How do I identify where money is really made in a business?
After completing Project Curiosity, list all the basic responsibilities of your business, then group them into "areas of purpose"—the specific avenues where money is actually made. These might include marketing channels, customer acquisition, or service delivery. By focusing on these profit centers rather than specialized tasks, you transform dead-end jobs into open-ended entrepreneurial adventures with explosive productivity.
Feeling trapped in a dead-end job or a specialized task that offers no room for growth? Most people suffer in "silent frustration," stuck in a routine rut created by the traditional division of labor.
Over the last several talks, Mark Hamilton has walked you through Project Curiosity, finding areas that impact profits, and understanding integrated thinking. Now it's time to get tactical: how do you actually identify and target the specific areas where money is made?
What should I do after completing Project Curiosity?
This step marks a crucial transition. You've spent time observing, asking questions, and learning how the business works as a whole. Now you document what you've learned:
List Basic Responsibilities
Write down the main responsibilities that make up the business itself—not just your job, but the entire operation. This comprehensive list reveals the building blocks of the company and prepares you to identify which blocks actually generate income.
Most companies make each basic responsibility a specialized job or department. But that typical breakdown results in the dreaded routine rut and inferior productivity. There's a better way.
What are "areas of purpose" and how do I identify them?
When Hamilton worked for a publishing company decades ago, he identified a couple dozen basic responsibilities. But when he analyzed where the money was actually made, it came down to four main avenues:
Television Marketing
Advertising products through TV media to reach broad audiences
Space Media Marketing
Advertising through magazines, newspapers, and newsletters
Direct Mail Marketing
Sending advertisements directly to customer mailboxes
Customer Database Marketing
Marketing additional products to existing customers (the "back end")
Note: This was before the internet and social media. Today, your areas of purpose might include digital marketing, social media, e-commerce, or subscription services. The principle remains the same: identify where money actually enters the business.
Areas of Purpose
The specific channels or avenues in a business that directly generate income. Rather than leaving basic responsibilities as disconnected specialized tasks, areas of purpose group those responsibilities into unified, money-making forces. Each area of purpose becomes the foundation for a "mini-company" within the larger organization.
How does the "mini-company" model improve business productivity?
Instead of leaving basic responsibilities as dead-end departments performing specialized tasks, Hamilton restructured them to integrate into a force behind each area of purpose:
From Specialized Departments to Mini-Companies
Each money-making area of purpose became a mini-company (M-I-N-I company). The employee running it handles the full scope: marketing, taking and fulfilling orders, customer service, data, accounting—their own little business within the big company.
Instead of bored employees, you have a company full of exhilarated in-house entrepreneurs. Every job becomes an exciting adventure. Productivity soars beyond all previous records.
Division of Essence vs. Division of Labor
The traditional division of labor breaks work into specialized tasks, creating routine ruts and inferior productivity. The division of essence organizes work around areas of purpose, bringing the creative mind into every job. This transforms dead-end jobs into open-ended adventures with infinite potential.
The human mind is the only thing in our world that can create values. Creating values puts us in happy harmony with our essence as human beings. Creating values is also the route to wealth. But creating values is not possible in specialized thinking following mode.
The mini-company model unleashes the creative mind in every job.
Division of Labor vs. Division of Essence
Division of Labor (Traditional)
- Each responsibility is a separate specialized job
- Workers perform narrow, repetitive tasks
- No connection to profit-making purpose
- Dead-end routine ruts
- Silent frustration and stagnation
- Inferior productivity
Division of Essence (Mini-Company)
- Responsibilities integrate into areas of purpose
- Workers run full-scope mini-companies
- Direct connection to money-making
- Open-ended entrepreneurial adventures
- Joy, enthusiasm, and creativity
- Explosive productivity
How can I take control of my career using areas of purpose?
For the millions stuck in today's impotent specialized jobs, here's how to break free:
Target an Area of Purpose
Using your knowledge from Project Curiosity and your list of basic responsibilities, identify which areas of purpose exist in your company. Which one interests you most? Which one could you realistically move into?
Take Over Responsibilities
Here's the key: take the nitty-gritty, tedious details off other people's hands—if those details fall within your self-targeted area of purpose. People will usually gladly let go of them.
Your persistence will, in many cases, enable you to move in and take charge of an area of purpose in the company you now work for.
Gaining Control Lifts You Up
Gaining control of an area where money is made will lift you to a new life—to the integrating mind and on to the upper echelons. When you control a profit center, you're no longer just an employee. You're becoming a leader. This is how ordinary people discover their innate integrating self-leader mind.
⛵ Factory Workers vs. Speedboat Captains
Think of a traditional business like a giant, slow-moving factory where every worker is bolted to a single machine, only seeing the gear in front of them.
The Neothink approach unbolts those workers and turns them into captains of their own small speedboats.
While the factory worker only knows how to turn one wrench, the speedboat captain understands navigation, the engine, and the destination. The entire fleet moves faster and more creatively than the factory ever could.
Why is creating values the key to wealth and fulfillment?
With your growing understanding of the business through Project Curiosity, you will eventually find a way to increase efficiency on a particular task or procedure. That could be your first baby step into the powerful creative mind.
As you will discover, the creative mind is the great power of being human. When every job in a company incorporates the employees' powerful integrating mind, forging their own path forward, joy and enthusiasm erupt. These become living jobs.
The Creative Mind
The uniquely human capacity to create values—to bring something new and useful into existence. In the division of essence model, every job is rich in this greatest asset. For the first time, ordinary employees discover their creative essence and experience the joy that big winners in business and life have always known.
From Routine Rut to Area of Purpose
Your step-by-step path to controlling a profit center
Complete Project Curiosity (2+ Weeks)
Get curious about the entire business. Ask coworkers about their jobs. Learn how everything connects and functions as a whole.
List Basic Responsibilities
Write down all the main responsibilities that make up the business. This comprehensive list reveals the building blocks of the company.
Identify Areas of Purpose
Group responsibilities by which ones generate income. Find the channels where money actually enters the business—these are your areas of purpose.
Target One Area
Choose which area of purpose you want to pursue. Consider your interests, skills, and which area you can realistically move into.
Take Over Responsibilities
Steadily absorb the nitty-gritty details tied to your chosen area. Show assertive energy. People will usually let go of tedious tasks gladly.
Gain Control and Rise
Through persistence, take charge of your area of purpose. Controlling where money is made lifts you to the integrating mind and the upper echelons.
What comes after mastering areas of purpose at work?
Hamilton is going through this exercise for the millions stuck in their jobs. This is how to break free and rise from your specialized routine rut onto a powerful integrating path forward.
But this is just the beginning. Later, Hamilton will take you through the steps for starting your own successful business with the liberating and powerful integrated thinking mentality—the Neothink mentality, the mentality of society's winners.
Rise Into the Unlimited Mentality
We're on a journey together to rise up from the limited following mentality pushed on us from the privileged power class above. Here you will rise into the unlimited integrating mentality that needs no higher authority telling it what to do. Your mind will stretch and feel a whole new existence never felt before.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if my company doesn't have clear areas of purpose?
Every business has channels where money enters—they may just not be explicitly defined. Through Project Curiosity, identify where revenue actually comes from: sales channels, service delivery, customer retention, or product development. These become your areas of purpose even if the company hasn't structured itself around them.
How do I take over responsibilities without overstepping?
Focus on the tedious details others want to offload. Frame it as helping: "I'd be happy to take that off your plate." People usually welcome relief from nitty-gritty tasks. Over time, as you accumulate these responsibilities within your targeted area, you naturally gain control without appearing aggressive.
Can the mini-company model work in large corporations?
Yes, though implementation varies. Even within large corporations, you can create a mini-company mindset around your area of purpose. Treat your domain as if you're the entrepreneur responsible for its success. The division of essence is a way of thinking as much as a structural model.
What if someone else already controls my target area of purpose?
Look for adjacent areas of purpose or sub-areas within larger domains. Every company has multiple profit channels. You might also position yourself as support for the current controller, learning from them while preparing for future opportunities. Persistence and patience are key.
How is this different from just seeking a promotion?
Typical promotions keep you in the division of labor—just at a higher level of specialized management. Controlling an area of purpose puts you in direct connection with profit generation, running your domain like an entrepreneur. This is the path to the integrating mind and true power, not just a fancier title.
Target Your Area of Purpose
Subscribe to continue your transformation from routine rut to in-house entrepreneur. The Neothink mentality is how ordinary people become society's big winners.
Subscribe NowControl where money is made. Rise to the upper echelons.
