How Do I Find My Calling?

An excerpt from the book

From Welcome to Yourself, Chapter 11: How Do I Find My Calling?

Let me show you what I mean by clues.

When I went back over my own timeline, one of the ladders that jumped out was a fireside talk at Hokie Camp, a freshman orientation camp at Virginia Tech where I was a counselor. Someone asked if I wanted to speak at the fireside chat. I had no idea what I'd say. Before I spoke, a friend asked if he could pray for me. It was one of the first times I remember anyone praying for me. I got up and spoke, authentically, from the heart, nothing formal. And I realized that what was happening was bigger than what I was saying. That night was the first time I understood, God actually wants to touch people through my voice.

That's a gift. And it was sitting there in my story years before Welcome to Yourself.

Along the same line, there were hooks aimed right at that gift. A professor who called me out in front of people and degraded me. A mentor who made a comment about my speaking that amounted to, Do you really expect that to do anything? Those shots made me want to shut down instead of refine. Looking back, I can see they were aimed at the very thing I was made to do.

Some of your hooks are pointing at your ladders. The places you've been criticized the most may be the places your gift lives.

And don't get too hung up on whether something is a gift or a skill. I started an email list in 2016, and it used to take me three hours to write three hundred words. Today, years later, writing is one of the ways I do what I've always had a natural instinct for: encouraging, motivating, challenging people. The instinct was the gift. The writing was a skill I developed to carry it.