The Hints at What You Should Be Doing

If I think back to early in my career, I am probably the least likely person to ever become a public speaker.

I am a self-proclaimed and proud introverted book nerd. Speaking is not a career I would have chosen for myself. If you had told college-me that I would one day stand on stages helping leaders find their voice, I would have laughed and gone back to my textbook.

The first sign that I had a gift for moving people with my words came in college. I had to give a presentation in front of the class, and I decided to share a personal story.

Now let me set the scene. I was looking down. I was reading directly from my paper. I had no idea what I was doing. Please do not judge me. This was long before I knew anything about engaging an audience or holding a room.

When I finally looked up, multiple people were crying.

Including my professor.

It was one of those pivotal moments that gave me a clue about what I would eventually turn into a career I love, though it would take several more years for me to recognize it. At the time, I was studying electrical engineering. My career eventually took me somewhere else entirely.

That shift is a big part of why I am so passionate about helping people use their voices confidently. Not to sound cheesy, but I truly believe we all have something meaningful to communicate. Your voice may show up on a stage, in a meeting, during a difficult conversation, or when you speak up confidently about your work, your gifts, and your talents.

But here is the part I did not understand back then. The signs were already there. I just did not know how to read them.

Your career is trying to tell you something

Most of us are looking for the big neon sign. The one that says “THIS WAY TO YOUR PURPOSE, TURN LEFT.” We think a career shift should feel dramatic, like a lightning bolt or a burning bush.

In my experience, that is almost never how it works.

The signs are quieter than that. They show up in the small moments where something clicks, where energy rises, where people respond to you in ways that surprise you. If you are not paying attention, you will miss them completely. You will spend years grinding in the wrong direction, wondering why you feel stuck.

Here are the five signals I now teach leaders to watch for.

1. The moments people cry, laugh, or lean in

My professor was responding to something deeper than the words on my paper. She felt the way I connected the story to something true. I did not know I was doing that. I just told the story.

Pay attention to the moments when other people have a strong emotional response to something you did without trying. A colleague forwards your email to their whole team. A stranger tells you their kid needed to hear that. Your manager stops mid-meeting and asks how you did that. The response is bigger than the effort.

When that happens more than once, pay attention. Their reaction is telling you something true about your gift.

2. The tasks that feel like play

There is a specific kind of work that fills you up. You lose track of time. You come out of it more energized than when you started. Other people find the same task tedious or draining, and you cannot understand why.

For me, it is workshop design. I can build a training session for six hours straight and feel refreshed at the end of it. I have friends who would rather do their taxes.

Notice what your version of that is. It is often hiding inside a job description as a small piece of the work that everyone else on your team dreads and you look forward to.

3. The thing people keep asking you for

Look at the last six months of your calendar, your inbox, and your text messages. What do people keep coming to you for, beyond what your title says you do?

Someone always asks you to review their resume before they submit it. Your teammates pull you into every difficult client conversation. Your friends always want you to be the one to make the toast. Your family calls you when they have to draft a hard email.

The pattern is the message. People are showing you what they trust you to do. That trust got built over time because they saw something in you worth trusting.

4. The topic you cannot stop reading about

We all have a rabbit hole. The subject we go down at 11 p.m. and look up at 1 a.m. wondering where the time went. For some people it is real estate. For others it is fermentation, or the psychology of negotiation, or how organizations change.

Your rabbit hole is not random. It is your brain telling you where its curiosity naturally lives. When your work aligns with your curiosity, you do not have to force discipline. Discipline shows up on its own because you actually want to know more.

If you have to bribe yourself to read one more article about the industry you are in, that is worth noticing too.

5. The moment you felt fully yourself at work

Think about a single specific moment in your career when you felt completely alive. I am talking about a moment inside the work itself, when you thought, this is exactly where I am supposed to be. The moment when the work itself made you come alive.

Write it down. Notice what you were doing, who you were with, what problem you were solving, and what part of you was being used. That moment is a compass. Careers get built by stacking more of those moments over time.

You are allowed to want more of what made you feel alive.

What to do with what you notice

Reading the signs is only the first move. The next one is harder. You have to be willing to act on what you see, even when it does not match the path you already started down.

I was studying electrical engineering when my professor cried. I did not switch majors the next day. I did not know I could. It took me years to give myself permission to build a career around what I was actually good at, because engineering was the plan and I was already on the road. Changing the road felt like failure.

Looking back now, I can see that what felt like failure was really direction showing up.

If you are noticing signals right now, do not wait for permission or for the perfect moment. Start small. Take the next assignment that uses more of the muscle the signals are pointing to. Say yes to the thing that scares you a little because it lights you up. Have the conversation with your manager about where you want to grow. Reach out to someone who is doing the work you keep circling.

Your career is built through a thousand small decisions over time, and the signs are already there for you to read. Your job is to look up from the paper long enough to see them.

I am glad I finally did.

The signals I described are one half of the equation. The other half is whether the right people are seeing you when you show up. My free Strategic Visibility Assessment shows you where your influence and visibility are currently strong and where they need work. 

Summer Alexander is a leadership development facilitator, speaker, and communication coach, and the founder of Simply Training Solutions. She helps leaders build the executive presence, credibility, and influence to lead with impact. Learn more at summeralexander.com.