Purpose. With the right accent we mean, what motivates us to do what we do?
We are with the right people and in the right context, but are we clear about the reason for all this?

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Welcome Back To The Notes! A private and public journey together, to share what it means on a personal level, to create a company at 30 years old, in my case Open.

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Today here we go deep, sometimes it happens, trying to dig internally until we find a phrase that helps us to define ourselves.

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I promise, and it's not a typo, that I didn't voluntarily reread Sinek's “Start with Why” before writing this newsletter 🙂

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I have always watched with suspicion interviews with people who perhaps work for large corporations, who recite scripts I've already heard when it comes to why they do what they do every day of work.

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They will still be the echoes of Patagonia Purpose, which generated 2-3 years of displacements, competing on who could come out the “best” with their perfect phrase, it may be that I strongly believe that the purpose of a company is very difficult to match the one you work on it.

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Companies can give you a fertile environment, they can put the right people next to you, but the spark, the spark must be yours.

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Let's talk about it.

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1. Of your company

I'm going back to the side of someone who is building a company: finding the business purpose, despite being a great challenge, I consider it less demanding than searching for one's own. At least for a couple of reasons:

• If it was born, and it lives on, there is a reason.
• Being a company, governed by people, it can be changed, not every day, but our job as a founder is to keep the helm, when there is something to turn it can be done.
• Bonus: You can pay someone to synthesize it.

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In Open, we are guided by the desire to make good design approachable to everyone.

And you say, Embe? What do you do with this sentence?

It helps you choose how to tactically judge, in the short term, things to do every day, for example:

• “Come in, it's Open” is our payoff, chosen because it reflects it well.
• We do activism, with initiatives such as Climatico, to give our knowledge to those who need it most at this historic moment. (Initiative for startups in the field of sustainability to win a rebranding)
• We are unbalanced in spending and innovating more on how things are done, than on what we do.

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2. Yours

Defining yourself is not as simple as imagining the reason for your company.

This is the basis of understanding why each of us does what we do. Not the other way around.

When we tell each other, especially those like me who are in the midst of their growth and transformation, we find shortcuts:

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“I am a good companion.”

“I'm a terrible friend.”

“I'm a good entrepreneur or employee.”

Partner you are for your partner,

You are a friend for your friends,

entrepreneur or employee for your colleagues,

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but who are you to yourself?

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Tough huh? I know, even here, fortunately, we can pay someone to think about it (long live the therapy), but we have to work hard and touch pain keys to understand it. Only then can we think about our purpose to find a truly sincere one.

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In my case, today, what motivates me the most is to unite others and make them feel good.

And I know that it's a long job, you have to create the habitat, to create real and healthy relationships around you.

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“If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they fly away. But if you spend your time creating a beautiful garden. The butterflies will come to you, and if they don't you still have a beautiful garden.”

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Bonus - Others

Giving advice to others is not an easy sport.

We must also be careful, because if they then follow them, we feel responsible.

But it's also so nice when a person opens up, and you can dig together into why, I find it fascinating. Yes, sit in front of a beautiful view, and let yourself go, tell yourself perhaps first to understand each other than for the sake of being read.

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But you have to know how to do it, and if you don't do it on yourself, it's difficult to undertake the difficult role of being on the other side. Being able to form your own thinking is wonderful, being able to contribute to the development of that of others is wonderful.

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To be able to be defined as' mentors' by other people, perhaps, is a purpose for the me of the future. Of mentors, if you like, I've already talked about mentors hither.

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See you in the next note,

Marco.

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