This book is the result of 40 years of working with teams of people, solving both technical and people problems and learning what worked and what didn’t – I wrote it to help people that are struggling or feel stuck.
We follow the path that made the most sense at the time.
When I was young, I wanted to be an architect. I loved design, space, structure, the idea of building something people would actually live inside. My mom had other ideas. Stick with the medical field, she said. More stable. More sensible.
So I took that path. For a long time.
My husband Larry had a similar moment. He was in college in the 1980s, studying computer science. One class lit him up – computer graphics. Back then you wrote hundreds of lines of code just to draw a picture of a triangle casting a shadow from a single light bulb. Painstaking, tedious, and completely fascinating to him.
His dad looked at it and said: “That’s for toys.”
So Larry took the safer path. Databases. Steady work. Sensible.
Years later, a scrappy little animation startup asked him to join them before they released their first film. Though enticing, it seemed risky, and perhaps his dad’s criticism was still influencing the direction. He said no. You might have heard of them. They wound up making a lot of movies about toys.
The paths we follow aren’t always ones we chose entirely for ourselves. They’re worn in by the people who loved us, the voices that shaped us, the risks that felt too big at the time. We follow them because they made the most sense. Because they had the most promise. And because we trusted the voices that pointed us there.
Until they hit a dead end.
And here’s the part nobody talks about. Turning around feels hard. Not just scary – it can feel like failure. Like the years you invested were wasted. Like you’re betraying the people who pointed you down that path in the first place.
But here’s the truth. You weren’t wrong to trust them. And those years weren’t wasted. Every step got you exactly to the place where the next path begins.
The right question changes everything.
Fast forward to 2016. Despite a successful software career that spanned decades, Larry was now struggling to get a software job. The field had changed – grown more rigid, more structured, more pedantic. He’s a maker. A prototyper. A MacGyver. He’d show up to an interview and catch the look on the face of the person answering the door: “hey, someone’s dad is here.”
One night he was venting about it at the kitchen table. And I did what I do – I asked him a question.
Not “what jobs are you applying for?” Not “what does your resume say?” But: “tell me everything you love about computers. Not just programming. Everything.”
And something opened up.
He talked about infrastructure. How he’d always quietly taken care of it for his teams because he genuinely liked doing it. Sometimes he got in trouble for it – it wasn’t technically his job. But it was always his thing.
I said: Go into IT.
He resisted. It felt like a demotion. Like going backward.
But he agreed to start looking at infrastructure jobs, and then discovered a role called DevOps – sitting right at the intersection of development and infrastructure, exactly where he’d always lived. A new path that had been there all along. He just hadn’t known what to call it.
Once Larry started down his new path, he took an entry level gig to get his footing. About a year in, after updating his LinkedIn to reflect his new skills, someone found him. That job lasted until he retired.
The software path had ended, but by being open to a new one, he had an exciting new journey that led to the career finish line.
That kitchen table conversation was also the seed from which this book grew. Asking Larry the right questions helped me figure out that what people need most isn’t more advice – it’s someone who helps them hear their true selves clearly enough to find a path worth taking.
Stop telling people what you can do. Show them.
After I got laid off, I did everything right. Updated my resume. Wrote cover letters. Tried everything short of a scented resume. And got absolutely nothing back. Crickets. Ghosting. The occasional auto-rejection from a bot that never even looked at my name.
Unless you know someone on the inside, the front door to most companies is largely broken right now. Bots filter out perfectly qualified people. Ghost jobs sit posted for weeks with no intention of being filled. “Overqualified” is a polite way of saying too expensive, too experienced, too much.
So what’s worth trying instead? How do we find a new path around the job board dead end?
Being findable. Being visible. Starting to show the world passions and skills that were never on your original path – but have always been part of who you are.
Larry keeps telling his sons to show their skills publicly. Whether they listen is another matter. He didn’t always listen either – and he still thinks about that animation studio.
Your expertise works the same way. Whatever you know, whatever you’ve spent years figuring out – it can be shown, not just listed. A blog. A class. A simple website. A LinkedIn post about how you actually think through a problem. Something that says: this is how my brain works. Come find me.
The lawn mowing guys on YouTube didn’t think they were building empires. They just started filming what they enjoyed doing and how it helped others.
Millions found them.
Nobody else mows lawns like them.
Nobody else does what you do like you do it either.
New paths are everywhere.
If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. That’s not criticism. It’s wisdom.
The job market has changed. The rules have changed. And the people finding their way through aren’t necessarily the most qualified. They’re the ones who stopped walking the same path and started looking around.
Because sometimes a new opportunity is already behind you, tapping on your shoulder. Make sure you’re open to new paths.
Which path you started on isn’t always your own idea. But which one you take next? That part is up to you.
There is no growth in the comfort zone.
But just outside it? That’s where everything is.
Wendy Matter is the author of OH SH*T, I Got Fired – an honest, practical, and occasionally funny guide to navigating job loss without losing your mind, including the story of the architect who never was. Find it on Amazon or visit wendymatter.com.
