Systems and Processes

The surest way to achieve material success in any mission is to find out what works and replicate it. This is the key to building a fortune and achieving "success" in the outer world.

Systems and processes refers to structuring your business in a way that removes the guess-work out of it, and allows all of your people to be on the same page in terms of knowledge and procedures on key elements of your mission.

It involves breaking down each of those elements into their most basic components and perfecting each one as best you can. Then you take the perfected process for creating that component, establish a system by which it can be replicated to leverage the knowledge and experience developed by you're exploration, trial and error. Everyone follows the system and performs the established processes, and the business can be expected to generate predictable results.

If you're interested in such an approach, we recommend the book, The E-Myth Revisited.

However, looking to develop such systems and processes early on may be doing yourself a disservice. Because the innermost intention behind your mission is probably not to make lots of money, or even change a lot of lives. Rather, it's probably to express whatever vision your soul has inside in a way that meets its experiential needs -- as well as those of the others involved in your mission with you or whose lives are affected by it.

Systematized approaches may work well for the bottom line, but are not nearly as effective for meeting the needs of those involved. Instead, it may be better to retain a flexibility of approach to allow those individualized needs to be met and encourage the creativity and expression of all involved.

This can avoid rigid patterns of practice and behavior that are often built upon beliefs fueled by unclear intentions, fear of uncertainty, or lack of faith. Instead, they are replaced by the inspired expression of the moment, maintaining maximum flexibility for soul creativity, even if not for greatest profitability or outer effectiveness.

When in doubt, listen to your inner voice. It will act as a counterweight to an overactive mind and the many voices of ego that may be screaming for you to go another way.