Years ago I mentored a young man who was exploring sales as a career. However, it was evident early in his training that he didn’t enjoy the face-to-face contact of industrial- based clientele: he had an introverted, compliant behavioral style and preferred to work alone in a more detailed, non-engaging environment. Nevertheless, he found sales to be a profitable job; his sales achievements paid the bills, and he continued to “plug along” … enduring the drudgery of his work.

If you identify with this story, maybe you are also still searching for your own life’s greatest purpose! If that is the case, the next couple of minutes may just be the defining point in your career.

In his recent book, The 8th Habit, Steve Covey defines a process for following “Your Voice”, a course of life where talent, passion, need, and conscience are all in alignment.

Here is how Covey defines each of these attributes:

• Talent:Your natural gifts and strengths.
• Passion: Those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate, and inspire you.
• Need: What the world needs enough to pay you for.
• Conscience: That still, small voice within that assures you of what is right and that prompts you to actually do it.

“When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion - that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet - therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.” Covey continues, “There is a deep, innate, almost inexpressible yearning within each one of us to find our voice in life.”

The impressionable young rep had the good fortune to be led by a group of people who cared: corporate consultant, mentor, peer, and manager. Citing his personal struggle with security, identity, and selfworth, he decided to leave the security of his sales job … and choose to listen to his “inner” voice. Now, 30 years later, I have the privilege of looking back over his career; I can still remember an emotional phone call he made thanking me for guiding him through that transition.

He has recently retired from a brilliant career as senior welding engineer for an international corporation … his greatest passion. John Maxwell expresses this process in his book, Becoming a Person of Influence, “As you move forward on the success journey, you need to remember that what happens IN you is more important than what happens TO you. You can control your attitude as you travel on the journey.”

I have had the distinct privilege of working with a number of sales professionals who are naturals … they exhibit passion for their work, and they are extremely good at what they do. How about you? When was the last time you took some time to seriously reflect … and listen to your “inner” voice… the voice that describes your unique, personal significance?