Discover your greatness: Discover your voice

When you engage in a 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 - Stephen Covey

Like an oceanic orchestra performing a symphony, with every instrument and performer beautifully harmonized to produce an impeccable tune, so our natural endowments and gifts arranged to fit perfectly with the needs and challenges our generation and the world at large. Every single person on earth is endowed naturally to do at least one thing in a great way.

Unfortunately, until you discover your voice amidst the billions of voices ardently blaring to make an impact in life’s great Symphony, you will die with none of our gifts unpacked.

"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself" - Ralph Ellison.

Are you willing to be yourself ? What tune can you contribute to the classical symphonic melody going on across the globe? See, there is a song initiated across the globe that requires your voice—your contribution. It is incumbent upon you to discover what you were born to do and how to strike success in this noisy, competitive world.

You were fashioned to solve a specific problem and fill a need in this world and all your gifts, talents, and abilities are designed to fulfill that assignment. George Alexander Trebek, a Canadian television personality and the host of the syndicated game show Jeopardy, believes that “We are all experts in our own little niches.”

Ironically, if you don’t discover your voice and join the orchestra , your mind and life would be invariably and subliminally influenced by other people’s voices. American entrepreneur, co-founder, former chairman and chief executive officer of Apple Inc., Steven Paul Jobs alerted that “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Remarkably, the moment you discover your voice all other voices become ancillary to yours. In other words, they come to augment your voice but not to determine what “Tune to carry” in life.

Deep within the depths of your spirit lies an idea, a solution, an invention, an innovation that is meant to fill a need in this generation and when you dig deep enough to bring it out, your voice would forever remain significant in the history of humanity.

William Henry Gates III, born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates of English, German, and Scots-Irish descent, discovered his voice at a young age in the preparatory school he attended.

At 13, he was enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school. When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal – an electromechanical teleprinter designed for light-duty office—and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.

William exhibited great interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, a computer programming language, and hence was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. Subsequently, he wrote his first computer program on this machine—an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer.

After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, William and four other students took on another adventure by seeking to exploit bugs in the operating system of computers to obtain free computer time. This action landed them in trouble, and all four Lakeside students—William, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—were banned for the summer when they were caught.

At age 17, William formed a venture with Paul Allen, one of his high school mates, called Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. He graduated from Lakeside School in 1973, scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973. William was not intrigued by the academic work at Harvard and so spent a lot of time using the school's computers trying to find his niche and discover his voice in his generation.

In summer of 1974, William and his friend, Paul Allen, reunited at Honeywell. The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800: a microcomputer design based on the Intel 8080 CPU. William and Allen saw this as an opening to launch their own computer software company. Subsequently William dropped out of Harvard, a decision his parents concurred to.

In 1987, William “Bill” Henry Gates III was listed as a billionaire in the pages of Forbes' “400 Richest People in America” issue, just days before his 32nd birthday as the world's youngest self-made billionaire. Time magazine named William one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Time also collectively named William, his wife Melinda and U2's lead singer, Bono, as the 2005 “Persons of the Year” for their humanitarian efforts. He is considered the second wealthiest person on earth today all because he resolved to discover his voice and make himself significant in his generation.

When you decide to find your niche, discover your voice, and consequently find a need and fill it—the systems and personalities in your generation will stand aside for you.

In other words, posterity would celebrate your greatness. Your greatness in life is innately interconnected with the discovery of your voice and using it as a platform to change and affect lives in a constructive fashion. Knowing what you were born to do and being able to gladly declare at the end of your journey of life that ‘I have succeeded in my calling’ requires to :

- Listen to your inner voice — Most people constantly turn to external entities for the discovery of their voice in life but all that you need and would ever need is encapsulated in your spirit. "Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path",Henry Winkler.

- Do what you love (Passion) — The nexus of your heart and natural abilities, human need and pleasure lies your passion in life. "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life ", Marc Anthony. Passion determines the level of your greatness in life, not your gift or education.

- Resolve To Be Unique — There are over 6.5 billion people on this planet and the voice coding of every single person is different. This testifies of the power of uniqueness. Your success in life, by far, is inherent in your courage to be different. “Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself,” Bill Gates.

- Think Outside The Box — The discovery of your voice leans greatly on your ability to be creative and innovative—that is thinking and doing things differently. If you believe you are unique, then why are you afraid to think and do things differently? “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought,” Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi.

- Be Courageous And Persistent — To be effective in finding your niche and discovering your voice in this world, your passion to succeed in life should be greater than the fear of losing. Furthermore, you have to learn how to be consistently persistent. Never give up; Keep on keeping on!

- Find A Need And Fill It — “No great person sets off in life to achieve greatness; it is in the unfeigned service and persistent sacrifice to a cause greater than themselves that elevates them to the pinnacle of life,” Ignatius K. Otchere-Asamoah. Your voice in life is proportionately directed to a specific need in this world, it is your responsibility to find that need and fill it.

As a musician, start singing your songs even if no one is willing to promote it. As a writer or an actor, keep on writing the novels, short stories, scripts and articles regardless of who rejects it. Don’t stop baking even if friends are ridiculing your recipe, as a culinarian.

As a sportsman or woman, keep training and believe in your talent expecting the big break though no team seem interested in you presently. Whatever passion you desire to pursue in life, start by doing it in a small way by volunteering and soon people would recognise your talent.

Never give up! Change is coming. Even though other voices seem to be trumpeting louder than yours, soon you would hit a “home run” and greatness would ensue.

Regardless of your present situation, I urge you not to let go of your natural abilities and calling in life. Most people make the mistake expecting the world to give them the permission to become the who they were created to be. Never sit back waiting for the world to recognize your gift and abilities, start honing and serving it to friends, a loved one, and communities around you and before long people would come seeking you out and stand aside for you.

Dr Otchere-Asamoah is an Inspirational Speaker, Psychotherapist, Author and Entrepreneur.