How Young Professionals can Define and Communicate Purpose

Defining Your Purpose

Purpose is not necessarily the skill set that keeps you employed. After all, it’s possible
for anyone to pick up a skill through active or passive learning. You’ll know your

purpose when you find it. It feels natural, leaves you unfulfilled until you exploit it,
and ultimately enriches other people’s lives.
Take the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, for example. He discovered his purpose
twice! While studying for his degree at Princeton in the 80’s, he substituted Physics
with Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Years later, he again left his
Hedge Fund career on Wall Street to found Amazon in the far-flung e-Commerce
industry. We all know how that turned out.
Chimamanda Adichie did not start out with a pen. She only discovered her passion
for writing one and half years after studying Medicine and Pharmacy. Thereafter, she
switched to Communications and Political Science at Drexel University in
Philadelphia. She has Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah and a
MacArthur Fellowship to show for it.

Popular businesswoman Folorunso Alakija is number 20 on the list of Africa’s
billionaires for 2020. She struck oil wealth as a Joint Venture Partner with Star Deep
Water Petroleum Limited. Before that, she left a 12-year career in banking to start her
fashion label, Rose of Sharon, which shot her into the limelight as a trustee of fashion
and style. This set the stage for her renown as an oil industry magnate.
These professionals are drawn from different fields, but their commonality lies in
discovering their purpose and using it to make a tangible difference in their
respective spheres.