Overplay your hand
Today’s expression is to overplay your hand. I don’t gamble, I don’t play poker. But I think in poker, sometimes you have a good hand—a good set of cards—and sometimes you don’t. You make decisions in the game based on the cards you have in your hand. If you have a good hand, you can act aggressively; if you have a weak hand, you maybe should act more conservatively. Again, I don’t know because I don’t play poker.
But what I do know is this: to overplay your hand—in life—is to act aggressively when you are not really in a good position. You over-estimate how good your position is. You act like you’re in a great position, when really you are not. And as a result of this over-confidence, you suffer a bad outcome.
Yevgeny Prigozhin overplayed his hand in Russia. Prigozhin was in a good position. He wasn’t part of the regular Russian military, but if anything that was a good thing. He was recognized for success on the battlefield. His troops, many of them, loved him. Large parts of Russian society supported or admired him. He had the confidence of the president, and that means a lot. He had the freedom to speak his mind.
So when the Russian military moved to force all his Wagner Group troops to join the official armed forces, Prigozhin reacted. He and his army took control of a Russian city away from the Russian army, and then they marched toward Moscow. That was too much. Prigozhin overplayed his hand.
Listen, Prigozhin had a good position in Russia. But nobody is above Putin, nobody can be seen to threaten him. This Prigozhin acted too confidently. He acted too aggressively. And he suffered the consequences as a result. Life in Minsk probably doesn’t have the same glamor as life in Moscow or St. Petersburg, and his family remains in Russia. So he’s not in a good position any more.
Walmart is the biggest retailer in America, it is the biggest retailer in the Fortune 500 list of big companies. Its enormous discount stores serve up everything from groceries to clothing to sports and automotive equipment.
Walmart became America’s biggest retailer in 1990. In 1997, it decided to make its move into Germany. This would be the first step into its European expansion. Walmart seemed unstoppable in the United States. The company’s ruthless cost-cutting kept prices low and consumers appreciated the “everyday low prices” they could find at the discount store.
But when it moved into Germany, Walmart overplayed its hand. It acted too confidently. It acted too aggressively. And it paid the price for its overconfidence. Walmart was the retailing king in America, but it was not the retailing king of the world. In fact, the formula that worked so well in America did not transfer to the German market.
Walmart’s main competitive advantage was its low prices. But Germany had a number of laws and protections that prevented Walmart from offering very low prices. Walmart opened over 80 stores in Germany: the company eventually sold them all at a huge loss and exited the German market.
This is a case of a business overplaying its hand. It acted too confidently, more confidently than the situation warranted, and in the end, Walmart paid the price.
The last time I started a new job—not Plain English—was in 2009. I started with one other person. We’ll call him Matthew—not his real name. Matthew had applied for multiple jobs and was hired with me at my old company. Unfortunately for him, the job he got at my company was not his top choice. A few weeks later, he got an offer from another company, a job he liked better. So he said great. I’ll quit this one and go take that one.
Smart move, right? Well, he didn’t tell that other company what he was doing. He didn’t tell them that he had just started a new job. And when the other company found out, they didn’t think that his behavior with my company was a sign of a good and honest and loyal employee. They didn’t want to hire someone who was willing to quit a job after a few weeks.
So because of what he did to us, they didn’t want him at their company. So they rescinded his offer; they took it back. Matthew went from having two opportunities to none. He overplayed his hand. He should have just kept the job he was offered. Instead, he acted too confidently and he paid the price.
Quote of the Week
Today’s quote of the week is from Bob Goff. He said, “Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” That means, you won’t know the significance of certain times in your life until much later. Think about that. Look back on important years in your life. You probably have a “title” to that chapter now. But did you know at the time how that chapter in would figure in your life story? Maybe not.
“Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later,” says Bob Goff.
See you next time!
If you ever need to use an alias and you need help thinking of a fake name, use ChatGPT. I just did that now, Matthew. I said to ChatGPT, give me a random male name. And it did! The ways I use ChatGPT are ever-expanding.
That’s all for today. Remember, you can get all the lesson resources at PlainEnglish.com/590. Coming up on Thursday: happy birthday to me. We have a birthday-themed lesson—if you’re in Asia, if you have friends in South Korea, you might know what this is about. I’ll keep you in suspense until then. See you on Thursday.
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