate your life and
make important decisions personally and profess. It is not a goal that can be
reached at some future date. Rather, it is a point towards which you strive,
perhaps for the rest of your life, but may never quite reach it.
A good analogy are sailors, which use stars in the night sky to help them reach
their destination. A chosen star or a set of stars guided them during the entire
journey, yet they would obviously never reach the stars themselves. It's like that
with your MTP. It acts as a north star that helps you to choose among competing
options and provides an overall guidance for the decisions you make as your life
and career unfolds.
Finally, best MTPs are never about you. Only they are about the world or the
difference you want to make to other people. This is because MTPs, which are
only about you, are not very engaging for. For example, if my M T P is to get
wealthy or develop myself, you can sympathize with it and wish me good luck,
but you won't likely participate or get engaged too much in helping me to
advance.
On the other hand, if my M T P would be to resolve world's hunger or
regenerate natural ecosystems, that's a different story. You can see that these
MTPs are causes that many people can work toward. As such, they can inspire
collective action and passion from large communities of people, which is what is
needed to make them happen.
Now let's have a look at some sample MTPs to help you define yours. Usually
good MTPs are short and succinct. They quickly get to the core of why you do
what you do, or even why do you exist. Here are some examples. Empowering
entrepreneurs to succeed developing people towards their full. Inspire
sustainable innovation.
You can notice these have a similar format, a verb, a noun, and sometimes the
destination you are aiming to create. You can also have another kind, which
describes directly the end state of what you want to achieve. Sustainable world,
a hunger-free future, equal opportunities for everyone. The verb is missing in
this case, but the statements give a clear description of what you are working
towards.
I also want to point out one, Good MTPs don't require much further
explanation. There can be a discussion as to the how exactly you are bringing
this to life, but there is little ambiguity on the why. In short, MTPs are powerful
and impactful statements that articulate the core of what you believe, the core
of who you are.
You can often notice a profound change in a conversation when MTP has been
spoken. It is truly one of the most important elements of living a fulfilled,
inspired, and impactful. Let's now help you to create your own first version of
an mtp. One of the ways you can uncover your massive transformative purpose
is by looking at an intersection of four different areas or four different
questions, which lead you towards it.
Some of you might have come across a Japanese concept called ik, which in
short describes a life worth living. We have slightly adapted this concept to help
you figure out your m. Your NTP can be found at the intersection of four areas.
First, are the things that you are passionate about, things that you love doing.
Second, are the things that you are good at doing that play to your strengths.
Third, are the things that the world needs from you. This can be your
immediate world, such as your family, friends, or an organization or the world
in a bigger sense, such as your community, city, country, or perhaps the world.
The final question invites you to reflect on what you can be paid for or
otherwise rewarded for. It is a bit controversial as sometimes you won't be
clear on how to do this upfront. Also, you need to make sure that this element
does not in any way limit the boldness of your M T P. That said, as long as we
live in a monetary economy, it is important to take this aspect into account as
you can only live your MTP long term.
If you can also find a way to sustain yourself while doing. Directly or indirectly,
but if you wish, you can consider the final element as optional. In summary,
one method of finding your M T P is to look at the intersection of things you
love doing, things you are good at, doing, things that the world needs from
you, and things that you can be paid or rewarded for at least eventually.
For example, you can take a person with an MTP of building a better future.
There are many people in the Open ExO community which have a flavour of
this MTP. Going through the four categories, this person could say the
following. I am passionate about future people, technology, and innovation. I
am good at creative thinking, communication, simplifying things, and
empowering others.
The world needs from me to find answers to some of the biggest and most
complex challenges existing. Today, I can be rewarded for sharing my
experiences and know-how or for building innovation initiatives and successful
business. Let's now look at your own MTP using the same method. I would like
you to take a pen and paper and I will give you a few questions to reflect on to
arrive at the first version of your MTP.
I will also play some background music to help you focus. Ready? Let's do it.
Let's start with taking a few deep breaths to get into the right frame of mind.
You can close your eyes or keep them. Sit straight on your chair and take a
couple of deep breaths, not into your lungs, but all the way into your belly.
Both the in breath and the out breath should be calm, slow and spacious, and
the out breath should be longer than the in breath.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Great. Now you can open your eyes if you had them closed, and we will start
with the first question. Write down the first answer that comes to your mind.
Don't think about it too much. What are you passionate about? What do you
love doing? Take 30 seconds to write down your answer. You can pause the
video if you need more.
Second question, what are you really good at? What qualities helped you to
succeed in the past? Write down your answer.
Third question, what does the world need from you right now? Think first
about what does the world mean to you, whom you want to impact? Then
answer the main question.
Fourth question, what can you get paid for or rewarded for now or in the
future?
Now step back and look at the four answers you wrote. Let's close this
exercise by writing down a version 0.1 of your MTP. Don't try to get this
perfect. Just write down the first thing that comes to your mind. You will
improve it later on. We will do this as a completion of a sentence. My MTP is
dot, dot, dot.
Finish that sentence now.
Thank you for following all the way through, and congratulations on
completing this exercise. You now have a first version of your MTP. We wish
you lots of success in making it happen.
