Know the career game you’re playing

What do you think I should do?

This is a common question people ask those around them when they are mulling career decisions. The short answer is…it depends.

Take the classic (cliche?) interview question - what do you see yourself doing in 10 years or 20 years. Whatever the honest response is to this (the one you tell yourself, not the one you say in an interview although hopefully they’re the same), this defines the career game you’re playing.

Using myself for example, my thought has always been I’d like to start a company one day. Whether this actually happened or not didn’t matter, but this was my mindset. The career game I was playing was to have experiences that would ladder up to this. This is why I tried different functions, moved into a PM role, and joined teams that were more focused on 0 -> 1 products than necessarily optimizing the core product (which would have been the more advantageous thing to do if my goal was to climb 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 can help.

A book worth checking out if you’re stuck on this question 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