That’s super helpful and it really resonates. You might not know the destination, but if you know why and have that purpose then that’s really cool.

[Danielle] –

One thing to understand with purpose is that it is the why, it’s not the how. What’s great about that is that your purpose can endure over time, because it’s the reason that’s driving you. But how you fulfil it can change. That then gives you flexibility to bring that purpose to life in different roles, different stages of your life, and from a business point of view.

As an example, our purpose is to equip business, to improve the world. That’s our why. How we do that right now is helping them develop purpose-led strategies and purposeful leaders.

But how we do that in 10 years’ time might be completely different, if those tools that we’ve developed become ubiquitous, hopefully. That gives flexibility to us as a business to evolve, even though that purpose I imagine will live on, hopefully after I’m gone too. It’s the same for our personal purpose too, that if you can think about it at a high enough level, then it gives you a lot of flexibility on how you bring that into life.

That’s great advice. Holly, can you build on this idea of what happens? Do you stray from your purpose, and how have you stayed on track with your purpose throughout your career?

[Holly] – It’s really easy to get discouraged along the way. Life can become a bit of a roller coaster, and you have things that don’t quite go your way. You sit down and you define what your purpose is, and you get really excited about what you’re going to achieve. Then you get out into the real world and you have all these setbacks and it’s so easy to go, “oh, this is too hard.” The number of times that I’ve just felt really overwhelmed and gone, “I just can’t be bothered. This is too hard.” But I guess in me is this real tenacity to just get up the next day and fight again. But I think where that comes from is, like Danielle, every single morning I’ll reflect on my purpose and what I’m doing and what I’m trying to achieve.

I guess it’s coming back to that why, and then once a week I’ll reflect on what went well, what didn’t go well, and what I’m going to do differently.

By at least stopping and going, “what went well,” I think you reaffirm, or you reassure yourself that you are pushing in the right direction and it’s celebrating the smallest wins, [whether that’s] an email from somebody, a good call. Changing something small in your business or the way you live [works] for me.

I know it’s the mornings that I don’t get up and walk [that] I feel really groggy. It’s celebrating the fact that I got up to walk this morning, I think that positive mindset and that internal cheerleader is something that helps you prevent that fatigue and keep you going in the right direction towards your purpose and your vision. I definitely agree with Pip’s point around bringing the right people around you as well.

It’s a very lonely journey if you don’t have like-minded people who are really invested in your success.

I’d say those are the two things that would stop you from giving up and getting too overwhelmed on your journey.

I love this advice. It’s really helpful because there’s a lot of women and men who really struggle with purpose. If it’s something that you’ve just always understood, or you’ve come to this belief, it’s so empowering once you know it. But it’s also confusing when you are searching. I think these little things are really helpful for people who are on that journey and are evolving.

Let’s say you want to recruit women for careers in digital, what are some of the barriers that you often see women who feel that their purpose lies in what is traditionally considered a male-dominated industry?

[Holly] – There are so many different perspectives on this. Like you say, I just want to share my own personal perspective and what we’ve seen, it really starts at a very young age.

When I think individuals or young girls define what their career purpose is, it’s about those role models that you see, whether or not they believe that you can become something that’s not traditionally shown, you can’t be what you can’t see.

For us in our recruitment, we work with a number of technology companies to help them find young female graduates in technological fields, because they really want to improve the diversity at their company.

When speaking to those sorts of engineering or computer science grads, one in five would be female. It’s really interesting with numbers already stacked against them, we find that 50% of those women within that field are saying, “actually, this might not be for me because those guys are so competitive. They’re the kind of programmers that always say I’m the better coder.” They can’t relate to that because they can’t see other young women like them who are maybe more collaborative and softer in their approach to being in a technological field. They kind of opt out, and they push towards other areas where they see other women thriving in their career; it is really interesting. I would say role modelling is surprisingly important to foster more diversity and more women into technological fields.

Thanks Holly. I guess each of you has, whether you like it or not, become a role model for women in business aspiring to have purpose. Does that sit comfortably with you? Are you okay with taking that on? I know some people get very nervous saying, “oh, I’m just doing my thing. I don’t want to be any kind of role model for somebody else.” Holly…

[Holly] – I would say it definitely has been in the past where I felt like I was out of my depth in being a role model for other young women. Then I guess as I’ve gotten older and connected with more women, I’ve gained that confidence in being a role model or a leader. The more women you speak to you go, “oh, I don’t really have anything to offer.” They go, “this was amazing. Thank you so much.” You go, “I really am adding value and I’m happy to keep doing that.” I guess it’s an evolution of where I’ve been at and I’m sure other people can relate to that.

Pip, how do you feel about being a role model?

[Pip] – I feel like if it is inspiring people and giving people positivity and making them want to be able to make a positive change or a positive contribution to community, then that’s excellent. I think my hesitation, or where I start to feel a little bit queasy about it is that thought of being a role model is thinking that you’re perfect and you always get it right. As long as you’ve got the opportunity to be able to share with people that you don’t always get it right [then it’s fine]. You do ride the highs and lows of emotion and you don’t always stay on track. I think more and more we’re trying to find this reality of the world and be really transparent on what goes on behind the scenes.

I think having the opportunity to be able to shed light on that and to be able to make it a real, more realistic journey for people to be able to embark on if they wanted to start their own organisation or to find their purpose. They’re not going to be so surprised if something doesn’t go right, or if they wake up one day feeling really unmotivated.

I think that’s a really key part of it for me, then you can be really honest about it, and if I know that I’ve been honest in what I’ve spoken about, then I’m very privileged to be in a position to be a role model.

I read a quote recently that said, “so now you’re not perfect, you can focus on being real.” I think that’s what we’re like. I’m coming to this understanding now, in speaking to so many amazing women, that being real is the real role model here. This is what people want. They don’t want perfection, because it’s not obtainable. Danielle, do you have anything to add on being a role model?

[Danielle] – Well, it’s not a goal of mine to be a role model. To me, it’s all about positively contributing, and I was just saying this morning I got a LinkedIn message from someone that I had mentored previously, and he told me how he’d quit his job after doing one of my purposeful career planning workshops and thanked me. This was a few months ago, so things are going well, and he thanked me for helping him find the courage to act. I think people can learn from my life well and good, but it’s not a one size fits all. I think I’d just rather make a positive contribution. One of my other coaching clients I helped to be a better version of himself without changing who he was.

That’s quite rewarding because I don’t want to impose my way of seeing the world on anyone. But I do want to help people be the best version of them that they can, and to have the clarity and courage to do that. I mean, it is important, I think Holly used that phrase, ‘it helps to see it.’ Not everyone has the imagination of what is possible and then not everyone has the courage. If you can see someone else who’s as real as you, as flawed as you, struggling with getting their kids to school, or fighting with their partner, or caring for a sick parent, or all that other stuff that everyone has going on as a real person, then it does help us gain that inner competence of maybe I could do that too.

Holly?

[Holly] – I was just going to say, this is probably the best time to be reflecting on what your purpose is, because there is so much. There’s been a shift where there’s an embrace of people’s realness and there’s an appreciation for authenticity and empathy and where each of us sit. I completely agree with the other two ladies.

If you can share what the real behind the scenes looks like in a career path, and how it feels, that it’s not perfect, I think that’ll help others to find their purpose. Because they know that just because they’re in pursuit of this one particular career path, or starting a business hasn’t been perfect, that’s okay.

It doesn’t mean your purpose is flawed or that that’s not for you. It just means that that’s the reality. It’s not quite as glossy and perfect as it might’ve seemed at the outset.

That’s a nice way to kind of round this off, with advice you have for anyone that’s searching for their purpose, but particularly women as this is our focus. Pip, would you like to start?

[Pip] – Yes, I think definitely having patience.

Finding your purpose is not like finishing an essay or an assignment. I think having the patience and not putting a time frame on yourself to be able to come up with what it is [is important].

If you’re struggling to write it down in a couple of sentences, sum up what it feels like for you when you are in flow with that purpose and use something that actually reflects really well for you. Danielle, I love the idea of putting that up and having that reminder and recording yourself to remind yourself every day what that purpose is. Also, having the flexibility to know that you might have this underlying purpose, but it will change as you grow, and as you get that life experience that you were talking about Danielle, and as you come into different roles within your lives.

When I became a mother, everything changed, and they often say, “Oh, when a baby’s born the mum’s reborn as well.” You agree, but then you’re in it. Like, “well, who am I, what am I, and how do I balance these?” If I’m thinking about my son more during the day, does that mean I’m off track from what I’m trying to achieve within my business? I think having the flexibility to also look at that purpose within the variety of roles that you have in your life as well could be something that just gives you a little bit more comfort, passion, and an understanding when trying to have a look at what glasses you’re going to be wearing each day, and just to be really forgiving of yourself.

Thanks, Pip. Danielle, any advice to find your purpose?

[Danielle] – Well, I think one of the things that really helped me was an exercise in the Stephen Covey book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that I read a long time ago. He said if you imagine yourself at your own funeral, what would you like people to read out about you and your life in your eulogy? I guess building on what Pip said there, just let the thoughts flow. What would you look back on fondly in your life that you’d be most proud of? Who would you want at your funeral, and what would each of them say about you from the different hats that you wear, and see what comes up for you? Just refine it, and it took me six months to find my purpose. That was at a really critical change point in my life. Some people can do it really quickly if they’ve been living authentically for a while and it’s just about incremental improvement and actually articulating that.

But I think begin with the end in mind. Actually, Holly and I are collaborating at the intersection of recruitment and purpose-led strategy, and we’re hosting an event later in the month literally on this topic, calling it purposeful possibilities. It’s to help people who have been looking at their life differently through the pandemic, either by choice or by force, and helping them to kind of gain a bit more clarity around what their purpose is, and what the implications of that might be for how they design their career and their life. We’d love to see you there and hopefully anyone that’s purpose curious.

Holly, your final takeaway for purpose?

[Holly] – Look, I would say don’t beat yourself up if you’re not sure what your purpose is, and it’s taking a while to discover that. I think everybody discovers that at a different rate, and for me it took years, and I’m still discovering it every single day as I evolve in my business and personal journey.

Even 12 months ago, I think my perspectives and my values, and my purpose was different. It goes on a continuum, and from a really practical perspective, I would say if you’re not sure, maybe reflect on your day and think about when were you in flow? What drained you? What gave you energy?

I found that to be a really effective exercise, in me finding my purpose or my role in my business. There were some things that just absolutely sapped me, and I knew immediately that I needed to stop doing those things. Then [there were] other things that drove me and made me feel like I was fulfilling my purpose in growing my business. It was all around empowering women in their careers. I would say that if you’re able to, step back and think about what it is that gives you energy and helps you thrive in your day to day.

Thank you so much for sharing your deep experience and purpose with us ladies.