A student—let’s call him Jake—recently came to office hours to talk about how to proceed with his career search. He had just received a rejection letter from a firm he had been interviewing with, and had no other interviews lined up. His emotions were, understandably, disappointment and anxiety. Disappointment at not getting the offer, and anxiety and fear about his future. He felt like he was out of options.

My message to him: no matter how bleak the situation looks, we are never out of the game completely (until we are dead). We always have a card left to play. We just need to find it.

When I Thought I Was Out of the Game

At the beginning of the semester, I introduce myself to the students by telling them that I was also a student at UT-Austin and graduated with a 2.88 GPA. I also show them a slide of my professional background, which includes fancy names like Harvard and NYU and McKinsey and the Federal Reserve. I do that mainly to set the tone for students that are struggling. I want them to understand that however far below their own original aspirations they have fallen,[1] comebacks are possible.

When Jake came in, I repeated this story. When I graduated, I had no job prospects. My grades were terrible and I had not participated in campus recruiting at all. I did have one relationship—the single card left in my hand—which was someone I knew from volunteering with the Travis County Republican Party. That person connected me to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a local think tank, and they brought me on as an unpaid intern. When the legislative session was close to starting, TPPF’s executive director suggested that I go to the state Capitol and go door-to-door to hand out resumes at every office—both Democrats and Republicans. She said that many new people had been elected, and they would be looking for staff.

I printed out 150 resumes and handed all of them out. Only one office—that of State Representative Phil King—brought me in for an interview. Again, only one card.

That one card turned out to be more than enough.

Phil ultimately hired me to be the junior clerk for the Regulated Industries Committee, which oversaw telecommunications and the electricity grid in Texas. That one card produced a lot of wins for me, and not necessarily ones that I expected. Not only did I get to build relationships with all sorts of people, but I got to learn a lot about electricity. I had no understanding of or interest in electricity markets or policy before working for the Committee, but I found that they were directly connected to the economics classes that I enjoyed in college.

Phil ended up writing me a very strong letter of recommendation for me to attend the Kennedy School, Harvard’s public policy program. My entire application was focused on electricity policy.[2]

How to Find Your Last Card

Cards are just resources. Until the moment of death, all of us have some resource left. Here is a step-by-step approach to get back into the game:

1)    Inventory What’s Still in Your Hand

In the worst moments—like where Jake is right now—we still have something left. That could be a relationship, a skill that is dormant but still potentially useful, a half-formed idea, or even just time and energy. The most important thing is to take stock of it, whatever it is.

2)    Recognize the Fear

People often get tripped up by fear during this process. The fear says, “this relationship won’t help,” “nobody wants this skill,” etc. Listening to the fear is the same as deciding that the hand is lost before the card has even been played. That’s why it’s important to just honestly assess whatever is there, without any judgement.

3)    Play the Card!

Whatever the card is, play it!

The important thing here is taking action. Action has a momentum of its own. New environments, new situations, new people always open up new possibilities. I never would have thought of handing out 150 resumes without TPFF’s executive director telling me to do it.

4)    Shuffle the Deck

One way to think about taking action is that it’s like shuffling the deck. Taking actions in the world create randomness and a person like Jake—who is facing a static, frozen game board—needs to shake up the game board.

Every time we reach out to someone in our network, publish a piece, or attend an event, it’s like we’re shuffling the deck and drawing an entirely new hand. Most of the cards won’t be worth much, but if we shuffle the deck enough times we will eventually draw a full house.

5)    Stay in the Game—Keep Playing More Cards

As we take action, we accumulate cards. We need to keep playing them.

Since drawing cards is random, we may not be able to fit the cards we draw into any kind of master plan. The important thing, in my view, is to just keep the forward momentum going. When we have accumulated too many cards—options—we can slow down and take stock of where we are at and how the next move fits into the long-term goal. But until we get to that point, we want to be continually playing cards in order to generate a rich set of options.

Analysis Paralysis and the Paradox of Choice

I want to conclude with a final point about the benefit having only one card left to play.

Many of us struggle with analysis paralysis. We have too many choices, too many options, and in trying to find the “perfect” one we end up making no decision.

By contrast, when our backs are to the wall and we have only one card left, there is nothing to analyze or think about—we have to play the final card we have left because there is no other move (other than giving up). Taking an imperfect action leads to better outcomes than waiting a long time to take the perfect action.

This is the paradox. When we are down to one last move, we stop strategizing and start moving. That movement generates its own ripple effects. Although our hand may be weak, playing it with full energy changes the game.

The goal isn’t to win the game with a perfect hand. The goal is to stay in the game long enough to get lucky.

Exercise

Journal on the following or discuss with a friend.

1)      Evaluate the Game State

Where in my life do I feel stuck or out of options? Where have I been applying effort, and despite my efforts, nothing has materialized for me?

2)      Inventory the Hand

Slow down and take a look at your “hand” of cards.

When I look at my hand, what do I see? Is it only twos and threes left? Is there anything there that could be considered a high card like a king or queen?

Listen for fear as you go through this process. The words will be something like “these cards are too weak to ever win,” or “I have no cards left” (never true). There may also be shame or negative self-talk—“someone else would have won with this hand.”

3)      Play a Card and Shuffle the Deck!

What is a card that I can play right now? It might be sending an email to an old contact, attending an event, or publishing something on social media. However weak it may be, can I play it?

As I play that card, what other weak (or strong) cards do I have left to play? Can I play them with the goal of “shuffling the deck” and drawing a new hand?

A person who is winning wants to shorten the game. If you are losing, you want to lengthen the game in order to buy time for random things to happen. Life is a game of chance. Wild comebacks happen all the time!

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[1] I teach mostly seniors. Many came in with big dreams as freshmen and feel like over their four years in school, they’ve failed to achieve what they thought they would do in college.

[2] My master’s thesis was on electricity pricing. My thesis sponsor was someone I met through a connection working for Phil.