“Thank you. Any other questions?” said the speaker. “Yes, um, the lady in the red scarf.”

I took a breath. “So, what if, let’s say, you’re not really interested in getting ahead in the business? What if you’re not exactly ambitious when it comes to the whole career thing? What if you’re not hoping to take on more tasks, more projects, more responsibility in your team? What if you don’t mind being outcompeted by your coworkers when quarterly review season comes along? What if you can’t really see yourself angling for promotions, climbing the management ladder, scrambling to impress your boss’s boss in meetings and presentations? What if you can spend your afternoons on the seventh floor of some drab downtown office building, but you’re dreaming of the laughter of your future daughters as they chase your puppy across Central Park, carefree in the damp scent of freshly mown grass, windswept hair teasing their cheeks, or the clink of cocktail glasses as you trade life-stories with a handsome man, the lamps on the pier casting a magical glow on his five o’clock shadow, halogens translucent in the autumn mist, or the soft patter of rain on the den window, muffled like idle finger-drumming on felt, as you curl up on a sofa, cradling a secondhand Jane Austen paperback, or anything but the screen in front of you? What if in the amber evenings the hearty conversations you strike up with your roommates have nothing to do with cash flows or seed rounds or paradigm shifts? What if in the wee small hours of the night your mind is not racing with code hacks, not brimming with side-projects, not bursting at the seams with plans to disrupt industries? What if after sitting through this umpteenth panel on What It Takes to Succeed in Silicon Valley you care nothing more than to hop a plane for south of the border, somewhere warm and tropic and far from a land where embossed business cards sport phrases like ‘venture capitalist’ and ‘technical co-founder’? What if you’re sick of having to Lean In, uninterested in your fingers being crushed in the firm handshakes of Highly Effective People? What if you can’t bring yourself to Respect the Hustle, Respect the Grind with a straight face? What if you’re, I guess, me?”

An uneasy silence fell across the auditorium, as the speaker considered for a moment. Then she smiled. “Well, sweetie, I guess you’d be shooting yourself in the foot.”