John Moe found himself working full-time in customer service at a software company. But a conversation with an HR representative helped reshape his future.

Transcript

DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:

Time again for My Unsung Hero, our series from Hidden Brain. My Unsung Hero tells the stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression. Today's story comes from John Moe. In the early '90s, John moved to Seattle to follow his dream of becoming a writer or an actor. Instead, he found himself working full time in customer service at a software company. One day, he stopped by the office of a woman he knew in HR named Jane. Jane told him about a new job that was opening up at her husband's company. She said they were looking for someone creative.

JOHN MOE: And I said, oh, OK. So you want to know if I can think of anybody creative? And she knew some of the other work I was doing on the side and the theater stuff and the comedy stuff. And she's like, no, no, I mean you. And I said, well, I don't know. I have a job here. And she said, you don't belong here, which is a hell of a thing to hear someone in HR say at your company. She said, you're meant for something other than this. You're meant to do something else. You should be making your living being creative. And to me, it felt like I had been playing pickup basketball at the YMCA and somebody said, you know, you should play for the Chicago Bulls. Like, it was that ridiculous an idea.

Undiagnosed, I had been dealing with depression for a long time by then, so I just had this inherent belief that other people got to do the cool things and I had to go get a job that I hated and work there till I died. I think when someone has no confidence, when someone has beaten themselves down over so many years, which is often the case with depression, that one little thing can make such a difference. And I'm welling up right now because somebody had seen something in me that I hadn't seen in myself.

And so now when I can tell somebody is really good at something and isn't giving themselves credit for it - I've done this with writers who are much less experienced than me. I try to tell them, you're a very good writer, you know, or, you're an excellent reporter, because maybe they haven't been told that enough times. And that confidence from hearing somebody say that - and I can always tell when I say that, when it's received and goes all the way to their heart, that that's going to give them the confidence to get to the next level and so that they can get to that point and they can tell somebody else that at some later point. You know, you have this in you. You can do this.

ESTRIN: John Moe of Saint Paul, Minn. He's the host of the podcast "Depresh Mode With John Moe." My Unsung Hero is also a podcast. You can find new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

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