Three people describe feeling stuck in their careers and finances despite their abilities, blaming invisible scripts like not being networked or from the right school. They tried harder but nothing changed. Ramit Sethi explores why effort alone doesn't move the needle.
Here's what I'm trying to say. Look, if I, if I say that I'm gonna be unhappy if I. If I never get to play like Ben Johnson, okay, that's unrealistic. Okay, but, but my situation was that I know I can play like Ben Johnson. I've proven it. I can run as fast, I can jump as high. But then why am I not getting that shot?
I felt like I was trying a lot of things. I felt like I was really working hard and really busy and nothing seemed to be happening for me. I was barely getting by on the salary I had. Company I was at was failing and things really weren't working out for me.
I was devastated because I didn't have a job because I quit to go to grad school. I had no idea what I wanted to do and was just applying for everything. Basically, I would, like, put all these barriers in front of me. Oh, I didn't major in this. Oh, I don't. I didn't have relevant internships. I didn't have, you know, the personality.
I had this invisible scripts that Ramit talks a lot about, you know, self sabotaging. Oh, it's because I can't talk smoothly. Oh, it's because he has this amazing network. Oh, it's because he was born in this family with amazing connections, or it's because he went to that great school, etc. Or it's because he looks good and he's 6ft tall, etc. Those kind of, those were the kind of invisible scripts I would keep on telling myself.
I mean, I would look forward. I certainly had an idea of where I wanted to be. But I would try everything under the sun and just, you know, hope that it worked. And it really felt that it should have worked. And just nothing seemed to be working for me for years.
I had no idea what I was going to do with a rhetoric major out of Berkeley. And I kind of ended up falling into jobs. I did a temp job and then I started working in San Quentin State Prison. During junior year, I switched to urban studies, which is like a liberal arts degree. I mean, I thought when I graduated, I really was quite worried because I was afraid what people were going to ask, oh, my God, what is urban studies? What does that even do? Like, I didn't know what career I was ultimately going to end up with.
And I felt like the only way I have to get ahead is just keep working harder and harder and harder. And that's pretty much what I was doing before. And that's not sustainable. And not only that's not sustainable, it's completely ineffective.
I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt, both student and credit card. I was making a pretty low amount.
I was like, okay, well, I'm not. Not measuring up in the interview, because I'm really strong on paper, but I'm not measuring up.
It was sort of like a despair ish kind of situation for me before. That's what I was seeing. It was not a happy, it's not a happy place to be in.
There was actually a time and I went on a group trip when my credit cards were maxed out. And, you know, it was just miserable. It was a miserable time because every $5 purchase, every $10 purchase was. Was weighing on me, and I knew it would be with me for years.
