How to Align Your Purpose and Paycheck to Build a Career with Social Impact in 2021 and Beyond

As we close out what has been a challenging and in many respects, an eye-opening year, you may be wondering about how to align your desire to make a difference in our world, with your need to earn a living in 2021 and beyond.

Last week, I had the honor of speaking on the Cornell University alumni panel, Purpose and Paychecks: Building a Career with Social Impact on how to align one's purpose and one's paycheck with Lauren Braun, MScPH (founder of Alma Sana Inc.) and Dan Schiff (Assistant Director of Institutional Development at Martha's Table), and moderated by Mike Bishop (Director for Student Leadership in the Cornell University Office of Engagement Services).

This Cornell Alumni News article, Finding Your North Star: Aligning Your Purpose and Your Paycheck, highlights what we shared about our individual journeys, as well as resources we provided to the 175 webinar attendees.

Below are quotes from each of us (also included in the article) that might be helpful as you think about your own journey:

• My advice on the importance of proactively sharing your story - a key element of your personal brand that helps to facilitate your career pivots, “By not sharing your story with others, you’re actually depriving those who could potentially be inspired by, partner with, or hire you, of the opportunity to learn about what you uniquely bring into this world. The failure to share your accomplishments, though it may be inspired by humility, is actually an act of selfishness.”
• Dan Schiff on how to pivot into a social sector career: “Find a way to volunteer, write a blog, or do whatever enables you to tell a new story about yourself that allows you to pivot”.
• Lauren Braun's advice for those considering a career pivot, “Don’t be afraid to challenge what you think you wanted and what you think it says about you and your values. We want and need different things at different stages of our lives. It’s ok to change your mind—that’s how we evolve.”

As I also shared on the panel, one does not necessarily have to leave a corporate job to create social impact. Here are

two of my presentation slides providing the spectrum of organizations and funders that provide opportunities to do so.

Register and watch the panel recording through this link: https://alumni.cornell.edu/article/finding-your-north-star-aligning-your-purpose-and-your-paycheck/

Finally, in this eCornell Keynote presentation, Your Personal Brand: Leveraging Your Unique Knowledge and Experience that I recorded earlier this year (LINK), I provide strategies and tactics to help you think through how to develop your own impact-driven journey, as well as develop your personal brand.