Know the career game you’re playing

What do you think I should do?

It depends. Take the classic (cliché?) interview question: where do you see yourself in 10 years? Your honest answer, the one you tell yourself rather than the one you polish for interviews (hopefully they're the same), defines the career game you're playing.

And there are a lot of games out there. Some people are climbing the ladder at a big company. Some are optimizing for compensation, or stability, or mastery of a craft. Some want flexibility so work fits around the rest of their life. None of these is better than the others, but they call for very different moves.

Using myself as an example, my thought has always been that I'd like to start a company one day. Whether it actually happened mattered less than the mindset. The game I was playing was to collect experiences that would ladder up to founding something. I tried different functions, moved into a PM role, and joined teams focused on 0 -> 1 products rather than optimizing the core product, which would have been the smarter move if my goal were climbing the PM ladder.

You can always decide to change the game you're playing. But at least for your current set of decisions, knowing which one you're focused on makes the next move a lot clearer.

So when someone asks "what do you think I should do?", the real answer may be another question: what game are you playing?

A book worth checking out if you're stuck on this and need inspiration: The Infinite Game.

If we can be helpful as you navigate answering this question, feel free to email us at founders@hedgy.works