One HR colleague saw his gift. Now he pays it forward.

John Moe hosts two podcasts today and wrote a memoir called The Hilarious World of Depression. In the early 1990s, he was answering customer service calls at a Seattle software company, convinced that was where he would stay. "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 until I died," Moe said. Then he stopped by the office of a woman in HR named Jane. She mentioned a creative job at her husband's company. Moe assumed she wanted a referral. "No, no. I mean you," she told him. "You don't belong here. You're meant to do something else." He got the job. Now he makes a point of telling people they are good at something, especially the ones not giving themselves credit. Someone told him once. He remembers what it did.