Career Advice from Jullien "PurposeFinder" Gordon

Many of you read our responsible career section in hope to gain career advice on how to build a career that successfully blends financial return with social impact and environmental responsibility.  Well rejoice, because today, you will be able to learn more about how to do exactly that by getting career advice from Jullien 'PurposeFinder' Gordon.

Jullien Gordon is an impressive 28-year old social entrepreneur who has turned his passion for helping others make informed career decision into a variety of business ventures.  Originally from Oakland, CA, Jullien earned his BA from UCLA with Majors in Business Economics, and Education.  Furthermore, in 2007, Jullien received two masters' degrees from Stanford University—his MBA and Masters in Education.

Jullien is the archetype of a new brand of responsible leaders that do not get lured by big money or prestige derived from working for a big firm.  Instead, Jullien chose to generate his income by doing what he is passionate about.  Jullien is passionate about ending 'purposelessness at work' (also know as underemployment).   To do so, Jullien founded 'The Department of Motivated Vehicles', as well as wrote and published two books titled—'The 8 Cylinders of Success: How To Align your Personal and Professional Purpose' and 'Good Excuse Goals: How to End Procrastination & Perfectionism Forever'.  In addition, in 2009, Jullien partnered with the National Society of Collegiate Scholars for his Route 66 Tour.  His program 'The 66 Things A College Student Must Do Before Graduation' was delivered with resounding success on various campuses all over the United States.

During a phone conversation last summer, I had the opportunity to catch up with Jullien as he was wrapping up the Route 66 Tour and getting ready to start his new program - The Career Change Challenge.  Here are a few points from our conversation:

Mrim Boutla (M.B.):  You chose to go from a traditional business education to becoming a coach and a motivation teacher.  Tell me more about this decision.

Jullien Gordon (J.G.):  Indeed, when I went to Stanford, it was probably #2 in the world in terms of business schools.  What I saw was that despite my classmates being some of the world's most talented people, they were still sucked into this idea that banker, consultant, or consumer marketer were the only things available to them.  It hurt me to see these talented people not going out there and creating and carving out their own careers.  In contrast, all the alumni and leaders that came to speak at Stanford, including Phil Knight (Chairman of Nike), Richard Branson (Chairman of the Virgin Group) and Richard Faibanks (CEO of Capital One), actually create their career on a daily basis, they are not people who accept jobs.  So for me it's actually about creating new ladders, or even creating new paths that didn't even exist before.  So it hurt me to see some of the world's most talented people actually being very fearful about careers and take paths of certainty and security when we in fact need their leadership to create change and usher the world into a new paradigm and new models of living and gaining, and doing business.

M.B.:  Through my experience as an MBA career coach, I have seen many MBAs not taking the time to reflect upon their purpose and instead just focusing on 'getting a job' and a 'get it over with' attitude to their career and personal development.  What did you to take the time to reflect and maybe engage classmates in conversations around their purpose and their career goals?

J.G.:  At Stanford, there was a course called 'Career and Life Vision' taught by Andy Chan who was the Director of the Stanford MBA Career Center at the time.  Now Andy Chan is the Vice President for Career and Personal Development at Wake Forest University, where he is doing some amazing work there.  Beyond a one-off course here and there, there was nothing really integrated into the curriculum.  As you know, a lot of people go to business school to change their careers, and you have two years to do so, and you try and get an internship after the first year in the career that you think you want but at the end of the day, people leave a career that they don't want and they go into this business school environment and there is no set processes to help them identify what they truly want.  And then they start hurting, and I see all these people going through marketing interviews and banking interviews, and consulting interviews, and all end up wanting to do the same things.  And that didn't make sense to me.  How can you have the 350 most talented people on the planet wanting to be the same 5 things?  That doesn't make sense.  So as the opportunities were not necessarily there in the curriculum, I decided to create a lot of my professionals and personal growth opportunities outside of the MBA classroom.  I created opportunities for myself through readings and other things such as taking classes in different disciplines at Stanford, all of which opened my eyes, my mind and my heart.  For instance, I took John Krumbolz's undergraduate class on career planning, based on his book 'Luck is No Accident'.  A lot of these experiences shaped my path, along with the help from mentors who have been of tremendous help to me as I navigated major transitions in my life.

M.B.:  Through your Route 66 Program, you toured many campuses all over the country, helping undergraduate students learn more bout the 66 things they can do while in college to prepare for their life and career post-graduation.  You have certainly heard from many types of students, including seniors that apply to graduate school as a way to avoid making a decision about their careers.  What is your take on this trend?

J.G.:  As you said, many seniors apply to graduate school as though graduate school will help them gain clarity about their career path, but really all they are doing is buying time because they don't know what they want to do.   Most people go to graduate school to buy time, incur a lot more debt instead of actually doing the self-evaluation and exploration to discover their purpose, their passions, the problems that they care about, all of the 8 cylinders of success that will help them be more prepared straight out of their undergrad.

M.B.:  What are your next steps to grow 'The Driving School for Life'?

J.G.: Yes my new program integrate the 'Driving School for Life' into a new program called the '30-Day Career Change Challenge', which is an online seminar to help people change their careers.  As a participant, you will go through 4 phases designed to help you achieve their D.R.E.A.M, namely your Desired Relationships, Employment, And Money.   The first step in this process will focus on defining your Dream - through visualization and dynamic exercises, you will articulate what you truly want out of your life, what you want your life to mean, what your want your legacy to be.  The next step is attracting your dream job, and that has to do with personal branding, which means your website, your resume 1.0, your resume 2.0, your cover letter and getting all of these pieces aligned so that you can attract your dream job.  The next phase is building your DREAM Team, and this involves networking up, down and across, as well as identifying your team of mentors who will help guide you through your career change process.  The final part will be about landing your DREAM job and will include interviewing and other steps in your career change challenge.  So we will go through these 4 modules via online seminars, weekly calls, as well as self-paced modules and a workbook that participants will receive at their home.

Jullien Gordon is on its way to revolutionize how GenYers envision their responsible careers and life goals, and is definitely one of the most inspiring social entrepreneurs you can come across.  To further benefit from Jullien's invaluable career advice, join him for his '30-Day Career Change Challenge', which will be starting on November 1st, 2010.

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