Blog 1, I outlined the framework. In Blog 2, I explored why it matters later in life.
Now, let’s get practical: here are four gateways into discovering your purpose
Purpose that’s tied to your success is fragile. Success, money, power—they’re great rewards, but terrible goals. Build your goals on the quality of your life, the integrity of your choices, and the person you’re growing into. Let your work, your relationships, and your impact speak for themselves. Purpose isn’t something you chase—it’s something you become”
– Erwin Raphael McManus
Purpose isn’t found in a book or a TED Talk—it’s unearthed through disciplined clarity and clear intention. You cultivate the inner calling, then give it shape and voice in the world.
Ask yourself:
- What inner values and experiences quietly shaped you?
- How can that translated into a clear “why” statement that others understand and rally behind?
That’s the transformative synergy—inner life and outer execution—that we nurture at Compadres. Here are the four doorways or entry points to finding your purpose. These are the exact pathways I use with entrepreneurs inside the Compadres framework—it’s how we turn an itch, a pain, or a passion into a real growth plan.
Read through the following and pick a pathway that speaks to you.
1. Problem: The Itch You Can’t Stop Scratching (Problem You’re Drawn to Solve).
If you’re lacking some form of trauma or pain, there’s a good old way to find your purpose. Sometimes, purpose shows up as a persistent itch. A question you can’t stop asking. An Itch to Scratch: that you develop along the way. An idea that lights you up, that you you can’t stop thinking about. In truth, I think all great careers, businesses, and endeavour have large dose of this.
A problem you feel deeply compelled to fix—even if you don’t know why. You see a broken system, an inefficient process, or an overlooked opportunity, and something in you says: “Surely, we (see “l”) can do better than this.”
Steven Marks, Founder and of Guzman and Gomez, the $3 billion listed Mexican quick service restaurant business, with a locations across Australia, Asia and now in the USA. Steven is so focussed and uncompromising on his Purpose to create healthy food delivered swiftly (my words not his). By creating the best restaurants in the world. He’s razor sharp to his values…. He will not compromise on food quality, his teams, the customer experience … What he has achieved with his team is extraordinary.
This is the entrepreneurial flame, the creative spark, the builder’s instinct.
It’s Elon imagining humanity on Mars.
It’s the coffee shop owner believing he or she can make someone’s morning better, one perfectly crafted flat white at a time.
It doesn’t have to be global to be meaningful.
The itch simply refuses to leave you alone until you do something about it.
2. Unlocking Hidden Potential
Other times, purpose reveals itself through discovery. You try something new, perhaps on a whim, and realise you have a knack for it. You manage, you lead, you organize, you teach. And something clicks inside you. You get lost in the act of doing it. For me, I think it was creating video or film at age 16. I had a good eye, and a passion for it. And creating soothed my anxiety.
That’s potential calling your name.
For me, it was creating video at age 16. I had an eye, a passion—and creating soothed my anxiety.
And often, we don’t find it unless we’re willing to experiment, to fail, to learn clumsily.
Jay Shetty offers a simple method: sample widely. Try 52 new things in 52 weeks. Somewhere along the way, your innate talents start tapping you on the shoulder saying, “Hey, you’re good at this. Pay attention.”
This quadrant of purpose is about permission. Giving yourself permission to explore, to tinker, to get curious. And when potential meets passion—it’s electric. I find this with coaching. I love being a contribution to people
3. Pain as the Pathway
A way to find your purpose, is some of the regular, old-fashioned trauma or pain. For many, pain is the birthplace of purpose. The wound becomes the seed. A heartbreak, an injustice, a loss—these experiences shape us, but they also gift us empathy, perspective, and often a deep urge to prevent others from enduring the same suffering.
You’ll find these people everywhere—the cancer survivor who now advocates for early detection, the abuse survivor who now creates safe spaces for others to heal, or the person who endured poverty who now fights for economic inclusion.
My burden or pain has come out in my Purpose. “ to make a difference, to be a contribution “, in my case through entrepreneurial . When I look back on my story, to the moment my father died when I was 8. There was a kindness in me that wanted to be a contribution way back then. For the two weeks after he died, I was sleeping in my mum’s bedroom on a fold out mattress. Clearly she was distressed. When I said to her, “don’t worry , dad’s looking down on us from heaven and everything’s gonna be okay”
At that moment, I think I was channelling “ contribution and making a difference”.
Now I do that for a living, mostly with entrepreneurs via the Compadres platform.
4. The Call from the Planet
Sometimes your purpose isn’t born from your story—it’s born from your observation of the world. This is what happened with the likes of Hugh Evans, Simon Moss and Wei Soo when they created Global Citizen..
Portay,They saw injustice.
My friends Simon Moss, Hugh Evans and Wei Soo, started global citizen, the $50 billion NGO juggernaut, because one day, “this privileged white kid” (Hugh’s words, not mine), after winning the 40 hour famine fundraising and then in Australia, was sent to the Philippines. Where he met Sonny boy. He slept with Sunny boy on a pile of garbage, literally, and woke up thinking that he and his mates mostly talked about the latest phone. At that point he wanted to knew he wanted to end extreme poverty.
His purpose burns brightly.
You witness environmental destruction. You feel called to protect, to heal, to serve something bigger than yourself. Maybe it’s the climate. Or animal welfare. Or mental health.
