01 — The Problem with Starting at "What You Love"
Walk into almost any session that uses the Ikigai framework and the opening question is the same: What do you love? It sounds intuitive. It feels exploratory. And for some purposes — helping someone reconnect with joy after a period of depletion, for example — it may be entirely appropriate.
But for senior executives navigating a career transition, a board-level pivot, or the question of legacy, it is the wrong starting point. When high-performing leaders begin with what they love, they almost always retreat to the familiar. The CFO says she loves numbers and strategy. The COO says he loves building systems and leading teams. The founder says she loves the early chaos, the zero-to-one. These are not wrong answers — but they are anchored in identity as it was, not purpose as it could be.
The result is a process that helps executives find a more comfortable version of what they already do, rather than helping them discover what they are genuinely called to contribute.
There is a better sequence. It starts at the opposite end of the wheel.
The Ikigai Reframe
A resequencing of the traditional Ikigai framework specifically for senior executives and high-performing leaders. Instead of beginning with "What do you love?", the sequence starts with "What does the world need?" and moves anti-clockwise: world need → love → good at → paid for. The resequencing is not cosmetic. It produces fundamentally different — and more generative — answers at every step.
02 — The Anti-Clockwise Sequence
The traditional Ikigai diagram presents four overlapping circles: what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. Most practitioners begin at circle one and move clockwise. The Ikigai Reframe inverts that sequence entirely.
Step 1: What does the world need? Step 2: What do you love? Step 3: What are you good at? Step 4: What can you be paid for?
This resequencing is not about being more rigorous for its own sake. It is a fundamentally different philosophical starting point — one rooted in contribution rather than comfort, in legacy rather than lifestyle. Money comes last. For senior executives who have already achieved financial security, the question of what pays well is the least interesting and least generative place to begin. It belongs at the end, as a structural check, not as a compass.
03 — Step One: What Does the World Need?
This is the hardest question — which is exactly why it must come first, while the executive still has full cognitive and emotional resources to sit with it.
At this level, "the world" is not abstract. It is specific sectors, communities, generations, or systems that are broken, underserved, or at an inflection point. The question is not "what problem interests you?" but rather: "Where would your absence be felt most acutely in twenty years?"
When Satya Nadella took the helm at Microsoft, he did not begin by asking what he loved about software. He started with a diagnosis of what the enterprise technology world needed: a shift from a culture of "know-it-alls" to "learn-it-alls," and a democratisation of cloud computing for businesses being left behind. His purpose was anchored in a systemic need first. His passion followed.
Dr Amelia, 54 — Former Chief Medical Officer, large hospital network
After 25 years in institutional healthcare, she could easily have moved into a comfortable non-executive director role. Instead, her engagement began with a different question: where is healthcare most broken? Her answer — the complete absence of high-quality preventive care for low-income communities — became the foundation for a social enterprise she co-founded, now operating in four countries. She did not start with what she loved. She started with what was missing in the world.
Advisory prompt: "If you could address one broken system — in business, society, or your industry — with everything you know and have access to, what would it be? And who would suffer if it remained unaddressed?"
04 — Step Two: What Do You Love?
Having identified a genuine world need, the executive now turns inward — but with an important new frame. The question is no longer "what have I always enjoyed doing?" in the abstract. It becomes: "Of all the ways I could respond to this need, which ones genuinely engage me?"
This is a liberating reframe. Purpose without passion is unsustainable. Leaders who commit to a mission they believe in intellectually but feel nothing for emotionally tend to disengage within two to three years. Starting here — after the world need has been named — also strips away a great deal of social performance.
Sophie, 48 — Former Chief Marketing Officer, luxury retail group
She had identified a critical need for better storytelling in the impact investing space — where extraordinary work was being done but communicated appallingly. When she reached step two, she asked herself a question she had not asked in twenty years of corporate life: what do I actually love doing? Not brand strategy in the abstract. The specific craft of making complex ideas beautiful and emotionally resonant for mainstream audiences. That love, largely suppressed in a data-driven corporate environment, turned out to be precisely what the impact sector needed most.
05 — Step Three: What Are You Good At?
With purpose defined and passion located, the work turns to capability — but with surgical precision. The executive is no longer asking "what are all my skills?" They are asking "which of my skills are most relevant to this specific purpose, delivered in a way I love?"
Senior leaders carry enormous reserves of competence — technical knowledge, pattern recognition, relationship capital, institutional credibility. The purpose-first approach acts as a filter. You are not listing everything you are capable of. You are identifying the intersection between your capabilities and the specific need you have committed to addressing.
When Paul Polman left Unilever, he had no shortage of marketable skills. But his process of identifying which skills mattered most for his next contribution produced a specific answer: his ability to move large institutions, to make the business case for sustainability in language that CFOs and boards could not dismiss, and to convene unlikely coalitions. Other capabilities were real but largely irrelevant to his purpose going forward.
06 — Step Four: What Can You Be Paid For?
Money comes last. Arriving here last changes the nature of the question entirely. The executive is no longer asking "what is the market willing to pay me for?" based on past title and domain. They are asking: "Is there a viable economic model that allows me to do this specific work, in this specific way, in service of this specific need?"
That is a far more interesting — and far more solvable — question. Because the previous three steps have already generated enormous clarity, the answer tends to emerge with surprising speed.
The question that surfaces the true floor: "What is the minimum return that would allow me to do this work with full commitment and zero resentment?" That question produces more useful information than any compensation benchmarking exercise.
07 — Why This Sequence Produces Better Outcomes
It bypasses ego-anchoring. Starting with "What does the world need?" pulls the executive outside their identity narrative before it has a chance to calcify. Many leaders at transition points are, without realising it, looking for permission to keep being who they have been.
It separates passion from habit. Executives discover, often with some surprise, that what they love most is not what their career has most rewarded. That gap is not a problem to solve. It is the most valuable data point in the entire process.
It produces legacy alignment. The leaders who thrive in their post-peak years are those with a clear sense of contribution that transcends title. The anti-clockwise Ikigai method builds from the outside in — and leaves money, appropriately, as a structural question rather than an existential one.
Where would the world be worse off if you did nothing with what you know? Start there. Everything else follows.
Cyrille Gossé is the founder of Elevate Career, an executive advisory practice for senior leaders navigating the plateau, the exit, and the deliberate reinvention.
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