There’s a video that gets shared in economics circles (A Beautiful Mind – Bar Scene/Nash Equilibrium). A woman walks into a room in a red dress. She is stunning. But nobody asks her out.
Why? Everyone in the room thinks the same thing: Someone this good must already be taken. So nobody tries. She goes home alone, not because nobody wanted her, but because everyone assumed she was already claimed.
I think about this a lot. Because I’ve seen the same thing happen with opportunities at work/ life.
The bursary nobody applied for. A bursary opens up. Someone with good grades but not top grades, sees it and thinks: they’ll only take people with a distinction. So they don’t apply.
Meanwhile, I’ve watched people who never got a distinction end up at a Big 4 firm. Not because they lied about their grades. Because they applied anyway, and let the company do the eliminating.
The project nobody applied for. Same thing happens with stretch projects at work. Someone assumes a more senior person will take it. So they stay quiet. Weeks later, it goes to someone no more qualified than them.
This isn’t humility. It’s a mistake.
Stick to your job. Companies, bursaries, panels – they are allowed to eliminate you. That’s their role. It’s not yours. Your only job is to bet on yourself and let them do theirs.
The people who get the sponsor, the seat at the table are rarely the most qualified. They’re the ones who didn’t eliminate themselves first.
Before you talk yourself out of applying, check if the door is actually closed, or you just assumed it was. Like everyone at the bar assumed about the woman in the red dress.
She wasn’t taken. Ask