Stop Being a NPC and Be the Main Character

Take control of your own story and build an abundance mindset by taking managed risks in your career and life.

You don’t have to be a supporting character in someone else’s story.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

Helen Keller

The response to my most recent essay about the immigrant scarcity mindset was nothing short of overwhelming. It struck a chord with so many people across generations from high school students to retirees. The words resonated with many outside of the Asian American community who also struggle with being trapped in the scarcity mindset, but were unable to identify or find the words to describe it. I tried my best to approach it through the lens of my personal experience as the child of Asian immigrants, but it was clearly relatable to people across genders, nationalities and age groups. Anyone who started life on first base, has a hard time breaking free of holding themselves small because of where they came from: fear of failure and risk, insecurity around losing whatever it is they’ve gained, and imposter syndrome of feeling like they don’t belong. These are all very real and hindering symptoms of the scarcity mindset that relegates you to being a workhorse or NPC for the rest of your career.

NPC stands for non-player character in a video game. These are characters that are usually controlled by the computer with pre-determined behaviors that usually have no impact on the outcome of the game. They are supporting characters in a story that exist only to help the main character achieve their ultimate goals. NPCs are in essence background characters that are not important: the workhorses that support the racehorses to their wins. They are the random villager in Zelda or the auto mechanic in Grand Theft Auto whom no one remembers because they play such a small and insignificant role in the games. When you think about your career and your life, do you ever feel like you’re a supporting character in someone else’s story? It might be your parents, your spouse, or your manager, but you know that one way or another, you feel held back from pursuing your own dreams.

Non-Player Characters in Grand Theft Auto

Routine is the enemy of time, because doing the same thing every day and living on autopilot makes time go by faster. When you are a kid, you are constantly learning new things and your brain is actively working. As you grow older and develop routines and habits, which when repeated enough, lowers the brain activity required causing time to fly. When you’re an NPC, your life might feel like this because you are a background character doing the same thing day in and day out. It’s hard not to feel like this if you are frustrated that your career has stalled or you lack motivation. The danger is that inertia will keep you in your routine, and before you realize it, your best years will have passed you by. The only way to break the monotony, is to try new things and take risks that are outside your comfort zones. Please take the time to watch this four-minute short film about a man named Jed Jenkins who came to the realization that routine is the enemy of time so he quit his job and took a thousand-mile bike trip from Oregon to Patagonia. 

I realize that the list of bullet points in my last essay might not be a helpful cure for a lifetime of anxiety, self-doubt and risk aversion. So I thought I’d offer some ways that were helpful for me in adopting a growth mindset. You don’t have to dive off the cliff, you can learn to take big risks by taking smaller ones. These smaller risks compound and help you build the confidence to take on bigger ones, but more importantly they open your reality to what is possible. Here are a few actionable things you can do to shift from being an NPC to the main character:

I want to acknowledge that not everyone wants to be the main character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The supporting character label is not meant to be an insult or derogatory in any way, because many supporting characters are perfectly happy and find their fulfillment outside of work. Many are also in a season where they are currently choosing to be a supporting character because they have no bandwidth, such as working mothers. But for those who are discontent with where they are at in their careers and want change, my hope is that these words will disrupt the inertia in your lives and help you shift your mindset to one of abundance and growth.

Question Authority

Those of us who grew up in cultures influenced by Confucian beliefs (predominantly East Asian households) were raised with the virtue of filial piety (xiao): the attitude of obedience, devotion, and care toward one’s parents and elder family members that is the basis of individual moral conduct and social harmony. Xiao not only advocates respecting and supporting parents, but also inheriting their parents wishes and career aspirations. This is in stark contrast to Western cultures that are more individualistic and parents encourage their children to pursue their dreams, because there isn’t an expectation that they’ll have support them or be supported by them in the future. When you are raised in a culture that, by default, defers to elders and authority, it is easy to be taken advantage of. You will always be a supporting character if you only take orders from the lead, just because they have the title. Just because someone has a title, does not automatically make them infallible. Plenty of people are in positions of power or authority that they did not earn because of their ability or aptitude. You should always be willing to question authority if you know they are wrong. Don’t just assume that someone knows better or is right, simply because they are your superior in title or age. Sometimes they are intentionally holding you back because they’re threatened by you. The more aware you are that a higher rank does not mean you have all the answers, the sooner you will be able to challenge it and take the lead.

How many times have you been told to play it safe and “try not to do too much”? Jeremy Lin finally got his chance to shine and an assistant coach told him to make himself small. He played terribly that game, because he wasn’t being true to himself. The next game could have potentially been his last, but he played the way he knew he could and it led to one of the most legendary stretches in basketball history. Don’t listen to people who are holding you back, be true to yourself and show them all you’ve got. Stop playing the supporting role when you know full well you can play the lead. Capitalize on your opportunities when you have them, because you never know when you’ll get another.

Make Yourself Known

That voice of self-doubt that creeps into your head during meetings is sabotaging your career. When you start telling yourself that your contributions or opinions don’t matter, you have already given up. You become complacent and go through your professional career in cruise control, so you can’t blame someone else for seeing you as a workhorse. In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to have enough conviction and value your own opinions enough to speak up in meetings, even if it’s contrarian, because that’s what will get you noticed by superiors. You need to make sure your contributions are acknowledged and recognized by others by announcing them or telling people about them. Take credit for your wins in emails and during conversations. Stop making yourself small by being humble, because no one promotes people for their humility or discretion. Ask for that promotion or raise that you deserve and advocate for yourself. If you don’t even advocate for yourself, why should anyone else? If you truly believe that you deserve an opportunity or reward for your efforts, then you should stop waiting for it to come to you and demand it. Remember that you earned the right to be in the rooms that you’re in, so start acting like it. And if you are a manager or leader, notice those who are doing the excellent work but need encouragement to advocate for themselves.

Stop Calculating Risk

They wouldn’t be called risks if they weren’t scary. The uncertainty on the other side of taking risks is why people avoid them. The problem is that when you try to calculate risks, you inevitably will err on the side of overestimating the downside. Trying to make a rational decision based on an unknown will often lead to analysis paralysis and ultimately talking yourself out of taking any risk at all. If in your mind, the downside is always outweighing the upside, why would you? Being too rational can lead to inertia which is why so many people feel stuck in their lives and careers. If you overthink everything, you end up doing nothing. A lot of this fear can stem from cultural baggage such as filial piety and being afraid that you will fail and bring shame and dishonor to your parents. If you take them out of the equation, failure only belongs to you, and if you can accept failure, you can take more risks.

Cold Outreach

Is there someone in your industry that you look up to? Know someone in a different career that you’ve always wanted to pursue? Is there a person you’ve always wanted to work with? Find them on social media and send a cold outreach to them. You’d be surprised how many people have found success connecting to others on LinkedIn or Instagram by sliding into their DMs. The worst someone can say is “no” or never respond, but you can’t take that personally, if they’re someone worth reaching out to, they are obviously busy and might have missed it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to reach out. Send a personal message of why you want to connect with them and ideally offer them something of value or create credibility that you are someone they should meet. Share who your mutual connections are so you can generate a sense of trust with social proof. I can’t even count how many cold outreach messages I’ve gotten that have little context or seem like they just want something from me. Most people aren’t altruistic enough to give of their time for nothing in return, especially if they are in demand. So take the time to demonstrate value and engender trust with your cold outreach. Are you a young founder that has access to other founders or talent that could be useful to this person? Do you have connections in your network that may potentially benefit them in their endeavors? Find a way to be useful and they will be more receptive to building a relationship with you. And if you are in a position to influence or sponsor someone DO IT.

Start a Side Project

I get it, quitting your job and income is terrifying for someone who grew up in an immigrant household. Everything you worked for your entire life has led to getting that secure engineering, lawyer, or doctor job you now finally have. Throwing it all away for the chance at building something of your own is essentially spitting in the face of your parents and all they have sacrificed for you to get there. I spent my life jumping through hoop after hoop only to realize that I wasn’t any more satisfied when I got to the other side. Going to an Ivy League college, getting that fancy management consulting job, getting the MBA from Stanford, and working at the biggest tech companies in the world, never provided the fulfillment I was looking for. All I found was another hoop to jump through, and I wasn’t sure who I was jumping for anymore. But while I was working at eBay, I started working on a website to experiment and generating passive income with ad revenue. It was low-risk but it was also eye-opening to see that I could easily build something that people wanted and get paid for it. The most illuminating aspect of building this website was that I didn’t have to rely on the corporate machine to survive and thrive. I took that website concept and started my first company Fanpop to scale it. What started as a side project grew to a social affinity website that drew 40 million monthly visitors and generated millions in revenue.

There are countless other stories like Damon Chen, who was an engineer at Cisco that built four side projects that grew to $1.3M in ARR. There are many ways you can bet on yourself, but not all of them require diving head first into the abyss. Side hustles are the best way to prove to yourself that your idea has legs. Once you do take the plunge though, you will be pleasantly surprised by how much support you will receive from others. Tinkering is one of the best ways to start taking control and becoming the main character in your own story.

Start experimenting with projects in your off hours to build conviction

Make an Angel Investment

You might be at a point in your career where you think it’s too late for you to make a change. Even if that’s the case, you can still take risks by betting on others. You can support those who are trying to become the main character and building their own businesses. If your career has afforded you the financial security of becoming a qualified accredited investor, you can start making angel investments in startup businesses through syndicate platforms like Angellist or with amazing groups like Gaingels. I’ve led $30M to-date in investments in Asian American founders from angels through my Hyphen Capital syndicate of nearly 1,000 investors. Taking the small risk to invest in these founders can open the door to other opportunities to get more involved with companies as an advisor or more. It doesn’t have to be a tech investment, it could be investing in a consumer product or a restaurant. I invested in a fried chicken restaurant in Brooklyn and it’s been amazing to see the journey. The side effect of investing in these founders is that you become inspired and realize that it’s never too late to make a change and reinvent yourself! Being around risk-takers and dreamers can encourage you to take more risks and start believing more in your own dreams.

Help Others to Take Risks

If you are in a position of power or authority, you can lift up others who are taking risks. An abundance mindset believes that there is always enough room for others because you are making the pie bigger. Be willing to mentor people who historically have had no mentorship available to them. This might be as simple as taking a Zoom call with someone who cold outreaches you.

When you are a gatekeeper, you have the ability to change the trajectory of someone else’s life and career. If you are fortunate enough to have made it to that position, you are just as afraid of losing it. This fear may keep you from taking a risk to help someone who looks like you, because it might be perceived as nepotism. Ignore that fear, others have long been doing this and never had a second thought about it, so why should you? Don’t hesitate to promote or hire someone because of the optics. The same applies if you’re in a position to deploy capital and invest. Take a chance on someone who wouldn’t traditionally get access to that capital. Invest in that founder, produce that television show or movie, publish that writer’s book. The more we open the doors for others, the more we can all succeed together and reap the benefits of a bigger pie.

Your career is like a video game, you may not have unlimited lives, but stop acting as if you only have one. You can fall and still get back up again.

No one can go from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset overnight. It takes time to build up the courage and confidence to take risks. Writing the cold outreach email or starting that side project are all small steps you can take towards changing your mindset. But the most important thing to remember, is to not get discouraged if and when you don’t get a response or things don’t work out way you hoped they would. Learning to persevere through failures and mistakes is all a part of growth and success. One of my favorite podcasts is How I Built This from my friend Guy Raz. All of these stories of successful companies are riddled with failures and mistakes along the way. Successful outcomes rarely happen in a straight line. The common theme for all of these stories is that they took many risks that didn’t work out, but some of them paid off. The lesson is that you shouldn’t fear failure or let it cripple you, you should dust yourself off, learn from it and do better the next time around. Most people worry about how others perceive their failures, but when you realize that people care a lot less about them than you think they do, it becomes a lot easier to bounce back. Your career is like a video game, you may not have unlimited lives, but stop acting as if you only have one. In the immortal words of the late Aaliyah, “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again.”

My dear friend Jane Wu was a storyboard artist for Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead (both uncredited), as well as for nine Marvel movies including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and two of the Avengers movies. She played a pivotal role in the storytelling of some of the biggest Hollywood franchises of the past two decades, but no one had ever heard of her, because she was in a supporting role her whole career. In fact, she felt like such an NPC that she wasn’t even credited for some of her work. That all changed recently when she became the supervising director and producer of the critically-acclaimed smash hit Blue Eye Samurai. She is responsible for breaking the Netflix algorithm and making the first animated series to cross over into the live-action audience. She is one of the few people of color and women who have cracked into the Hollywood action world with her passion for comic books and studying the martial art of wushu at Berkeley. She has been unapologetically proud of her Asian American cultural heritage and its critical role in making the series a success. Now she’s finally getting recognition from Hollywood she rightfully deserves, not only for her current work, but her past work as well. Only after the success of Blue Eye Samurai is she getting credit for the epic Battle of New York scene in The Avengers that made the franchise a huge success. She was uncredited for her work on Game of Thrones, but now George R.R. Martin is a stan. Like the main character Mizu in Blue Eye Samurai, this has all been sweet revenge for Jane who has been a workhorse in Hollywood for so many years and is now the racehorse she was meant to be.

Jane Wu is smashing ceilings both literally and figuratively with her work

For the longest time, Asian Americans have played supporting roles in Hollywood and other industries. But after decades of playing sidekicks, we are finally seeing the tide turn and taking the lead. We are celebrating historic firsts at last year’s Oscars for Michelle Yeoh (Best Actress) and Daniel Kwan (Best Director) and for this year’s Golden Globes for Ali Wong (Best Actress in a Limited Series) and Steven Yeun (Best Actor in a Limited Series).

In summary, if you feel like you’re a non-player character and trapped in an ever repetitive Groundhog Day, take small risks to break out of your monotonous routines to become the main character in your own story:

• Question Authority - Stop automatically deferring to superiors, especially when you know they are wrong. 

• Make Yourself Known - Speak up in meetings and share your opinions. Openly take credit for your work. Ask for that promotion or raise when you deserve it.

• Stop Calculating Risk - The more you keep calculating risk, the less likely you are to take any.

• Cold Outreach - Reach out to people who inspire you or that you look up to and ask them to mentor you. Email people who you want to work with and show them your value.

• Start a Side Project - Experiment with ideas on the side and build side projects that could potentially turn into much more.

• Make an Angel Investment - Take a bet on others who are taking risks.

• Help Others Take Risks - Ignore the optics, and help lift up others who need it.

I want to recognize that there are situations in the workplace that make it impossible to be the main character, because of oppressive or abusive managers and gatekeepers. Some managers keep their positions of power by maintaining a culture of fear. There are circumstances where taking credit for your work could jeopardize your career because of these power dynamics through the use of intimidation. I know this is true for friends in industries such as venture capital and entertainment where ecosystems are small and there are likely multiple interactions with the same parties. A bad actor could easily threaten to ruin your reputation with slander. The simplest response of quitting may not be an option for some because of visa or income issues. Meanwhile others might fear advocating for themselves because they are being discriminated against at work and that speaking up would only backfire. Stand with Asian Americans has created a tool for AAPI employees to report bias and discrimination with the Workplace Justice Initiative. If you are in any of these traumatic situations, please seek support for your mental health first and foremost, as escalating may only lead to further stress, anxiety and depression.