This week marks the launch of my latest book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. Each day this week, I’ll be sharing an excerpt from the book, along with a challenge question for entrepreneurs to consider. Today’s reading features a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and asks you to engage in quiet introspection, a perfect activity for a cold winter’s day.

“True calling. Each person has their own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to them. They have faculties silently inviting them thither to endless exertion. They are like a ship in a river. They run against obstructions on every side but one. On that side, all obstruction is taken away, and they sweep serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. ”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws, 1841

How do you know when you found your calling? Well, here’s the clue. The truest measure of our significance is not what we do, but what happens to others when we do it. Impact like this doesn’t happen overnight. It happens because you’ve mastered your craft. Maybe it never feels as though it fully happens. Maybe someone will have to tell you it happened, but this is how you know you have found your true calling. Today, enter into every act by considering the impact it can produce for others.

Challenge question: Do others know the real you and what you stand for? How do you know?