Duncan Bolam – ‘The Purpose Coach’

Following years of seemingly aimless burning through jobs in my quest for meaning, and grappling with the question of what course in life would lead me to a sense of belonging, I finally found my calling in 1997. That pivot-point, a formal career guidance interview, supplied an authentic epiphany that became the touch-paper that changed the course of my entire life. That breakthrough moment of clarity has become the keystone upon which I have built every achievement since, because it invested my life’s mission: to help others discover their own breakthroughs. And satisfied my life’s purpose: to satisfy my paramount value to prevent unnecessary waste – particularly, when it comes to squandering human potential.

Consequently, for almost three decades, I’ve carved out my living as a freelance executive coach, human capital consultant, career strategist and inventor, guiding people and organisations to align the work they were born to do with their overarching purpose. Over those years, I have become known as ‘The 90% Guy’ because of a stark truth I have seen repeated time and again: 90% of people I meet are either in the wrong job altogether or emotionally disengaged from their work. This does not simply manifest as a personal struggle; it is an immense and unnecessary loss of human potential, creativity and value – on both a micro and macro scale – across the whole of society. A society within which each and every one of us possesses both a stake and an earnest responsibility to deliver our unique calling to the world.

The Number One conundrum causing this epidemic of lost vocations is the esoteric and intangible nature of performing the crucial act of self-inventory to dovetail our innate aptitudes, curiosities, principles and insights into a vocation that truly radiates our sense of calling to others. That’s why I’ve spent the last quarter of a century developing tools and systems to decode the often-invisible forces that maximise human potential. My work helps people answer life’s greatest conundrum: the Who, What, Why, Where, When, and How of a life lived on purpose.

I believe purpose isn’t an unachievable luxury or one more flaky buzzword. It’s the very foundation of fulfilment and the invisible lever that enlivens everything it moves, touches, and uplifts – our work, our lives, relationships, communities, and society as a whole. My mission is simple yet profound: to help people live lives that are authentic, meaningful and deeply aligned with who they truly are. Ultimately, lives that attain ‘self-actualisation’.

Or, as Maslow latterly re-coined the phrase he had become so synonymous with: for each of us to know ‘full-humanness’.

What I call Good Being: serving the good that resides within each of us to the world.