Ask these four questions to determine if you have the right job.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman
That quote has stayed with me for years—because there was a stretch of my career when I wasn’t living it.
I hated my job.
The irony stung. I had enjoyed most of my career and held multiple leadership roles. This position brought me back into transportation after time in local government. The pay was excellent, and the company’s head pointed to the general manager’s chair and promised I would soon sit in it.
It never happened.
Years passed. My responsibilities shifted, then shrank, until I was mostly pushing paper—administrative minutiae and reports. The environment was stifling, bureaucratic, and tightly micromanaged. Once, a customer publicly scolded me in a large staff meeting because the tail of my necktie was askew and ordered me to leave until I fixed it. The humiliation was deliberate, a tool to reinforce fear and control. Even routine employee memos required approval before posting. Senior staff was sometimes reminded, half-jokingly, that seven words—“please remove Paul Comfort from this contract”—could end our jobs.
Other opportunities appeared, including a chance to become a CEO. I stayed. I was making too much money to leave. I learned the hard way: golden handcuffs are still handcuffs.
I had always said I would never take a job just for the money. Yet there I was, remaining in one I hated for exactly that reason. I felt trapped.
That experience produced four questions I now use as guideposts—questions anyone in a similar situation can ask:
**1. Are your talents actually being used?**
Competence is not the same as fit. My role drew on some administrative skills but barely touched my greatest strength: working with people. I could do the paperwork; it simply didn’t energize me.
Ask yourself: Which of my strongest abilities and interests does this job use? Which are sitting unused on the shelf?
**2. Do you feel respected?**
I didn’t need constant praise. I needed reasonable autonomy and professional treatment. Instead, I felt diminished, micromanaged, and occasionally humiliated in front of my own staff. Even my boss understood the situation yet would say, in effect, “Work isn’t fun. If it were fun, it wouldn’t be called work.”
Work doesn’t have to be enjoyable every minute. But a workplace should not diminish you as a person.
Ask yourself: Do the people around me trust my judgment, respect my contribution, and let me do the work I was hired to do?
**3. Can you grow here, or are you simply aging in place?**
I had been promised advancement. The years passed and the path vanished. Eventually the company wrote me out of the following year’s business plan without telling me.
Growth does not always mean promotion. It can mean greater responsibility, new skills, challenging projects, or expanded influence. The real question is simpler: Am I still being challenged? Am I still growing?
There is a big difference between accumulating years of experience and repeating the same year over and over.
**4. Are you trading your passion for a paycheck?**
We all have bills. Walking away from significant compensation is never a theoretical exercise when real financial responsibilities exist. I told myself I couldn’t afford to take $50,000 less for a role that would have used both my skills and my passions.
Ask yourself: Has compensation become the only convincing reason to stay? And what am I giving up in exchange for this paycheck?
The ultimate answer is not always to quit.
I didn’t.
Instead, I looked for a way to bring something I loved into my existing responsibilities. I volunteered to teach new-employee orientation every Monday. For four hours each week I left my office and worked with people—meeting new hires, explaining the big picture, answering questions, helping them understand the organization. All things I love to do.
Those four hours put me in my bliss. Suddenly Monday became my favorite day of the week.
That experience taught me an important lesson: before abandoning a job, try redesigning part of it. Volunteer for a different assignment, ask for new responsibilities, or shadow someone in another department. Use your time inside the organization to understand how it works and to prepare for the next opportunity.
Later, when I became CEO of the Maryland Transit Administration, I remembered that lesson. I allowed some employees to shape roles around what they did best and cared about most. When ability, interest, and organizational need aligned, everyone benefited.
That intersection is what I now call your X Factor.
Look back through your life. What activities have consistently lit you up? What makes time stand still? Then consider your abilities. What do people reliably tell you you’re good at?
Where have those two things overlapped?
Those moments are clues. Your life has already drawn a personal treasure map. The challenge is recognizing it—and having the courage to follow it toward work that uses what you are good at to do something that makes you come alive.
